The theory of ?security communities? is generally understood as ?dependable expectations of peaceful change? between groups and whether or not the African Union can be said to meet that criteria has been contested in the research community. One of the central disagreements lie in the nature of the region?s conflicts, of which a majority are intrastate but with tendencies of transnational involvement. This paper seeks to understand how extensive this involvement is and how it affects the possibility of classifying the African Union as a security community.

The purpose of this investigation was to find out more about students? spontaneous ideas about properties and transformations of matter. Examples of matter chosen are such which students know about from everyday life and focus is mainly on the questions if students know that all matter has weight and that matter is preserved in transformations.The method used is semi structured qualitative interviews with individual students. Different experiments were carried out together with the students who afterwards were interviewed. However, the students show varying answers and no generalizations can be done.

This thesis seeks to investigate how Swedish first class hotels by use of IT can improve customer service and thereby increase the share of loyal guests. The authors have conducted a qualitative study predominantly consisting of an interview-based case study at one of Stockholm?s largest independent hotels. To get a broader and more generalized picture of the hotel industry four smaller studies at other hotels in Stockholm were also conducted. The findings suggest that the use of IT can improve the communication between the hotel and its guests and make possible a continuing relationship between visits that strengthens guest commitment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the attitudes and willingness towards climate compensation in air travel. The study discuss if people feel a personal responsibility about the environment. Earlier research shows that tourists are positive towards climate compensation, but in reality very few use this service. The main question is: Which are the reasons for travellers not to use climate compensation? The used methodology is qualitative and based on ten interviews with people who have travelled by air one or several times since January 2007, when the service was first established.

The purpose of our essay is to study the institutional-, demographic and accounting theoretical factors that influence an organisations actuarial commitment.The research was performed through a web based survey, with complimentary telephone interviews, directed to companies listed on Stockholm Stock Exchange A- and O-list on the 30 of November, 2003.Our data was analysed with a Median test, Kolomogorov-Smirnov test, T-test and a Mann-Whitney test. The purpose of the Mann-Whitney test was the low number of respondents that took part in the research. The Kolomogorov-Smirnov test was done to determine whether the population variances was equal or not. The data showed that organisations with a majority of female employees assume a lower salary increase, and a higher average age than other companies with a male majority. Only 2 of 11 hypothesis can be accepted as temporary truths but several other visible relations are indicated in our research, but can not be statistically proved.We think that the major problem with our is the time it was performed.

Academic research indicates that critical publicity can have a detrimental effect on brand attitudes. The negative effects have been showed to be buffered by cognitive bias elicited by strong favourable attitudes, commitment, brand certainty and brand identification. It has been proposed that the influence of such bias in a news reporting context should be studied, something that also is interesting from a brand perspective. The study therefore investigated whether a well-publicised scandal in one period can lead to increased critical publicity in the coming periods. A case study of Swedish grocery chain ICA was conducted.

This thesis has aimed to study steering process and institutionalization in the context of educational policy work. This has been conducted by using empirical material from the political decision-making process that preceded the implementation of a new national program on how principals should be educated and certified. By using an aggregated theoretical point of view containing new institutionalism and traditional Swedish curriculum theory, the process was analyzed from different perspectives. The results depict a process that contained several actors who tried to shape the principal education program differently. From the theoretical perspectives, the decision-making process could be understood as an act of both self-interest as well as trust in their own beliefs and cultural values.

In organizations today Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is becoming a common means to try to gain legitimacy and credibility for their business. A successful CSR strategy has the potential to generate positive outcomes for a company and reaching out to stakeholders about the corporation?s contribution in the field is an important part of the work. In this study I examine how the employees at Max Hamburgare receive the corporation?s efforts within sustainability, how it is perceived and what this means to the employees.

This paper investigates the internal product costing system in one of the Swedish banks with the purpose to evaluate the quality of its product costs and possible implications on decision making. The study shows that the current system distorts product costs by, among other things, using relative allocation of costs and time and by allocating all costs to individual units of products. We therefore propose an alternative product costing system, which mainly draws on ABC theory but is also adapted to the specific needs of service companies and of the Bank. This proposal is intended as a solution in this particular case and not to be generalized in other contexts. We hope however to add to the understanding of why more complex costing systems, such as the ones based on ABC theory are, according to previous studies, not widely used in practice.

