Globalization is described as processes of economic, social and political character and a tendency in the field has been to study these aspects of the phenomenon separately. Another common feature of previous studies is to relate to the field at a high abstraction level and talk about the effects and changes in general terms. Such studies of quantitative and statistical nature in which people are constituted as homogeneous groups hides the fact that the relationship between social attributes and context creates unique positions where the effects of globalization are diverse (Sprague, 2005, pp. 16 - 18). The purpose of this bachelor thesis is therefore to break with this entrance to the field and instead focus on a micro level perspective.By conducting a qualitative interview study guided by the globalization theory of the Globalife research team, which shows how structures at the macro level can be understood to affect the micro level, the aim is to reveal potential knowledge gaps within the field.

The formation of sovereign states in regional blocks has become an essential feature in the world system. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate which motives and driving forces that affect the creation of projects of regional integration outside Europe and the Western World. By choosing the Latin American project of integration ALBA (the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas) as a case of regional integration outside Europe and the Western World, the study investigates the motives expressed by the most prominent actors of the project, Venezuela and Cuba. ALBA is chosen as a representative and a unique case and through the consumption of the gramscian and the realist approaches, the essay defines two motives that affect the creation of projects of regional integration. As a way of investigating the actors? motives, the paper studies political statements, especially those of the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, and official positions expressed in central documents and declarations.

The object of this explorative theoretical study is to compare similarities in three perspectives for evaluation of credibility. The perspectives are the historical method source-criticism, cognitive authority and domain analysis. These perspectives, regarded as intellectual tools for critical thinking in a process of information seeking, by asking questions about credibility related to the social and theoretical context of the intellectual background, can give support in articulating which documents that gives a specific and essential answer to a question. In this sense credibility is seen as a qualitative aspect of relevance. Patrick Wilson argues that we can attain some critical independence towards cognitive authorities and the literature by investigating the social and theoretical topography of a field.

Although women express a desire to be managers and although they constitute the majority of Sweden's newly graduated academics, they are still heavily underrepresented on senior management level in the Swedish private sector, where men hold as much as 95 % of the top positions. Considering the massive waste of resources that this implies, this thesis sets out to investigate the underlying reasons for the skewed gender distribution on senior management level in two Swedish professional services companies - an industry where the described problem has been palpable. Additionally, the thesis explores the effects of actively working for increased gender equality. With a basis in gender and organization theory, a broad theoretical framework has been compiled and applied to a qualitative case study design. The thesis reveals seven distinct impediments, which together create a parable of an obstacles course, that prevent women from advancing the corporate ladder in the same manner as their male colleagues.

Responsible production is a subject of increasing importance for companies toadopt and communicate to their environment and many companies choose to implementenvironmental ? and ethic considerations into their brand strategy. There is, however, adividing line between companies according to what extent they choose to implementresponsible production into their brand strategy and to which extent they choose tocommunicate it to their stakeholders and surroundings. It is the hypothesis about a dividingline that is the foundation for this essay and something we believed could be interesting forfurther analysis.The purpose of our essay is to find out how the brand strategy of a company is affected by theresponsible production and in what extent they communicate it to their environment. Byanswering those questions we hope to find out why some companies communicateresponsible production more actively than others.We have conducted in-depth interviews with the Swedish clothing companies; MariaWesterlind, Zion and Dem Collective and we have through our analysis reached interestingconclusions.

This is a degree project performed at Halmstad University in Sweden on the subject carpet ofreinforcement. This project is developed in association with Celsa Steel Service in Halmstad.The purpose of this report is to investigate how much time that can be saved if carpet ofreinforcement is used instead of the traditional way to work with reinforcement and seewhat kind of parameters that is important between the choices. We are also going to seehow this product affects the situation for reinforcement workers from an ergonomic point ofview.Carpet of reinforcement is made by straight reinforcement?s bars that are welded togetherwith steel bands. These rolls are made at a factory with a machine that welds together thebars in determined centre distance, with desired dimensions after the constructionengineers? blueprints.

While the strategy of lending a voice to the monstrous is a well known aspect of Howard Phillips Lovecraft's works, the female monster is a notable exception to this case. In this thesis, I excavate a theory of female monstrosity through a reading of some of Lovecraft's most read stories and the agency of female characters that appears within. Comparing these female registers of monstrosity to their masculine counterpart, I develop a concept of female monstrosity manifested through categories of class, race and gender with the help of Judith Halberstams theories of monstrosity.Rather than treating these women as active characters, I argue that Lovecraft's inability to handle these monsters forces him to literally put them away ? in attics, cellars, or boxes. These are the marginalized positions from which these women elaborate a monstrous form that transcends the boundaries of sex, gender, class and race.

