Swedish public administration has for the last few decades undergone reforms aimed at making it more efficient. A substantial part of these reforms have concerned creating clearer roles for politicians versus officials in the public sector, i.e. giving politicians a responsibility for setting goals and steering activities and public officials the role of implementing them.This study aims to examine one reform following this path that is under implementation in a Swedish public authority; Försäkringskassan, the Social Insurance Agency. The purpose of the reform is to increase the organization?s effectiveness and the rule of law.

This study examines a case of cooperation between banks, commerce, police and the municipality of Skövde, which in a project has the target to reduce the use of cash by 15 % in the city during 2011. The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of the importance of cooperation in which different actors come together to reach a common goal, such as speed or interfere with an ongoing change, while they must meet their own interests. In this study the case of cooperation has been studied by using a qualitative approach. The methods used in this study are participant observation and a group interview as well as personal interviews. The theories underlying the study revolve around the concepts of collaboration between organizations with similar interests, changes in society, conflict and resistance to change..

To increase the understanding of how individuals total life situation affects their stress level and health has lately more frequently been discussed in different contexts. Furthermore, it is important to have knowledge of power structures that exist under given circumstances in a society to get an increased understanding of how to structure the health promoting work to get the highest possible benefits. People?s work life is essential to their health, since we spend a lot of time at work. The aim of this study was to find out which factors that relate to nursing staff?s health and stress level from a general perspective.

The purpose of this thesis is to study the difference in value generation and its drivers between leveraged buyouts and listed companies. The primary objective is to observe if differences exist. A secondary objective is to understand the differences and attempt to provide an explanation based on earlier research on Private Equity. A selection of large Swedish LBO-transactions, carried out between 1998 and 2012, are analyzed and their value generation drivers subject to comparison with a weighted index of companies listed on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm. A clear difference in value creation is observed, both in size and composition.

The aim of this study is to enhance the knowledge of target and performance management?s effects on the judiciary. In the past decades there have been a number of reforms in the general public sector of many countries. The management philosophy often used to describe these public sector reforms is called New Public Management (NPM). One main theme has been an increased focus on the management control systems, for example a greater emphasis on target and performance management.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether an increasing amount of elderly immigrants will set new demands upon the public eldercare. The focus is on the officials whithin the public care of elderly in Västra Götaland district, and their experiences. A second purpose of this study is to add the experiences of the officials to former research treating the topic of elderly immigrants and their experiences of the public eldercare in Sweden.The survey has been carried out through interviewing all together seven officials working within the public care of elder in varying districts of Västra Götaland. The interviews have later been summoned under four different themes such as, ?Culture, customs and tradition?, ?Interaction and communication?, ?Information? and ?The future of the public eldercare?.The study indicates that our result based on the interviews, is in several references corresponding to former research on the topic.

Sustainability and the traffics impact on the environment have become increasingly central within spatial planning. For many years, planning has been focusing on building new roads - this has resulted in increased use of automobiles, which many believe is unsustainable in the longer term. Therefore, authorities at national, regional and local level want to increase the use of alternative transport modes ? such as walking, cycling and traveling by bus.The thesis intends to study if the Municipality of Umeå?s policies for sustainable development have led to an increased use of public transportation. The use of public transport in Umeå is also compared with developments at national level, in order to see if there are differences in the level and trend.

This study was conducted on behalf of SCA forest AB, Västerbottens forest administration. Timber procurement from non-industrial private forest owners has become an increasingly important part of SCA:s wood supply. The objectives of this study was to report the current forest conditions in the private forests in the county of Västerbotten, analyse the potential for procurement of wood from private forest owners, and provide a basis for decisions on future strategies for timber procurement from private owners.Material and data have been collected from different sources, mainly from Swedish National Forest Inventory and SKA-VB08. This material was the basis for the analysis and calculations performed with the Heureka application PlanWise. This study area was divided into six different analytical areas (Coastal south, Coastal middle, Lycksele, Inland south, Inland north, Skellefteå), where each area of analysis is represented by a number of municipalities.In this study, two scenarios were specified; one describing the current forest management with current harvesting levels and the effects of these assumptions, the second to illuminate what potential there is for future timber harvesting.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att se hur den svenska lagstiftningen skulle kunna förändras för att öka investeringarna på PE-marknaden. I uppsatsen undersöks om det föreligger en statistisk signifikans genom linjär regression hos ett antal lagregler och går kvalitativt igenom den befintliga svenska lagstiftningen för att finna orsaksvariabler och deras påverkan. Det teoretiska perspektivet utgår ifrån LaPorta et.al. Law & Finance-studier samt EVCA:s årliga rapporter gällande den europeiska private equity-marknaden. Resultaten påvisar att de legala frågorna inverkar på PE-marknadens storlek.

