Socially Responsible Investments (SRI) and Active Ownership have become increasingly important concepts when it comes to the corporate governance of investors today. Institutional owners highlight the importance of engaging in dialogue, in their pursuit to influence the companies to become sustainable. However, stakeholders and academia are requesting more insight into the workings of these dialogues, concerning their purpose, design and function. This study attempts to increase the existing knowledge of dialogue as a tool for active engagement, used by institutional investors in Sweden. The performed study is based on interviews with five public and private Swedish institutional investors, an SRI consultant firm as well as representatives from two NGOs.

The object of this essay was to illustrate and analyse what determines that a contract treatment investigation for a drug addict is initiated and what factors influence the investigation itself, from the probation service officer's perspective.We selected the following two questions:- What does the probation service officer see as being the deciding factor for a contract treatment investigation to be initiated?- What questions appear in a contract treatment investigation and how do they influence the investigation, according to the probation service officer?To find answers to these questions we conducted interviews with 11 probation service officers, during November and December 2005, at three different locations across Skåne. We decided to use the qualitative method for collecting the data we needed.In our essay we came to the conclusion that the will and motivation of the client is a deciding factor whether or not a contract treatment investigation is to be initiated. An important collaborator in this process is the social services. According to the probation service officers, many of the problems that may appear in the co-operation are due to the tough economic constraints experienced by the social services.

Research has concluded that meaningless differentiation with trivial attributes sometimes can be a successful strategy. However, the effect varies with respect to certain aspects such as the price of the product and the decision context. How the characteristics of the consumer influence the effect of trivial attributes has until now been unknown. This thesis investigates how the consumer?s level of knowledge and personal involvement influence the effects of trivial attributes on product preferences and product attitudes.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the relationship between user education at high schools and the context in which it takes place. In order to accomplish this qualitative interviews have been executed with librarians at five Swedish high schools. The theoretical framework of this thesis is based on the sociocultural perspective and four approaches to user education developed by Olof Sundin. Based on the empirical material six themes have been identified. Each one represents a contextual factor which influences the user education.

Mergers and Acquisitions have become more and more in common knower days among the companies. Factors that might influence could be such as power of competition or it could even be the aim of new strategies of the company. In mergers is it not only the buildings and the physical objects that is put together, also the human beings within the organization are put together. Each person contributes to the culture, which makes the situation more complicated. In making a merger successful, it is important to pay attention to the organizational culture.

This study investigates, through parental evaluations, communicativeand adaptive abilities within a group of children with various developmentaldisorders, after the parents had participated in AKKTIV (Augmentative andAlternative Communication ? Early Intervention) parental education. The studyalso investigates through case studies how parents experience the influence ofAKKTIV-intervention in their children?s development a few years aftercompletion. The parents estimated their children?s abilities using three differentquestionnaires; the Swedish Communicative Developmental Inventories(SECDI), Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales-II (VABS-II) and parts of theform? Parents? perception of the interaction with their child?, before and afterthe intervention.

The parental education groups are an activity that attracts the majority of all couples that awaits their first child. Therefore this is a forum with strong influence on the formulation of the parenting. The aim of the study was to examine how parental education within Swedish child health care, affects the construction and shaping of parenthood. We have also studied this from a gender perspective. The starting point for our understanding of parenting is that it is socially constructed.

This master thesis is intended to give an increased understanding of the stress state in an axle, which is assembled in one of Atlas Copco?s mountain drilling rigs. The main problems investigated were how the axle is affected when the bearing is worn, when the pretension is varied, and how to dimension the axle. Answers to these questions were found by using hand calculations, practical testing and with Finite Element analyzes. The dimensioning of the axle is currently based on the bending stress, but the author?s opinion is that the axle should be dimensioned considering the equivalent stress.

