This case study has been conducted within the Swedish fitness chain World Class to explore the opportunities for knowledge development and transfers within franchise networks. We have interviewed the product manager at the World Class headquarter, the owner of a franchise club and a local product manager from the same facility. Our finding indicates that various forms of knowledge transfer occur within the World Class network, particularly in product development and sales. The transfer occurs within the framework set by World Class with regularly scheduled meetings. In addition informal networks provide other means of knowledge exchange between some units.

ABSTRACT Title: The new Public ServiceAuthors: Hanna Haeggström, Sara Marklund, Madeleine OlssonLevel: Bachelor thesis in Media and Communications Studies Supervisor: Olof HulténLocation: School of Communication and Design, University of Kalmar, spring 2008Language: SwedishNumber of pages: 55There is an ongoing change of the media industry where new types of media emerge as a result of technological advancements. The audience and their use of the media have changed where available range has expanded while the size of the audience has remained the same. For media companies this implies a fight for the audience, where the right approach is vital for keeping as well as attracting new customers. Public service is an issue under current debate and its future role in the media industry has been brought into question. This survey investigates the roll of public service in Scandinavia in a new and changing media industry and how they should act to be important for their audience.

This study, entitled A constant balance ? Gender equality work in an organisation dominated by women and an organisation dominated by men focuses on attitudes towards gender equality issues in two organisations ? one that is dominated by women and one that is dominated by men. The study is based on the Doing gender theory, which primarily means that gender is something people do, it is constantly changing and it depends on the surrounding context.The organisations in the study are both working with gender equality issues, but the attitudes towards gender equality work are ambiguous. The primary gender equality issue in both organisations is to increase the number of employees of the non-dominant gender. The gender equality work in both organisations is formally supported but it is also being met with informal resistance.

The purpose of this master`s thesis is to examine how the contemporary changes in society display itself in the network Ecumenical Forum of European Christian Women EFECW and to increase the understanding of networks. My main questions are: What does the networks structure look like? What does the networks relationships look like? How is identity created in the network and what types of identities is created? The objectives are reached by using two methods, qualitative inquiries and document analysis. The inquiries were carried out to nine members in the network of different countries. The theoretical framework of the thesis is Manuel Castells theories of the network society, and the study is also placed in context by a presentation of previous research on the field.

To be a part of the future we have to make a profit, one way to improve the profit margin is by reducing the fixed costs. This paper discusses the financial results of equipment cooperatives in crop production. Through a case study of three farms in Södermanland, we have an example of how it can look today and how it could look tomorrow. The three farms are crop-producing farms with slightly different orientation. Jursta Gård, 155 hectares, and Djursnäs Säteri, 215 hectares, have grains crop and oilseed crops as the main crops, and Nibble Gård, 340 hectares, mostly have pasturelands and some grain crops.

Under en lågkonjunktur använder sig många företag av varsel och uppsägningar som ett sätt att minska kostnader och möta en vikande efterfrågan. Dessa uppsägningar innebär en förändring vilket är något som ofta möts av motstånd. I den här uppsatsen belyses de problem en ledare ställs inför i samband med en förändring som innebär uppsägningar och hur de har valt att genomföra dem.Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att beskriva hur tre ledare i tre olika organisationer genomför uppsägningar som sker till följd av arbetsbrist.En kvalitativ metod har använts där vi genomfört tre halvstrukturerade intervjuer med ledare som haft insyn i beslutsprocessen från varsel fram till uppsägningar och varit de som till största del förmedlat besluten till berörda individer. Med insamlad empirisk data analyserades hur ledarna genomförde uppsägningarna utifrån teori som behandlar förändring, ledarskap och ett företags situation.Resultaten visade att trots liknande yttre förutsättningar i form av lågkonjunktur och vikande orderingång så skilde sig genomförandet av förändringen mellan de tre företagen. En likhet var att kommunikation varit en viktig strategi under processen.

The study investigates questions and considerations emerging when stone in historic buildings needs to be replaced. The focus is on the surface treatment of stone in sandstone façades in pre-industrial buildings. That means buildings constructed by traditional methods and craftsmanship without the use of modern technology.The research issue originates from the extensive stonework that is planned for the façades of the Stockholm Palace. The project includes the replacement of large quantities of damaged stone to newly cut stone. This raises the questions about the use of modern and rational methods for surface treatment on the replacement stone.

