New laws and recommendations within corporate governance during the last years have affected the way board of directors work. The board is said to have and fulfill three roles: a control role, a service role and a strategy role. These roles could be understood by three theoretical theories: the agency theory, the resource dependence theory and the stewardship theory. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether, and if so how, the board work differs between two small firms based on these roles, given that one of the firms is a publicly listed firm and the other is a privately owned firm. Using a qualitative case study as research method we find that the board work differs between the two companies when it comes to these roles.

AbstractThis thesis explores how secondary schoolteachers in Swedish, prioritise from the Swedish language history materials. The study includes interviews with two Swedish teachers and inquiries with students in two classes at the social science programme (third year). The student literature that is used has been analysed and the teaching is compared with the Swedish central teaching plan. The results show that the students are weak in placing language at different historical time periods and make conclusions of this. The results from both the inquiries and teaching contents disclose a general weakness as it comes to Swedish language history.

Studies have shown that library employees often choose not to use readers? advisory tools but to instead rely entirely on their own experience, often doing the library user a disservice. However, very few have looked at why this is so. This thesis looks at to what extent thirty individual employees in thirty Swedish public libraries use readers advisory tools when helping a patron find a good book, with the major focus on what motivates them to use these tools and why some choose not to use them. It was found that readers? advisory tools where not used with any consistency and that many things influence the library employees? use of these tools.

I intend to examine how teachers interpret the purpose of preschools and the national curriculum and how they handle any problems rising due to the fact that the curriculum is just an instructional document and freely interpreted. Personnel working within the school system have different opinions on how to maintain a functional educational activity. How do they interpret the national curriculum and why? Are there any similarities or differences between different teacher?s views and is it possible to approach this in a constructive way? Is it really possible that personnel working at Swedish preschools are unaware of their purpose or is there another explanation?In this study I have worked according to the qualitative method and have been conducting interviews with the possibility to open follow-up questions with room for interpretation. A total of six people on four different preschools have been interviewed and their answers have been analyzed as a whole.The result from these six interviews shows that there are both differences and similarities in their interpretations of the purpose of the Swedish preschool.

This two years master´s thesis examines how books and literature can strengthen the contact between imprisoned fathers and their children, and the connection between the treatment of offenders and education in Sweden. The methods used are interviews and textual analysis. The theoretical starting points are influenced by Bernt Gustavssons works concerning the concept of education (the Swedish term ?bildning?) and Foucaults thoughts on the subject of power and its relation to knowledge and resistance.Through history many attempts have been made to ?cure? those who commit criminal acts by educating them, at first to enable them to get employed after serving their sentence, the education thus being for the greater good of the society in general, but since the 1940?s the aim has shifted towards education for the individuals own personal development and readjustment to society.The findings indicate that the service provided to prisons by public libraries play an important role for the inmates, as a source of books for amusement and diversion as well as providing the means for education. This thesis examines four reading programmes in prison, in order to establish their place in the tradition of education within the Swedish penal system.

Right now a major generational change is taking place within the banking sector. The new generation entering the labor market is often referred to as generation Y and it consists of individuals born between 1980 and 1995. Previous research has shown that the banking industry as a whole put a widespread emphasis on monetary incentives within the reward system. At the same time several studies highlight that individuals from generation Y are rather motivated by primarily non-monetary incentives.The aim of this dissertation is to explain how various monetary and non-monetary incentives affect the motivation of bank employees from generation Y. A positivistic research philosophy has been used with a deductive approach and a quantitative research method.This study indicates that bank employees from generation Y are motivated by retirement savings as well as a personal mentor or chief who draws attention to their development.

The purpose of the set of regulations as regards to accounting and auditing within the Union, is primarily to ensure a high quality of the large public companies financial reporting and hence protect the capital market investors. As the set of regulations also applies to the small companies, these are burdened by administrative costs that are disproportionate. To increase the competitiveness of the European companies, the European council has stated that it is essential to reduce the companies? administrative costs. The main principle is that all companies are under an obligation to statutory audit, however Member States may make audit exemptions for small companies.

