We investigate the effects of various types of word-of-mouth (WOM) messages on consumer bahavior. The message is varied along two dimensions where one is valence and the other is whether or not it contains an explicit call for certain behavior or attitude change. We use an experiment in the form of a web-based survey. Five different scenarios were designed to represent neutral, positive, and negative WOM. The latter two came in two different versions - one with a recommendation and one without.

Contents:The evolution of today?s computer influenced society has taken giant steps towards virtual reality, game addictions and the possibility of not having to meet the people we communicate with. What is a reality today?To give a more concrete image of our question we?ve chosen the online game World of Warcraft as an example and to describe our connection to an alternative reality. We have performed different investigations, interviewed both gamers and non gamers, all this to give us the opportunity to see if the term reality has started to change in a direction that will allow us to call this alternative world a reality, or if it?s just a world wide phenomena of for example gaming addiction.

Abstract: According to previous research, it is not unusual for online poker players to create profiles which indicate they are members of the opposite sex. This phenomenon, known as 'Gender Swapping', is partly being utilized in a strategic fashion. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate whether or not the gender of an opponent has an impact on decision-making in an online poker environment. An experiment was constructed where subjects made 15 poker-related decisions against seven randomly generated opponents, consisting of three male, three female and one genderless opponent. The results indicate no significant differences in decisions against male and female opponents.

Meeting the pupils at work it is important to endeavor an adjustment of the education with the purpose of developing the individual person. To make this possible it requires, except for the intentions of teaching with an individual adjustment, the teacher to make oneself acquainted with the schools work and liability. This is especially important in the work with students with difficulties. for this group of students perhaps an alternative form of education would be to prefer.As method of investigation I used a qualitative case study with a teacher who uses, what I would call, an alternative way of teaching. as a teacher you should pay attention to, and be aware of, how you effect your pupils and with this as a starting point conduct oneself.

This paper is about the composition and function of boards of social enterprises. A social enterprise can be defined as a company, which is founded by users or external stakeholder in order to create jobs (or a work place), a meaning in live or to further integration. One tries to achieve this goal by a business activity and/or subsidies and/or neighbourhood projects. The amount of social enterprises grew steadily after the restructuring of social welfare in Sweden since the 1980. Alternative forms of welfare ? such as a social enterprise ? will probably grow further in importance.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine what role the new city library in Halmstad has for its users. The questions posed in this study are: What do the users actually do at the library? What roles are the most significant according to the users? Have the politicians succeeded in their intention of realizing a modern library according to the users? The theoretical starting point is Andersson?s and Skot-Hansen?s theory of four different roles of public libraries. In order to extend the model we added a fifth function; the one of aesthetical experience.

På dagens marknad råder hård konkurrens om konsumenterna. För att företag ska lyckas med att vinna marknadsdelar och tillfredställa oss med rätta produkter och image, gäller det att gå på djupet och undersöka oss konsumenter och varför vi egentligen shoppar. Nivån av njutning och tillfredställelse vid shopping skiljer sig åt mellan konsumenter. Den shopping som inte är nödvändig för att vi ska kunna fungera i vardagen, som används för att öka livskvalité och njutning, kallas hedonic shopping. Vid den hedonistiska aspekten av shopping blir konsumenten motiverad av den emotionella och underhållande dimensionen associerat med inköpen. Den utilitariana shopparen, å andra sidan, handlar varor målmedvetet och effektivt och påverkas därmed inte av den underhållande delen på samma sätt (Babin, Darden & Griffin, 1994). För att kunna kategorisera och djupare förstå den hedonistiska aspekten av shopping har sex kategorier utvecklats: adventure shopping, social shopping, gratification shopping, idea shopping, role shopping och value shopping.

