The aim of this study is to try to explain the process using both an actor driven perspective as well as a structural perspective examining the reasons why the County Council of Värmland wants to merge with Region Västra Götaland. The answers to the following research questions are sought to shed light on the problem: What constrained the discretion of  the political actors in the choice of region to merge with? Which role did  different political actors play? Does the study provide Game Theory, from Rational Choice theory,  and Path Dependency, from Historic Institutionalism, a new perspective and strength especially  when bringing them together? The study is limited to two policy areas, health care and regional development policy. The structural background is drawn upon the Annual Report 2008 of the County Council Värmland, the Regional Development Program and Regional Transport Infrastructure Plan 2010-2021 by Region Värmland. The chronological order of decisions and events is drawn upon protocols from various regional political organs all linked to the municipal of Värmland and the correspondence between the officials of Värmland?s municipal and the Legal, Financial and Administrative Services Agency of the State.

The purpose of this thesis is to study and determine how working in cross functional teams can generate value in an effort to facilitate innovation. An inductive scientific perspective is chosen as the research approach. A single case is investigated with the theoretical framework based on Resource Based View, Intellectual Capital, Innovation theory and theories concerning Cross Functional Teams. The empirical material has been collected through primary data; surveys, interviews and secondary data; literature, websites and further complementary data. The practice of using Cross Functional Teams will enhance organizational learning, knowledge transfer, increase communication and innovation, which in turn will increase the speed and performance of the new product development process.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine and analyze what discourses about children that can be found in three Swedish culture publications, and also to identify the different social roles that are attributed to children in these publications. The theoretical and methodological background is discourse theory, as described by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Additional theory used is social constructionism and Norman Fairclough?s critical discourse theory. Three questions are asked: What discourse/s can be found in these publications? What do these discourses tell us about the view on children within the library domain? What social roles are attributed to the children in the texts and what consequences do these have for the power configuration between children and adults? Furthermore there is a discussion concerning what effects these discourses might have on the direct and indirect reception of children in the library.

Uppsatsen syftar till att analysera organisatoriska konsekvenser som skapas genom "Resource Management". Detta arbetssätt ("Resource Management") innebär kortfattat att varje medarbetare har två chefer; en resurschef som ansvarar för individuell kompetensutveckling och resursallokering och en arbetschef vilken ansvarar för produktionen inom projekt och service.Vi har använt oss av ett kvalitativt tillvägagångssätt bestående av sammanlagt tio intervjuer med resurschefer, medarbetare och förändringsledare, samt dokumentstudier för att uppnå studiens syfte.Vi tycker oss ha funnit att det inte existerar en optimal växelverkan mellan organisationens produktionslogik och utvecklingslogik, vilket påverkar möjligheterna till utveckling i arbetet. Vidare kan "Resource Management" betraktas som positivt och "lyxigt". Å andra sidan kan en organisatoriskt inbyggd konflikt ha negativ inverkan på utvecklingsmöjligheterna. Sammantaget konstaterar vi att organisationen har genomfört en generös och djärv satsning i syfte att öka utvecklingen i arbetet men ställer oss samtidigt frågande till hur pass genomförbart detta är i realiteten, då tillräckligt utrymme för reflektion inte tycks ges.

The purpose of this study is to identify the points-of-difference that should form the basis for Bryggarsalen?s future marketing efforts. Bryggarsalen is a newly established conference business in Stockholm. To be able to identify these points-of-difference, Bryggarsalen?s marketing problems have been studied from the resource-based view, claiming that the source of sustained competitive advantage derive from a firm?s unique bundle of resources.

Child poverty in Sweden as a social phenomenon has been highlighted in various debates and in poverty research during the recent years. Children's economic vulnerability has gotten more place in research. An interest to highlight child poverty awakened and this study highlights child poverty through a resource perspective among children in preschools. This study aims to examine how preschool teachers perceive the child's assets to various resources as well as how preschool teachers perceive the impact of the preschool where they work on children's access to these resources. The study is qualitative and has used interviews as a tool.

The aim of the thesis is to highlight external factors to explain why the EMU was created. The external factor considered here is the monetary policy of the United States, which often conflicted with European interests. The statistical data in the thesis, as well as previous research, show that even though the EU economically in many ways had become an equal partner of the US during the second half of the 20th century, the union still faced US influence and dependence.The results of the thesis can be explained with neorealist theories on power measured as an actor's distribution of capabilities and balancing of power. An actor that is equipped with the world's leading currency is more independent from others. Other actors, on the other hand, become increasingly dependent on the major currency and the policy of its owner.

In 2009 transgendered persons were included in the Swedish law against discrimination. Prior to the inclusion a commission made an investigation of the necessity of such change in the law and how it could be designed. This essay focuses on the discourses regarding gender that appear in the law and the report written by the commission. Using theories by Judith Butler and discourse analysis inspired by Norman Fairclough it identifies two main discourses regarding gender: a two gender discourse and a queer discourse. The two discourses meet in the studied material in an antagonistic way, a conflict that is solved by separating the two and making one part of the law focus on gender and one on transgender.