Our paper is targeting mainly students, but also all other people interested in social work with children. The purpose of our study was to investigate how the social workers experience and handle their work with children, who have been exposed to sexual abuse, and what kind of support and guidance the social workers are offered, in order to handle their working situation. We chose to perform a qualitative study, by the use of interviews, since we found it to be the most appropriate way to gather the information. Our conclusion is that the work with these issues is emotionally burdensome and requires a great commitment, however it is essential for the social workers to maintain a certain distance to their work, in order not to influence their personal lives. It is through experience and knowledge that the social workers learn how to handle their working situation.

Trovärdighet är inte ett givet ting inom samhällets ramar. Det krävs en ömsesidig relationsuppbyggnad mellan parterna. Syftet var att belysa tidningsutgivarnas legitimitet i förhållande till innehållet i tidningen. Studien genomfördes med kvalitativ metod och avsåg två fallstudieobjekt, en morgontidning och en kvällstidning. Dessa var Göteborgs-Posten och Göteborgs-Tidningen.

Our paper is targeting mainly students, but also all other people interested in social work with children. The purpose of our study was to investigate how the social workers experience and handle their work with children, who have been exposed to sexual abuse, and what kind of support and guidance the social workers are offered, in order to handle their working situation. We chose to perform a qualitative study, by the use of interviews, since we found it to be the most appropriate way to gather the information. Our conclusion is that the work with these issues is emotionally burdensome and requires a great commitment, however it is essential for the social workers to maintain a certain distance to their work, in order not to influence their personal lives. It is through experience and knowledge that the social workers learn how to handle their working situation. We also learned that although the work with sexual abuse against children gave birth to different emotions of the social worker, the social workers feel satisfaction with their work, by helping the exposed children. We hope that our paper will inspire and encourage to further studies in the area, since there is still much to be explored. .

Volunteering involves performing tasks without receiving any compensation for it. Interest in this idealistic commitment to non-profit organizations is growing and the primary reasons for this is to help other people, pursue their interests and contribute to the organization.The purpose of the study is to examine what it is that motivates individuals to commit to non-profit organizations. This study will only examine aid organizations. In order to answer the question four different theories have been used and these are the most fundamental theories in this field. These theories are Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Hertzberg's two-factor theory, Self-Determination Theory and The Gift.

Syftet med detta arbete var att ta reda på om intresset för naturvetenskap hos eleverna i år6 ? 9 påverkas av tidigare lärares intresse och engagemang i dessa ämnen.Tio stycken lärare som jobbar i de tidiga åren i grundskolan intervjuades om deras intresse för naturvetenskap och hur de bedrev sin NO-undervisning. Tidigare elever till dessa lärare fick i en enkät svara på frågor om deras intresse för NO och när de hade NO för första gången.De flesta lärare som jobbar med elever i år ett till fem undervisar i biologi, resten av ämnena är det olika med och beror på deras egna kunskaper och intressen. Eleverna tycker bäst om kemi och teknik medan biologi hamnar längst ner på listan.Resultaten visar att lärarnas engagemang och intresse för NO i de tidiga åren i grundskolan inte har särskilt stor betydelse då det gäller elevernas intresse för naturvetenskap i de senare åren i grundskolan..

Under de senaste decennierna har allt fler företag gått över från en hierarkisk organisationsstruktur till att vara mer decentraliserade. Denna förändring kräver en anpassning av styrmedel. Employer Branding används som verktyg för att vara en attraktiv arbetsgivare för både befintlig och potentiell personal och innebär ett slags värdestyrning. Studiens syfte var att undersöka hur Employer Brandingarbetet uppfattas av de anställda. En fallstudie genomfördes där sju anställda på ett företag intervjuades genom halvstrukturerade kvalitativa intervjuer.