The aim of this study was to gain insight into how two enterprises work with competence development and thereby study how the relationship between competence development and workers, employees, look like. The focus was on the workers motives and motivation towards a participation in a competence development course, their attitude to education, and how the transfer of skills gained from the course, into the workplace looks like. Further on, the work situations influence on the workers competence development has been taken into account.In the study, six people were interviewed in the role of either manager, coach or course participant who are employed in two different enterprises in the south of Sweden.The results showed that the participants were motivated by a strive for personal development or that the participants viewed education implementation as a part of the professionalcareer, which has resulted in a positive attitude towards the competence development course. The managers? motive for decisions about education was to change the prevailing attitude among the staff for the better and thereby strengthen the company?s brand. The work situation has encouraged the desire to participate in developmental education as the feeling of control has encouraged the workers to further development.

Frölunda-Aspvik Säteri, a company just outside Stockholm within the agriculture and forestry sector, has developed a business idea around countryside tourism as a complement to their existing business. The idea is to offer a high quality and functional way of living in small cottages surrounded by beautiful nature and landscape of cultural importance. There will also be a range of additional activities available such as hunting, canoeing, cycling etc. The project should be done with minimum impact on the surrounding environment and the importance of the ecological system should be at the forefront of all business decisions. At present the company wants to have a better understanding of what the future trends are within tourism, how its business idea fits in with future trends within tourism and how to stay competitive.The purpose of this research paper is to identify the social driving forces that have an impact on people?s lifestyle and choice of holiday destination in the future, and present how these factors affect the travel industry.

Children of today are surrounded by many different kinds of media. Books have to compete with new media like computers, video games, many TV-channels etc. The aim of this study has been to investigate the reading habits of 9-12-year old boys in their spare time, and their reasons for reading related to their use of other media. Our interest has been to shed light on the boys reading habits, their preferences and motives for reading and their reading functions. Even though our focus has been on their reading, we also have examined their use of other media and the function of this use.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to study the effects that geographical distance have on the control systems in a scattered organization and how this, ultimately, affects the employees in terms of loyalty and motivation. In order to do this, a case study has been conducted on a multinational travel group and its local branches in Thailand. The study is based on a selected number of theories focusing mainly on control systems in multinational contexts as well as on theories regarding communication and autonomy. The conclusion of the study is that geographical distance has led to a rather large autonomy for the local branches and that the headquarter to a large extent rely more on formal control.

Vätternrundan is an annual sporting event that takes place in the Swedish town Motala since 1966. It is one of the world largest recreational bicycle rides and attracts over 20 000 participants each year. This study focuses on event effects and how an event can be of value within the principles of place marketing. Within this study five representatives were interviewed with semi-structured interviews.The results show that the representatives describe Vätternrundan as a positive event which mostly generates positive effects for the city itself and for the people living and working there. The effects consist of the events ability to create awareness of the place, the possibility to extend the tourism season and several social effects like solidarity and interaction.The result also shows that Vätternrundan is a well-known brand and because of this it can be used as an advantage in place marketing.

The modern arena as we know it today has its origins from about 100 years ago. Since then a lot of aspects have been changed and developed. Arenas built in the same age tend to have the same features and configurations and can therefore be categorized into different generations. Stockholm is represented in each generation but the fourth that constitutes arenas of the early 21st century. Besides that there has been several arena constructions built through the entire 20th century and now most recently in 2010s.The overall motive behind arena investments can be categorized into two types.

Kina är idag en av världens ledande ekonomier och placerar sig på andra plats gällande landets BNP. Under de senaste åren har tillväxten av Kinas turistnäring ökat i en snabb takt. En av de bidragande faktorerna bakom detta är att regler och gränser har luckrats upp och ger kineserna möjlighet att besöka allt fler destinationer världen över. Från år 2000 till 2012 har Kinas utrikesturism ökat från 10 miljoner resor till 83 miljoner. Med sin stadiga årliga befolkningstillväxt beräknar UNWTO, United Nations World Tourism Organization, att 100 miljoner kineser kommer att resa redan innan år 2015.

