Many organizations strive to be transnational. This means that individuals with different cultural background will work together. Countries around the world have their own culture, which mark the way individual?s think and act. Different values between leaders and their subordinates are often a key factor to misunderstandings and conflicts in transnational organisations.

Ever since it was first introduced in an article in the Journal of Finance 1952, Harry Markowitz? mean - variance model for portfolio selection has become one of the best known models in finance. The model was one of the first in the world to deal with portfolio optimization mathematically and have directly or indirectly inspired the rest of the world to develop new portfolio optimization methods. Although the model is one of the greatest contributions to modern portfolio theory, critics claim that it may have practical difficulties. Partly because the Markowitz model is based on various assumptions which do not necessarily coincide with the reality.

Previous research has shown that the psychosocial work environment and leadership have a significant influence on the employees work satisfaction. Still there is much to explore regarding the employees experiences about these two subjects. A qualitative approach was used in this study to increase the understanding of the employee´s experience of psychosocial work environment and leaders role affecting it. Eight semi structured interviews were carried out at two organizations with four interviews in each place. The data was transcribed and a meaning concentration analysis was conducted.

Background: First Line Managers are expected to create a health promoting work environment. Research has shown that the prerequisites for accomplishing a health promoting leadership are not always the best. Aim: The aim was to elucidate the prerequisites for a health promoting leadership as First Line Manager at a University hospital in Sweden based on competence, role, support structures and own durability. Results: First Line Managers at the chosen hospital seems to have rather good conditions for conducting a health promoting leadership. All respondents did have a university degree and most thought that their competence corresponded well with the role.

The purpose of this essay is to state a fundamental model which can describe the sounds of the city, emphasizing on its rhythm. The essay is based on a theoretical study that deals with essential elements to describe a soundscape. The theories presented are founded on R. Murray Schafer's theses about soundscapes, Bert De Coensels theses about rhythmical sound patterns and Ambjörn Hugardts view on rhythm. The model that is presented stresses the importance of a multidisciplinary perspective when one attempts to understand and describe a soundscape.

When a helicopter is flying, the dynamics vary depending on, for example, speed and position. Hence, a time-invariant linear model cannot describe its properties under all flight conditions. It is therefore desirable to update the linear helicopter model continuously during the flight. In this thesis, two different recursive estimation methods are presented, LMS (Least Mean Square) and adaptation with a Kalman filter. The main purpose of the system estimation is to get a model which can be used for feedback control.

The elderly care is an area of great importance to women. Women are more often in need of elderly care; they work with the service and provide a majority of the informal service. Research shows that managers? work-related prerequisites are significantly different between the male dominated technical administration and the female dominated care and educational administration. Studies also show that what the highest managerial organisation gives priority to, often permeate the whole organisation.

This thesis will address a problem concerning availability of information systems at an enterprise within the financial sector and its external suppliers, so called trusted third party. The information system resides on the internal network of the enterprise and must be available to both employees of the enterprise and the trusted third party simultaneously. This contradicts the company policy which disallows third parties access to the internal network. The HAVECA-model introduced in this thesis provides a framework of methods, each solving a sub problem identified in the model. The identified methods are hardening, verification, control and assurance, together supplying a method for continuously securing the internal network against a trusted third party.

Digital preservation is a relatively new subject to Swedish archives. Alhough computers have been used for a long time, preservation has been made on paper and stored on shelves. These days a lot of cities in Sweden have investigated how to best secure the digital information for the future through electronic archiving, e-archives. One option is to hand in the information as soon as possible, but to let the producer keep the information ownership yet some time. The idea is to let the producers of the information answer questions and hand out material, since they are more competent on their field.

There are widespread discussions about the use of retouched models in media, ranging from bloggers to legal decision-makers. Research shows that there are negative psychological effects on especially females being exposed to idealized, retouched model images. The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of using retouched models in advertising from a marketing perspective, based on attitudes, perceived quality and purchase intentions.Based on theories about attractiveness, halo-effects and social comparison, an experimental study was done, investigating the different responses on above mentioned parameters to advertisements showing either retouched model images or non-retouched model images. Initially it was also tested if the retouched models were seen as more attractive than the non-retouched models. The results showed almost no differences between the reactions to the advertisements with retouched models compared to the advertisements with non-retouched models, when all respondent groups were analyzed together.

Research within gender and leadership has often focused on leaders in male dominated work areas, but quite recently interest has arise for examine leadership in female dominated work areas. This thesis analyzes possible differences connected to theories about gender stereotypes that may exist among male and female leaders within a female dominated organization. Further, possible underlying reasons to why or why not differences between genders might be found are investigated. The research question is addressed through a single embedded case study design at the Swedish public organization Försäkringskassan. The primary focus is middle managers, and twenty qualitative interviews were conducted with leaders and co-workers at two local offices and at the organizations headquarter.

Undersökningens syfte är att förklara hur chefer agerar vid ledningsdrivna och vid spontant uppkomna förändringsinitiativ i en organisatorisk miljö där det finns informella nätverk av specialiserade kompetenser. Arbetet kombinerar en kvalitativ ansats för att utforska och beskriva chefers ledarskapsmetoder genom djupintervjuer med en kvantitativ undersökning i enkätform riktat mot chefer och även mot deras medarbetare med specialistkompetens. Studiens slutsats är att de undersökta cheferna har metod och förmåga att skapa goda förutsättningar för förändring samt att stötta samverkan och innovation i informella nätverk inom den lokala enhetens kontext. Cheferna saknar dock god förmåga och metodik för att kunna utöka detta till att omfatta och inverka på företagets nyttoskapande som helhet..

Title: How to manage stress seen from a leadership perspective Authors: Lina Jonsson, Kristian Olsson, Mattias Olsson, Shabnam Tahajjod Supervisor: Marie Aurell Department: Department of Business Administration, IEM Course: Bachelor thesis in Business Administration, FEC 007 Question of issue: How can we understand stress managing at a workplace seen from a leadership perspective? Method: We have chosen a qualitative method for our thesis with inter-views as qualitative data collection. The interviews had a low grade of standardization. Result: On the basis of our question of issue we have drawn the con-clusion that it is important to create comfort at the workplace, that there are a safety and a feeling of handle the work tasks and that there is a plentiful information flow between managers and employees to manage to handle the workplace stress situa-tion..

Rimaster Kisa AB is a member of the Rimaster Group, the corporation was bought from Samhall AB in January 2007. The corporation is producing mechanichs needed by the Rimaster group as well for external costumers. Samhall AB is now functioning as a provider of labor for Rimaster Kisa, as the company is hiring personnel from Samhall AB. The company has earlier have had problems with their lead times being far too long. This has resulted in that the management decided to invest in a new edging press.

Mergers and acquisitions are common phenomenon in today´s society in order to increase shareholder value. Two years ago a fusion of Sweden´s two largest companies in the industry of real estate took place and even though three out of four mergers and acquisitions financially fail this certain case turned out highly successful. The aim of this thesis is to examine how the organizational structure and the management control have been designed and characterized the organizational performance and furthermore what are the success factors of the integration. By studying an acquisition and its potential effects on organizational structure and management control parallel to a model that describes the best practice guidelines for managers to successfully deliver value from their acquisitions, it can be shown that an acquisition has direct effects both on the acquirer and the acquired company and thus the new organizational structure. The main results, thus, is that through active leadership, increased specialization, and more decentralized and thus efficient management control a new organization has emerged consisting of the best features of two separate worlds..