Swedish dairy production has during the last decades undergone considerable structural rationalisation and the number of dairy herds has decreased to less than 7000. At the same time the average herd size has increased and a large proportion of those investing in new buildings today choose automatic milking (AM). During 2008 more than ten percent of the Swedish cows will be milked with AM. The development has been faster than expected and the need for consulting has increased rapidly. This study aims to evaluate whether a check list originating from the FRISKKO (?healthy cow?) programme can be a useful tool when assessing how well the herd functions in various areas.

Background and problem:Theory and literature in the field of board recruitment are limited. The theory and literature that existed focused primarily on the recruitment of senior management and CEO. It was identified that no one had examined the factors that influence the recruitment of board members. The underlying factors might cause the board recruitment is not done from a purely efficiency perspective and therefore it is of interest to be examined.Purpose:The purpose of this thesis is to examine and give an insight into the underlying factors affecting the choice of new directors in large Swedish companies.Method:The thesis has had a deductive approach and been based on existing theory and literature to explain the factors that affect board recruitment. The study was quantitative and the sample consisted of all the major Swedish listed companies.Results and conclusions:The survey indicated that board members ethnicity and number of other board assignments were factors that influenced the board recruitment.

AbstractEqual opportunities from an employer brand perspective- What does the future manpower inquire?Authors: Erik Frick & Niklas HalldénInstructor: Karin JonnergårdExaminer: Sarah PhilipsonBackgroundWe are living in a society that originates from a patriarchy founded many thousand years ago. This has put women in an inferior position in the labour market. To promote equal opportunities we argue for that companies can utilise employer brand. Employer brand is a new theoretic concept that is being used more frequently among scholars and companies.Presentation of the problem? Which role do equal opportunities play to attract potential manpower from an employer brand perspective?MethodOur method has a quantitative approach and we have choosen to carry out a survey.

The aim of this paper was to describe hindering and facilitating factors in the transition from upper secondary school and employment for a person with Asperger?s syndrome. In the process we used general systems theory and made semi-structured interviews with five persons in the network of institutions and associations working with the individual. Our findings showed that the hindering and facilitating factors were basically the same depending of the environmental adjustments. The interviews highlighted the following factors: the recent general unemployment rate in Sweden, selfawareness of the individual and the surrounding environment?s knowledge of the individual?s impairment in relation to Asperger?s syndrome.

This study is about how students view the effects teachers have on their self-esteem and self-confidence. The theoretical background covers the consequences of success and failures, and the interaction between students and teachers, in regards of self-esteem and self-confidence. The purpose of the study was to examine what had in-fluenced the students? self-esteem and self-confidence in the interaction with teachers. To reach the goal of the study, several qualitative interviews were made with the following questions as base:? Which factors does the student consider to be of importance for their self-esteem and self-confidence in the interaction with teachers?? How does the student feel that these factors were affected concerning their self-esteem and self-confidence?During the analysis and systematization of the transcribed interviews, five factors emerged that effects self-esteem and self-confidence.

The purpose of this thesis is to study and determine how working in cross functional teams can generate value in an effort to facilitate innovation. An inductive scientific perspective is chosen as the research approach. A single case is investigated with the theoretical framework based on Resource Based View, Intellectual Capital, Innovation theory and theories concerning Cross Functional Teams. The empirical material has been collected through primary data; surveys, interviews and secondary data; literature, websites and further complementary data. The practice of using Cross Functional Teams will enhance organizational learning, knowledge transfer, increase communication and innovation, which in turn will increase the speed and performance of the new product development process.

To start a company on the Internet is something that has appealed a lot of people during the last couple of years. Some of the companies have succeeded in their struggle but a lot of companies have failed to live out their ambition. This paper deals with the concept of e-commerce and aims to study whether or not the companies that has succeeded has made use of business models and what other factors that is important that you wont find in any written theory.The paper also aims to study the concept of business models and what a business model consists of. To be able to do this research we have interviewed three different companies that are all active in e-commerce and have survived for at least three years. Two of the companies are classical web shops that sell products to their customers and the last one is a site with articles about hardware and IT business in general.

Humanity?s increasing consumption has resulted in an increasing use of resources and thus an increasing environmental impact. Hence, the environment has become an important political issue. The increasing demands from stakeholders on companies to "green" their products and work internally with environmental issues makes it more and more important for enterprises to address these issues. Small enterprises constitute the majority of all enterprises and therefore they have a significant impact on environmental problems.