The aim of this study is to examine how the Swedish writer Aurora Ljungstedt describes relations and desire in her En jägares historier, and what political message she tries to send her audience through that description.I have applied Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick?s theory of erotic triangles to the relationships in En jägares historier and found that they are structured in the way Sedgwick describes. The structure works to uphold and, when needed, re-establish patriarchal order in the book. Most female characters in En jägares historier are ? also in line with Sedgwick?s theory ? no more than articles of trade between men.

Transport is an important aspect to take account in efforts to achieve sustainable tourism development. If we do not change our behavior regarding travel, the consequences will be significant for the environment. This study examines the various transport operators on the two Swedish ski resorts if their websites and marketing are different from each other in the mode selection. The destinations are Åre and Hemavan Tärnaby. They studied modes are two Swedish airlines, two train companies, three bus companies and three taxi companies.These corporate websites are studied with a content analysis in which the results of the keywords that have been developed are scored according to different categories.

We can see an increasing middle age population in large parts of the world. People are healthier when they retire than they were before. As people grow older, physical and mental changes occur that can make the use of cars more complicated. The possibility to travel by car is important for many people to keep the connection with the society and to feel independent. How can Volvo cars face the needs of this growing target group?The purpose of this project is to make a car concept that responds to those needs, it is therefore important to maintain the values of Volvo cars.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att öka förståelsen för problematiken kring marknadsföring av upplevelser. Detta genom att undersöka hur turismupplevelser av äventyrligt inslag marknadsförs av reseföretag och ta reda på vad det är för känslor man vill förmedla. I den teoretiska referensramen har vi tagit upp tidigare forskning som ska ge en djupare förståelse kring de två undersökningsområden, upplevelser och marknadsföring, som omfattar denna uppsats. Studien är en komparativ flerfallsstudie där vi har använt oss av en kvalitativ innehållsanalys samt en retorisk analys i analyserandet av vårt material. Det undersökta materialet består av marknadsföringstexter från reseföretags kataloger.

In this essay I analyze the meaning of the concepts home and at home and the feeling of coming home. What is a home and what different interpretations are there regarding the concepts of home and being at home? What kinds of feelings are aroused by coming home? The world we live in offers great opportunities to travel, which in itself creates a perspective on the meanings of the concepts. The world we live in also forces people to move from their homes, families and countries due to various reasons, which creates various problems and a certain urgency concerning the concepts. I describe basic terms concerning the concepts, both regarding concrete definitions and more abstract notions, and then compare them with my own reflections.         Based on my writing project Coming home I discuss these questions in various ways.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine similarities and differences in qualitative experiences between formal and informal reading groups from the participants? point of view. The empirical data was acquired from interviews with nine reading group participants, of whom four of them participated in formal reading groups and five in informal reading groups. To analyze the empirical data, Louise M. Rosenblatt?s theory concerning reading and a method concerning reading groups by Immi Lundin were used.

Postmodernism and neo-liberalism is often thought of as two opposite conceptions of the reality and the world. This thesis takes on a critical view of this assertion and the main purpose was to perform a correlation between postmodernism and neo-liberalism. With different theoretical assumptions about constructions of thoughts, agency and structure and the welfare-state a theoretical framework was created. According to this framework the two isms were correlated to each other and the welfare-state to see if there where similarities or dissimilarities between the isms. The assumptions of this thesis are that there are correlations between postmodernism and neo-liberalism in the constructions of thoughts, namely similar view on epistemology.

Mergers between companies has become more and more common in Sweden and in the rest of the world with the motive to increase the competitive strength in the current markets and has an important role within organisational development of companies. When organisations merger there is not only buildings and objects that are put together but also their individual organisational structures, people, values and cultures. This can be a difficult process and can affect many people in how they think conscious as well as unconscious, feel and react.The purpose of this thesis is to gain a deeper understanding of how employees are affected following a merger when changes in the organisational culture come up, and how these changes are expressed.This thesis is delimited to investigate only one company, Skruf Snus AB and only focus on their business and employees in the region of Stockholm. The thesis contains a qualitative investigation with semi structured interviews that has been carried out with eight employees at Skruf Snus AB. The thesis is partly based on a model of Schein which describes the different levels in organisational culture and partly on some theories about reactions to change in relation to the integration between the employees following a merger.The results of the investigation indicate that with a merger the whole organisational culture is affected and therefore also the employees.