This thesis analyzes the consequences of ?Lex Uggla? ? a law concerning the boundaries between firm and individual with respect to wealth taxation ? for small businesses, with more than 3 million SEK in over-liquidity. There are two main findings of this thesis. Firstly, the wealth taxation of non-operational assets seems to be an inefficient tax which costs the Swedish welfare system much more than it generates. Secondly, the change in actions among entrepreneurs following the extensive news coverage following the tax authority?s charges against the company of the well-known artist, Magnus Uggla (hence ?Lex Uggla?) illustrates that neither changes of rules nor new applications of rules is necessarily sufficient for an agent to change course of action.

This 15 point level essay intends to carry out an ideological critic of the scientific humanism; the main question the essay asks is: do the Humanists practice a rational dialog. In able to find an answer to this question have I developed an analyze scheme that show what the skilful demagogue should avoid, if he have an interest in practicing a rational dialog. The essay shows that, when it comes to debating their most important issues, the Humanist does not practice a rational dialog. The Humanists deny that other forms of humanism than the one they practice exists, according to their beliefs´ humanism must contain an atheistic attitude to the world. When it comes to the Humanists debates concerning religion they accentuate those parts of the bible that they believe is destructive for mankind, these arguments have no rele-vance and are therefore not rational..

We are working on the development and design of an approach to agents that can reason, react to the environment and are able to update their own knowledge as a result of new incoming information. In the resulting framework, rational, reactive agents can dynamically change their own knowledge bases as well as their own goals. An agent can make observations, learn new facts and new rules from the environment, and then update its knowledge accordingly. The knowledge base of an agent and its updating mechanism has been implemented in Logic Programming. The agent?s framework is implemented in Java.

This thesis attempts to clarify the impact of cultural differenceson customer expectations of service level. Furthermore, wewant to determine whether or not expectations of service differenough to be quantifiable between two countries, Sweden andthe US, mostly regarded as similar in business practices. The conclusion showed that higher ratings on four of Hofstede?s five cultural indexes were associated with higher customer service expectations overall, and in all four SERVQUAL dimensions. This research contributes to retail internationalization and customer expectations theory.

The purpose of this study is to illustrate why Norway is not a member of the EU from a rational choice perspective. In order to fulfil this purpose, two questions will constitute the framework of the study. These are:1. What are the arguments of the EU-opposers in the Norwegian EU-debate?2.

The conflict in Aceh had been going on for 30 years time, but ended after a tsunami hit the area in 2004. The impact the natural catastrophe had on the conflict was that both GAM and the Indonesian government was brought together with the intent of reaching a peace agreement. The authors to this thesis paper ask the question of why it became peace after such long time of war, but also if rational choice theory can explain this event. The answer to the first question is that the tsunami was the main reason to why it became peace. As to the second question, the conclusion would be that, depending on which view of human nature one has, rational choice theory can only answer the question if cultural, religious and emotional factors are disregarded.

The purpose of this thesis was to look into how event management companies got knowledge about their customers? expectations and how they are influenced by these expectations. A case study was conducted based upon interviews with two employees from two companies that are in the business. The study has shown that event management companies do try to get awarness about their customers' expectations, especially by listening and discussing with the customer. Personal contact is an efficient way of communicating and a way to avoid misunderstandings, which is a common mistake when customers' expectations are not met.

Rational choice är ett dominerande paradigm inom den samhällsvetenskapliga forskningen. Teorin är väl använd för att förklara politik och politisk påverkan, och otaliga forskningsstudier har gjorts inom dess ramar sedan den fick sitt genombrott. Allt sedan rational choice blivit ett dominerande paradigm har teorin även kommit att kritiseras. Kritiker hävdar att teorin, trots sina fördelar i vissa fall, är otillräcklig för att förklara samhällsvetenskapliga fenomen. Framför allt de beteendeantaganden som teorin utgår ifrån har kritiserats från såväl psykologiskt, som sociologiskt och ekologiskt håll.

