This thesis is about how the front-staff in two service companies experience empowerment. Competition for business in today's society is becoming increasingly fierce, which means that they must find a way to differentiate themselves from competitors. Service has become a way to compete. Front-staff competence and ability to offer a good service is a crucial factor when the company's success is being measured.Empowerment in business is used as a tool to create motivation and satisfaction of individuals at work. Companies using empowerment can create the freedom and opportunities for employees to act at their own intelligence and discretion.

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..

The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding for how home care services interpret and handle situations with and around caretakers alcohol use. Interviews have been conducted with two managers and six basic staff in two different home care service-groups. The interviews were individual with the managers and in group form with the staff. The interviews have been analyzed using Hasenfeld?s theory on Human Service Organizations and moral practice together with Beronius? interpretation of disciplinary exercise of power.

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.

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.

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.

The purpose of this legal dogmatic Bachelor Thesis is to define the legal definition of ?a rescue service? and illustrate the division of responsibilities between national authorities and the municipalities with regards to the execution of emergency response operations.?A rescue service? means the emergency response actions that national and municipal authorities are legally obliged to provide to prevent or minimise injury to people and damage to property or the environment when emergencies occur or seem imminent. In the following cases a national authority is responsible for providing the requisite rescue service:1. Search and rescue (air) ? the Swedish Civil Aviation Authority is the responsible authority;2.

This bachelor thesis is an exploratory investigation about the phenomenon 'Gamification', which by some definitions is about implementing game elements into non-game contexts. For example exercise services as Runkeeper and Nike Plus who both are available on android and iOS platforms. This study is mainly about the potential value of gamified systems and services for companies and its users and how such a system or service is developed. The thesis also discusses the development aspect of gamified systems in order to give the reader a more ?in depth? understanding about the phenomenon.

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..

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 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.

This report is about changes in an organization. Changes is something that every organization sooner or later is bound to do. In many cases the changes leads to problems and conflicts. I have chosen to study one change process in the home help service of the municipality of Bollnäs. The change process I have chosen to study is about changes in the day-to-day work for the employees at the home help service.

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.

This case study has its starting point in an unpublished study where the results showed that there is a conflict between the leadership and the employees in a private company. The conflict is identified as a result of the company leadership is steering for cost savings and efficiency The aim of this study is through analysis of  the open questions in a quantitative survey describe how the staffs  attitudes and culture is affecting the leadership of the organization. The ideological aspect is very clear and through the aspect of the structural differences between the public and private sector makes it possible to identify the staff?s social rules, ideology and group norms.  These are shown to be in conflict with the economical perspective of the private sector.