This study puts emphasis on an international discourse describing how cities frequently compete against each other, and also describing factors that cities should enhance to make themselves more competitive. The discourse in this study has therefore been used to seek understanding how three different municipalities Borlänge, Karlstad and Malmö strive for growth by applying central factors from the discourse on the municipalities strategic documents. What the study shows is that the central factors from the discourse strongly imprints the strategic documents, but the presence of the factors varies between the municipalities and also to what meaning that lies behind the strategic goals..

ABSTRACTA defect implantation process is the major reason for unexplained infertility. Estrogen andprogesterone are steroid hormones preparing the endometrium for implantation. They mediatetheir effect through their receptors: estrogen receptor alpha and beta and progesteronereceptor A and B, respectively. Leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF), which is also important forimplantation, mediates its effect through LIF receptor and the coreceptor, gp130, and is downregulated by suppressors of cytokine signaling 1. The aim of the study was to compare thelevels of the steroid hormone receptors and LIF related factors in the endometrium of twogroups of women with the diagnosis unexplained infertility: one that became pregnant afterassisted reproduction and one that did not become pregnant.

There is an irregularity in the interregional migration in Sweden. An increasing proportion ofthe population is drawn to the metropolitan areas, which creates problems for the smallermunicipalities and towns when their population declines. At the same time, our whole societyis faced with a great challenge: we need to redirect towards a sustainable development, wherethe environmental issues are discussed and dealt with to secure that all present and futuregenerations are given equal opportunities to live a good life.The aim of this study is to, focusing mainly on the environmental dimension of thesustainability concept, examine the attractivity of housing with sustainability claims. Toanswer this, three research questions were used:? Was the migration motive to reduce their environmental impact a part of the decision tomove, among migrants who had moved to housing with sustainability claims?? If the motive was a part of the decision, how much impact did it have compared to othermigration motives?? Which factors in housing aiming at sustainability are considered important by peopleliving in housing with sustainability claims?The research questions have been answered using quantitative data, gained in the form of selfadministeredquestionnaires which were distributed in four different residential areas withsustainability claims in the county of Västra Götaland, Sweden.

Although Lean has received an increased amount of attention in the service context, research still has not established how successfully Lean manages to increase service productivity; since service productivity consists of both efficiency and quality. Research regarding productivity discusses the risk of a tradeoff between efficiency and quality in service production processes. Therefore, this thesis aims to explore if the tradeoff in a production setting with low variability in demand and low customer participation exists, after Lean has been implemented. With a qualitative approach, a case study has been conducted at Scandinavian Airlines Ground Handling to evaluate the effects of Lean in the baggage handling process. The result of the study shows that the tradeoff has not been overcome; efficiency has increased at the expense of quality.

The implementation of a material requirements planning system is a complex and demanding task. There has been much research into what factors are important in such implementations, but seemingly very little about the links between critical success factors and management control systems. This thesis attempts, through a case study, to answer the question of how management control systems affect the implementation of an MRP system in ASSA AB, a Swedish manufacturing firm. Data is primarily collected through interviews. Theory regarding implementation success definitions, critical success factors as well as management control systems is presented.

The purpose of this thesis work is to formulate a model with methods that describe key success factors to get understanding and awareness in organizational change projects. We have used a project within the township of Gothenburg as a case and connected to this single project the purpose is to identify key success factors to get understanding and awareness among employees within the township of Gothenburg. We hope that our result will be useful in other large organizational change projects. Theoretic basis for our study have been models and methods, while our purpose have been to construct a model with suitable methods for anchoring. Theories about coaching and process management are examples of methods to get understanding and awareness among employees in change projects.

AbstractBachelor thesis in political science by Alexander Hassan, autumn 2008, ?Effects of external factors on a nations democratisation process during the transition from authoritarian to electoral democratic rule ? A categorical analysis?Supervisor: Tomas SedeliusIn recent years globalization has become a hot topic in understanding the world we live in today. Globalization has indeed had a great impact on international relations and with it a great influence on the domestic conditions that determine a nation?s possibilities. It is therefore rational to hold true that this also would apply to a nation?s democratic process.

