The aim of the study was to understand how the family home secretary reasons and thinks and how they express themselves in their actions towards the family home?s biological children. The method used is qualitative semi-structured interviews, involving six family home secretaries from four different municipalities. The results were analyzed with the help of two theories ? the theory of grassroots bureaucracy and the sociology of childhood theory.

The aim of this study is to study how sustainability policies are implemented and perceived in the operations of a Swedish fashion company. The fashion industry is affected by strict controls when it comes to transparency and reporting of sustainability efforts. This contributes to a strong focus on sustainability. The theoretical framework revolved around institutional theory where the phenomenas of decoupling and recoupling were central. A qualitative case study was conducted where interviews were the primary source of data.

The purpose of this thesis was to create a deeper comprehension for the role of place marketing within Swedish municipalities and how it is applied to attract visitors and residents. A case study was performed to obtain this purpose. Interviews with three northern municipalities were conducted in order to retrieve essential information. This was compared to previous studies of place marketing in order to find similarities and differences. The results of this study showed that municipalities emphasise on creating an attractive image, directed to the residents as well as to people outside.

The aim of this study is to find and highlight the differences and similarities in the strategic communication in two real estate businesses with different proprietaries. In order to achieve the purpose, theories and previous research on public relations, strategic communication, mediatization, framing and new public management has been used. The study was conducted through interviews with two different organizations, Lerstenen who is based in Umeå, and Övikshem who is based in Örnsköldsvik. The analysis and results showed that the key difference between the firms was the spontaneity that influenced the private one, in contrast to the public firm that relied on solid structures to manage their communication. The results also showed that differences in basis conditions both allowed and hindered the possibilities with the communicative efforts that the two firms could do..

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) issues have been received much attention in businessand management practises globally. Jensen & Yeh (2009, 3) state that ?The agenda ofCorporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has emerged as a factor in the process of globalization,and Chinese companies may sometimes feel pushed into this agenda without a clearunderstanding of the rationale behind it?. China?s textile and apparel industry, amanufacturing-based economy with its products bounding up with the consumers worldwide,has been facing enormous pressure to take CSR initiatives, particularly in relation toenvironmental issues and labor standards.

This study is on how small companies can use the Internet as a part of their marketing strategy to gain a leverage on their competitors with small means to survive and expand in the global market. Many Swedish small companies still don?t have a sufficient knowledge on how to use the communication channel despite the various advantages the Internet offers.Case studies were conducted of how AdLibris, A-lotterierna AB and SF-bokhandeln perceived the importance of using the Internet as a part of their communications strategy.This new communication channel demand new ways of applying traditional marketing principals. Careful analysis of the interviews and how the answers relate to new and old marketing theories makes the bulk of this study. The conclusion is that the Internet solely is not enough, a combination with traditional marketing tools is the way to succeed in their marketing efforts.

The purpose of this thesis work is to formulate a model with methods that describe key success factors to get understanding and awareness in organizational change projects. We have used a project within the township of Gothenburg as a case and connected to this single project the purpose is to identify key success factors to get understanding and awareness among employees within the township of Gothenburg. We hope that our result will be useful in other large organizational change projects. Theoretic basis for our study have been models and methods, while our purpose have been to construct a model with suitable methods for anchoring. Theories about coaching and process management are examples of methods to get understanding and awareness among employees in change projects.

The absence of female directors on Swedish corporate boards is currently a hot topic for both politicians and business leaders all over the world. This thesis aims to discuss reasons for the scarcity of women on boards in Swedish publicly listed companies as well as what actions are taken to alter the composition of these boards. A rigorous selection of gender theories have been used together with data collected from in-depth interviews with mainly board members and nomination committees. Extensive analysis has led to findings that historical perceptions of differences between men and women linger as of today, which prevents women to reach top executive levels as well as board positions. The increasing use of headhunters has encouraged companies to look beyond male-dominated networks in an attempt to widen the range of potential board nominees.

Entrepreneurial failure is probably a subject that is not well understood. This might have to do with the methodological difficulties of screening out failed entrepreneurs. In this thesis a tool is developed for analyzing supposed entrepreneurial failure. In this model entrepreneurs are surrounded by different stake holders. By using the failure deconstruction model to analyze my own entrepreneurial effort I find that it has neither been a successful project nor a disastrous one.

This essay captures the process toward a democratic transition in South Africa and tempts on analyzing the efforts made by civil society before the negotiation with the government in the beginning of the 90´s. The method used is a case study.By applying the theory of Elisabeth Jean Wood about the importance of continued mobilization, I try to answer the question: to what extend did civil society influence the democratization process. The focus of the study lies on the years of intensified popular mobilization, from the start of the 80´s until the beginning of the 90´s.The results following this study shows that COSATU, Congress of South African Trade Unions) and ANC(African National Congress) played both a crucial role for the democratization process in South Africa. UDF, however played a role in the process, but not in the same significant way that COSATU and ANC..

This masters thesis deals with smoke spread via ventilation systems. One aim of the thesis is to investigate and explain the differences in efforts to prevent smoke spread via ventilation systems in different countries. A second aim of this thesis is to investigate how frequently occurring smoke spread via ventilation systems in Swedish buildings are. A third aim is to investigate how uncertainties in input variables to smoke spread calculations will affect the result of calculation. To be able to do this the most important input variables are identified and analysed.

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.

What impact and effects are created by the placement of an international ranking? Could it be that a top rank is detrimental to an entire country's efforts to fight corruption?This bachelor thesis in political science is about Swedish corruption. In essence, so questioning the Transparency International's indexed rankings that placed Sweden in third place. Issues concern since if the third placement has created nonchalance and a careless mentality in Swedish government and in particular in the municipal operations. Research results show that Transparency International's rankings have low validity and low reliability and that the government is not acting sufficiently to prevent and fight corruption.

The purpose of this research is to examine the implications of the provisions in the Swedish Code of Corporate Governance (the Code) concerning auditor attestation of the internal control report. We will focus on how the auditors? augmented responsibilities will affect the efficiency in the audit process.Our research indicates that the main benefit from reviewing the internal control report is achieving more reliable internal controls, which results in greater prevention of misstatements in the financial statements. This will affect the efficiency in the audit process since the auditor can place more reliance on internal controls when performing audit procedures. This implies that the benefits of preventing misstatements could outweigh the efforts and resources spent on reviewing the internal control report..

The aim of this qualitative study was to explore which inner conceptions about the abused older women the professional social workers had and how they experienced the enconter of an abused old woman in an intimate partner relation. The theoretical background is social construction by Berger and Luckmann. This theory was uset to analyze the transcribed interviews. This study is based on nine interviews with five professionals in social services, three volunteers from the voluntary sector and one social worker who worked in a community based support group for abused older women. The result of this study shows that older women were often abused, by a relative they were dependent on, in their home.