According to the theory of elitist democracy civic political participation should be reduced to participation in the democratic elections. This essay examines whether a high rate of institutionalized political participation beyond the elections leads to: (a) that those who are included gets a more favourable treatment at the expense of the common interest, in other words that their self interest threatens the political equality, (b) reduced freedom of action for the politicians and the headmasters, (c) the emergence of vague conditions of responsibility. These hypotheses are examined in an empirical study of user-boards at four schools on three locations in southern Sweden. In these user-boards the parents are in majority and have the right of decision, which has been delegated to them from the local government and the headmaster. The main conclusion is that, based on this empirical investigation, there is no support in any of the hypotheses.

On the 17th of January 2002 the Swedish government presented a bill to theSwedish parliament, proposing ways of strengthening the Swedish democracythrough reforms for increased elements of participatory democracy. A publicreport on the state of the Swedish democracy had been released two years earlierwith similar enthusiasm for participatory democracy. However, the participatoryideals of these two documents were strongly criticised by a group of scholars.The aim of this thesis is to analyze and compare the arguments articulatedbetween the years 2000 and 2002 by the actors mentioned above, and to examinetheir relation to arguments concerning political participation, articulated bythinkers from previous times. By classifying the arguments into different groupsdepending on their content I find that both parties in the Swedish argumentationfocus on the effects of participatory democracy on political equality, on theefficiency of the political decision-making and the quality of the decisions beingmade, and finally on the personal character of the citizens. Among the argumentsarticulated by thinkers from previous times, similarities with the Swedishargumentation can be seen as well as important differences.

There is currently no activity or behavior meters validated for sows under Swedish conditions where the sows are loose-housed during farrowing and nursing. An activity meter could in particular be used to detect sows that are getting ready for farrowing. Assistive technology in order to register different behaviors would be extremely useful in research and breeding. In this study, a HOBO Pendant G data logger was validated for two different functions. First, the function as a pure activity meter in which the accelerometer's ability to detect an upcoming farrowing was evaluated, and second, the accelerometer's ability to distinguish between the behaviors standing up, sitting down, lying ventrally and lying laterally on the right and left sides was evaluated. The accelerometer was attached to a collar around the sow's neck, and was recording its location every two seconds for six hours a day for ten days on a total of twelve sows.

This study investigates the corporate sustainability activity, linked to the company's core business, which is a relatively unexplored field in a Swedish context. The study examines how the organization has used management control for its sustainability activity within two social initiatives; and whether these initiatives have generated value for the organization and involved stakeholders. Management control of social initiatives are examined within the theoretical framework of The Sustainable Balanced Scorecard and the organization's value creation contributions are outlined in accordance with a definition of the concept of Creating Shared Value. The method used for the implementation of the study is a qualitative study, embodied in an illustrative case study of a large Swedish company operating within financial sector. The empirical data was collected through 12 in-depth interviews with representative interviewees within the organization and with other stakeholders involved in the company's social initiatives.

AimThe aim of this study has been to inquire into how the Swedish Golf Federation can make their implementation organization more efficient. The intention with the essay has also been to conclude with a proposal for organization structure for the Swedish Golf Federation. The questions of issue have been: How does today?s implementation organization look like? At which level and within which areas do the interviewees consider that the major problems are found today? How do the interviewees consider that the implementation organization should look like?MethodThrough a strategic selection in cooperation with the assigner the Swedish Golf Federation 15 interviewees have been chosen. The data collection has been executed in form of semi structured interviews.ResultsToday?s organization for implementation consists of one central function in Golfens hus with approximately 75 salaried employees, 21 district federations and 485 clubs.

The purpose of this essay is to examine which factors that influence the design of internal control in municipal context and how well it works. We choose seven municipals, where we interviewed the administrative managers, the chairmen of the committees and two persons of the staff in each activity unit. The interviews were performed by telephone, due to the keeping of the essay?s timeframe.The theory in our essay comprises eight hypotheses. These hypotheses were operationalised into different variables aiming to make statistical tests possible.

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the structured and evidence-based assessment tool/method The Brief Child and Family Phone Interview (BCFPI) trough a social psychology perspective of conversation. The aim was especially to seek an understanding of the method considering aspects of children?s participation. The research question was: how do the method users apprehend the advantages and the limitations of the BCFPI method considering aspects of children?s participation.

