Title: A study about conditions for leadership in knowledge-intensive firms.Authors: Cecilia Ekström and Niklas SandbergKeywords: Leadership, knowledge-intensive firm, hierarchies, followers.Background: Leadership is becoming one of our greatest social myths and is considered a total solution for many problems that occur in an organization. The view of leadership is usually from a top-down perspective, which contributes to an often underestimated view of the follower. Just as it is important to understand the leader's view of leadership, it is important to understand how employees view the structure from which the leader derives its legitimacy. The existing conditions in knowledge-intensive firms, such as autonomy, place special demands on the formal leadership.Purpose: The purpose of this study takes an employee perspective, to understand what the conditions are for formal leadership in knowledge-intensive firms.Method: A qualitative research method was used and empirical material was collected through interviews with employees in knowledge-intensive firms. The empirical material was analyzed by the respondents? mental images which were set against the theoretical framework of the thesis.Conclusions: The conditions for formal leadership in knowledge-intensive firms make it advantageous to have a leader with a withdrawn role.

 The purpose of this thesis was to explore how the ideological self-image of the biggest Swedish governmental party, Moderaterna, has developed between 1993 and 2011. The second purpose was to compare this development on a fundamental ideological level, with development on the operative ideological level. This was to be made by qualitative analysis of the party?s ideological programs and election manifestos. Hopefully this would expose a pattern of the party?s ideological development. The findings of this thesis however, suggested that while the ideology on the fundamental level had radically changed, the ideology on the operative level has been characterized by continuity.

Marknaden ställer idag högre krav på vad företagen redovisar och intressenterna är inte längre bara uppmärksamma på hur företaget redovisar ur ett ekonomiskt perspektiv. En ökad medvetenhet hos företagen kan i många fall inbringa konkurrensfördelar om företagen väljer att tillgodose dessa krav. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) syftar till att redovisa vad företaget har gjort, inte bara i ekonomiska resultat utan även beträffande miljö och sociala aspekter. Vi har i vår studie valt att granska med hjälp av en innehållsanalys hur tre svenska företag, H&M, Stora Enso och TeliaSonera, arbetar med CSR och vart tyngdpunkten ligger hos de olika företagen. Studiens syfte är att på ett komparativt sätt och genom en innehållsanalys ämna svara på vilka likheter och skillnader det finns i de tre företagens hållbarhetsredovisningar, samt vad som kan tolka eventuella likheter och skillnader.

Fitting in is something that many strive for in today?s society. In order to do this, more or less all of us use impression management. The illness Anorexia contradicts the norms of society since eating is a fundamental need, and to refrain from this is therefore a major discrepancy. It is the impression management among anorectics we have chosen to put our emphasis on in this survey in which about ten people have been interviewed with a qualitative method.

Learning from traumatic events: a comparative case study of governmental close protection policies in the aftermath of the murder of Olof Palme and Anna LindhViolent and threatful crimes against politicians are as despicable as any other crime acts against citizen. However, if politicians are targeted solely due to their position ? the act can seriously damage the state and central government.This paper compares reports of government commissions and investigations which were initiated after the murder of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme in 1986 and secretary of state Anna Lindh in 2003. The purpose is to analyse and compare the conclusions and distinguish the main arguments that led to those conclusions and decipher similarities and differences through the lens of Tom Christensen?s instrumental perspective as well as Peter May?s social policy learning theory.

Gender politics in Sweden is considered unique because gender policies (jämställdhet) are integrated into national politics and politicised both in the public and the private sphere. The Swedish case is therefore considered a role model by many feminist scholars.This view has been criticised by both post modern feminists and public administration scholars. Critics imply that the increased immigration and more heterogeneous population have led to a new challenge for state institutions. The Swedish model, with its universal welfare solutions, lacks the ability to recognise differences within groups. Universal solutions that treat everyone the same is no longer the most just way to treat people.The growing use of goal orientation in Swedish public administration has increased the civil servants discretion in the implementation process, and thereby the space for differentiated treatment.

AbstractThe purpose of this essay is to analyse and interpret artist Hans Hedberg?s monumental, ceramic reliefs in Sweden and France. Hedberg is internationally famous for his ceramic fruits and eggs in different glaces and formats. A mostly unknown side of his artistic production is that he produced about 50 ceramic reliefs during the 1950s and up to the 1970s in public buildings. Hedberg was one of very few foreign artists in France, who, during a long period of time, produced monumental, public reliefs for the French state.