In order to counteract and to discover unethical actions within an organisation, a growing number of Swedish companies implement a so-called whistleblowing system. The purpose of our essay is to study the mindset of companies and further analyse how this mindset affects the design and quality of companies' whistleblowing systems. To do this, we have used a qualitative approach by interviewing different Swedish companies about their mindsets and systems. The study determines that there seemingly are three different categories of systems of varying quality. In this study we have chosen to call them "internal system", "external system" and "combined system".

The purpose of this study is to see what obstacles and opportunities the staff on a residence for unaccompanied children experience when trying to integrate these children into the Swedish society. I was also interested in how the integration of these children worked. I have interviewed the staff with a qualitative method. The result was analyzed with the help of Diaz integration theory and Bauman´s theory "us and them", and also with the previous research in the subject. My conclusion is that integration is a complicated concept that is experienced and interpreted individually. There are both obstacles and opportunities in the work with the integration of unaccompanied children. The result shows me that the schools? role and the legal guardians function should have been better planned and framed from the start.

The effect of the salary system and age on the internal and external motivationThe purpose of the study was to examine how a fixed salary with commission and only a fixed salary, and age affect the internal and external work motivation of sellers. This was studied by a questionnaire and participants were sellers in the call center industry in Sweden. In total there were 112 sellers from nine different companies that responded to the survey. The respondents were divided into groups based on pay systems and age. The measuring instrument used was the Work Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation Scale which classifies the motivation of internal and external based on six subscales.

An employee that informs on illegal or unethical behavior in the workplace is what has been called a whistleblower. Employees that have become whistleblowers have often faced tragic consequences, like threats from the organization, unemployment, bankruptcy and divorce. The purpose of this paper is, on the basis of different ethical perspectives to describe the justification of the whistleblowing phenomenon and apply this to the Swedish whistleblower Ingvar Bratt who ?blew the whistle? when he found out that Bofors AB, the company he worked for, were smuggling arms to the countries Dubai and Bahrein. The method that has been used in this paper is what Björn Badersten call a normative ?givet att?- analysis.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how the history of mathematics can be used in teaching and whether pupils? attitudes to mathematics can be affected by this. In order to do this a school project about the history of mathematics is planned, implemented and analysed.The following questions are addressed:? Why use the history of mathematics in teaching?? How can the history of mathematics be used in teaching?? Can a historical perspective in teaching affect pupils? views on mathematics?The school curriculum emphasizes the importance of history in teaching. Literature, scientific articles and government inquiries call attention to the positive effects of including a historical perspective in teaching.The school project, which underlies this thesis, is put to practice by 25 pupils in a mathematics science profile class.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine how librarians, information specialists and teachers discuss Wikipedia within national (Swedish) professional journals. Questions asked in the study are: How is Wikipedia perceived in the professional journals? What different positions do writers and commentators take in relation to Wikipedia? 133 articles from 31 different professional journals in the period from 2001 to the middle of 2010 were analysed. The theory and method used is Laclau?s and Mouffe?s discourse theory from which we created our own model with sex different steps.

Med hjälp av musikvideon, Call on me av Eric Prydz ska vi ta reda på om detta är ett bra diskussionsunderlag vid jämställdhetsfrågor. Vi vill se om skolan kan använda detta som undervisningsmaterial. Genom att hålla en föreläsning för en årskurs 8:a där musikvideon får vara ett inslag vill vi väcka diskussion bland eleverna. För att kunna dra relevanta slutsatser kommer vi använda oss av pedagogisk dokumentation. Efter vår studie kan vi dra slutsatsen att relationen mellan lärare och elever är väldigt viktig.

The aim of this study is to examine whether the two factors SMB and HML in the Fama-French Three Factor Model proxy for default risk. The study is based on companies noted on the Stockholm Stock Exchange between 2003 and 2008. These companies are used to create the factors SMB and HML, as well as a default risk factor we call RMS. In a first set of regressions, we examine the explanatory power of the original Fama-French model on a set of portfolios consisting of Swedish companies of different size and book-to-market ratio. The default risk factor RMS is then added to the original Fama-French model.