Den samhällsrelaterade redovisningen har utvecklats under de senaste åren och fått en allt större betydelse för företagen och dess intressenter. Att utvecklingen går mot mer kunskapsintensiva verksamheter borde öka betydelsen av personalredovisning, vilken är en del av den samhällsrelaterade redovisningen. Det bör ligga i företagens intresse att redovisa sin personalrelaterade information med tanke på att det är en allt viktigare tillgång. Med anledning av att det endast finns ett fåtal regler för hur personalen skall redovisas, väljer företagen det sätt som passar repektive företag bäst. Syftet med undersökningen är att klargöra för i vilken omfattning svenska börsnoterade företag redovisar sin personalrelaterade information, om det skiljer sig mellan företagen beroende av branschtillhörighet, storlek eller någon annan faktor.

Objective: In this thesis, we assume that the organizations' interests are governing their behavior/positions. It seems possible to draw conclusions about organizations'interests on the basis of the behavior / positions that will appear in the givenopinions on Swedish Public Investigations. The purpose of this thesis is toidentify self-interests of the studied organizations as they appear in their givenopinions.Method: The authors have made a qualitative and quantitative study of the opinions.Theoretical perspective: The basis of the study is the organization theories that focus the self-interest oforganizations.Empiric: Information is taken from four Swedish Public Investigations: the New Company Act, International Accounting for Swedish companies, Abolition of the audit requirement for small and medium sized enterprise and Simplified accounting. Altogether 310 opinions have been given on these, out of which we have studied 59. Furthermore, we have collected information on tasks, activities and objectives from the websites of the opinion giving organizations.Conclusions: In the literature, we found, as mentioned, that organizations havet hree self- interests which we define as general self-interests.

Studiens syfte är att beskriva och analysera begreppet oberoende styrelseledamot, samt visa vilka effekter och inställning kravet om att minst två styrelseledamöter skall vara oberoende av större aktieägare har på svenska börsnoterade bolag. För att uppnå vårt syfte har vi samlat in både primär- och sekundärdata. Primärdata har samlats in genom en explorativ undersökning av intervjuer med personer ur styrelsen eller företagsledningen i bolag som aktivt tillämpar Koden. Sekundärdata har samlats in från regler och riktlinjer kring oberoende i Sverige, EU, OECD och Storbritannien. Utifrån litteraturen har vi studerat teorier om corporate governance såsom stakeholderteorin, agentteorin och resource dependency teorin.

This is a bachelor thesis, written at the business studies institute, Uppsala Unviersity, exploring how digitalization has affected the Swedish book industry. This is done by studying how the introduction of the e-book has changed the way the publishers work and what problems and opportunities arise with the new way to publish and consume books. The technology optimists, that existed around the turn of the millennium, when the e-book came, made predictions along the lines of the physical book having ceased to exist within five to ten years. But the physical paper books do very much still exist, so haven?t the change happened as predicted? The purpose of this thesis is as follows: How has introduction of the e-book affected the relationship between the Swedish publishers and the book as a whole? This means that we consider the book as a concept, as a resource or product, and study how a change in this product affect publishers.The theoretical framework used is basically classical network theory.

The relationship between employer and employee is, from a judicial point of view, governed primarily by economic and employment contracts. However, a significant part of the dynamic is also dictated by tacit expectations and promises (so called psychological contracts). The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between perceived organizational support (POS) and psychological contract violation. Primary hypothesis assumed that there was a correlation between higher perceived organizational support and a reduction of feelings of violation from psychological contract breach. It was also assumed that employment time, sex and past breach experiences correlated with feelings of violation.

The aim of this study was to examine the aspect of power in the relationship between the personal assistant and the disabled person he or she works with (the user). The study was based on interviews with five personal assistants who worked for private companies that provided personal assistance. Seven themes were identified and discussed. These were: the users amount of control over the assistance given, the workplace environment, the working conditions, the organization of personal assistance by private companies, the assistants recourses and usage of power and the users participation in chores. To analyze these themes I used Foucault's theory of power and the perspective of Human Resource.

Två begrepp som ofta diskuteras inom organisationsteori är Medarbetarskap och Human resource management. Personalen ses ofta som ett företags främsta resurs. Denna uppsats bygger på en kvantitativ undersökning bland personalen inom en Telekomkedja. Vårt syfte är att bringa klarhet i frågan om i vilken utsträckning det ?myndiga medarbetarskapet? existerar, hur olika strategiska åtgärder påverkar försäljningen, vad som påverkar medarbetarnas motivation samt hur deras lojalitet gentemot arbetsgivaren ser ut.Undersökningen visar att personalen i Telekomkedjan trivs bra på sin arbetsplats.