Background: Theoretical, it?s been questioned why dividends exists in companies based upon the fact that there is a separation between ownership and control. According to the agency theoretical perception, dividends is used as a manner to unify the interest of this separation, which in turn lower the agency cost, and increase the efficiency of companies.Purpose: The aim of this master thesis is to scrutinize and analyse the association between Swedish firms? owner structure and owner types and their inclination to dividend.Method: We attack the problem with a hypothetical-deductive research method by using the existence of a universal theory, the agency theory. From our theoretical framework we propose a set of hypotheses.

The overall aim of this thesis is to examine the production and repetitiveness of gender patterns with focus on girls in the swedish tween magazine Kamratposten. This is of importance due to the non existing research on Kamratposten concerning this specific topic. The aim is also to evoke a broader discussion about the relationsship between gender representation and pedagody. The theoretical framework is based on three concepts, namly Yvonne Hirdman?s gender contract, Judith Butler?s performativity and the idea of heteronormativity.

The meaning of the concept of psychosocial treatment is ambiguous. The purpose of this study was to examine how professionals within some care institutions, which provide methadone, buprenorphine or naloxone treatment, regard and carry out the psychosocial features of such treatment. Central issues discussed were; how personnel approach the psychosocial features of the treatment, what personnel regard as a focus in the psychosocial treatment, what conditions personnel consider affect treatment positively in order for it to be successful and how personnel see the relation between the medical and psychosocial features of the treatment. The method used was interviews with nine professionals in six qualitative interviews. The Theoretical perspectives and concepts used in our analysis were; the theory of biological dependence, an organizational perspective, Prochaska and DiClemente's Stages of Change Model, the concept of individual reality and the concept of marginal conflict.Results show that the conditions most important for successful treatment are; that the patient has a place to live, an occupation, motivation, that the patient take responsibility for his/hers progress and have realistic expectations about the effects of the medicine.

AbstractAuthors: Åsa Höjer, Karl WijkmarkTitle: The intercultural communicator. A study of cultures? influence on communication.Level: BA Thesis in Media and Communication StudiesLocation: University on KalmarLanguage: SwedishNumber of pages: 67Date of seminar: 2009-01-15Advisor: Jens CavallinKey words: Intercultural communication, culture, Hofstede´s cultural dimensions, anxiety and uncertainty, self-confidence, high and low context, verbal and nonverbal communication, Telenor, Pakistan, Scandinavia.Case company: TelenorPurpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate what cultural differences, regarding communication, that are present between Scandinavia and Pakistan. Furthermore the purpose is to illustrate which factors that are important for personnel working for Telenor, that are about to work in a foreign culture, in order to create effective intercultural communication.Methodology: The following study is a case study that has used a qualitative methodology with interviews conducted via e-mail. To be able to interpret and understand human experiences and situations a hermeneutical approach has been taken.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to understand how librarians develop their reference service. The purpose was to find patterns in how librarians work with reference questions. As a theoretical framework we have used research in the reference field. Where do the skills of the search process come from: education or experience? Answers were sought to the following questions: - How different are the search process in practice compared to theory? - Which similarities and differences are there among the informants? - How important was the education in comparison to the knowledge about the libraries collections? - How did the changes in the school system in 1993 influence reference education and what could the consequences be to the reference knowledge among librarians? We sent out a question form and a search question which was answered by 12 librarians in university and university college libraries.

In the essay, the balance between being an educator and a mother of a child with autism is explored in respect to how the roles might influence the actions of a pre-school teacher. Writing is used as a method of reflection, it gives the teacher a chance to take a step back and view her practical experiences from a novel perspective; conclusions are recounted throughout the teachers narrative. The essay is based on the following questions; which problems might arise in the meeting with parents such as Adams where there is a suspicion of autism for the child? Which advantages/disadvantages might the teacher?s personal experience of autism have for the role as educator? How would the dual roles as educator and mother of an autistic child best be balanced in the future?The essay highlights special educational and parent perspectives on the matter of autism. Professor of pedagogy Claes Nilholm, specializes in special needs education.

AbstractThis paper is about the organisation of the special needs education in three nine-year compulsory schools in Stockholm and the pedagogical thoughts and theories that underlie these organisations. The main purpose of the paper was to investigate whether the special needs education of these schools should be interpreted in accordance with a segregating or an including view on integration as these perspectives are presented by the Norwegian professor Peder Haug. In addition to this I also wanted to investigate if there were any historical arguments in favour of one or another of these perspectives that were still being put forward in today?s debate.The methods that I used were a study of literature regarding special needs education and interviews of a qualitative character with three special educationalists and a special teacher that were working on three different nine-year compulsory schools in Stockholm.The result of the study shows that a big part of the special needs education of the schools that I visited can be interpreted in accordance with the segregating view on integration.The organisation of the special needs education of the three schools differed slightly from school to school but the common trait was that the largest part of this work took place outside of the student?s regular classroom and sometimes outside of the scheduled school day.Two of the schools had special groups where students that were believed to have a need of special education got some, or their entire schooling. That the schools chose to build a big part of their special needs education upon solutions that should be regarded as segregating was motivated on the basis of an effect oriented view on education.

