Working life changes, just like the rest of today?s society, at an accelerated pace. It is through changes and challenges that human beings develop, personally and professionally. Changes are often met by resistance. The purpose of this study is to see how different factors influence individuals? experiences of change.

This thesis work is made by Torbjörn Johansson on Karlstad University for Uddeholms AB. The assignment in this thesis work was to investigate tough cutting in three different tool steels: Vanadis 4 Extra, Vancron 40 and Sverker 21. The research was to compare the wear of the tool after cutting in each one of the tool steel alloys. The research was also made to see if the tool cutting in Vancron 40 has a better wear than the tool cutting in Vanadis 4 Extra and also compare the results with Sverker 21. All three of these alloys are a part of Uddeholms AB:s range of products, and is used in applications like forming tools and knife tools. Vancron 40 is a powder steel with a very good combination of mechanical properties like ductility, adhesive strength and hardness.

The report describes an ecodesign thesis performed by the author at the ÅF EcoDesign Center. The basic idea of ecodesign is to develop products with a minimized environmental load, without neglecting other significant product aspects such as function and price. During the last couple of years the public interest in environmental friendly products has increased, which has made it possible for companies to make a profit from their investments in ecodesign. To meet the increasing market for ecodesign services ÅF started the ÅF EcoDesign Center, where the company has gathered all of their competence in ecodesign in order to help companies to become greener. The task was to develop a tool for an Eco Screening.

This paper aims to study the Armenakis´ theory of readiness, "are they ready?", which consists of five key components affecting the outcome of an organizational change. In this case study, the intention is to investigate if any component is important; alternatively if it is possible to discern a pattern between components, i.e. how they correspond to each other. During the past 30 years have a research group lead by Armenakis has studied organizational change and how resistance to change can be avoided by preparing employees in the introductory phase of change. The main object for Armenakis is the question "what determines whether the employees (change recipients) adopt and support, or reject and resist a change".

This paper aims to study the Armenakis´ theory of readiness, "are they ready?", which consists of five key components affecting the outcome of an organizational change. In this case study, the intention is to investigate if any component is important; alternatively if it is possible to discern a pattern between components, i.e. how they correspond to each other. During the past 30 years have a research group lead by Armenakis has studied organizational change and how resistance to change can be avoided by preparing employees in the introductory phase of change. The main object for Armenakis is the question "what determines whether the employees (change recipients) adopt and support, or reject and resist a change".

The topic of this paper is puppets as an educational tool in preschool. The purpose of this paper is to examine the puppets potential as a tool for creating pleasurable learning in preschool. The method of collecting material for the essay has been qualitative research interviews with four informants. The prerequties for writing this essay has been good. There has been some literature on puppets and basis for my investigation, there have been informants with experience of puppets.

The main purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine what librarians in seven public libraries experience as major change in their work tasks. We are also interested in exploring how these changes influence librarians? ways of working. In addition to this we want to explore if librarians have experienced change in relation to user?s expectations and demands and if so, how they are met.

This bachelor thesis covers fire protection methods of structural steel and the aim is to develop an information tool designed for inexperienced structural engineers. The information tool covers basic fire protection methods and the general way to produce a fire resistance for structural steel. The layout of this information tool is a simple folder that contains information about the most important steps when producing fire protection for a steel structure.The thesis starts with a general overview of the fire protection needed in buildings to fulfill national legislative and regulatory requirements. To get an understanding of how steel components behave during the influence of fire, a brief overview is presented of the material properties of steel. This chapter also contains a review of previous research in the area.

The complex, ever growing and changing environment, requires that today's organizations are dynamic and willing to change in order to stand competitive.This awareness has made change number one priority in almost all organizations' agenda.We live in a world that is constantly changing, yet many organizations fail to change successfully. When a change occurs in complex environments with multiple stakeholders, it immediately increases the complexity and the challenges of the change process.A complex situation may arise when, for example, partial outsourcing of the corporate information system infrastructure. Two of the most difficult challenges that organizations face today is to conduct a successful change process and managing the effect of a change, such as arising expectations. It is very common for change in an organization not to achieve the desired result or that they even fail. There may be a lot of reasons for these failures.

The aim for the project was to develop a risk analyse tool for measuring the fire safety level in Cultural Heritage buildings of Visby, Gotland. In 1995 Visby were taken into the Unesco:s World Heritage List with the explanation ?Visby is an outstanding example of a Northern European walled Hanseatic town which has in a unique way preserved its townscape and its extremely valuable buildings? One of the demands for the tool was that it should be easy to use and result into a ranking level in examined buildings. The user of the tool is recommended to be personnel in the fire department. To develop the tool a Multi Attribute Decision Making (MADM) method was used.

The aim of this study was to examine what factors experienced psychotherapists emphasize as central and change developing in psychotherapy. The intention was to highlight the therapists' personal thoughts and experiences of psychotherapeutic change. By personal interviews with three cognitive and three psychodynamic psychotherapists, data was retrieved and then analysed with a qualitative phenomenological and hermeneutical approach. The study revealed great accordance between the psychotherapists regarding the importance of therapeutic relationship, factors connected to therapeutic treatment and flexibility regarding to the method of treatment. Moreover, it has been revealed that psychotherapeutic change in both treatments of psychotherapy is due to integration between emotional and cognitive processes.

Intranets has been marketing as the tool for solving the organisations information problems. My interest is to see how an intranet works in an organisation. This study was an investigation about the use of EkaForum, the intranet of Eka Chemicals, at the Rollsbo division. The study aimed to evaluate how EkaForum is being used, firstly as a transmitter of information and secondly as a communication tool for the organisation. The study was constructed as a quantity survey based on a questionnaire with 24 questions and was sent out to the staff of Rollsbo division.

Usability is a well-known term in system development. Today both consumers and organizations aim to increase usability. The purpose of the study is to gain knowledge about inexperienced users? interactions with websites and concretize that knowledge for future studies.Interviews have been conducted within two areas where experienced web developers with extensive programming knowledge brought know-how while inexperienced users without any programming knowledge have given their views. A number of existing tools for web publishing have been analyzed.

This study in the subject of forest planning is made for Sveaskog and its aim is to develop tools that prognosticate outcome in terms of volumes per sort from not yet cut forest stands. The degree of detail is just to get reliable results for at least one months volumes, for Sveaskogs own forestland in the market region of Norrbotten that is about 100 000 m3fub. The course of action to accomplish this is regression analysis and the data consists of cut tracts on own forestland in Norrbotten during the years 2006, 2007 and 2008. That is a little more than 4 million m3fub. Two tools were made.

The aim of this study is to compare attitudes to change among innovation and economics students and teachers at one of the universities in Sweden.Data about students? and teachers? attitudes to change was gathered using a survey.Keeping in mind that knowledge can lower ones resistance this study is based on a hypothesis that individuals from the innovations program have a lower resistance to change. The study is also based on earlier research in regards to comparisons between students and teachers.The results of the study show that teachers have less resistance to change than students. Individuals in the innovation program are however less resistant to change than individuals in the economics program.One can discuss whether or not results of the study show that the hypothesis is correct.The difference between individuals in the economics- and the innovation program are statistically significant and has moderate effects in reality. The differences between teachers and students are statistically significant but only have a small effect.It is however a starting-point for future studies that will possibly explore the subject more profoundly..