The aim of this study is to describe how the cooperation between franchisee and franchisor evolves over time. The parties? work responsibilities are explored as an ingredient of the cooperation. Creation of relational aspects is also studied, as well as how adaptation of the concept is handled throughout the partnership. This study takes on an abductive approach and is based on interviews with franchisees of one franchise system, performed at different stages of the respective cooperations.

The visual representation of management (board of directors, chief executive officer and executive management) in annual reports is an area of scholarship that has not been explored much. In the present study a sample of 87 annual reports from business enterprises within a Swedish context, comprising about 300 photographs, was analyzed using an explorative method of analysis based on semiotics and grounded theory. The influence of the context on images raises a question discussed in the study: Should the photographs in the annual report be categorized as portraits, advertisements and others or should the annual report be regarded as a genre of its own? The photographs showed patterns of homogeneity regarding gender, dress, gestures, colours, pictorial compositions et cetera. The position of the (male) CEO is privileged, but he is also connected to the group through various means like dress and style, thereby further underscoring management as a male enterprise and demonstrating the importance of the suit and necktie in creating homosocial bonds.

This essay is a discourse analysis of the integration politics of the different parties in the Swedish parliament and the non-parliamentary party ?the Swedish Democrats?, as it is presented on their respective web pages. The overall purpose is to problematize and shed a light on how the current discourse(s) about integration are constituted. Also of interest is how these construct our knowledge and experience of the phenomena. We furthermore want to illustrate the social consequences of such discourses on the construction and organization of identities and groups, and, as a result, the courses of action that becomes available.

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.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka och analysera hur relationer ser ut mellan musikbolag och fans och hur de olika parterna upplever dem. För att uppfylla detta syfte har vi formulerat två forskningsfrågor:Vad kan fans uppfatta som värdeskapande i en relation med musikbolagen och vilka effekter kan detta få på relationen?Vad karaktäriserar musikbolagens arbete för att skapa och utveckla relationen mellan artist och fans?Uppsatsen är ett resultat av en kvalitativ metod med en induktiv ansats. Vi har genomfört semi-strukturerade intervjuer via telefon, Skype samt chattmeddelanden för att få en djup empiri från relevanta personer inom musikbranschen samt fans.Uppsatsens resultat visar att musikbolagens arbete med att skapa och utveckla relationer till stor del bygger på att identifiera vilka sociala plattformar som olika målgrupper befinner sig på. Utifrån detta skapas strategier för att kommunicera med fans och därmed kan relationer med dessa skapas och utvecklas och värdeskapande processer kan erbjudas till fansen.Vad fans uppfattar som värdeskapande är bland annat erbjudanden om tävlingar och förmåner så som förköp av konsertbiljetter.

The purpose of this study is twofold: First, to inquire how the George W. Bush administration plans to keep America safe from external threats and second ? based on the assumption that neoconservatives have influenced the Bush administration ? examine how neoconservative ideas have influenced this strategy to protect America. The research questions are as follows:What is the content of the Bush administration?s security strategy?How are neoconservative ideas reflected in this security strategy?To answer the first question, the main points of two studied documents were summarized.

Today many companies are global and can exist all over the world. It is more common that projects are conducted in different locations, from various cities in a country to nations in different parts of the world. To manage projects both traditional practices such as the Waterfall method and new flexible methods known as agile methods are used. How is the process affected when a project is distributed, when the team is scattered in different places? This makes it difficult to create a good project, something we will discuss and try to find solutions for.

This thesis examines the municipalities of Västra Götaland and the way they are prepared for crisis communication towards people with a foreign background. Over the past years there have been several studies that have examined the issue of crisis communications towards minorities but these are often focused on the target group. In this study, I focus on the authorities' actions. The theoretical approach is primarily an intersectional one and in this way the thesis is centred on the creation of different categories, the relationship between these categories and the possibilities working with these at the municipalities.On behalf of Region Västra Götaland, this investigation began with a survey that went out to the communications officers in charge of the crisis communication in each municipality. The ambition was to clarify the preparedness of each one and show how they relate to one another.

Syfte:Studiens syfte består i att belysa hur företagen som sponsrar ett idrottsevenemang anser att deras image kan påverkas och förändras via den ökade kommersialiseringen av idrotten. Metod:Studien bygger på en kvalitativ metod och det empiriska materialet samlades in via kvalitativa enkäter. Arbetets utgörs av en blandning mellan induktiv och deduktiv ansats. Teoretiska perspektiv:De huvudsakliga teorierna i studien utgörs av Jiffer & Ross (1999) A-ERIK modellen, Rushall & Barnes (2005) sju värdeskapande anledningar till ett sponsorsamarbete och Gwinners (1997) modell över image creation and image transfer in event sponsorship. Teorierna tillämpades för att undersöka hur en ökad kommersialisering av idrotten kan påverka företagens image.