The purpose of this paper is to see how differences are handled in preschools, with a focus on children with homo- or bisexual parents. By doing this we wanted to see how the conditions for a child with homo- or bisexual parents looks like, in order to have their family conditions mirrored, confirmed and visualised in the preschool.The foundation for the discussion is a questionaire which has been answered by 229 preschool workers from 24 different preschools in the City of Stockholm. The result of the questionaire has been handled in a statistics program. Our analysis is based on the statistical numbers and the written replies to the open questions in the questionaire.As a theoretical starting point we have used Iris Marion Young?s ideas about how our society is coloured by an ideal of similarity that defines liberation as the transcendence of group difference, where the dominant group cannot see how their perspective is just one of several perspectives.

Title: A study about the purchasing process of ITLevel: Master thesis in Information Technology and Business Administration, 15 hp, EIK024Authors: Emelie Johanson and Mikael LindströmTutor: Peter Ekman, Mälardalens HögskolaKeywords: IT-investment, purchase, decisionProblem: In the last decades the amount of IT investments increased and has become an important resource within most organizations. IT gives the ability to compete and could also be a condition for many to be able to compete. In different businesses it could vary in where they put their focus when they choose an IT investment. This thesis examines how the purchase process of IT looks. How does processes differs in a bigger company versus a smaller company? From these two perspectives this study examined these research questions: Who makes the decisions whether or not an IT solution should be purchased? What aspects decide when companies are to choose between different IT solutions? Where in the purchase process do problems usually emerge?Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze the purchasing process of IT from a business perspective.

Marketing has been developed and revalued the last years. The consumer today is moreeducated and is therefore able to have higher demands. These requirements together with theincreased competition is forcing brands to find creative ways to reach their target market.Fashion has throughout history contributed to, and been influenced by, changes in society.Through all times, people have used fashion and clothing as a way to demonstrate their socialidentity and to be accepted. Companies in the fashion industry can be successful if theydevelop brands that attract consumers. To achieve this, companies must find newcommunication tools to reach out to the consumer, among these tools, we find the fashioneditorials.Our aim is to investigate whether product placement occurs in Swedish fashion editorials.Through our thesis we want to explore how consumers perceive the editorials and alsowhether if they are used as a marketing channel.The method is qualitative and the study is based on semi structured interviews and a focusgroup interview.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how genealogists create identity through their own research, and how they live with their ancestors in the everyday life. The questions at issue are: How do genealogists deal with concepts like ?native home district?, ?heritage? and ?family?. Does it exist a problem in creating identity and how genealogists regard other people with a different background, for instance immigrants. This thesis consists of three parts: in the first I present my aim, questions at issue, my method with qualitative interviews, and my theoretical frame from sociology and anthropology.

A significant amount of a teacher?s work consists of evaluation and marking of the students, which involves a great responsibility. This essay put the teacher?s evaluation of the students in focus. Today?s course Idrott och hälsa A, at the upper secondary school level, consists of 100 points and all students take this course apart from students attending apprentice programs.

The aim of this qualitative study was to examine bereaved individuals? experiences of support from their social networks and participation in support groups. The theoretical framework is based on theories about social support and parts of the attachment theory. Data were collected from four interviews and analysed by the study?s theoretical framework.

The thesis explores how the category religion is used discursively in Swedish public debates and in what way the discourses can be related to debate-positions. The thesis also exploresquestions of power and how social identities are negotiated: which identities are madepossible ? and encouraged ? by the discourse, and which are being excluded?The specific cases chosen are: (i) the election of Omar Mustafa as a substitute member of the governing board of the Social Democratic party in April 2013, (ii) the appointment of Elisabeth Svantesson as Minister of employment in September 2013, (iii) the debate concerning male circumcision (2011-2013), and, (iv) the debate about Jewish home education(2012-2013).The theoretical and methodological perspectives used in the thesis are discourse analysis and Pierre Bourdieu?s theory of social fields, usually interwoven together. Discourse analysis is mainly used to explore how the category of religion is attached to central binaries in the debates such as faith/politics, private/public, secularism/fundamentalism, etc., and also how chains of equivalences are established. Bourdieu?s theory of social fields is used tocontextualize the discourses in the specific debates and relate them to orthodox and heterodox debate-positions.

This thesis presents a comparative study of image registration at two picture collection libraries. The two registration systems are analyzed as to the theoretical principles behind them and their practical application, and related to theoretical tools for subject analysis and bibliographic standards. While a growing number of picture collections now digitize their material, generally accepted standards and methods for the registration of digital images are still lacking. Many different systems coexist, often developed in-house in response to ad hoc needs and based on traditional registration tools created for textual documents, resulting in internationally incompatible mixed-format systems. The two picture collections examined here, however, have opted for similar, standardized tools for registration and subject analysis, and while there are differences in their application and focus, they have both considered issues of cross-system compatibility.