The manufactory industry, due to decline in profit margins, is seeking new business opportunities by moving towards servitization and value-adding services in after-sales. We have therefore conducted a case study to investigate a manufacturing company in their current transformation towards servitization. By studying the management perspective, we aimed to understand how Information Technology, by adding value, could play a role in the transformation process. This study shows that information technology can take an integrating role, by supporting new value-adding services to provider and customer, as well as a co-creating role, where both provider and customer benefits by learning from each other, in the changing work process initiated by new services. The study has also shown that Information Technology, together with organization, information and people, are crucial components in the manufactory industry?s transformation towards servitization.  Furthermore, the study has also shown that the value chain has the potential to drastically change due to the value-adding that the information technology brings to the progress of servitization..

Occupational stress and the use of alcohol to reduce stress are both separately common in our society. A few researchers have combined the two factors.The aim of this essay was to obtain an increased understanding of how male and female managers estimate their alcohol habits in relation to their occupational stress.We have interviewed nine managers who work at a social services department in Scania. Our main theories were the theory of psychosocial work environment of Lazarus, Karaseks demand/control model, epidemiology- and cultural perspective.Our results were;· Psychosocial work environment contributes to if the interviewed people experienced stress at work.· The grade of control has great influence if the interviewed people experience stress.· There weren't any correlation between stress and increased consumption of alcohol..

ABSTRACT Poverty, and in particular child poverty, is a serious social problem. Statistics show that the number of children living in poverty has increased over the last ten years. Earlier research shows that there are huge gaps in our knowledge of how the actors in civil society handle child poverty. With this study we hope to help fill this gap. The aim of our study is to look at how four different organisations working in the civil society in Uppsala perceive and handle child poverty.

The aim of this master thesis is to examine the opinions of the students of Linköping University regarding the role of the university library in their learning process. The study addresses the student?s expectations and satisfaction regarding the library services. The questions we seek to answer are: What are the students? conceptions of Linköping University Library as a part of their learning process? What expectations do the students have regarding Linköping University Library? Does the library fulfil the students? expectations? In what way has the library?s pedagogical ambition reached the students? What are the students? opinions about the user education? The study is based on a web survey complemented with interviews.

The amendment of a law which is expected to come may well have a significant impact on the Swedish real-estate broke market. The law change will probably have an effect in the number of ways real-estate brokers will compete as a result of the increasing variety of services offered. In order to gain competitive advantages brokers must be at the forefront in the development regarding the changing market. To do so requires that the company chooses an appropriate range of peripheral services that are profitable. The problem is to choose the ?right? services to convey. The purpose of this paper is to describe the services that are in demand for transmission and how the agents can work to meet the demand of this new market.

Det här examensarbetet undersöks hur en kommunal förskola och ett föräldrakooperativs bemötande och åtgärder ser ut när det gäller barn som blivit utsatta för fysiska övergrepp. Arbetet utgår från frågeställningarna:Har de två förskolorna riktlinjer för att hantera problematiken kring fysiska övergrepp mot barn?Vilka likheter finns det i riktlinjerna när det gäller bemötande och åtgärder?Vilka skillnader finns det i riktlinjerna när det gäller bemötande och åtgärder?En jämförelse mellan de två förskolorna görs genom en textanalys av två dokument, föräldrakooperativet har en kris och beredskapsplan och den kommunala har ett policydokument som belyser anmälningsplikten. Analyserna kommer att sker ur ett hermeneutiskt synsätt samt i en kvalitativ bearbetning. Arbetet tar även upp anmälningsplikten förskolan står inför när misstanke eller oro uppkommer hos personalen.

International trade in services has increased over the past 30 years as a result of progress in information and communication technology, increased focus on services from the manufacturing sector and the establishment of trade associations.The international market for healthcare services, also referred to as medical tourism, is growing more and more. Patients increasingly seeking treatment at other countries healthcare systems because of long queues within their own country or because it exists better prices for the same care abroad. However, this type of service exports occurs at a limited extent in Sweden.The purpose of this study is to highlight and analyze the conditions for Swedish service companies to export healthcare services. This, includes the challenges and opportunities that exist to expand the exports of these services.The approach for this study has been in the form of interviews with two market actors and written responses, from the same interview guide, with three market actors. These market participants are the so-called Care companies which export healthcare services in various counties, and the membership organization Swecare who work with export promotion activities for its members in the Swedish healthcare sector.

