Uppsatsen handlar om huruvida sociologin fortfarande är relevant när ekonomivetenskapen breddar sitt studiefält till att inte längre vara självklart ekonomisk utan också ställa frågor som traditionellt legat på sociologins bord. Genom en teoretisk analys av statistiska resultat angående användandet av inköpslista i samband med matvaruinköp undersöker uppsatsen huruvida ekonomins klassiska handlingsteori, rational choice, och dess antaganden om homo economicus är tillräckligt för att förklara de resultat som uppkommer. Jürgen Habermas teori om kommunikativt handlande, och Webers handlingsteori används som exempel på utpräglat sociologiska handlingsteorier vars förklaringsförmåga av de uppkomna resultaten jämförs med rational choice theory. Arbetet visar hur ekonomivetenskapen i sin strävan att bredda sitt studiefält behöver ifrågasätta vissa klassiska antaganden, något som under senare årtionden har inträffat, och att sociologin kan ge förklaringar där klassisk ekonomisk teori faller kort..

During the last couple of years the focus for many businesses have moved from just being price oriented to include such factors as quality, flexibility, service, delivery precision and environmentally friendliness. The shift in viewpoint arises from the increasingly competition on the market and the hard economic atmosphere. It has become more important to differentiate the company and its products to be able to increase market share. The purpose with this master?s thesis was to get a better understanding on how companies (customer to DHL) are reasoning and prioritizing when choosing Swedish carriers.

Sexual violence in armed conflict is not a new phenomenon. Although it has a long history, it's only in recent years from 1990 that is has been given more attention in science and media. I will in my thesis look at the conflicts of former Yugoslavia and Congo (DRC) and I will use two theories to investigate how the use of conflict-related sexual violence best can be explained. The two theoretical frameworks I have chosen are Feminist theory and Rational Choice theory. The conflicts will be at the center of analysis.

Recent developments suggest that private and public companies are moving towards a more service-oriented business. Service orientation means that hardware is often sold in packages with service agreements, which makes the investment more difficult to assess. The challenges that arise will be to assess the value of the overall package, the information needed to make informed decisions and the operational requirements in combination of hardware, software, support agreements, training and more. The paper therefore aims to examine how decision makers can evaluate the benefits of these investments and obtain a stronger base to make better decisions. There is within the area of radiology in the region of Västra Götaland a pronounced need for a better flow of information regarding medical equipment and related service agreements.

The purpose of this paper is to study how people without home experience social services and how they experience their space of action when they meet social services. In order to answer these questions, a qualitative approach has been used. The empirical material consists of five interviews with people who have contact with social services because they are homeless. To support my analysis of the space of action for the persons being interviewed, I?ve used two theoretical perspectives, power analysis by Michel Foucault and Rational Choice.

The purpose of this thesis is to increase the understanding about consumer buying behaviour when purchasing books online. In order to acquire data for the study we used a questionnaire that 75 students where asked to respond. The respondents were students at the University of Technology in Luleå. Our findings suggest that the following factors are the most commonly cited reasons for deciding to complete the purchase: trust, perceived risk, price, convenience, design of the website and experience. The following factors are the most commonly cited rea-sons for deciding not to complete the purchase: trust, perceived risk, price and the design of the website.

The fast developments in information and data technology during the recent years have accentuated the need for the business manager to interpret and act on information from the surrounding environment. Today we know little about what information is really used in the unique decision-making. Further, little is known about how information should be designed to fit people with a more intuitive approach to interpreting information. This study is therefore about the difference between peoples approach to interpreting information and how information should be designed to fit those with a more intuitive approach to interpreting information. The application is made to dairy farms in Sweden. The literature review describes the strategic leadership, the decision-making process and the intuitive and the analytic thinking.

What role should science play in democracy? Political scientists often assume that it is possible to demarcate between ?instrumental? and ?moral? knowledge, and argue that citizens and/or politicians should use their moral knowledge to agree upon political goals and then apply the instrumental knowledge of scientists to achieve them. This straightforward view is challenged by writers in science studies, who identify three major problems in the use of science in democracy: uncertainty, risk and hidden values. They suggest that these problems could be solved through citizen participation.In this essay I perform an analysis of the internal logic of their suggestion. Is it likely that citizen participation enhances the democratic decision making process so as to reduce the problems? The internal analysis shows that it is rational to advocate citizen participation by reasons of legitimacy.

In Kenya the Maasai pastoralists have based their livelihoods on dairy production and the production goal is to maintain a sufficient milk supply throughout the year. The pastoral dairy production has two vital characteristics; breeding and milking. Traditionally, breeding is the men?s responsibility, while milking is the duty of women. Depending on this partition of chores between men and women, they also have different management routines, ambitions and strategies regarding the milk production.

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 so called democratic deficit and the lack of legitimacy have been at the core of the EU-debate in the last decades. Low turnouts in the elections for the European parliament and disapproval in the ratification processes of the latest changes of the treaties are examples of the citizens lack of confidence for the EU and continuous integration. In Nice 2000 the heads of the member states governments agreed to try to improve the democratic legitimacy in the EU and initiated a public debate aiming at proposals for changes in the decision making processes in the EU. In July 2001 the commission published a white paper with their view. A fundamental presumption in discourse theory is that language and language usage not just is a way to deliver information about ideas and behaviours.

Since the Maastricht Treaty the European Parliament has gained competence in the decision-making process and the Parliament is today one of two decision-making institution, next to the Ministers of Council. In this study the main focus has been to shed light over the negotiation culture within the European Parliament, which up till now has been a neglected research area. This is of great significance because the internal negotiations in the European Parliament decide the external negotiation position with the other institutions.After face-to-face interviews with MEP:s and assistants I have been able to identify certain characteristics to create an understanding of the negotiation culture in Europe's elected Parliament. The negotiations are oriented towards a problems-solving approach and the prevailing apprehension is consensus-based negotiations instead of the existence of political blocks. The committees are stronger than the European party groups, which further encourage negotiation.

In contemporary global environmental governance stakeholding, as a means for defining legitimate participants in democratic decision-making, has become of great importance. In this essay I deploy the concept of ?the stakeholder perspective? to denote arguments that all stakeholders ? defined as carriers of particular interests ? should be able to participate in political decision-making affecting their interests. The purpose of the essay is to analyze the stakeholder perspective's potential to change environmental politics. Departing from the philosophy of Heidegger, I develop a theoretical approach that separate the concept of the political from that of politics.

Background: More focus has been placed towards autonomy when it comes to care and in special towards palliative care. The purpose with palliative care is to relieve and support at the end of the life. When the patient has difficulties to communicate to those around him due to his illness it is hard to preserve the patients right of self-determination. It is very important to consider the patient as autonomous during the course of the illness. Different alternatives have been developed to preserve the patient?s autonomy such as dedicate a deputy or plan the care of the patient in advance.Aim: The aim of this study was to describe, from an ethical point of view, how the patient?s autonomy could preserved at palliative care.Method: A general literature study where 11 scientific articles have been analysed from a qualitative checklist whereof the result has been discussed based on the principles of ethics.

Every day we make numerous decisions. Some are better than others. Intuitive decisions usually results in less good decisions when we do not reason about our choices. Research has been interested about the process that is behind how we make good decisions. Decisions we face every day, such as when we shop, determined using various mental shortcuts that we use unconsciously.