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..

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.

The overriding purpose of this graduate thesis is to evaluate if municipalities and county councils can deviate from the legislation of public procurement during procurement of customer choice agreements within the health and social care area. The intention of this Quasi-market is to provide the users with competition in terms of quality rather then the general principal rule of economic value.My conclusion results in a legal situation without rules of general procedure. So far the authorities make their own regulation in the field of customer choice agreements. The problem lies within the authorization of new contractors and their right to make an appeal against resolutions made by the authorities social care divisions.One solution is to legislate within the present law of public procurement. Another way to solve the problem is to create a lex specialis apart from the present public procurement regulation..

Denna uppsats handlar om hur Shared service (SS) inom den offentliga sektorn kan ses som en del av New Public Management (NPM). SS har beskrivits som ett verktyg för att uppnå de egenskaper som karaktäriserats som NPM, och denna uppsats syftar till att se ifall användandet av Shared Service inom den offentliga sektorn kan ses som en del av New Public Management. Genom en fallstudie på Kammarkollegiets Enhet för Administrativ Service har detta genomförts. Sekundärdata i form av rapporter har studerats samt intervjuer med direktören för Enheten för Administrativ Service Håkan Viberg har genomförts. Analysen visar på att detta fall i hög grad uppfyller kriterierna för NPM och motiven för SS, även om vissa skillnader har kunnat identifieras.

The care for the elderly in the municipalities has recently seen the need for a formalized system for quality assurance. Under increasing demands for monetary efficiency while bound by law to retain acceptable standards in health care, there is need for efficient and at the same time quality-assured management. The municipalities often solve this puzzle by introducing systems and standards influenced by theory-clusters such as NPM (New Public Management), TQM (Total Quality Management) or other quality management theories.This essay focuses on how the public administration in the municipalities defines quality and designs and implements system for formalized quality assurance. Our basic view of organizations is institutionalist and our theoretical framework includes theories about quality, NPM and TQM..

The aim of this study was to gain a comprehension of managers experience of their identity and their construction of identity in the work sphere. 14 semi-structured interviews were performed with managers in the Public sector. The interviews were analyzed from a hermeneutic approach. The results showed that the managers´ experience of their identity and their construction of identity were full of nuances and was characterized by a being and a becoming. The managers had several social identities at their disposal, which were brought to the fore due to the situation.

The aim of this study is to examine how and in what way users of the public participate and affect the archival information that is to be preserved for the future through the examination of three archival projects involving public participation. The study seeks to examine if participation of the public could lead to increased democracy and diversity of information in the archives. The study will be performed through the examination of three participatory archives all tied to traditional archival institutions.The study is based on the theoretical framework of Benn and Gaus and their notions of public and private which they discuss using the key words access, agency and interest. The study also takes into consideration Laura Millar?s theories of social memory as a means for the public good.

Syfte: Uppsatsens syfte är att blottlägga de antaganden som ligger bakompublic service-begreppet och de konkreta villkoren för SVT. Syftet ärinte att utvärdera huruvida SVT sköter sitt public service-uppdragutan varför det överhuvudtaget finns ett public service-uppdrag ochvilka värden det grundas på.Problem: Vissa värden som finns i public service-begreppet och därmed ocksåhos SVT, som vilken roll medier ska ha i en demokrati och om de kanförmedla sanningsenlig journalistik, problematiseras som regel inte.Varför anses SVT vara en institution som är trovärdigare än andra?Går det överhuvudtaget att erbjuda en ?public service? via televisionsom regeringen menar sig kunna göra?Tillvägagångssätt: Denna uppsats tillämpar inte den traditionella uppdelningeninnehållandes teori, metod, analys och resultat utan diskussioner ochresonemang, teori och analys förenas kontinuerligt. Uppsatsen är iförsta hand teoretisk och utgår ifrån tillgänglig litteratur och SVT:sstyrdokument. Med detta som grund förs en kritisk diskussion kringpublic service-uppdraget och dess innebörd.Resultat: Public service existens eller icke-existens baseras i mångt och mycketpå vilken typ av samhälle vi vill ha.

The subject this thesis will investigate concerns the matter of how political ideologies exist within public libraries with a focus on the democratic ideal. Public libraries are part of the political system and we want to show how political ideologies take their shape in public libraries and the possible consequences of this. With the help of three major political ideologies, liberalism, conservatism and socialism we investigate how the democratic ideals of these ideologies are expressed in documents that describes activities the libraries will and have performed. In order to identify these ideologies we use discourses in cultural policy as a bridge between the investigated documents and the political ideologies. As an analytical tool we have developed a model that describes the relation between text, discourse and ideology which we use in our analysis.