AbstractThis degree project is about having meetings in The Swedish Social Insurance Agency, which is awide organisation. This work will concentrate on one of the projects going on within theorganisation which is travel-free meetings, where they are building a video meeting system thatallows the employees in the organisation to be able to meet with each other through the use ofvideoconferencing instead of physical meetings.In this work we will show how Kaikaku (radical system changes) along with Kaizen (continuouschange) can support an organisation to become more efficient and reduce wastage. We have donethis work in an organisation that is present in over one hundred locations in Sweden.The Social Insurance Agency has over 13 000 employees at over one hundred locations inSweden.The organisation has to be close to their customers and provide the best service aspossible. To be able to work in a uniform way, the employees get together and have meetings.Some meetings are just progress meetings and takes perhaps no more than two hours to complete.However, if seven employees from seven different locations need to have meetings, in the worstcase, they all have to meet in a common place.This is expensive for the organisation in travel costs, time and absence from work, but thetravelling also contributes to environmental pollution if the employees are travelling by a fuelpoweredvehicle.A whole day could go lost for having a meeting in about two hours if all sevenemployees went from their own cities to e.g. Stockholm for the meeting.Muda (wastage) of travel created several different types of Muda, namely:? Wastage with anticipation when the employees had to wait for e.g.

In this study we describe the needs of lone parents and how the authorities fulfill these needs. The needs contain both economic and social aspects, such as the access to an employment, childcare and the possibility to social activities. For the lone parents being able to work the childcare provision must improve and be available in a greater extent during non-traditional working hours. It is also required that the housing benefit ceiling is increased so that the parents may work more hours without risking the loss of the housing benefit. The statistic about the housing benefit which we present shows that many of those with a low income are lone parents.

The aim of this study was to analyze how discourses about domestic violence emerges in policy and practice, and to investigate how those discourses may change from a structural, political level to a local, practical level. The research questions focused how the problem of domestic violence is formulated at national and local level, scrutinizing the different discourses framing and reproducing the causes and solutions of the problem, and also to deduce how different context affects formulations. The empirical material consists of policy plans and interviews with social workers. The findings indicates that the issue of domestic violence is articulated differently on different levels. In action plans on the national level, the domestic violence is formulated within a structural discourse, being a problem on a (gender-) political level, whereas professional social workers recognizes domestic violence as a personal problem within an individual oriented discourse.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the archivist's professional role in public authorities and discuss if, and in what way, the profession is effected by the new swedish process oriented archival description system. The study focuses on swedish authorities and does not make any international comparisons with other institutions. Neither does it investigate archivists workingin the private sector, but centers on public institutions.The survey is performed in five swedish public authorities, using interviews and observations. Grounded theory is used as a method initially in the purpose of keeping an open mark towards the object of study. The initial results led on to questions about how well the archivists perceived that communication within the authorities served, and how this in turn prepossessed their work situation and the professional roles in which they found themselves.

The aim of this study is to examine a number of Swedish working public librarians and compare them with some popular standard images of librarians. In this project we have been working in line with these three questions: How do the librarians describe themselves and how can the descriptions be interpreted? What images are the most common and repetitive, according to earlier research? What differences and similarities are there between the images of the librarians and the working librarians? To answer the questions we have performed seven qualitative interviews with working librarians and collected relevant literature that presents various portrayals of librarians. To interpret the interviews we have used Pierre Bourdieus theories of social space, social fields, habitus and the cultural, academic, social and the economic capitals, as well as the connection between individual taste, class and social power. The conclusions of the collected material of earlier research and the interpreted material from the interviews have been compared and discussed.

The purpose of this study has been to investigate how frequently, and in witch ways, theories concerning the "late-modern" society are being used in the contemporary research of social work. My thesis is that theories concerning the late-modern society could be useful in social work research, foremost to shed light on, and broaden the understanding of, dilemmas and problems that are specific to the contemporary society. In the study I'm investigating all doctoral dissertations on social work written in Sweden between the years 2003 and 2006, and to execute the study I've applied a text analysis method in four steps. Simplified the four steps of the analysis can be said to investigate, if, how frequent, and in what way theories on the late modern society is being used in social work study. I'm also specifically investigating how problems exclusive to the late-modern society is being taken under consideration in the dissertations.In the analysis of my results I take a critical theory approach and I also discuss if theories on late-modernity is to be seen as a paradigm in the field of social work science.

The ambition to use evidence based treatments has spread within the field of Swedish social work. The number of treatments with claim to being evidence based has grown but the research concerning implementation; the procedures being used to introduce new methods in organizations and assure that the method is being used appropriately and continuously, is scarce. The aim of this study was to examine the implementation of Functional Family Therapy (FFT), being an evidence based treatment, in an organization providing social services in the public sector, in Sweden. We used a qualitative research design and conducted interviews with persons involved in the implementation of FFT in the social services in a town in the south of Sweden. We used the practice guidelines provided in Evidence Based Practice (EBP) together with recently published meta- analyses of implementation research, in the field of social work, to examine the implementation of FFT, as being an evidence based treatment.

