Performance appraisals- a study of the performance appraisals significance as a tool for development in the public sector.Anders Larsson and Åsalill OlssonPerformance appraisals have been given a central role in leading businesses in the public sector and are seen as a tool to create development opportunities and achieve better results. This has resulted that performance appraisal in many organizations takes up capacity and time. This was the starting point of our interest to study whether the time spent on performance appraisals effectively pays for itself in the organization, in other words whether the effects expected actually are achieved. The paper examines first line managers` views on staff appraisal purposes and effects of a function within the Landstinget. The survey design, methodology and transaction are of qualitative and quantitative method with three different sources: literature review of previous research, interviews with first line managers in Landstinget Västmanland and the results from an employee satisfaction survey conducted on behalf of Landstinget Västmanland.

AbstractDuring recent years the climate in recruiting new personnel has hardened as a result of high levels of employment and increasing competition in labour market. In order to resolve this problem, organisations have to adapt new strategies to attract and meet the demands of potential employees who have the required competence to meet job requirements.The aim of this study has been to examine a well functioning work place in order to elucidate explicit examples of what employees consider positive, and what can be ascertained as positive deviations. Narratives emanating from the unit manager and personnel illustrate their views on the positive influences found in their working place. Another ambition is to increase awareness and understanding about the factors that promote satisfaction in the workplace and positive deviation; and to utilise this knowledge.Traditional research on organisations has frequently focused on problems. The theoretical point of departure of this study is based on Positive Organizational Scholarship, abbreviated as POS.

The purpose of this Masters thesis is to study how librarians experience reference work. We wanted to get a better understanding about librarians assignments through the study. We chose to limit the study to public libraries, and to the south of Sweden. The questions used in our study are: How do librarians interpret the conception of reference work? What values do librarians have concerning reference work? How do librarians experience reference work? How do librarians look at different roles in reference work? We chose to use a fenomenographically inspired method.

The development of technology and the mechanization in the Swedish forestry has during the last 60 years resulted in depopulation of the country side and due to that the amount of distance forest owners has increased. Therefore the forest companies need to make some adjustments in order to keep the distance forest owners as customers and to attract new ones. The purpose of this essay was to examine and analyze the distance forest owners satisfaction with Södras service offering and quality of service and further develop some proposals for action. A web-based survey was sent out to 634 distance forests owners in Stockholm, Sweden, all members of Södra. 269 respondents participated in the survey and of them, 27 did also participate in a follow-up telephone interview.

The study aims to increase understanding and knowledge of motivation; this by examining how the leader experiences her capability to promote employees' work motivation. Also, how employees perceive that the leader influence and enhance their work motivation. Interviews were conducted with a manager and two employees of a government agency in Sweden. The results demonstrate different opinions between manager and employees in the manager's ability to foster motivation in the everyday work. The leader thinks that she promotes her employees work positively and believes that she is giving her employees attention and appreciation.

Stress is commonly found in society today. This paper aims to examine how work performance, cooperation and team spirit are maintained in demanding work environments. By studying two departments in a public hospital that practises addiction care, our findings suggest the following: If the experienced stress is mainly connected to challenge stressors, it has a positive effect on work performance. By organising work through mechanistic and organic structure, the handling of qualitative and quantitative stress is facilitated. As a consequence, first and foremost cooperation can be maintained, but also work performance and team spirit.

The aim of this thesis is to define digital library, and to investigate a relation between the construction of a digital library and user needs. The main questions to be answered are: 1 What criteria was used when constructing a digital library, particularly concerning issues like purpose, function, design, supply, services, resources and future development of the digital library? 2 How do the digital library system designers and system builders criteria correspond with those of postgraduate researchers? And what factors affect the use? A digital library is an enterprise that gives access to information stored digitally and directly available on the net. The crucial is that the enterprise has a control over collection of information and responsibility to make it available to a defined group of users. In order to investigate the relation between the construction of the digital library and user needs, I have interviewed five key people involved with the work with the digital library and twenty postgraduate researchers from the Gothenburg University.

