World wide globalization and the rapid development of the Internet have lead to significant changes for companies around the world. The world has ?shrunk? and increased supply of goods and services has lead to a more intense competitive situation. As the market changes, so does consumer behavior. Today?s consumers do no longer wish to be treated as a group, rather they are looking for products and services that specifically fit their personal values.Recent years, the consumption of digital consumer electronics has sky-rocketed.

Too much attention has been given to mainstream approaches in performance management and management accounting research, without taking in to account changes in the environment with the rapid growth of online retailing. This paper evaluates how and/or if performance management differs in online contexts by using a conceptual model developed by Ferreira et al (2009). The model and its components are tested on three multichannel- and six e-commerce businesses. The result and its analysis is commented on by two e - commerce experts. The result shows that the operation method of the models twelve components do not differ in terms of work methods in online and offline contexts.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to accomplish an understanding for childrens librarians purchases of juvenile books. Two main questions are to be answered: - Which considerations do childrens librarians do when buying juvenile books and which goals and motives are behind their purchases? - What do childrens librarians think that their knowledge and competence consists of and how is that knowledge useful when buying juvenile books? To answer the questions qualitative interviews with five childrens librarians have been carried out. The material has been analyzed through a theoretical construction consisting of theories about collection development, book selection and quality judgments. The conception tacit knowledge silent knowledge from Michael Polanyi has also been used for interpretation.

This study investigates how performance management in primary schools can facilitate learning, relating to theories of efficient schools. This is done through a qualitative study of the performance management systems in two public primary schools in Sweden. The schools selected were similar in all major aspects, except pupil grades, where there was a clear difference between the schools. The analysis revealed differences in how the schools handled the process of management by objectives, the professional development of teachers as well as routines, rules, and policies. We conclude that having a rooted process for management by objectives, professional development of teachers, and clearly formalized values, gives a school a good foundation to support a pupil's learning and development..

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate what the work situation of children's librarians looks like in the year 2000, after the changes in society which took place since the 1980's. Did the tasks of children's librarians change during the nineties, and if so, in what way and why have they changed? Which new knowledge needs emerged for children's librarians during the nineties, and what was the cause of these new needs? Finally I want to know which needs for professional development arose, and how these needs are fulfilled. The thesis is based on qualitative interviews with children's librarians, library managers, library consultants, one representative of the Swedish school of Library and Information Studies and one member of SAB's children and youth committee. The study reveals that the identity of children's librarianship is strongly associated with the stimulation of language and reading.

This study aims at examine what kind of interest the European Union (EU) have in promoting a democracy process in Eastern Europe. The study is a descriptive case study where the case Ukraine is used to draw general conclusions. The questions asked to pursue the aim are: why does the EU want to promote a democracy process in Ukraine, what kind of methods does the EU use  and why is Russia trying to prevent the EU-Ukraine development and instead supporting a Russia-Ukraine development. In this study an analytical model is created and used to analyze EU:s way in promoting democracy in Ukraine. The analyze model consists of six steps used to describe the general promotion of a democracy process and it?s applied in the empirical analysis.

In times of increased flooding, enhanced by climate change, polluted stormwater poses an increased threat to the environment through contaminated water entering waterways. Bioretention utilizes natural processes in soil and vegetation to treat pollutants and combat this threat. Biochar produced through pyrolysis, has a high cation exchange capacity (CEC) and could therefore increase treatment in bioretention systems. This research applies a literature review, interview, and a model to explore the benefits and disadvantages of biochar in order to specify a soil-mix through an understanding of the production process and preferred application rate. High purification through CEC, increased water holding capacity, and carbon sequestration being the benefits discussed.