The financial crisis in the beginning of the 1990´s the financial crisis had a strong impact on the Swedish economy. Some of the main actors in the crisis were the largest banks of Sweden which brought a huge amount of losses on themselves. One of the main reasons for this was that the banks focused on volume increases rather than on credit losses. The credit analysis process is performed differently these days and it is the development of this process that is the focus for the authors.This thesis is about the credit analysis process in the four largest banks of Sweden. The purpose of the thesis is to highlight which factors the banks include in the credit analysis process and in how small and medium size companies are treated in this process.

The purpose of this paper was to examine how youths, age 18-20, experience the verdict to the probation service and how it affects their lives. We have examined the relation between youths and the probation service from a youth perspective, what kind of support and intervention they receive and how their surroundings react and respond on the verdict. Our research was based on a qualitative method consisting of individual interviews with eight youths and one interview with a social worker from the probation service. We have used Urie Bronfenbrenner's "the Ecology of Human Development" as our main theory and the conceptions labeling, participation and the key terms adversity and protective environment to analyse and comprehend the material. We found that all eight youths were satisfied with the probation service and the help they had received.

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.

The increased specialisation and complexity in products and services has created the need for Swedish companies to focus more on their core businesses. This has resulted in them opting to buy services and products that lie outside of their core business from consultancy businesses or other types of suppliers. When companies describe their offers in internal and external marketing it is done often in terms of company or service attributes that are not based on customer value or offered value for the customer. The reason for this is that companies have not adapted their services to the different needs of their customers. As a result of this, they run the risk of offering the same services as their competitors and communicate values that the customers either do not understand or experience as value adding. By using the theory on the data collection from the case company we have an understanding and shown how the customer values can be developed from a service company?s internal and external prerequisites and competitive advantages.

SammanfattningUtbildning och kurs: Magisterprogrammet i service management, kandidatkurs SMT302 Handledare: Magnus Jirström och Veronica Åberg Syfte och frågeställningar: Vår intention med denna uppsats är att analysera om de ideella organisationer som vi har undersökt överhuvudtaget reflekterar kring service gentemot medlemmar. Skulle så vara fallet ämnar vi kartlägga på vilket sätt detta görs. Slutligen är vår förhoppning att uppsatsen ska kunna resultera i några förslag på områden där ideella organisationer skulle kunna praktisera service management. Vårt syfte utmynnar således i följande frågeställningar: hur arbetar ideella organisationer med service och vårdandet av relationer i dagsläget?, på vilket sätt kan service management tillämpas i ideella organisationer? och vilka styrkor och svagheter finns det i det allmänna arbetssätt inom ideella organisationer och vad beror de på? Metod: För att kunna besvara våra frågeställningar har vi framförallt använt oss av en kvalitativ analys av litteratur inom relevanta ämnesområden, såsom NGO, bistånd, service management, Gemeinschaft och Gesellschaft.

Technical products are becoming more and more complex, this means that the drivers, mechanics and service personnel?s need for assistance such as the service literature is increasing. In this degree project the focus is on the technical manuals of Scania?s Workshop Manual. Today, the information in the Workshop Manual consists of collaboration between text and illustrations.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att genom intervjuer med tre medelålders kvinnor, ta del av deras upplevelser av Adventsmarknaden och friluftsmuséets Lilla Julmarknad i Gamla Linköping. Genom intervjuer och deltagande observation vid marknaderna undersöker jag på vilket sätt informanterna besöker en marknad och hur deras syn på shopping och service styr deras besök. Uppsatsen belyser hur de shoppar när de besöker en marknad, hur de ser på service och hur detta påverkar deras upplevelse. Slutsatsen av denna studie är kortfattat att de besöker marknaden, och shoppar på tre skilda sätt. De definierar och uppskattar service på olika sätt och handlar olika typer av varor.

This thesis contains a usability evaluation of ?Barnplay?, a Swedish video-on-demand service targeted at children. The objective of the study was to identify usability issues in the video service and to develop measures on improving the user interface, with special focus on adaptation to the broad target group of 3-11 year olds.The study was conducted by first mapping established practices in designs of VOD-services targeted at children, followed by interviews and usability tests with children between 2-11 concerning their use of ?Barnplay?. Based on the initial data collection, a prototype was developed and then evaluated by usability testing and A/B-testing.The main conclusion of the study is the need of better individual adjustment of the video content selection to better appeal to different age segments within the target group.