The Employment Protection Act (1982:80) provides provisions regarding priority of re-employment. A few cases where these provisions have been subject to examination, have been discussed thoroughly in SOU 2014:55. In these cases the Labour Court has identified the question whether the provisions regarding priority of re-employment can be subject to circumvention in an illegal manner. The Labour Court has stated that it would be incompatible with the sense of justice if the provisions could be circumvented to the detriment of employees entitled to priority of re-employment. However, the Labour Court stated that certain conditions have to be imposed for the assessment.After analysis of the conditions, it is established that they are deemed to cause major difficulties for employees, why it is held that the purpose and the function of the conditions are not achieved. The purpose of the essay is therefore to investigate whether the application of the conditions imposed by the Labour Court, need to undergo modifications to meet the underlying purpose of the creation of the conditions.By reason of the difficulty with the conditions, the essay provides three different amendments in which two of the amendments are ascertained to not contribute to such an improvement that they should actually be applied.

Commercial expropriation occurs when real property is compulsory acquired by a private operator. This phenomenon is relatively new and has been criticized not only because of the rules concerning compensation, but also from the point of view of permissibility.An intervention in the protection of property must fulfill the requirement of important public interest set out in RF 2 kap. 15 § in order for it to be allowed. There is no definition regarding what constitutes an important public interest, the only thing that exist is a non-exhaustive list in the preparatory work. This in turn has led to the creation of a broad discretion when it comes to determining what constitutes important public interests.

The starting point for this thesis has been the great process of change that Swedish municipalities now arefacing due to the political directive of offering full-time employment to all part-time employees. The aimof the research is to create a decision support model for Swedish municipalities, which simultaneouslyintroduce the offer of full-time employment and an internal personnel pool. The factors that mayinfluence the personnel?s choice of employment level and the quality of the outcome, thus the financial result,are we also aiming at explaining. The empirical observations were found through secondary data as well asobservations from the municipality of Göteborgs Stad.

The objective of this study has been to examine which significant values are of importance in the telecom sector today, and in a continuing perspective yet to be. To ensure the factors of relevance in the study, we have identified three purposes: - Our first purpose is to clarify the eminent values in the competitive market of the mobile phone operators today, and the reason for its importance.- The second purpose is to understand the function of the brand regarding to Value creation and loyalty in the sector of mobile phone operators.- The third purpose is to explore the potential approaches for mobile phone operators to increase value.In this study, our approach has been a qualitative methodology by conducting seven interviews with respondents related to the telecommunication sector.As a result of the process, we find the need to divide the concept of value into two dimensions, which we entitle organizational related values and customer related values. We have found the values related to the characteristics of the market in aspects of its infrastructural features but also in regards to the homogenous core service.Our findings in the empirical data with support to our theoretical frame of reference, is the current highly important organizational related value of constant high result quality (well-functional technological aspect), and the value enhancer by a low price; the strategy of bundling also results in higher value. This result in customer related values that perceives as safeness, availableness and convenience. The brands are a significant source of customer related values with identity value, image value and assuredness. A continued advancement in process quality and individualization will imply greater customer related values of closeness, freedom and flexibility. .

The problem of separating a non-rectangular foreground image from a background image is a classical problem in image processing and analysis, known as matting or keying. A common example is a film frame where an actor is extracted from the background to later be placed on a different background. Compositing of these objects against a new background is one of the most common operations in the creation of visual effects. When the original background is of non-constant color the matting becomes an under determined problem, for which a unique solution cannot be found. This thesis describes a framework for computing mattes from images with backgrounds of non-constant color, using Bayesian statistics.

Syfte:                           Syftet är att analysera intermediärens funktion i en svensk kontext för att öka kunskapen kring vilka roller en intermediär kan tillskrivas och varför de existerar. Syftet är vidare att analysera huruvida ett förtroende gentemot intermediären förelåg och vad detta förtroende baserades på. Detta för att skapa ett bidrag till befintlig forskning och öka kunskapen kring förtroendeskapande gentemot intermediärer.   Metod: Fallstudie av Stiftelsen Flemingsberg Science och dess projekt Kraftcentrum Flemingsberg. Semi-strukturerade intervjuer med respondenter vilka varit involverade i projekt drivna av Kraftcentrum Flemingsberg. Teori Transaktionskostnadsteori, strukturella hål, kunskapsöverföring, medling och förtroende.