Title:                          Leadership development of individuals in management positions Authors:                    Carl Renér and Peter Simonsson  Institution:                Linneaus University, School of Business and Economics Program:                   Human Resource Management Course:                      Business administration ? Organization including thesis, 15 credits Supervisor:               Olle Duhlin (Linneaus University, School of Business and Economics) Examiner:                 Mikael Lundgren (Linneaus University, School of Business and Economics) It is widely known that the role of managers may result in stress and a heavy workload. As a result of this negative effects organisations have to counteract and find new solutions and systems to facilitate and assist leaders in their work. A popular method for leadership development has come to show both in research and in practice, especially in recent years, this popular method is known as mentoring. This form of leadership development is often applied in so called mentoring programs.

The purpose of this study is to examine how four educators in two different departments at two different preschools in Stockholm, selects children's literature in preschool and how literature is used in the activities and how much influence children have in the choice of literature. Based on qualitative interviews as a method we have interviewed pedagogues to get answers to our questions. We will also interview some children to find out how involved they are in the purchase of literature on the departments we examined. We consider the social cultural perspective to be a well rounded starting point for our survey, because the theory gives us the opportunity to study how the interaction and meetings between educators and children develop for each reading encounter. And through the analysis a thorough display between educators and children towards literature will be shown.

The aim of this thesis is to explain what actions Sweden and the international communities have been taking in terms of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in order to realize the Programme of Action from the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo 1994. In a theoretical perspective, donor countries and multilateral organizations are seen as interacting actors involved in global development cooperation. Through applying a human rights approach I will show shortages in terms of supplies to contraception, international agreement on the issue of safe abortions and a new era that comes with new rules for aid and development cooperation. In addition, for human rights to be realized there is the feature of accountability. Without accountability, SRHR cannot be fully respected, guaranteed and protected.

This project was conducted during the spring semester 2013 at mechanical engineering program at University Halmstad. The project was conducted in collaboration with MPQ Consulting in Halmstad. MPQ Consulting is a newly established company looking to take step into the product development world. The company has already had ideas and existing products. One of the ideas is to construct and design a form of beach games whose rules are based on the volleyball rules.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine the profession of librarianship by studying tasks in Swedish public libraries. The method is a textual analysis of articles inspired by the critical discourse analysis of Norman Fairclough. The theory applied consists of the profession theory of Andrew Abbott and the gender theory of Yvonne Hirdman. The questions raised are: how do librarians speak about their tasks, which discourses can be constructed and how can profession theory and gender theory explain the result.

The idea to develop  a platform for a PID-controller came from the need to control the temperature in  an espresso machine in a more exact way than a thermostat could perform. In discussions with Syntronic AB the idea developed into PID-control for industrial use. Syntronic AB suggested that the platform should be based on a commercially available processor module to shorten the development time. The suggestion included the use of the microcomputer Raspberry Pi, which supports USB, HDMI, memory card and Ethernet.The work began with establishing a schedule for the 10 weeks of the projects duration, and after that a system specification listing all functions, implementation and limitations was made. When the foundation of the system specification was done, a preliminary system design took shape.Because of the Raspberry Pi´s lack of Analog-to-Digital converter, a circuit board containing Wheatstone bridges, differential amplifiers and a two channel Analog-to-Digital converter was fabricated.

The parent-student-teacher conference presumes school responsibility of the development of the student. Teacher, student and parents are supposed to talk freely and in confidence, the conference should lead to a forward looking and long term plan. The parent-student-teacher conference should presume equality amongst the parties. The intention of this paper is to illuminate how the conference can be a way to clarify the process of learning. I intend to do this by showing the practice of four teachers, by making conclusions from their experiences they have made in their practice.

The structural rationalization of rural firms in Sweden has led to many new creative ways of developing companies. The agriculture sector is characterized by the need of capital in form of buildings, labor and inventory. The rationalization process has led to free capacity in rural firms when new technology make buildings and inventory not longer necessary for the production process. To get a better cost coverage this free capacity can be used to start-up new business areas that help the rural firm to growth.The study aims to identify factors that motives entrepreneurs in rural firms to develop new business areas. The purpose is also to analyze driving forces that lies behind development of rural firms and the forces that support or not support development in rural firms.The study is built upon five cases that all can be categorized as firms with different size and orientation.