Globalization and demographic changes are forcing today?s companies to be more competitive in order to reach success. The increasing competition is proving a challenge for companies to recruit and retain competent, talented staff. To meet these challenges, Talent Management was developed during the 1990s and supplies a new and innovative way to deal with personnel management. Due to Talent Management being a relatively new theory, there is at present no generally accepted definition of the theory.

This project has been created with the assistance of Fredells. Fredells is a Stockholm based company with a focus on the retail of building products. Fredells also produces prefab- or prefabricated products which are either completely or partially ready for assembly the moment they arrive to the building site. These prefab-products are primarily delivered to customers within the Stockholm region. The building industry is a conservative market where the incentive to changes has been relatively low compared to other industries.

A study was carried in conjunction with the Orthodontic department at Halmstad General Hospital in Sweden to investigate the possibility of reducing cost and manufacture time of dental implant drill guides. The current system involves sending a digital image in STL format to the Materialise factory in Belgium where information of the position of dental implants is translated onto a moulded mouthpiece. Drill guides are placed in the mouth piece which is then returned to the surgeon. The mouthpiece complete with drill guides is then placed in the patients mouth and used as a guide for the implant drill holes. The cost of 10000 sek and a turnaround time of 2 weeks gave rise to the need for a faster and cheaper solution.

The background of this study stemmed from the notion that the majority of homeless women with substance abuse, most of all, wanted a secured place of their own to stay. Few involved professionals agreed and instead of perceiving housing as a human right the women were mostly offered various types of short-term social housing. The purpose of this study was thus to examine and analyze how professionals attached to the social services and public housing companies in Gothenburg explained that homeless women with substance abuse were excluded from accommodation on the open housing market. The qualitative approach included ten interviews with eleven professionals in Gothenburg. The theoretical framework consisted mainly of Bourdieu's analytical concepts of field, doxa as well as social, economic and cultural, alongside symbolic capital.

Real estate financing is one of the key figures for financial success and fundamental to asuccessful business. Funding will come in several different ways, from existing cashflows andassets to new capital requirements which are aimed at different markets.These markets are constantly changing and since the recent financial crisis, there have beenadjustments and austerity measures which led to that the banks have become more restrictive intheir lending.The real estate industry is characterized by both long-term and short-term thinking that ischaracterized by a solid continuity. Our thesis discuss how the demand is in the real estatebusiness and how mature the Swedish market is for junior financingwith focus aroundmezzanine debt and where are we headed in the near future.We've reached out to the key players in the industry on both the buy and sell side of real estatefinancing but also people between lenders and borrowers that handles transaction advice. Tohave been able to implement the analysisa survey and simulation of an investment calculationwas created. This questionnaire was answered by many real estate companies with senior peoplethat had operational positionsmost associated with corporate commitments.

This master thesis summarizes contemporary theories on secularization processes in the Western world, and compares these with the example of Sweden, which by many scholars is considered to be the most secularized country in the Western world.I do this by dividing the most influential theorists in five different groups. In each group I explain how the theorists formulate and motivate their positions. These groups are:1) The secularization paradigm, where secularization always accompanies modernization. (Therorists: Steve Bruce and Peter Berger (in the 1960s)2) The paradigm basically accepted, but revised to depend on existential security, rather than modernisation as such. (Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart)3) Religion returned in the public sphere.

Women?s strive to reach higher leading positions and build a career that's combinable with child birth and private life, is an on-going debate among academics in the fields of leadership, management and organization. This bachelor level thesis is written at the section of Management & Organization at School of Business, Economics and Law in Gothenburg, Sweden, spring semester 2015. In our research methodwe have used source triangulation with a qualitative approach to the subject of egg-freezing in favour forcareer with a focus on Swedish workplaces. The purpose has been to illuminate, map out and further problematize how the introduction of the employee benefit in November 2014 can be seen to relate to social sustainability.A lot of the management research that discusses social sustainability tends to focus on how women (and men!) try to balance family life and career and how to combine (or to not combine) them.

Sammanfattning Denna rapport redovisar ett tillvägagångssätt att inventera, inmäta och kartera föreslagna cykelleder åt Torsby Sportcenter samt framställa ett dokument med adressuppgifter över berörda fastighetsägare. Inventering och inmätning utfördes med en enklare GPS-mottagare. Kartan framställdes i GIS-programmet ArcMap och som bakgrundskarta användes fastighetskartan ur vilken valda lager exporterades. För en del lager slogs vissa klasser ihop till en klass för att få en fungerande kartbild. Samtliga lager gavs egna manér. För att framställa fastighetsägaruppgifterna söktes först berörda fastigheter ut i fastighetskartan.