To be able to adopt, the future adoptive parents must participate in parental education and have a home investigation done. The home investigation is extensive and great demands are made on the parents. The purpose with this study was to get an insight and understanding in the parents? thoughts and feelings about the demands and expectations that are made on them during an international adoption. To answer this, we used these questions: Which demands and expectations are made on the future adoptive parents by the home investigator and the parental educator? How do the future adoptive parents experience the demands and expectations that are made on them before an adoption? Does the apprehension about the demands and expectations differ between the future adoptive parents and the home investigator contrary the parental educator? We used a qualitative method, interviewing four couples of parents, one home investigator and one parental educator.

När ett IT-företag ska utveckla ett system behöver de en systemutvecklingsmetod. Denna metod används för att de personer som arbetar i ett projekt ska ha en mall för hur de ska utföra sitt arbete. Vad som enligt litteratur verkar vara ett problem idag är att företagen har en metod men använder den inte på ett bra sätt eller inte alls. Detta leder till ostrukturerade projekt utan sammanhang. Om någon slutar i projektet är det svårt för någon ny att sätta sig in i det arbete som gjorts.

Citizens? freedom of choice has been a subject of debate in Sweden for over 30 years. This study focuses on decision making processes among patients within the Swedish healthcare system. The main conclusions are that in contrast to how patients? freedom of choice is described within governmental bills and governmental inquires and reports, patients are not following the steps included in the rational model of decision making.

This thesis aims to examine the possibility of understanding social change by using new institutionalism approaches on a specific case, The case, which describes the implementation of new public management reform in the Swedish health care system, is analysed from two separate new institutionalismperspectives; the tool perspective and the symbol perspective. These approaches differ from one another in the sense that the first relies on a rational choice ontology, while the latter rather refers to a sociological tradition. In the analysis, causal explanations as well as aim related explanations are presented. Formative moments such as economic stagnation, non-socialist governments and ideological isomorfism are presented as important factors behind the reformation. By using the tool perspective, the motives of the idea spreading and reformation of the Swedish health care system, are connected to a strictly rationalbasis such as cost efficiency and quality improvements.

Rational Unified Process (RUP) är en systemutvecklingsmetod som tillhandahåller ett modifierbart tillvägagångssätt för hur man skall fördela uppgifter och ansvar inom ett systemutvecklingsprojekt. Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka om RUP verkligen bidrar till framgångsrik systemutveckling, och i så fall även till att identifiera de vitalaste faktorer som lett till denna framgång. Fokus har legat på processkvalitet och genom en enkätundersökning, samt kvalitativa intervjuer med användare, har vi kunnat fastställa att metoden faktiskt bidrar till framgångsrik systemutveckling. De mest väsentliga bakomliggande framgångsfaktorerna som undersökningen har identifierat, är RUPs riktlinjer för produktion av dokumentation, konfigureringsmöjligheter av utvecklingsprocessen, stödet för projektledning, samt det iterativa tillvägagångssättet vid utveckling..

Uppsatsen handlar om huruvida sociologin fortfarande är relevant när ekonomivetenskapen breddar sitt studiefält till att inte längre vara självklart ekonomisk utan också ställa frågor som traditionellt legat på sociologins bord. Genom en teoretisk analys av statistiska resultat angående användandet av inköpslista i samband med matvaruinköp undersöker uppsatsen huruvida ekonomins klassiska handlingsteori, rational choice, och dess antaganden om homo economicus är tillräckligt för att förklara de resultat som uppkommer. Jürgen Habermas teori om kommunikativt handlande, och Webers handlingsteori används som exempel på utpräglat sociologiska handlingsteorier vars förklaringsförmåga av de uppkomna resultaten jämförs med rational choice theory. Arbetet visar hur ekonomivetenskapen i sin strävan att bredda sitt studiefält behöver ifrågasätta vissa klassiska antaganden, något som under senare årtionden har inträffat, och att sociologin kan ge förklaringar där klassisk ekonomisk teori faller kort..

Sexual violence in armed conflict is not a new phenomenon. Although it has a long history, it's only in recent years from 1990 that is has been given more attention in science and media. I will in my thesis look at the conflicts of former Yugoslavia and Congo (DRC) and I will use two theories to investigate how the use of conflict-related sexual violence best can be explained. The two theoretical frameworks I have chosen are Feminist theory and Rational Choice theory. The conflicts will be at the center of analysis.