The purpose of this essay was to examine how professional social workers work with follow up foster home placements. The study was based on qualitative interviews with ten professional social workers from different municipalities in Skåne in an attempt to answer the following questions:* What routines exist for the follow-up work with foster care?* What factors have an impact on how the follow-up is formed in the particular case?* How can the follow-up affect outcomes of the placement?* In what way could the work with follow-up foster home placements develop?The theories we chose to analyze our material from was the ecology of human development formed by Urie Bronfenbrenner and the theory of civil courage formed by Lennart Lundquist. The interviews were semi-structural which gave the respondents a chance to talk in a free way about the questions we presented.The result of the study showed that there is a difference in the way social workers form the follow-up work of foster care. The greatest difference is in whom the social workers include in their follow-up.

Objective: The aim of the study is to describe pupils' understanding of the mathematical concept of function. How do pupils define the concept of function? What images of the concept of function evoke when they solve tasks, which involve identifying and constructing functions?Theory: A student's thinking about a mathematical concept depends on more than just the formal definition of the concept; therefore Tall and Vinner introduce the term concept image to describe the role cognitive structures play when students learn about concepts. The cognitive structure includes all mental images, associated properties and processes that an individual associates with a given concept. According to Sfard, an individual's understanding of mathematical concepts may have different character: an operational conception, where a concept is conceived as a process and a structural conception, where the given concept is conceived as an object, that is, as a whole.Method: 16 pupils at the Science Program at two different upper secondary schools inSweden answered a questionnaire on the mathematical concept of function.

This study is about how students view the effects teachers have on their self-esteem and self-confidence. The theoretical background covers the consequences of success and failures, and the interaction between students and teachers, in regards of self-esteem and self-confidence. The purpose of the study was to examine what had in-fluenced the students? self-esteem and self-confidence in the interaction with teachers. To reach the goal of the study, several qualitative interviews were made with the following questions as base:? Which factors does the student consider to be of importance for their self-esteem and self-confidence in the interaction with teachers?? How does the student feel that these factors were affected concerning their self-esteem and self-confidence?During the analysis and systematization of the transcribed interviews, five factors emerged that effects self-esteem and self-confidence.

The main goal of this bachelor thesis is to present why boys and girls choose to enroll at the Swedish Baseball and Softball Academy, a form of sport profiled education given within the Swedish high school system. A secondary purpose is to present the types of expectations the adolescents have before enrollment, while also examining what they encounter as satisfaction factors during their time at the academy. The results show that the significant factors critical for the eventual enrollment are friends, passion and development within baseball or softball. Before the enrollment, students have expectations of good, quality and hard practices. The students state that factors such as friends and the community where the academy is located is important for their wellbeing and comfort.

The purpose of this report was to investigate what characterizes a good psychosocialwork environment, and whether it may have impact on a vessel's safe voyage. Thisreport is proposed to increase the understanding of what creates a good psychosocialwork environment and its potential effect on safety at sea. In order to find out thesuccess factors for a good work environment group interviews were conducted in socalledunstructured focus groups. During these conversations, the participants discussedfreely by the question "what is a good psychosocial work environment for you?? Thesuccess factors were thereafter applied on selected accident reports, to investigate theextent to which they were represented and taken into account.The results of the study show three categories of factors: colleagues, communicationand competence, where colleagues are the main contribution to a good psychosocialwork environment.

In January 2007 the Öresund committy changed its statutes to become a more politically oriented lobby organization. This change can be interpreted as one part of a continuously evolving process where the Öresund region is emancipating itself from the national states in a multi-level European environment. By focusing on this latest development the thesis puts forward the importance of political institutions, as well as politicians and civil servants as actors in them, as crucial factors in the process where the region is gaining political power. The thesis shows how the political cross-border cooperation in the Öresund region is being institutionalized which affects its power relations to other levels in the multi-level system, predominantly the national states. In other words, there is a connection between power and institutionalization.The Öresund committee has by gaining better access to policymaking agendas on the national levels proven that the organizational change has already started to bear fruit.

This paper deals with institutional and Structural factors' influence on democratic transition in limited multiparty regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa. Comparing the cases Kenya and Tanzania, of which the former has made a transition to democracy and the latter has not, this paper reaches the conclusion that political traditions, the coalescing of the opposition, and the elites ability to learn from the electoral process is essential for a transition to democracy. In the specific cases, the harshness of the Moi regime and the Tanzanian vision of national unity may possibly carry some explanatory power, alongside the pressure from international actors.These results have been reached through the application of a comparative case study, where democratic transition constitutes the dependent variable. It should be noted that a harsh definition of the term transition has been applied, according to which the incumbents actual loss of an election is a necessary indicator for transition. However, the Freedom House and Polity scores have been brought up as complement of this definition.