At the EU summit in Cologne in 1999, a consensus was reached concerning the common foreign and security policy within the European Union. It was decided at the summit that the WEU (Western European Union) should be incorporated into the EU - whom would then be given military capability to act autonomously without the necessity of Nato involvement. This essay investigates the factors that made this agreement possible from a rational choice perspective, but also from the perspective of the power and influence on negotiations on behalf of various types of leadership present at the meeting. Many nations at the summit of Cologne where for the creation of a military force in the form of ESDP (European Security and Defence Policy) within the Union, and many where against such a decision. However a consensus was reached and that is what this essay shall try to explain.

The aim of this essay was to investigate how social workers, within chosen Social services districts in the northwest of Skåne, work with children placed in foster care. Our purpose was to investigate the interaction between the child and the foster home from the perspective of the Ecology of Human Development. Our questions were:* How do the social worker prepare the child and the foster home before a placement?* What kind of support is offered to the foster home with the purpose of supporting the child?* How do the social worker make the childs contact with the biological parents easier?* To what degree does the social worker work on strengthening the child's network?* Which factors do the social worker decide the allocation of support?* What do the social worker think affects the work with the foster home from a society level?To answer our question we have interviewed nine social workers. We found that the social workers were generally good at perceiving how the micro- and meso-systems, and to a certain extent the exo-system, influenced the foster child.

The purpose with our essay was to increase our knowledge about what social workers, with experience from working with drug addicts, perceive as the explanations to a person stopping the abuse and succeed in staying drug free. Our framing of the question was:- How do social workers define the term drug free?- How big a roll do the social worker believes she/he has in the process in which a person stops abusing drugs?- How do the social worker work with a person towards getting that person drug free?- What do the social worker believe to be the reason why a person stops abusing drugs?- What do the social worker perceive as helpful for a person to stay drug free?We did qualitative interviews with six social workers. Our main conclusion was that it is difficult to define the term drug free. The reason for stropping the drug abuse can vary, it can be the family situation, "hitting rock bottom", finding love or tiring.

Since the Maastricht Treaty the European Parliament has gained competence in the decision-making process and the Parliament is today one of two decision-making institution, next to the Ministers of Council. In this study the main focus has been to shed light over the negotiation culture within the European Parliament, which up till now has been a neglected research area. This is of great significance because the internal negotiations in the European Parliament decide the external negotiation position with the other institutions.After face-to-face interviews with MEP:s and assistants I have been able to identify certain characteristics to create an understanding of the negotiation culture in Europe's elected Parliament. The negotiations are oriented towards a problems-solving approach and the prevailing apprehension is consensus-based negotiations instead of the existence of political blocks. The committees are stronger than the European party groups, which further encourage negotiation.

There is consensus in research, policy, business and many other areas around the benefits of creativity. Previous research shows that creativity is only spurred under certain conditions. Usually creativity is not associated with concepts such as control, deadline or cost effectiveness. Companies, by contrast, have the need for control and management of their operations, which implies that the two processes can be difficult to reconcile. A company that wants a high creativity while maintaining control and management is forced into a series of organizational compromises.

The doctrine of traditio is the main rule for the buyer?s protection against the sellers?s creditors in the Swedish legal system. This means that the buyer have to take physical possession of the property in order to be protected against the sellers?s creditors if the seller becomes bankruptcy or is hit by an execution. If instead the doctrine of consensus applied the buyer is protected as soon as a valid contract is formed.

Talented people are recognised as being the most important corporate resource over the next twenty years and a competitive compensation system is an important tool in attracting and retaining talent. Traditional pay systems are recognised as being neither cost effective nor motivating people to do more. Often these systems do not contribute to strategic objectives. This study outlines what constitutes an intelligent remuneration system that will enhance the mind value added by knowledge workers, reward knowledge creation, and contribute to organisational strategies..

The interest of mindfulness has grown steadily during the last two decades. Mindfulness presence in the area of social work is mostly as an intervention offered to clients. However, the purpose of this study is to examine what implications the social worker?s mindfulness may have for the relationship with the clients. There is a lack of scientific studies focusing on mindfulness and the relationship between the client and the social worker.