AN EVALUATION OF EFFA-VÄSTERS PARENT PROGRAMME FOR PARENTS WITH CHILDREN 2-4 YEARS- A qualitative and quantitative research focused on content, effects and implementationAuthors: Fritz, Jesper & Johansson, LinaSupervisor: Koutakis, NikolausÖrebro UniversityAcademy of Law, psychology and social workSocial Work ProgramSocial Work 41-60 pointsC-essay, 15 pointsAutumn term 2008AbstractThis study is written on commission by The Unit for prevention which is a part of the Social welfare Services in the district of Örebro. The social work practice carried out by the unit is based on universal prevention, which includes providing parent programmes. The aim in this study is to describe and evaluate the EFFA-Väster parent programme, which has been compiled by social workers working at the unit, with regard to the content, effects and implementation of the program. The study is based on a non-experimental inquiry of an experimental group which has been subjected to a pre- and post test. Further, observations has been made of every program session to examine whether the program is implemented in accordance with the intention and how the program is received by the participants.

Denna rapport beskriver vårt projektarbete på ComOpt i Helsingborg. Uppgiften har varit att göra presentationer av företagets produkter. Det centrala i arbetet har varit grafisk design, i det här fallet gränssnittsdesign till de presentationer vi har gjort. I vår rapport reflekterar vi över den designprocess vi har genomgått och ställer frågor som: Vad gör en designer till en bra designer? Och: Var får vi kreativitet och inspiration ifrån? Det vi har kommit fram till är att en bra designer kännetecknas av förmågan att kunna prestera bra trots bristande resurser.

The accident frequency in the construction industry has shown a downward trend every year but this trend was broken 2010th. It is often lack of precautionary measures within work environment and safety that is the cause of accidents. The big construction companies understand the importance of precautionary measures within work environment and safety, as they spend a lot of money and time on that matter. By examining the work environment and the safety of the small construction companies you can see how they work. The report will presents how these small companies work with work environment and safety, and also how they follow the safety instructions that are available and how they make use of safety equipment.

Today, a large proportion of wood supplied for the Swedish forest industry is bought from private forest owners while forest companies at the same time provide the forest owners with services such as logging services and transportation. Today, forest companies work extensively with keeping the time used for transport and logging short. But what does the private forest owners think about the time required for the timber deal, also called lead time, and the different parts of the timber deal. In this thesis, the forest owners? perception of the different lead times in their contracts with Stora Enso and their communication with the purchasers is examined.

Lately, alarming reports have appeared regarding the work environment and work situation of social workers. Research focusing on the promotion of health and well-being in the workplace among other professionals show that factors such as social relationships, ability to influence their work situation and leadership are important. A quantitative study was conducted focusing on the work climate for social workers employed by some of the district administrations in the City of Malmö. A questionnaire with questions and statements on various factors in the work environment was sent to 34 social workers. They were asked how important these factors were for their well-being, as well as to what extent they felt that these factors were present at work.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka om det finns samband mellan arbetstrivsel och personlighet samt arbetstrivsel och kvaliteten på sociala relationer i arbetet. För att mäta arbetstrivseln och sociala relationer på arbetet formulerades sex frågor som var avsedda att mäta i vilken grad deltagarna trivdes på arbetet och hur de trivdes i sin arbetsgrupp. För att mäta personlighet användes Ten-Item Personality Inventory som är ett personlighetstest utvecklat utifrån femfaktormodellen som innefattar fem olika personlighetsdrag. Det insamlade datamaterialet bestod av 57 besvarade enkäter från undersköterskor på tre kommunala arbetsplatser. Resultatet visade på ett signifikant positivt samband mellan arbetstrivsel och sociala relationer på arbetet.

Research in international trade situations has mainly focused on understanding the exporter?s actions and has showed ways on how these can be optimized. Although the importer in most cases, until this day, has been left outside this focus, it has been showed that the importer often is the active participant in an international dyad. It is the importer who is actively seeking suppliers for its production or distribution. Based on previous research in the area, the following study identifies the factors that are vital to the importer for satisfactory relations.

The purpose of this study was to find out how caregivers experienced their psychosocial work environment at three municipal homes for old people. The Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ) was used in order to study different dimensions of the work environment, and questions about health, sickness presence and sick leave were included. The questionnaire was answered by 86 out of 112 participating caregivers (77%). The results showed that the caregivers experienced high demands at work. The degree of feedback and influence at work was low, but they reported that their work was highly meaningful and that they usually received social support at work.