The purpose of this study is to examinehowdemocracy andstudent participation hasbeen developed inthethree curricula for upper secondary school. To find this out, I have used the following questions:?Howare the conceptsof democracy and student participationformulated in the various curricula Lgy70, Lpf94 and Gy11? ?What changes with regard to these formulations have been made between the curricula Lgy70, Lpf94 and Gy11?The essay is written so that I have interpreted my empirical material to make a discourse analysis in which I analysethe three curricula of upper secondaryschool with the intention to highlight how the ideal of student participation was supposed to look like. The source material that I use in the essay arethe three curricula;Lgy70 , Lpf94 and Gy11 .Student participationhas had a major role in allthecurricula,but ithas changed in how it was madeand how it would be implemented. Lgy70stresses thatformal and collective participation is important, but there are indications of ashift to a more personal and informal participation forthe students.

Denna studie beskriver innebörden i begreppen användbarhet och Activity Theory, samt hur den senare kan användas för att stärka utvecklingen av användbara webbplatser. Studien är genomförd ur ett utvecklarperspektiv. Resultatet av studien visar att användbarhet är en egenskap som uppstår i användandet av en artefakt, detta pekar både teori och empiri på. Studien visar också att Activity Theory kan användas på flera sätt för att stärka utvecklingen av användbara webbplatser. Vi anser att de resultat vi kommit fram till i vår studie gäller inte bara för utveckling av webbplatser utan de gäller även utvecklingen av informationssystem och informationsteknologi i en vidare utsträckning..

The Swedish model for developing the national infrastructure is based on increasing the cooperation between municipalities, government and businesses. The method to establish the infrastructure in Sweden is the geodatastrategin. The effort to implement the geodatastrategin has resulted in an interaction model, Geodatasamverkan. The purpose of this study is to alert municipalities and to investigate the usefulness of their participation in Geodatasamverkan. The study also presents examples of different applications where geodata can be used within a municipality. The report is based on literature reviews, surveys and interviews. Online Surveys were sent to some of Sweden's municipalities to get an overall idea of ??how they make use of geodata and their general attitude towards Geodatasamverkan.

This study is based on the discussion of the rapid development and use of the Internet and its role in transforming the religious landscape. More specifically it focuses on the Swedish Muslim cyber landscape and how this has changed over the passed twelve years. Göran Larrsons study Svenska cybermuslimska miljöer i början av det 21 århundradet (Swedish Cybermuslim Enviroments in the start of the Twentyfirst Century) from 2001, is being used as a starting and reference point. The general purpose of this essay is to study religious change online. The specific aim is to investigate if and in that case, how and why the Swedish cyber-Islamic landscape has changed and developed in the last twelve years.The questions to be answered in this study are:- What Muslim actors (groups, individuals and organizations) are represented on Swedish web pages in 2013?- Have the Swedish Muslim cyber landscape changed with respect to the number of web pages, content and actors since 2001, and can these changes be understood and analyzed with the help of existing research on religion and new media and Islam and Muslims in Sweden?The result of this essay shows that there has been a dramatic change regarding the activity in the Swedish Muslim cyber landscape.

AbstractBusiness, or business decisions always involves an endangerment from the company?s aspect, but when it comes to business with foreign countries the risk profile looks quite different from the profile the company has when its doing business inside the country. Therefore, it is extremely important for an export company or import company to carefully consider the risks that are enclosed with the deal, before he makes the decision to enter a deal. One of the most important risks a company have to considerate when doing business with foreign countries is the currency risk. A company is exposed to currency risk when either long-term or short-term changes in the exchange rate may affect the result of the company, competitive position and growth.

Studies show that activity based costing (ABC) is not widespread in practice even though it has been present in the academic world since the 80's. This thesis examines the reasons for the discrepancy between theory and practice through a case study of a Swedish manufacturing company. The intension is to answer the question of what contributes to the choice of precision in product costing.We found arguments for increasing precision in product costing but not to the extent of a full-scale ABC implementation. The company's estimation of the value of increased precision. In the study three company unique factors were isolated that affected the company's estimation of value; drifting purpose of product costing, historical use of product costing and knowledge about product costing..

The aim of this study was to investigate a health intervention at a Swedish telecom company, with regards to behavioral, cognitive and somatic stress, experienced health, and absence due to illness. A further aim was to investigate the employees' perceptions regarding the health intervention. Questionnaires were collected from 139 employees at the customer service departments.Results indicated that the health activity bowling to some extent could predict lower behavioral stress. However, the most important predictors of stress and perceived health were lack of meaningfulness and quantitative demands. Lack of meaningfulness was also a predictor of absence due to illness.

When searching for better and more practical interfaces between users and their computers, additional or alternative modes of communication between the two parties would be of great use. This thesis handles the possibilities of using eye and head movements as well as voice input as these alternative modes of communication. One part of this project is devoted to find possible interaction techniques when navigating in a computer interface with movements of the eye or the head. The result of this part is four different controls of an interface, adapted to suit this kind of navigation, combined together in a demo application. Another part of the project is devoted to the development of an application, with voice control as primary input method.