The title of the study is: "Stories about helpful conversations - a narrative study of active processes in therapy and treatment." The purpose of this study was to examine clients' stories of what has been helpful to them in therapy / treatment. The study has been made in light of the ongoing discussion in society about the requirements for empirical studies within welfare areas. The choice to make a narrative study comes from the desire to have clients' own stories at the centre of what has been helpful in the therapeutic process. The author has interviewed and talked with four people (clients) who told us about their experiences of therapy / treatment. Narrative research methodology is based on people's life stories.

From the customer?s perspective the only reason for a firm to exist is the value it creates. However, a problem within manufacturing companies is that of the total lead time, only a small part can be considered as value adding. It has further been discovered that when working with improvements businesses often sub-optimizes single processes instead of considering what benefits the entire company. Thus, when improving processes and activities it is important to have knowledge about and understand which factors that affect how the flow can be designed.Several studies have been performed with a wide perspective on process flows in order to obtain a more resource-efficient and value added flow.

There is an irregularity in the interregional migration in Sweden. An increasing proportion ofthe population is drawn to the metropolitan areas, which creates problems for the smallermunicipalities and towns when their population declines. At the same time, our whole societyis faced with a great challenge: we need to redirect towards a sustainable development, wherethe environmental issues are discussed and dealt with to secure that all present and futuregenerations are given equal opportunities to live a good life.The aim of this study is to, focusing mainly on the environmental dimension of thesustainability concept, examine the attractivity of housing with sustainability claims. Toanswer this, three research questions were used:? Was the migration motive to reduce their environmental impact a part of the decision tomove, among migrants who had moved to housing with sustainability claims?? If the motive was a part of the decision, how much impact did it have compared to othermigration motives?? Which factors in housing aiming at sustainability are considered important by peopleliving in housing with sustainability claims?The research questions have been answered using quantitative data, gained in the form of selfadministeredquestionnaires which were distributed in four different residential areas withsustainability claims in the county of Västra Götaland, Sweden.

Water is an important food and an important natural resource. In order to protect these are the Environmental Code and the EU directive given to water protection and related water protection regulations will be established for all water sources until 2010. Those who will prepare a water protection and related water protection regulations is the municipality or person responsible for water supply. The person then decides and declares the area as water protection and related water protection regulations are municipal or provincial government. The idea of creating a water protection is to protect the water supply and the body of water against pollution caused by point sources, diffuse sources and accidents combined.

The following study was undertaken in the spring of 2005 in Helsingborg, Sweden.It presents a study of the experience and values six young couples have related to parenting and gender equality. Twelwe people, six women and six men, were interviewed about the above mentioned topics related to their new found role as parents. How did these women and men choose to assign or elaborate their role as parents in terms of household chores and parental leave? Did they consider their parenthood to be equal or did they feel that their role as parents had already been assigned based on their gender? What were the decisive factors, if any, that determined their parenting roles?Although this study is relatively limited, the results are compatible with other published studies and indicate that young parents of today, without consideration to their gender, have a traditional view on parenting. The study also indicates that the attitudes seem to be established by traditional values, norms as well as sexualgender.

The management of information is a significant competitiveness in companies. Companies stored and save information every day, and it is very common to save de information in different sources. This makes de management of information complex. To mange, monitor and analyze the information, companies can use a system called Business Intelligence. BI system is an analytical system that extracts and converts data into useful information that helps employees to make informed decisions.

VSEM project and the need for a more efficient way of handling requirements andinformation are highly apparent.The overall objective of this thesis is divided into two parts:1. To identify criteria/factors leading to a successful introduction of an informationmanagement system.2. To develop an implementation process for a requirement management system ?the first step towards a PLM system in EE development at VCC.This will be done through interviews with employees, a literature review and an analysisof studies of three earlier projects within VCC.The conclusion of this study shows the great need for change in work methods fordesigners handling information and requirements. An implementation process has beenidentified with guidelines on how to handle different phases of the process.

This paper examines how recruiters use social media during their recruitment process. The paper focuses on the staffing industry and will further examine how recruiters are handling jobseekers personal privacy when they are using social media in a recruitment process. The paper are trying to understand the meaning of what personal integrity means and how or if recruiters show consideration to this in a recruitment process when they are using social media as a recruitment tool. Our result demonstrates that, today recruiters use social media daily to conduct background checks on job applicants. There are no clear instructions and rules on how recruiters should handle background checks through social media. Recruiters believe that job seekers are responsible for the information contained on the their social media.