The European Union is struggling to maintain democracy and tries to increase the participation among the citizens in Europe. The European Citizens? Initiative, ECI, is a platform established by the European Commission to allow citizens to propose new legislation. ?Water and sanitation are a human right! Water is a public good, not a commodity!? is the first ECI that has met the requirements.

The main aim of this master thesis was to see the process of an interactive online reference service from idea to final product. The reference service we have studied is developed and used by the Library of the National Institute for Working Life in Stockholm, Sweden and goes by the name phibi. Our goal was to review the whole realization process from the reasons why a service like this was created, how the service was introduced and implemented inside the organisation and finally what the result and consequences were for both the library staff and for the users of the service. Phibi is designed to be a tool that fosters communication between the library staff and the remote users where the users get the opportunity to be helped with their questions by the library staff although they are not physically present in the library. To understand the process we conducted a case study with 11 interviews of the library staff, the superior and the initiator to phibi.

Title:Change strategies in the transition towards a cashless banking systemLevel:Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business AdministrationAuthor:Elin Lånström och Vildana SmailagicSupervisor:Stig SörlingDate:August 2013Aim:In our study, we compare what it is that drives a bank to implement changes in their business, what problems these changes may bring, and how organizations deal with these. We do this by studying how different banks choose to relate to the handling of cash.The questions we ask ourselves are:? What lies behind the decision to make changes in cash management?? How is the change implemented in practice?? What do banks think this change will mean for the future?Method:The study was conducted with the help of a qualitative scientific method. We conducted interviews with representatives of four banks, and made use of secondary data in the form of scientific literature and scientific articles.Result & Conclusions:Organizations implement changes in order to adapt and achieve balance with their environment but also within the organization itself. Our study shows that the decision to introduce cashless branches is mainly a result of banks' efforts to become more cost efficient.

This thesis seeks to investigate how Swedish first class hotels by use of IT can improve customer service and thereby increase the share of loyal guests. The authors have conducted a qualitative study predominantly consisting of an interview-based case study at one of Stockholm?s largest independent hotels. To get a broader and more generalized picture of the hotel industry four smaller studies at other hotels in Stockholm were also conducted. The findings suggest that the use of IT can improve the communication between the hotel and its guests and make possible a continuing relationship between visits that strengthens guest commitment.

In the field of maintenance management there are but a few models an organization can use. The one model that has risen to the status of being the de facto standard in Sweden is pm3(på maintenance management model). The aim of this study is to lay the groundwork for a new method of evaluate the use of pm3within organizations. Today there is no uniform way of performing such an evaluation, which is necessary in order to diagnose the performance of the systems maintenance organizations.In the process of creating our own method for performing this kind of pm3audit, we further developed the ideas from a study by Lagsten & Nordström (2013) that was performed at the county Region Skåne. The authors of that study had developed ideas about using method rationale as a basis of creating a method for pm3auditing.

Vårt syfte är att undersöka om och hur budgetens roll skiljer sig åt mellan en offentlig och en privat hälso- och sjukvårdsorganisationer. Vi har baserat vår uppsats och våra slutsatser på intervjuer, som vi gjort på Blekingesjukhuset i Karlskrona och S:t Görans sjukhus i Stockholm. Vi har gjort intervjuer på fyra till fem olika nivåer i båda organisationerna, för att få ett djup i vår undersökning. Vi har kommit fram till att det finns stora skillnader mellan det offentliga sjukhuset och det privata sjukhuset. Den största skillnaden fann vi vara budgetuppföljningen, men att det inte finns någon större skillnad mellan sjukhusen på lägre nivå, däremot på högre nivåer kan vi urskilja relativt stora skillnader.

The thesis consists in two parts. The purpose of the first part is to analyse how the court may interpret rules, principles and legal cases to decide whether a reconstructor bears liability towards the debtor and the creditors. In the second part it is discussed and argued for how the reconstructor´s damage liability should be drawn up and applied so that it according to economic theories should be as efficient as possible. In the thesis it is shown that it is not a non-contractual liability or a liability based on authority mission. The reconstructor´s liability is instead based on a commission concerning an intellectual service.

In this essay I point out that the presence of  ?Otherness? plays a key role in the novel The Beach by Alex Garland, and that the text relates to a colonial literary tradition. I?ve mainly used the distinction of Otherness and cultural representation presented by the postcolonial theorist Edward W. Said to guide me.

