The aim of this study was to examine how heads of unit in charge of personal assistance (PA)for the disabled experience and handle ethical dilemmas and situations within theirworkgroups when The Work Environment Act and The Swedish Act Concerning Support andService for Persons with Certain Functional Impairments collide with each other. The methodof the study was to use semi-structured interviews based around three main topics; the head ofunits opinions about the value and purpose of The Work Environment Act in theadministering and implementation of personal assistance services, the problem solvingprocess and the head of units own individual experiences of ethical dilemmas or workenvironment-related conflicts or situations within their workgroups. Four heads of unit wereinterviewed for this study. The results of this study showed that the interviewed heads of unitexperienced a lack of clear and factual information about how they were meant to solvedilemmas emerging from the two laws conflicting with each other regarding the rights of thecare recipient to layout their personal assistance to their liking, versus the rights of thepersonal assistant to have acceptable working conditions. The heads of unit could not rely onlegislation and/or other specific directive documents when work environment-relatedproblems arose.

Work environment has been an important part of the Swedish working life for a long time and with the help of the Working Environment Law the work environment is mandatory. The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper insight into how the system of middle managers systematic work environment looks like. The question was: How do six middle managers perceive and deal with systematic work environment? A qualitative study was conducted with six middle managers from a global company. During the analysis, there were three main themes to be recognized (cooperation and support facilitates the work environment, problem with the systematic work and difficulties with staff) and six sub themes.

In an effort to strengthen democracy in the union, the EU in 2005 took a new approach to communications policy to reach out to the citizens. The strategic document "Plan D for Democracy, Dialogue and Debate" was accompanied by two other documents, and the three of them were the core of this policy. Both democracy and communications work means at EU level a higher complexity than in the nation-state arena. Objective of this study is to examine how the implementation of Plan D has turned out in a democracy renewal perspective. To achieve that answers are sought to questions concerning the goals of Plan D, how they are still present today, what happened in practice regarding the efforts that are highlighted, and how the substance of the activities can be judged from a democratic theory perspective.

The environment became an established issue on the international political agenda after World War 2. How to preserve natural resources became an issue that concerned several powerful participants, affected by changed conditions in the environmental legislation. This paper is a study of the growing environmental work within the multinational Swedish corporations Boliden, IKEA and SAS and how it was affected by the globalization. The material studied is environmentally related information produced by the companies and also interviews with the Environmental Managers. The information provided has been analyzed and compared with well-known opinions of globalization, trying to find out how the process of globalization has affected the handling of environmental work within the companies.

When gender-related refugee claims was ratified in the Swedish asylum law the 31 of March this year (2006) it opened the door for women with this specific refugee status to receive asylum in Sweden. The aim of this thesis has been to investigate how these specific female refugees are represented and described in the asylum process. The focus has been the construction of identity concerning these women in the Officials discourse at the Immigration department. The theoretical framework has been a critical discourse analysis regarding the exercise of power and dominance connected to the construction of identity.An understanding of the women with gender-related refugee claims as the Others has been perceived through the Officials discourse. Female refugees which have been exposed to persecution that occur in our part of the world (rape, wife abuse, etc.) are treated differently and much more restrictive, compared to women exposed to so called culture specific oppression (e.g.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to investigate the notions and use of non fiction literature of children 9-11 years old. Moreover, this study tries to dissect the underlying concepts that exert influence over the target groups notions and use of non fiction literature. The method and empirical basis of this study is qualitative, with interviews of eight children within the target group. We use a theory of reading exchange to highlight the different areas of usability of non fiction for children. To emphasize how children use non fiction as representative for actual facts, or as non fiction with fictional content, we use a four-field correlation model.

Background: The stress in the society seems to having become more amplified and more trying. Statistics show that the appearance of stress related industrial diseases have increased strikingly. What can be stressing at the workplace? The work conditions are not the only thing that causes stress but no matter what the causes are employers have to restore the employees to their former positions. How are companies dealing with the problems of stress in reality? Do they have formulated strategies for how to manage the problems? Purpose: The purpose with this essay is to try to see pattern in how companies manage and treat stress and stress related industrial diseases.

AbstractAccording to research made by Statistics Sweden on the members of the labor union IF Metall the number of reported musculoskeletal disorders for employees working under the collective bargaining agreement for the automotive industry has almost doubled since 2003. During 2004- 2006 and 2008 male assembly workers were the occupational group with the highest amount of reported work related disorders in Sweden. To prevent musculoskeletal disorders is according to Rose and Orrenius important both for the individual, the society and the industry by reducing economic and personal costs. The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze how the manufacturing industry is affected by musculoskeletal disorders that occur when working with line assembly and how companies can prevent them. The report aims to provide the reader with an understanding of what musculoskeletal disorders are, to which extent they occur in assembly, how companies are directed by laws and regulations and how they affect the Swedish manufacturing industry and their employees.