This master thesis was written in the purpose to study how the location and access to computers in the physical realm of the public library reflects the undergoing changes in the public libraries role in Swedish society. This study is done in a form of a case study of three small public libraries. All of them were in the process of transforming both their physical and virtual space. The thesis focuses on where in the library the computers are placed and how their location interacts with the libraries main tasks. It also focuses on the analysis of the relationship between these two elements and how that relationship reflects the alteration of the public libraries place in society.

The purpose of this thesis is to present a number of examples of how the debate concerning same-sex marriages in Sweden was conducted in religious media between the year of 2005 and May 1st 2009. I intend to examine if and how these debate articles can be descibes as examples of religion taking part in the public sphere according to José Casanovas theory of deprivitization and public religion (1994) and Jürgen Habermas theory of religion in the public sphere (1964, 1989, 2006, 2008). I will apply the theories to the material by using four criteria for public religion, based on Casanovas and Habermas two theories, designed by Marta Axner. I also intend to compare the arguments used in the material to the arguments found in Marta Axners dissertation Public Religions in Swedish Media (2013). To identify these arguments a textanalysis containing seven argumentschemes, designed by Gunnar Björnsson (1994), is applied.

This work is done to try to solve a scientific computer problem and its basis derived from the web, as there are a variety of ways to program to it. The most common languages used by developers, both private and corporate are PHP, .NET and Ruby. But why do companies or a private developer choose a specific programming language? Is it because it is better and has more features than the others, or because they are forced? This essay uses a questionnaire and through tests sees which is best and which one is the most popular/used. To illustrate the problem, a survey is conducted and sent to several companies and asked them to answer the questions regarding the issue.

A growing need to strengthen ones position on the market, even as a city in competition with other cities, has resulted in an increasing number of municipalities developing brand platforms. When the city of Umeå developed their platform, they identified decision makers and investors as one of four important target groups.The aim of this study is to explore the portrayed image of the city of Umeå in two Swedish trade journals which addresses the specific target group decition makers and investors in both public and private sector. The aim is also to compare the image of Umeå in the two papers, to the ambition of the municipality, expressed in the brand platform.In order to make the observations as firmly established as possible, the method of the study is a combination of a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative text analysis. The study draws on the theories of Eli Avraham and Philip Kotler, concerning how to improve city images and how to market a specific city among others. The study shows that the city of Umeå in large extent is portrayed in accordance to the ambition which the municipality expressed in the brand platform.Umeå is displayed as an expanding city.

AbstractThe purpose was to investigate whether a recovery perspective, viewed from a psychosocial approach is applied in municipal / private and county related care and rehabilitation. A recovery perspective means that the attending staff ensures that the clients are viewed as holistic individuals, where all aspects of life are considered to ensure adequate care and rehabilitation. A questionnaire was answered by staff in psychiatry, social psychiatry and addiction treatment from different areas of the municipal / private and county related sector.The results show no difference in application of a recovery perspective between these two types of organizations. However, there is a slight tendency (non-significant) to lower-rated general individual competencies for municipal / private. There is also a strong tendency (non-significant) to a general difference between the aspects of the implemented recovery perspective, where the tendency is that the respondents as a whole estimate that the organization to a greater degree creates good conditions for a recovery perspective compared to the degree they are actually working on that basis.

The purpose of this thesis is to research public librarians view ofthe public library as a meeting place and how it may contribute tofacilitate social integration. To study this we have asked thefollowing research questions: How do public librarians work withthe public library as a meeting place? And how do they contributeconditions for ?soft inclusion??The method we have used for this study is semi-structuredinterviews. Seven public librarians from the Gothenburg areawere interviewed and the empirical material was analyzed usingqualitative content analysis.As a theoretical foundation we have used Dorte Skot-Hansensmodel of the public library as a third place and Mikael Stigendalstheory on social inclusion. Furthermore have we used research onthe public library as a meeting place and social integration as acomplement to the model and the theory.Conclusions from the material gathered is that public librarianssee the public library as a meeting place with potential tocontribute to integrating individuals and groups with one another.The librarians? foremost method was to attract visitors withactivities aimed at certain target groups.