Banks and their products are traditionally characterized as high involvement, informational purchases and as such there is a need to shape the market communication to be logical and catering to the need for information that customers are bound to have. With the advent of social media and web 2.0 a company can no longer opt out of the online discourse regarding their company. As social medias are characterized by being an active media, tailored to personal exchanges and opinions, the match with the high involvement approach that banks usually have to employ is not always ideal. We have examined what happens when banks use different degrees of personal message content and sender profiles on Twitter. Our findings suggest that while some strategies generate higher WOM intentions, others may provide a greater level of sender credibility..

We have by Statistics Sweden (SCB) been given the task of using different dynamic regression models in order to forecast service price index for sea transport. The aim is to see whether these models provide better forecasts than those previously used. This essay aim to identify, estimate and evaluate the selected prediction models. Through our data material we were given access to 28 sightings of sea transport index during the period of 2004 q1 to 2010 q4. We have chosen to evaluate three different transfer function models, one ARIMA model and one naive forecasting model. The input variables we decided to test in our transfer function models were the price of petroleum products, the port activity in Swedish ports and the lending rate of Swedish Central bank. The results of our study suggest that transfer function models generally provide better models than the ARIMA model and the naive forecast model.

The aim with this paper is to investigate how the Social Democratic Party (SAP) deals with the question of economic migrants, or more specifically how the problem is represented by the Social Democratic Party, and how this representation has developed over time. The SAP's theory became recently contested by a competing theory that was caused by the predicted future demographic development in Sweden, combined with the EU's eastern expansion. The first factor contributed to the re-write of the theory, to a theory that saw economic migrants as a solution instead of a problem, in direct contrast to SAP's theory. The second factor was a direct threat to SAP's labour immigration policy. This leads to my second question, how did SAP respond to this pressure?The answers to these questions are achieved by using discourse analysis by applying a problem oriented theory on empirical material, constituting propositions, articles in mass media and parliamentary debates.

In this essay, we attempt to study and analyze the work towards equality between men and women at the university of Örebro, Sweden. By using discourse analysis we have the ambition to test organizational theory with a gender perspective as the explanatory model for the schools successful work. We also have the ambition to develop our theory and ad an organizational theme focusing on actors..

Investment in hedge funds is a relatively new phenomenon for investors compared with other forms of savings. In recent years, the interest has increased among investors in investing their money in hedge funds, given the protection against declines in the market they are aiming for. Their main purpose is to generate a high return at a low risk regardless of market trends. This they can achieve by having fewer restrictions that offer more flexible investment strategies and freer investment opportunities.The purpose of this paper is to identify how the selected hedge fund strategies have performed during the recent economic downturn. We also want to clarify the claim that hedge funds exhibit a positive absolute return regardless of what the market is performing.In order to answer the purpose of the essay and its problems, we have used a quantitative method with a deductive approach in the processing of data.

According to statistics two thirds of Swedish criminals relapse into crimes within three years (Brå, 2007). Researchers suggest a relationship between attitudes toward crime and delinquent behaviour (Andrews & Bonta, 2003), but whether these attitudes are implicit or explicit remains unclear. Therefore, the aim of this study was to measure both constructs. Using SC-IAT (Karpinski & Steinman, 2006) and constructs from the Theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985), criminals (N = 51) in three different prisons in southern Sweden were tested. Analysis yielded mixed results.

Even though battles have been fought in built-up areas for a long time, there have not been any specific theories connected to it. As the world becomes increasingly urbanized, the problem of not having any complete theories with which to analyze military operations in urban terrain becomes bigger. This essay aims to contribute to the field of military theory by investigating if Robert Leonhard?s theory of combined arms can be used in analyzing such operations and to be able to explaining the outcome of them. The main question posed in this essay is; to what extent can Leonhard?s theory explain the outcome of military operations in urban terrain? The method used to answer this question is a comparative method formed as a case study of two military operations in urban terrain, Operation Vigilant Resolve and Operation Phantom Fury, which both took place in Fallujah during the Iraq war 2004. The intention is to test Leonhard?s theory in both cases by assigning the theory several indicators, which are tested in each case. The result shows that the indicators appeared almost equally in both cases, even though one of the operations was said to be a success and the other a failure.