This paper examines how debt cancellation, given under the HIPC-initiative, has affected corruption over the period 2000-2006. The examination is foremost interesting due to earlier research showing that high corruption leads to unequal distribution of economic resources. This, combined with the objective of the HIPC initiative to reduce poverty, indicates that combating corruption must be successful in order to fulfill the goals of the initiative. A linear regression shows that countries that have benefited from the HIPC-initiative indeed have a lower corruption than other countries. A panel-data analysis shows on the other hand that no effect on corruption due to debt cancellation or reforms undertaken in the program can be confirmed..

Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas (GHG) that contributes to the global warming. One of the largest sources of methane is livestock, preferably ruminants which alone counted for 30% of the total agricultural anthropogenic methane emissions in the year of 2000. The reason to why ruminants are such large contributors of methane are that the gas is produced in the rumen by enteric formation and leaves the animals by belching, exhaling or by the excreta.Diets high in concentrates can result in a lower emission of methane. Also diets with a high content of starch, such as alfalfa-grass, have a methane-decreasing. It is profitable to reduce enteric methane formation since that form of methane is unavoidably lost.

Following study is about the anorexic behavior and the pro-ana movement, which is a web-based subculture where the followers of this, stands for anorexia as an identity position and lifestyle, rather than a disease. The purpose of this study was that, from a sociological perspective give possible interpretations of the anorexic behavior, and interpret why some anorexics choose to be a part of and identify oneself with the pro-ana movement. The reason has been to conduce more knowledge and understanding of the topics, but also to contribute with a deeper perspective and sociological approach to the former research that is already available.To conduct the study, qualitative research has been used, and the chosen methodology was document analysis/text analysis. The collected empirical data consisted material from two pro-ana forums, four blogs and six twitter accounts, where all the users of those claimed to be supporters of the pro-ana. The empirical data has been interpreted by Howard S.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka de anställdas vid blivande Linnéuniversitetet stöd för fusionen av Växjö universitet och Högskolan i Kalmar. Vidare undersöktes bland annat vilken effekt olika faktorer som information, möjligheten att delta samt tilliten till högsta ledningen hade på stödet för fusionen. En enkätundersökning gjordes med ett slumpmässigt urval med 185 deltagare varav 95 var från Växjö universitet och 90 från Högskolan i Kalmar. Enkäten var baserad på fem mätinstrument: a) Leader-Member Exchange, b) information, deltagande och tillit till högsta ledningen, c) öppenhet för jobbförändringar, d) individens uppfattning av sin egen kunskapsbredd och e) motstånd mot förändring. Resultatet visade att motstånd mot förändring hade negativa samband med information, deltagande och tillit till högsta ledningen.

Our paper is a study about youth and their self-images. During our practical training period we found that the problems young people had always were connected with their self-image. We therefore wanted to find out what youth believe influence their self-image. The purpose of our study was to examine young people and their self-images in a perspective of the ecological systems model. Essential issues have been what self-images young people have, what they consider influence their self-image most, how they think they can resist influence from the environment and how they would like to be influenced by the environment if they could decide themselves.

The free choice of upper secondary school?A study of the meaning of the information channels for the choice of upper secondary schoolAuthors: David Fridner & Rikard ZeilonMentor: Ingela WadbringQuestionnaire studyDate: 2008-08-11AbstractThe choice of upper secondary school is a very important choice, both for the school and for the ninth grader. In Göteborg, the free choice of upper secondary school has generated several new information channels apart from the traditional counselor, daily news and the acquaintance. Today it is harder than ever to reach the pupil through the constant media noise and new forms of communication such as events appear. The fight for each pupil gets more and more important every term and it has now become real big business.Today?s youth is imprinted by a growing individuality and everyone knows that equableness is something very important.

During the autumn of 2010 a group of parents met together with two therapist at Mini Maria Hisingen. These parents did have children who had experience of using drugs. This study purpose´s to describe, analyze and understand what has been effective in the work together with this group of parents.The interrogative sentence is; Did we use a narrative approach and what impact did this approach had on the groupprocess? What did the group sessions contribute to the parents and would they recommend other parents to participate in similar sessions? All the sessions were recorded in video. The work was highly inspired by Michael White and his book Maps (2007).

Hemoplus® (Sarstedt, Nümbrecht, Tyskland) is a guaiac-based fecal occult blood test developed for human medicine. Guaiac-based tests make use of the pseudoperoxidase activity of hemoglobin so the test is not specific for human hemoglobin and can therefore be used in veterinary medicine. Peroxidase-containing foods such as meat (hemoglobin and myoglobin) can cause false-positive results of the test. To ensure that a positive result is not caused by diet, it has been suggested that canine patients should be fed a meatless diet for a few days prior to fecal occult blood testing. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of commercial dog food on guaiac-based tests. In this study fecal samples from healthy dogs were analyzed with Hemoplus®.