In today s society, services are becoming more and more important. They are however, partly because of their immaterial nature, separated from traditional merchandise, why the marketing and producing of them differs. Quality errors in a service are often difficult to discover before the service is brought to a customer, since the producing and consuming of it often takes place simultaneously. Quality errors in a service process are called service failures or in Swedish tjänstefel. Nevertheless, with an effective service recovery process, dissatisfied customers can be turned into satisfied ones.

Virtual Communities is an increasingly common phenomenon on the Internet. Most of the Virtual Communities are operated and maintained on a non-profit basis with a direction towards entertainment. However, as more state administrated and commercial services become web-based, we believe that the number of Virtual Communities with a community-based or commercial direction will increase in a near future. In this thesis, we describe our participation in, and studies of, a number of Virtual Communities with focus on the IRC-channel ?3dfxsweden?.

The market for management consulting services is changing with an increased level of competition and more specialized service providers. At the same time there is a high level of companies that fail in their efforts to establish themselves on the market. This thesis sets out to give the reader an increased understanding of the complex characteristics of the market for these services, focusing more specifically on which factors that have an effect on the strategy development for companies within the industry. The thesis is also aimed at providing the reader with a deeper understanding of how developing consulting companies can tackle the specific challenges facing them. In order to meet the purpose of the thesis, we have applied relevant theories to a generic strategy model in order to develop a model that is applicable for the management consulting industry.

Detta arbete har bedrivits i syfte att kartlägga funktionalitet, teknik och användningsområde gällande Web Services. Innehållet utgör således en teoretisk utvärdering av Web Services, samt tester av grundläggande programmeringslösningar. De frågor arbetet ämnar besvara är hur en Web Services på lämpligt sätt kan baseras på en befintlig tjänst, samt på vilket sätt denna Web Services kan göra aktuell tjänst lättare att använda. Dessutom belyses eventuella problem som kan uppstå i samband med denna Web Services-anpassning. I syfte att presentera ett lösningsförslag på ovan nämnda frågor granskades, via en litteraturstudie, ett antal informatikrelaterade begrepp liksom faktorer förknippade med kommersiell verksamhet på Internet.

The aim with this study was to examine what it is that govern the way that municipalities develop the non-institutional care for youth. An extensive development of non-institutional care for children is a visible trend in municipal social service and probable reasons for this development are, among other things, research that show inadequate results of the institution care and economy. Our main questions at issue were how the municipalities argue the priorities that have been done within their youth care services with regard to the non-institutional care and how they reason considering this? Furthermore we asked why the municipalities have chosen to develop their non-institutional care for youth the way they have and on what grounds they make their choices? This study consists of eight qualitative interviews with politicians and employees in four different municipals along with analysis of relevant documents. We have found that what governs the way that municipalities develop the non-institutional care for youth has to do with that the municipalities found it vital to find alternative solutions to the expensive and ineffective institutional care, that they comprehend that the quality of non-institutional care are higher then of the institutional care and that the non- institutional care is seen as more effective with regards to economic results and achieved treatment results.

In this essay I will look at the independence of the Swedish municipalities. By looking at articles for the biggest journal in Sweden on this subject Kommun aktuellt I will look at the discussion for the years of 1978 and 1998 to see if one can draw some parallels in the debate and see if some subjects are always returning in the agenda for the independence. The autonomy of the Swedish municipalities is a very important part of the Swedish welfare model. The municipalities handles for example both the primary schools and the social welfare services. Both these institutions are money draining and the municipals right by law to claim local tax does far from all the time cover its expenses.

The amendment of a law which is expected to come may well have a significant impact on the Swedish real-estate broke market. The law change will probably have an effect in the number of ways real-estate brokers will compete as a result of the increasing variety of services offered. In order to gain competitive advantages brokers must be at the forefront in the development regarding the changing market. To do so requires that the company chooses an appropriate range of peripheral services that are profitable. The problem is to choose the ?right? services to convey. The purpose of this paper is to describe the services that are in demand for transmission and how the agents can work to meet the demand of this new market.

The aim with this master?s thesis is to examine the information practices and information literacies among social workers in the field of the social services and in the work with child welfare investigations. This is in this study related to their ambition to fulfill the requirements of an evidence-based practice. On a theoretical level, the study is based on three theories grounded in the idea of situated learning and of human activities based in a social context. These are the sociocultural theory, the theory of communities of practices and the theory of information practices.