In couples diagnosed with unexplained infertility, the woman has normal ovulatory cycles and no organic pathology, and the man has normal semen. The period during which the implantation of an embryo can occur is defined as the window of implantation (WOI). For infertile women, disturbances in the endometrium maturation are hypothesized to impair the uterine receptivity for embryo implantaition. However, there are still no methods found to predict endometrial receptivity.Hemoglobin related-proteins hypothesized to be involved in embryo implantation have been found in the endometrium in both fertile and infertile women. The aim of this study was to determine whether there were differences in the expression of hemoglobin-related proteins, hemoglobin-?, cytoglobin, fetal hemoglobin and haptoglobin in the endometrium of fertile and infertile women.

This essay investigates the work situation for teacher educators at a university with focus on the subject areas education, research and administration. The research questions contain the work situation the teacher educators have, how they apprehend it, and how they find their position within the work organisation. Six interviews have been executed at the teacher education at a university. Some of the results from the investigation indicate that the teacher educators find education to be very a very demanding work and that the split of work during the academic year is uneven. The work with administration before and after the education, for example work with syllabuses and descriptions for courses, are activities demanding much time.

This is an essay about health promotion and organisation development. The problem concerning all health issues that can be tied to work related illnesses has long been a problem in Sweden. For example did this problem alone cost the Swedish government 25 million crones a day between the years 2000-2001. This is a major issue and there is lots of money to save in this area. This is why we wanted to research how to promote health by changing the structure of the selected company.

Introduction: The conversation is one of the main components of the nursing process in psychiatric care. The preunderstanding on this research field is described based on theoretical concepts that together form the basis for understanding the study; nurse's role in psychiatric care, communication and caring relationship, as well as theories of the caring conversation and person-centered care. Research on the caring conversation as a theory and how it is experienced by patients existed, however, no research from the nurse's perspective was found.Aim: The aim of the study was to describe nurses' experiences of the caring conversation with patients in psychiatric open care units.Method: Qualitative research interviews were conducted with six nurses working in outpatient psychiatric care in the west region in Sweden. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and then analyzed according to the qualitative content analysis as described by Graneheim and Lundman (2004).Results: Four categories with related subcategories were distinguished throughout the analysis: The caring conversation, The importance of the care plan, Limitations and Caring based on the patients narrative.Discussion: An uncertainty about what caring conversation is and what it should contain creates uncertainty in the nurse's work. This results in a need for training for the individual nurse and the further research to obtain evidence for the importance of conversation in caring work.

During the study's first stage we noticed that the Swedish term ? utanförskap? was constructed for political purposes, the term?s ambiguity what was first raised our interest. Therefore the aims of this study was to examine how social workers at the social welfare office and the labor market related project Framtid Kronoberg  as well as politicians within the administration of Arbete & Välfärd (Work & Welfare) relates to utanförskap as a social phenomenon. The study?s second aim was to examine how the aforementioned persons consider utanförskap to be counteracted among young adults.

The project concerns a predevelopment work for Scania AB, a leading manufacturer of heavytrucks, and was performed as a master thesis work for the program Design and ProductDevelopment at KTH. The purpose of this work was to examine how the work situation of truckdrivers, especially long-haulage drivers, can be improved with respect to prolonged sedentaryoccupation. Mental fatigue and under-stimulation due to low cognitive load during long drivescan be major risk factors for traffic accidents. Physical strain injuries to both the skeleton andmuscles are common for this working group and minimal opportunity for daily exercise alsoincreases the risk of developing blood clots in the legs, which can have serious consequences forthe driver's health.An extensive background study, both theoretical and exploratory, was performed to identify thedrivers' concerns and comfort needs. Various treatments such as massage and active sitting wereinvestigated and existing products within the area studied.

This paper describes and develops a trade off model of optimal capital structure by Bradley et al. (1984). The model is then tested to examine how changes in corporate tax rates affect the optimal capital structure of firms. Based on theoretical implications of the model, four hypotheses are derived stating that firms? optimal debt-to-value ratio is (1) negatively related to financial distress costs, (2) negatively related to non-debt tax shields, (3) negatively related to firm volatility and (4) positively related to the corporate tax rate.