This master thesis has been a product realization process. Having BRIO:s walking cart as thestaring point the purpose was to further develop the principle of such products and at the sametime broaden their sector of use. The final result is to be regarded as a complete solutionmeant as a foundation for further development at the BRIO Company. The product aims tosatisfy the demands and needs of the target group called theon the go parent. Trends, qualityand purchase power are features that characterize this particular target group.The project resulted in a walking stool namedBRIO Circus after its source of inspiration.

In Sweden the real estate sector accounts for 33 % of energy consumption and just below 10 % of the emission of carbon dioxide. As a consequence of the external pressure from climate change it?s in everybody?s interest to reduce the energy consumption and thus reduce the emission of carbon dioxide. An additional incentive to reduce the energy consumption is the substantial increase of the energy price since the deregulation of the electricity market in 1996.In this study the techniques that exist to build multi-storey residential buildings with high energy performance will be investigated. Further the study intends to investigate the optimal energy performance from a real estate economic perspective.In order to investigate the optimal energy performance a model has been created with the parameters investment cost, rental revenues, operation and maintenance cost, discount rate and investment horizon.The result shows a relationship between a high investment cost and a high energy performance for newly constructed multi-storey residential buildings.

In light of the coming workforce shortage in Sweden the competition for human capital will be intensified on the market where employers compete in order to attract skilled labor. The competition will be most noticeable in the knowledge-intense industries, where the employees are seen as the companies? most valuable asset. The purpose of this paper is to examine how small knowledge-intensive companies can improve their position in the labor market by using the HR-model People Capability Maturity Model in order to affect their companies' Employer Brand. We take the basis of the theoretical framework in which we examine and identify the key dimensions of the Employer Brand concept and present the People Capability Maturity Model more closely.

Titel: Den kommunalt fängslade mellanchefen: En kvalitativ beskrivning av mellanchefers utövande av ledarskap. Inledning: Kommunal verksamhet är starkt påverkbar av sin omgivning och måste kontinuerligt anpassa sig till denna samtidigt som den strävar efter en förutsägbarhet. Denna komplexa miljö inverkar på mellanchefers möjlighet att utöva sitt personliga ledarskap, och därför ställs det krav på att man som chef är anpassningsbar och medveten om sitt personliga ledarskap.Problemformulering: Hur ser chefer i olika hierarkiska positioner på sin möjlighet att utöva sitt personliga ledarskap?Syfte: Syftet med vårt arbete är att undersöka, beskriva och skapa en förståelse för chefers möjlighet att, på olika hierarkiska nivåer, utöva sitt personliga ledarskap i ett sammanhang påverkat av inre och yttre faktorer.Metod: För att besvara vårt forskningsproblem valde vi att använda oss av en kvalitativ metod. Genom ett hermeneutiskt tolkningssätt och ett abduktivt angreppssätt så analyserade vi de sex semi-strukturerade intervjuer vi utförde.Slutsats: Den slutsats vi drog är att ledarskapsutbildningens utformning och den begränsade rörelsefrihet som ges, resulterar i en konflikt mellan organisationens mål och en chefs möjlighet att utöva sitt personliga ledarskap. .

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a topic that is becoming increasingly important in today's society. CSR is a concept whereby companies voluntarily integrate social and environmental concerns both in their business but also in interaction with their stakeholders. The society of today sets high expectations for how companies take their social responsibilities, especially in industries where the risks to individuals and the environment are high. In this study, we tried to answer the following questions; what kind of responsibility do companies in the plastics and chemicals industry claim to take and why might this be due? What differences exist between the investigated companies in the industry and what may these differences be rooted in? The purpose of this study was to obtain an understanding of the interest in working on sustainability in the plastics and chemicals industry.

The intention with this essay has been to examine how the public instances working with cultural heritage in Sweden deals with the housing built under the period of the so called miljonprogrammet (?the million programme?) during 1965-75. The interest in the built environment from the 1960s and 70s has increased in the last ten years within the field of cultural heritage. The purpose with this study is to examine which cultural values that are assigned to the housing of the million programme. The purpose is also, as mentioned before, to study how the field of cultural heritage deals with this type of built environment.

A third party access to district heating networks has been proposed in Sweden, to increase the competition on the district heating market. Such third party access could create opportunities for the agricultural sector as an energy producer. This study describes the technical, economical and environmental prerequisites for a farmer cluster to build and run a heating plant, fueled with local wood fuel. The heating plant in the described scenario is 8 MW and will supply a village of 1000 houses, and is fueled with wood chips exclusively. Supplying a heating plant with fuel puts high demands on the logistics, since there need to be a continuous flow of fuel. In the scenario, wood residues from felling and thinning is stored in stacks in the forest, and a few times a year chipped and transported to a storage area at the heating plant. In the study, an estimation of the profitability has been made by estimating the cost of the investment, personnel, operating and maintenance costs and costs for the fuel and ash handling.

