Invasive alien plant species have historically caused major damage to ecosystems and are considered to be amongst the greatest threats to biodiversity globally. The lurking threat of harm to well functioning ecosystems has led to the development of global and regional goals and regulations which seek to stop the spread of invasive species. The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a list of species that are specifically harmful to the Swedish flora and fauna, which includes (amongst others) garden lupin. The management of invasive species is however largely dependent on local actions, making municipal public servants key players. This qualitative study uses interviews to investigate how municipal public servants who are responsible for managing invasive alien species view this work.

The Swedish government has made the decision to transform the talking book system from an analogue system to a digital system called DAISY by the end of 2004. The purpose of this Masters thesis is to examine how public libraries are affected by this system change. This is carried out by studying the current situation in public libraries concerning the transition to DAISY. This qualitative oriented study is primarily based on interviews with four librarians and three library managers at six public libraries. Management by objectives is here seen as a suitably theoretical framework since public municipal libraries are partly regulated by the governments goals and laws.

When Swedish authorities are to purchase or rent something, public procurement is used as a means to an end. Authorities as well as suppliers are subjects to the fact that Swedish law regarding public procurement regulates the form of procurement in one set of particular regulations (LOU) and the form of contracts in another set of general regulations (AvtL). Suppliers and purchasing authorities close a contract regarding the subject of procurement and the law of public procurement regulates when such a contract can be closed, simultaneously the law of contracts regulates when parties are held to contracts and when contracts are to be rescinded. I investigate in this essay what these two types of regulations can result in for the contracting parties. As it is today agreements that have been entered into wrongfully still are valid, even if a court of law nullifies the procurement and sentences the purchasing authority to make a new public procurement.

The aim of this study is to examine the fiction promoting role of public librarians through their fiction displays. The study covers three problems: What reasons do public librarians give for their selection of displayed fiction? How do public librarians view fiction displays in relation to other promotion strategies? How do public librarians think that promotion through fiction displays will evolve in the future?The results of the study have been analyzed using Jofrid Karner Smidt?s theory of how public librarians view their promotion of fiction. The concepts used are promotion due to public demand, actively recommending and informative promotion, and through dialogue. To account for the problems investigated in the study, eight librarians have been questioned through semi-structured interviews.

The aim of this study is to find and highlight the differences and similarities in the strategic communication in two real estate businesses with different proprietaries. In order to achieve the purpose, theories and previous research on public relations, strategic communication, mediatization, framing and new public management has been used. The study was conducted through interviews with two different organizations, Lerstenen who is based in Umeå, and Övikshem who is based in Örnsköldsvik. The analysis and results showed that the key difference between the firms was the spontaneity that influenced the private one, in contrast to the public firm that relied on solid structures to manage their communication. The results also showed that differences in basis conditions both allowed and hindered the possibilities with the communicative efforts that the two firms could do..

Over the last few years, many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the aid sector have grown and become important economic, social and political actors in Sweden. However this sector has also been hard criticized in terms of aid effectiveness. Church of Sweden (CoS), a well established organization in this sector, has faced new challenges in form of demands from their environment regarding reporting aid work. These demands have pushed the International Department of Church of Sweden into a process for adapting the structure in order to meet the new effectiveness requirements. Using both, Contingency Theory and Resource Dependence Theory as theoretical framework and a single case study as research strategy, this master thesis goes in deep into the description of the change of the structure of the International Department. This work shows how the different parts of the organization functions and what impact will these changes in the structure mean for the future of the organization. The analysis of the empirical evidence related to the theoretical framework shows that the organization responds to external demands through a more centralized structure than before.

AbstractC-level essay in political science, by Frida Orlinder, spring semester 2008Supervisor: Susan Marton?Good contracting? ? A study of contracting in public procurement regarding the transportation of school children?Over the last decades models influenced by the market have been gaining influence in public administration all over the world. New Public Management has been presented as a theoretical ?shopping basket? from which concepts can be applied to the administration of municipal services. The purpose of this essay is to investigate in an explorative way how New Public Management (NPM) views contracting and the role of the internal customer in contracting.