The purpose of this essay is to describe the organization of the Swedish Animal WelfareAgency during the time it was in operation. The Swedish Animal Welfare Agency was established in 2005 by the government who saw it as necessary in order to strengthen the protection of cruelty to animals in Sweden. However, the agency was shut down already in2007 and its responsibilities as an agency was moved back to the government and the department of agriculture. During its time in operation, the Swedish Animal Welfare Agency, received much criticism, among other things because of its interpretations of the law which were seen as too focused on details and thus ?bureaucratic?.

This study regards the Swedish documentation system, BBiC, which is translated from the English version LACS. BBiC is created to make sure that the children?s needs are put in centre of attention in child protection investigations. The BBiC-system becomes problematic regarding unaccompanied refugee children because of the parent-perspective which is a keystone in the system. Therefor BBiC creates discretion for the social worker which is not BBiC: s original intension.

Den Europeiska Unionen är en mångfacetterad samling länder med ett brett spektra av historisk bakgrund, geografisk placering och ekonomiska förhållanden. I denna uppsats undersöks huruvida en gemensam europeisk identitet kan bidra till en ökad tillit från medborgarna i unionen till EU som institution.Uppsatsens teoretiska underlag består av tidigare forskning. Denna forskning skapar ett fundament för den statistiska modell som används för att besvara frågeställningen.Med hjälp av data samlad ur bland annat Eurobarometerrapporter tar uppsatsen, via multipel linjär regression, fram en modell som förklarar förhållandet mellan den beroende variabeln ?förtroende för EU? och de oberoende variablerna ?uppfattning av gemensam europeisk identitet?, ?avstånd till Bryssel?, ?BNP per capita? och ?antal år som medlem i EU?.Resultatet visar en koppling mellan en högre grad av upplevd gemensam identitet hos medborgarna i ett land och ett ökat förtroende för EU.Vidare visar modellen ett negativt samband mellan förtroendet för EU och ett stigande värde på var och en av de övriga förklaringsvariablerna. Med andra ord: ju längre avstånd till Bryssel, ju högre BNP per capita och ju längre medlemskap i unionen desto lägre förtroende känner den genomsnittlige medborgaren för EU..

Within the field of welfare research, few people take into account both the aspect of gender and class. Thetraditional class-oriented research has a one-dimensional perspective on gender and the feminist welfare researchrarely carry out large comparative studies. A multi-dimensional perspective on the construction ofgender and class would benefit from both the feminist and class welfare-oriented research, and contribute toincreasing the knowledge about the individual's experience and attitudes to work and work time. The aim ofthis paper is to examine the correlation of the intersectional relationship between sex / gender position andclass position with the attitudes and motives for working time reduction. Especially in, (1) the value in work,and (2) the attitude to a high number of working hours, as well as (3) its combined effect on the conflict betweenwork and family.

Shorter hospital stays increases the need for well functioning post hospital aftercare. Persons close to the patient are often involved in the aftercare and need information about self-care. This need is frequently not satisfied. The aim of this study was to investigate if the next-of-kin of patients cared for at the thoracic clinic at Uppsala University hospital, have received information about self-care and how they perceive the information they have been given. METHOD: To investigate this, questionnaires were sent out by mail.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the democratization process in Kurdistan on the basis of consolidation democracy with focus on arenas defined by Linz and Stepan (1997), namely economic, political, legal, civil society and arenas of state bureaucracy. Furthermore, I intend to explain Kurdistan?s road toward democratization in Kurdistan from 1991 until today, with a focus on the years 2003-2012. The main results are that Kurdistan has developed conditions that support a future consolidation of democracy. However, there are weaknesses in the economic situation, rule of law and the arena of bureaucracy.

Swedish law is very keen on the fact that every person should be treated equal when facing the legal system. When it comes to cases concerning children, social workers and judges are expected to strictly obey the rules of the law but at the same time make individual judgements based on the best interest of the child, something that requires a great deal of empathy and knowledge. Is it possible to live up to the maxim about equality and to simultaneously see the individual needs? With so many different parties and angles in the case, how does one manage to make a solid appraisal of the situation that truly serves the best interest of the child?The purpose of this study was to examine the capability within the social services with focus on objectivity. More specifically it's aim was to find out how the social workers and judges see their capability of being objective in the investigations concerning children.

Emwiro Vibe is a complete system for seismic measurements. The functionality of the system was before the completion of this project handled using a software contruction based on a state machine. Emwitech, the company developing Emwiro Vibe, expressed a desire to replace this solution with a real-time operating system (RTOS). The project consisted of two parts. Firstly the existing software was studied, available RTOSes was evaluated, and the RTOS most suitable for the application was selected.