Within all industries, there is a change in working time required; this also includes the construction sector. However, the way construction sectors are differentiated is by not having been given the opportunity to be practiced or tested.  The aim of this thesis that we have done in collaboration with the Concrete Industry was to investigate the possibility of developing an automated method for quality assurance of SKB at the site. The idea is to make the O-funnel to be more utilized and therefore ensuring that the appropriate concrete quality is provided which eventually would lead to a better development in the production process.The project has involved theoretical work and laboratory experiments. The theoretical work gave us a good foundation at the beginning of the project. After gathering the information and material, the laboratory experiments began by SCC in their laboratory in Hammarby. The collected data from the various laboratory tests formed the foundation for trying to relate measurements for consistency of SCC with each other and therefore find out how measurements from O-funnel varies with different concrete mixtures.

The aim of this study is to examine possibilities and barriers for an introduction of electric vehicles in Sweden. The study has an interdisciplinary approach and thoroughly examines the essential topics which influence the future of the electric vehicle. The study reaches from answering the question on why electric vehicles lost the game to petrol cars in the early 20th century, to sketch how the difference in total cost of ownership will be between electric vehicles and petrol cars for the coming 20 years. Apart from these subjects the main topics of the study are today?s and tomorrow?s situation regarding technology, charging, fuel, market and economic incentives from an electric vehicle perspective.

The industrial sector accounts for a large share of greenhouse gas emissions. To reduce its negative impact on the environment is crucial in the quest for a sustainable future. In discussions of the industrial sector's impact on the environment guidelines have been highlighted as a tool to assist the industries in their efforts to change the relationship between the consumption of energy and production. This by improving energy efficiency and a shift to the best available technology. During the past 30 years the steel industry has reduced its energy consumption per ton of steel produced by 50 percent.

Interest in alternative energies is high in Sweden today, particularly in the agricultural sector. According to the Swedish lantbruksbarometern (2009), almost all respondents consider the use of some form of alternative energy from the farm. While interest in alternative energies is large, attention to the alternative energy straw has fallen and is almost nowhere mentioned in the literature today. Three years ago, in the Lantbruksbarometern nearly 44% of the farmers would be willing to invest in straw as heating system on the farm. How do the farmers decide to invest in alternative energies? With this information a problem is presented for this paper.

The EU Services Directive has caused an intense debate across Europe. Its purpose is to remove obstacles to trade and to open up the public sector to increased competition. The Swedish labour movement has been deeply involved in the policy process, and union leaders have proclaimed the compromise reached in the European Parliament in April 2006 as a success.In the paper two major aspects have been considered: the meaning of the Swedish model and the process of Europeanization. The Swedish model previously allowed for a strong labour movement, through a social democratic hegemony, but the EU membership has implied new conditions for union influence. The paper examines how this change has affected the strategic choices of the Swedish labour movement, and how it has been manifested in the union's work with the Services Directive.

Uppsatsens utgångspunkt är samverkansarbete mellan det offentliga och civilsamhället inom ramenför den nationella Överenskommelsen inom sociala frågor. Kontexten är den samhälleligaomvandling och de välfärdsförändringar som skett sedan 1970-talet. Tidigare forskning inom ämnethar visat att konfliktperspektivet saknats inom forskningen av samverkan mellan det offentliga ochcivilsamhället.Uppsatsen bygger på det emancipatoriska kunskapsintresset vars strävan är att identifiera orsakertill missförhållanden och missförståelse som ligger bakom vissa fenomen, i det här falletkonsensusbegreppet. Uppsatsen lyfter fram maktasymmetri som en begränsande faktor inomramen för samverkansarbete mellan det offentliga och civilsamhället. Uppsatsen visar att det råderen oklar rollfördelning inom samverkansarbetet och de idéburna organisationerna vet inte huruvidaman är en röstbärare eller en serviceutförare.

Today every organization is committed to some kind of environmental scanning in order to get necessary knowledge of the world around them. The acquisition, organization and storage of information in combination with a strategic use, is today an important factor for a successful organisation in any sector of our society.In this Master thesis I have studied how an organisation such as The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (Svenskt Näringsliv) handles its information resources. I have also looked at the flow of information within the organization. The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise is Sweden?s largest business federation representing 50 member organizations and 55 000 member companies.

Many Swedish urban neighborhoods have since they were constructed suffered from a bad reputation and have had a lack of strong socioeconomic groups settling there. This study is about a suburb in a medium-sized Swedish town and the purpose is to find out which social problems that exist there. The aim is also to explain the actors who work with adolescents in the area, which interventions and activities are offered, and whether they can be characterized as pro-social, as well as how the cooperation between the actors looks like. A qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews was carried out, involving nine respondents, who are active in the public and nonprofit sector. The interview guide used is designed and divided into different themes based on the survey questions.