A radical change is taking place in the world today: some former colonies are now booming economically while several former colonizers are suffering from economic crisis. Postcolonial theory states that old structures from the colonization are keeping the South poor and the North rich. Today there?s a shift in these structures as former colonizers Spain and Portugal are forced to ask for economical support from their former colonies.The colonial discourse separated white from black and depicted the population in the colonies as the absolute antithesis of the Europeans. In Portugal circulated also lusotropicalism, an ideology that claimed Portugal as absolutely free of racism, a statement with great influence in the postcolonial Portugal.On the basis of semi-structured focus groups I will in this paper do a discourse analysis of young, university educated Portuguese identity/ies in relation to the former colonies and the changing relations to these countries.

Recent years there has been discussed how the critical situation in the housing market threatens the Stockholm region's growth. The thesis objective is to examine whether there is a scientific link between the lack of housing supply and growth. The thesis also intends to identify solutions for increased housing construction, for instance by examining the conditions for a greater regional perspective and influence on the region's housing supply. The thesis empirical study is based on semi-structured interviews with representatives from the Government, municipalities and the housing industry.In Sweden, research on the relationship between housing shortages and growth has not been conducted to that extent it can be said to exist scientific evidence regarding the growth threat. However, in Britain and the U.S, empirical studies show that a lack of housing supply has hindered growth through negative impact on countries' gross domestic product.

This master essay is about teenagers, alcohol and the preventing measures taken by the Swedish government. Consequences of the rising consumption of alcohol among adolescents and how to prevent dangerous alcohol consumption in the future is one of the most prioritized issues in the Swedish society today. Today there is no prevention that clearly shows any effect on teenager?s alcohol consumption and the education about the dangerous effect of alcohol is clearly not the same in schools around Sweden. To gain knowledge about how teenagers view their own consumption of alcohol we have used the Grounded Theory.

In 1998 Sweden accepted the Treaty of Amsterdam which contained a development of the common foreign and security policy (CFSP) towards a European security and defense policy (ESDP). This thesis aims at studying the decision making process behind the Swedish foreign policy decision to further develop its security policy within the European Union. The purpose is to explain which factors and conditions that did affect and influence the Swedish foreign policy decision. The research applies foreign policy analysis, a theoretical perspective that analyzes both domestic and international conditions using different levels of analysis. The research methods being used has been qualitative as well as quantitative, complemented by interviews, since the research is a process tracing case study.The thesis conclusion is that the Swedish decision is explained by several factors.

The aim of this paper was to examine how social workers' comprehension of the need of financial aid exists in, and is influated by, the organisation they work in. To investigate this, we asked ourself questions concerning how the social worker view the way that the finicial aid-system and work surrounding it is formed, whether the social worker's understanding of the need of financial aid co-exists with the percieved common understanding of the work place (do the understandings coincide, do the social worker adjust his or her understanding or is it possible to have a separate understanding), whether the social worker feel that he or she have discretion to influence the organisation and how possible conflicts between different views are handled. We felt that a qualitative method would best help us answer these questions. We therefore interviewed seven social workers working in the same organisation. We then looked at our material from an organisational theory perspective, focusing on the individual in the organisation.We found that the social workers were socialised into the organisation and adapted the norms and values that existed there.

This essay investigates how teacher sees and uses mainstream movies as a teaching method. The main question approached is: How does teachers use feature films as a teaching method? Which movies are used and how does their working methods surrounding the movies look like? The purpose of the essay is to make the reader reflect over what influence mainstream media has over the historic knowledge of the students and how teachers use that for educational purposes. The business around historical film has grown over the years and is now a million dollar industry. The conclusion is that teachers mostly use feature films to provoke emotional reactions from the students.

Social workers ideas about what domestic violence is influence their ability to recognize vio-lence in cases where this occurs. Social workers awareness and understanding of domestic violence can also influence the handling of these cases. Education on the subject domestic violence can increase social workers knowledge about, awareness and handling of violence. The present study aims to investigate how social workers in child protection investigations understand, recognize and interpret domestic violence and which interventions the social workers suggest. This is a qualitative vignette study in which semi-structured interviews was carried out with social workers working with child protection investigations.