The purpose of this thesis is to see how the Swedish public libraries present e-books on their website. This study has tried to answer the following questions:1. How do the public libraries construct their definitions of the word e-book, and what patterns are there in the definitions?2. How is the e-book definition presented in the context of the public library websites?This study has formulated its own theoretical framework in regards to how you can categorize definitions in four different categories to help see the way a definition is constructed.

Chemicals are everywhere in todays society, in humans, animals as well as nature, and they are difficult to avoid. The chemical industry is regarded to be the fastest growing industrial sector, accounting for ten percent of the global economy. A large amount of chemicals are used to produce hygiene products and cosmetics, products that in Sweden only are consumed in quantities of 110 tons per day. Researchers find it increasingly difficult to determine which chemicals that are dangerous and which that are safe, and how they might affect us in the long run. Correlations have been found between chemicals, diseases and other health effects such as cancer, allergies, reproductive and endocrine disorders.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine librarian's opinion of computer filters, to bring order in the debate on these filters and also to encourage future debate on this subject. The main problem is whether librarians themselves think they have the right to limit the public access to information on the Internet by using computer filters. We will also see how many public libraries are using filters, why they have chosen to use or not to use them, what is the librarians' opinion of filters, what rules exist regarding the use of the Internet, and finally if it is legal to use filter programs in public libraries. We have also included a short report on what filters are and how they work. This paper deals only with Swedish conditions on a number of public libraries.

This is a two years master?s thesis that studies five libraries. The purpose with the paper was to look at a specific material and study how it expresses itself around the architecture of the buildings, an if the descriptions were different depending on the library, public library or university library. The conclusion is that the ways of describing the library buildings have varied; depending on one part time and one part evolution. The way library buildings look and have been used has changed over time also, and as well how people perceive and talk, or in this case write about them..

Blekinge Hospital suffers from a budget shortage of 100 million SEK, while the government now requires that hospitals will no longer be running a deficit. Blekinge Hospital will then use their limited resources to survive in the future and the activity must be enhanced in order to keep costs low without having to lay off personnel. The idea is that the organisation should be more efficient with a more efficient resource usage. Performance measurement systems are important tools for achieving the policies set out within an organization, measuring and evaluating performance is a way to see where improvements in efficiency may be necessary in the business. Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is one of several measuring systems, where the focus is on measuring non-financial performances.

Title: Management control of facility efficiency in municipalities - A case study of Halmstad municipalityLevel: BachelorSeminar date: 2012-05-31Authors: Markus Nilsson & Sara MattssonAdvisor: Sven-Ola CarlssonKey words: Control management in municipality, facility efficiency, management by objectives, internal rents and incentivesBackground: The public sector owns and manages a large property portfolio and in the municipalities, the properties are always a big cost item. Because of the outside world changes and the public interest, the properties should be used as efficiently as possible.Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe how control management of facilities looks like a municipality. The paper also seeks to explain how employees work to make the facilities more efficient in a municipality.Methodology: The authors use a qualitative method with open interviews.Theoretical perspectives: The choice of theory was made with the field of management control and facility efficiency in mind. The theory therefore includes management by objectives, internal rents and reward systems, motivation and communication within organizations.Empirical foundation: The organization has undergone a reorganization 2010/2011. There are no clear incentives to reduce facility costs.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate and analyse how the concept of lifelong learning is expressed in political documents concerning public libraries and education and how it can be related to earlier concepts of education within the discourse of public libraries. Focus is the official approach to the concept of lifelong learning and public library. The documents examined contain the political aims for education and culture policy on a national and local level. The theories used in the study concern the background and meaning of the concept of lifelong learning, they describe public libraries and their earlier perspectives of education and they also give a picture of practices of governing within the framework of public libraries. The purpose is to see how the speech in the documents is reflected in discourses of society and public library.

This dissertation was made since we wanted to investigate the conception called quality within the school sector. What it means and if there is something that can give an explanation of how they  at look at the conception within the school sector. This will be the benchmark through the dissertation, trying to find out the most important things which might be equal to quality within the school.To find the answers of our questions we will read literature according to the subject. To get an increased understanding we will interview some people within the school efficacy, and give students a survey to fill in.The most important results from our investigation is to look at everything in its entirety, not only look at what grades students get. Even though this the most narrated sign of quality.