The market for management training programs is growing and the supply of the service is increasing and getting further diversified. A consequence is a market with a wide variety of definitions of the very concept of development, and subsequently a wide variety of practices and methods to achieve development. The individuals that are subject to these programs seldom know what they are purchasing, or what to expect. When assuming a transfer of the developers view on development to the subject, a need for a greater understanding of the concept arises. The purpose of this thesis is to understand what views on development do exist among management trainers and map underlying dimensions of the views to increase the understanding of the concept of development.

Changes are occurring in most organizations today and due to the fact that changes often are harder to implement than they seem, it often takes much longer time to implement them than the management have planned. During an organizational change theorist claim that communication between managers and employees is one of the most important things to consider. Therefore, in this essay, our aim is to closer investigate which needs of information and communication co-workers have during a planned organizational change. To collect data, we interviewed five co-workers and one manager who works in an organization which has gone through a major change. Our theoretical framework comprises former research of organizational communication, employee?s needs of communication, change communication and theories of uncertainty during organizational change.

Dissertation in political science, D-level by Niklas Andersson, Spring Semester 2010. Tutor: Malin Stegmann McCallion?Societies in Crisis ? When Washington Take Over?An economic meltdown wreaks havoc on the world and has plunged the Western world into a spiral of economic stimulus in order to keep their way of life intact. At the same time the same institutions that support these countries have had another agenda for more unfortunate and less influential countries where nothing has been free and everything been to a price of self-sacrifice in order to get the consent of the IMF and the World Bank. Everything according to the points stated in the so called Washington Consensus.The purpose of this dissertation is to research what impact the Washington Consensus has on the state in terms of power over the market and sovereignty.

The aim of this qualitative study of service work in the private sector is to examine how the service worker experiences his/her work. There are three dimensions of the service workers experience in focus, and they are the base of my formulation of questions. The first dimension refers to how the service worker experiences the emotional labor demands from the employer. The second dimension concerns the relation between service worker and customer, from the view of the service worker. The third dimension problematizes how service workers experience efficiency.I have interviewed three call center customer workers and two hotel receptionists, using semi-structured interview technique.

The present study deals with the scope of action available to a social worker when analyzing, assessing and proposing measures regarding young persons experiencing social problems. The interest in the subject area emanates from the fact that the number of youth placed in different forms of round the clock out-of-home care in Sweden increases, whereas research in the subject shows that such placement gives few positive results and sometimes even has negative consequences for their development.The study investigates how the preconditions of the social worker influence their scope of possible action, in particular as regards their place of work, the situation of the individual dealt with, and the profession itself being one based both on scientific evidence and knowledge gained by experience. Lipsky?s theory on ?street-level bureaucracy? and Hasenfelds theory on human servicing organizations form the theoretical framework of the present study. The empirical input comes from interviews with focus groups of active social workers.The analysis of the interviews shows that social workers generally feel that they have a broad scope of action as far as the regulatory framework and office management are concerned.

Kandidatuppsatsens syfte är att undersöka och analysera hur kommuner kan stötta och utveckla sina chefer och hur cheferna har upplevt den satsning som har gjorts. Inom ramen för syftet fokuserar jag på uppfattningar av hur formell ledarutbildning respektive informellt lärande påverkar ledarutvecklingen i kommunen. Studien är av kvalitativ karaktär med inspiration av hermeneutisk ansats då studien inriktas på att tolka och förstå en helhet genom dokumentanalys och intervjuer. Kvalitativa, semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts för att få en insikt i vad det är cheferna skulle vilja utveckla och hur detta skall gå till. Resultatet visar att det finns positiva erfarenheter av det ledarprogram som genomförts i en kommun och att respondenterna upplever att de fått en gemensam värdegrund att arbeta med och för att utvecklas vidare som ledare.

The purpose of doing this research except for educational reasons is to show significant effects that make motivational work successful. The choice of subject we decided out of experience from the term of practise. The description of the subject is from the social workers angle of approach. The method we used is a qualitative study with semi structured interviews. We have looked at three different fields of social work from the view of six social workers, two from each field.