Införande av en HR Shared Service-organisation syftar till att omfördela HR-funktionens personalarbete och separera det administrativa personalarbetet från det strategiska. Med hjälp av ny teknologi kan HR administration flyttas över till HR/IT-system och HR-arbetet kan i större utsträckning ske via självservice som hanteras av ledare och medarbetare i organisationen. Den senaste tidens forskning kring HR Shared Service och det nya sättet att leverara HR-service visar att gamla sampels- och handlingsmönster fortfarande lever kvar mellan ledare och HR-medarbetare. Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka hur HR Shared Service har införts på ett Telekom företag och vilka konsekvenser det fått för ledarna på företaget.Den empiriska undersökningen har genomförts med en kvalitativ metod i form av 11 intervjuer med ledare och projektdeltagare för införandet av HR Shared Service-organisationen. Tre deltagande observationer genomfördes med avseende på hur ledare söker information på HR-portalerna.

The aim of this essay was to describe and interpret the managements and organizations impact regarding the caregivers working conditions. To examine this we used a qualitative method. We completed two group interviews and five individual interviews with a total of fifteen enrolled nurses that worked within elderly care. In our interviews we found that the enrolled nurses felt that the organizations economic interests collided with their personal values regarding good quality elderly care. We also found that the caregivers experienced that they had an impact on their working conditions and that their employer was the main reason for making it possible..

The purpose of this paper is to view Karlstad Municipality and their financial support to non-profit organizations within equestrian sports. Despite the varying representatives of various equestrian sports in Karlstad, there seems to be a single beneficiary within the sport when it comes to financial support from the municipality. The policies and plans concerning cultural development are directly compared to the Karlstad Municipality and its contribution to these organizations within equestrian sports. Through interviews and reports I have studied the process of financial support from the Karlstad municipality using an intersectionality theory based on Nina Lykkes guide on gender studies and feminist theory. Pierre Bourdieu?s theories on field, habitus and capital are also used as a method to enhance the understanding of equestrian sports and its role in modern Swedish society. The conclusion is that the Karlstad Municipality is, for a several of reasons, promoting non-profit organizations within equestrian sports, which are operating as riding schools.

Companies and organizations recognize the importance of collaboration to develop responsibility and ability of change in the workplace. The concept of collaboration was a relatively new idea in business in the late 1980s. In a Nordic context, collaboration is a traditional approach that companies use successfully for competition, survival and development. Collaborative organizational efforts cover management of committed people who can help companies achieve flexibility, customer loyalty, innovation and economic success on a challenging and competitive market. Many theorists believe that collaboration is the key to integrating technology, financial competence and innovation.

This essay is a study that contributes to the larger research question ?Why do farms shut down?? The subject was chosen because it is a relevant problem that needs to be studied more. This study's boundary is to investigate the reasons for decisions leading to the farms at the Torstuna community, Fjärdhundra, changes in any activity scale or the outlook of the entire farm. When a decision is made, there are usually several reasons behind it and it is these reasons which this essay is aiming to study. The question "What are the reasons for the elderly to live on the farm even though the farm is not cultivated by them?" is also covered in the study.

 This study is made, on behalf of Västerbottens Fotbollsförbund, with the purpose to investigate how the 2008 financial crisis have affected the sponsorship to the voluntary sports sector in the Västerbotten region, with focus on the womens elite football teams. The background of this study was to investigate the effect of the financial crisis to help the voluntary organizations in the future. The study was carried out with a qualitative approach as depth interviews with ten people representing both the voluntary organizations and the sponsoring companies, which one was a previous sponsor. To understand and interpret the result of the interviews we used models such as the stakeholder model, the A-ERIC model and a communication model for sponsorship from literature such as Donaldson and Preston (1995), Mitchell et. al.

Research now shows that the Individual Educational Programs (IEP) are dominated by individual- oriented actions. This despite the fact that the school`s policy documents advocate that IEP should be viewed in context of the school`s activities. Support must be seen from a holistic perspective and the student`s difficulties will be related to the whole school environment. In an attempt to understand why the individual- oriented actions are still there, I have studied how specific IEP are formulated, and how it relates to the school`s policy documents.In the study, I used discourse theory as a method. By examining the I E P in educational activity, I wanted to find the meaning with which the concept of individual, group and organizational level were filled.The results show that the IEP in comparison with the policy documents mainly differ on the definition of group and organizational level.