The purpose of the master thesis was to reflect and analyze music library activities and policies in the public libraries in the area around the city of Borås, in the south-western part of Sweden. With this thesis I also wanted to look at the interaction between the public libraries, the music school and the music associations in the same area. To investigate these matters, qualitative method was used in the form of interviews with seven librarians from seven different libraries and five representatives of different local music organizations. Other methods used were observations and source studies. The literature used discusses the role of the music department of public libraries as well as that of a music librarian working in a public library.

The aim of this study is to examine the religious landscape of Brazil, and based on the theory of secularization by Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart to explain why Brazilians are religious and not secular. The study is a secondary analysis that uses existing statistics to examine different units of analysis of Brazil?s religious landscape, economics and equality, etc. Based on their theory I find that Brazil is still religious due to the lack of security in the country. Brazil is insecure in terms of measures of socioeconomic equality, stable politics without corruption, and physical safety of the citizens in Brazil.

This study deals with branding at an individual level and aims to explore what a personal brand means, what benefits that?s obtained by actively working with a personal brand, as well as the strategies and methods used in the development of it. It has also meant a restriction in choice of interviewees made to informants who are familiar with and active in the personal branding process in their daily life. The essay is based on a qualitative research approach; six people working in various occupations were interviewed by a desire to generate information from different perspectives. The result shows that a personal brand is all about credibility, authenticity, and the image you present to others.

Tidigare forskning har visat att hundägare är mer fysiskt aktiva än de som inte äger hund. Deras motivation att vara mer fysiskt aktiv bygger på den sociala interaktionen med hund eller träningskompisar som hundträning/rastning medför. Med hjälp av Self-Determination Theory (SDT) undersöktes vad som motiverar just hundspannsförare att träna själv och hunden. Åtta personer som ägde hund och körde hundspann intervjuades. Frågorna kretsade kring tiden före och efter det att de ägde hund.

To understand the glass electrode needs knowledge from more than one level. The construction ofthe glass electrode is one part, an other is the composition and structure of glass. The Nernstequation have an important role, but also the sources of errors in the analysis and the calibration ofthe glass electrode. Focus for this article is how the glass electrode really works and how Gibbs freeenergy made the potential dependent of the concentration of H+and gives the logarithm to thefunction. Nikolskii's ion exchange theory starts to explain the question about how the potentialcreates and Baucke's dissociation mechanism made it more explicit.

This master thesis concerns the relation between law and the theory of the conceptual metaphor which has developed within cognitive linguistics. Although its main focus is abstract thinking, it also covers a wide range of aspects within cognitive linguistics, such as the prototype theory and radial categories. In order to address this relation, three questions will be dealt with. Firstly, does the theory of the conceptual metaphor have relevance to interpretation of legal rules and contracts? Secondly, can the same theory explain why a legal rule or a contractual term has been interpreted outside of its most given area of application? Thirdly, when an interpretation is not predictable from a legal viewpoint, can such an explanation answer to that fact? Answering the first question will require a descriptive analysis of the conceptual metaphor and cognitive linguistics.

This study investigates the potential of a rhetorical theory of knowledge to expand beyond its own domain and into political theory, specifically theories of deliberative democracy. Despite the increasing interest in communication in democratic theory in the last decades, the majority of theorists have not turned their interest towards rhetorical science. On the contrary, theorists often regard rhetoric as dangerous and incompatible with the deliberative ideal of reason. The aim of this study is therefore to defend rhetorical science by investigating how the rhetorical theory of knowledge ? as it is presented by Chaïm Perelman and Oldbrecht Tyteca, and further developed by Mats Rosengren and Maria Wolrath Söderberg ? can contribute to the understanding of deliberative democracy.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how masculinity and femininity are constructed in the magazine Veckorevyn, through a critical discourse analysis of 18 articles from six issues in 2011. This is done by using a variety of theories and previous research results, which is gender theory, the theory of late-modern society and media theory. The analysis shows that Veckorevyn depicts virility and feminine differently. Furthermore, pointing the results from the analysis that a change of manhood and womanhood takes place in the social practice. The selection of articles from the magazine also shows that Veckorevyn seems to promote gender equality. .