The purpose of this study was to highlight LGBT asylum-seekers experiences of expressing their sexual identity or gender identity in the country of origin and in the asylum process in Sweden. By interviewing people who got permanent residence in Sweden because of gender or sexual orientation in Utlänningslagen (2005:716) we have been able to explore their own experiences from expressing themselves. This study analyse these experiences from a social psychological perspective, from this analysis we aimed to obtain a deeper understanding of how the experiences from the country of origin affects on the experiences in the asylum process. This study shows that LGBT asylum-seekers often is facing negative reactions from the environment in the country of origin, these reactions can limit their possibilities to express their sexual identity or gender identity in the asylum process in Sweden. The negative reactions they experience in the country of origin have contributed to that many LGBT people internalize feelings of fear to express themselves, feelings that often stays when they come to Sweden to seek asylum.

This essay has aimed at exploring how different companies work with CSR. We want to highlight their opinions about the topic, what it means for the companies that work with it and how important it is to apply CSR in a business. The reason why we chose this subject is because of the possibilities that come with working with CSR. We think there are a lot to be done when it comes to corporate social responsibility and we want to be a part of this new type of marketing. The win-win-situation that occurs with CSR is unique and it makes the subject interesting.

In almost every workplace today IT-systems have strong and significant roll in theeveryday work. It is therefore important that the systems have a good functionalityand that they work as an aid for the users. This thesis aims to study the systems atthe company Telge Nät and to analyse them from a usability perspective. By using thisperspective it has been obvious how difficult it is to make improvements on usability,once the system is in place. Even other larger improvements of the systems aredifficult to make at this stage and this is something that the users are aware of.

The purpose of this essay was to see how the construction of elderly immigrants as a problem in healthcare and elderly care has been described in the relevant literature. In the course of doing so I tried to answer the following questions; What is said to be the expected problems or difficulties in work with eldely immigrants? How are the expected members of the problemgroup defined and identified? Whos perspective dominates the description of the problem, the users or the investigators? These questions were hard to answer and I had to conclude that the problem was not clearly defined; there was only an assumption of a problem. This, however, has not been a hindrance in the category of elderly immigrants being claimed to be a group with problems that need research and further investigation. The dominating perspective is that of the investigators as they are the ones who define and identify who is a part of the problemgroup..

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine the theories and visions of five futuristic projects at children's libraries in Sweden and Denmark to investigate if these projects have approaches that are significantly different from today's best practices of the libraries and the current theories behind the children's sections.More specific questions are also asked:Are the projects taking advantage of the children's perspective or is it the adult vision of children's needs that is governing?Are the projects promoting collaborations with other actors, thereby facilitating a future development of the children's library by others than librarians?The comparisons reveal that new methods and tools are beeing developed, while the traditional ambitions and views on children and children's needs are essentially unchanged. The role of the library as a social room and meeting place has increased, while its role as a place for finding and transferring information has been challenged by Internet and home computers. The library can still compete as a public place offering relevant contents and assistance by attentive, well-educated adults.In conclusion, the futuristic projects are expected to promote greater variations between children's libraries, by presenting literature, media and information in many different and more innovative ways. Such greater diversity and multiplicity would allow the libraries to market themselves with a clearer message in order to compete with other (commercial) activities for children..

The purpose of this study was to examine the discourses that can be identified in medias representation of social services. To answer the purpose we made a critical discourse analysis using Faircloughs three-dimensional model. The choice to focus our study on a local newspaper was based on earlier research that found it possible that a local paper has a greater impact on readers than a national newspaper. Readers can more easily connect with what's happening in the immediate environment than what is written nationally. We used articles published in 2013 containing ?social services?.

The purpose of this thesis is to gain a deeper understanding about why Swedish banks choose to work and report CSR and also analyze differences and similarities between two banks.Research question: Why do Swedish companies within the financial sector choose to report and work with Corporate Social Responsibility?The major incentives to work and report CSR are because it benefits bank´s businesses, which is driven by stakeholders. Stakeholder pressure is also an important incentive, especially pressure from customers and employees. The incentives that differed between the two banks were morality of the business leader, society and the priority of stakeholders. The incentives that we could not support were guidelines and competitors-.

The aim with this study has been to examine and to analyze the discourse of Rosengård in Swedish media. With the concept of discourse is meant here specific ways to speak about and to understand the world, or a part of it. In order to reach increased understanding regarding media presentations and constructions of Rosengård, I have done a study about how Rosengård has been presented in the Swedish daily and evening press during the violent acts that took place in Rosengård in the spring and summer of 2008, when youths regarding to media put cars and containers on fire, and also threw stones at fire engines and other emergency service vehicles when these had to turn out to put out the fires. The collected data, containing newspaper articles, has been analyzed on the basis of the critical discourse analysis, CDA, which is a mould of a textanalytical method. This study applies a social constructivist perspective.