Thesis (M.Com. (Industrial Psychology))--Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2003.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This study is about students’ work with writing as an activity for learning in year 4, 5 and 6 in compulsory school. The methodology used is inspired by phenomenography and the overall frame of analysis is sociocultural. The purpose of the study is to describe what five students experience they learn when writing and on the basis of that problematize students’ work with writing in school. The study includes five students, three boys and two girls, as well as five different writing assignments. The five writing assignments are of different character; argumentative, reflective, structured, narrative and communicative, and they aim to include several of the functions writing can have in school. The main material of the study consists of 25 interviews, five with each student, which have been conducted as closely as possible to the students’ work with the five different writing assignments. The study shows that students experience they learn differently depending on what type of writing assignment they are working with. In order for the students to perceive that they are learning a subject matter, which they are writing about, it seems the writing assignments need to be designed in a way that challenges the students’ thinking. Challenges of the type reflect, take a stand, motivate and compare seem to be effective for this purpose, even though they do not always seem to be sufficient for all students. Several students express uncertainty. They say that they learned something in general terms instead of giving clear examples, they ponder a long time, answer that ""you" can learn", that they perhaps learned something or they don’t know. The students seem to be unfamiliar with reflection around writing and learning and appear to need support, not only in their learning, but also to conceive that they learn something when they write. Teachers can not take for granted that students experience that they learn when they are writing or that students know why they are writing in school. It appears that conscious and structured work with writing, and with the students’ experience of writing, is needed.

Date: 26 May 2008 Program: International Business and Entrepreneurship (IB&E) Level: Master Thesis 10 Points (15 ETCS) Title: Internationalization process from entrepreneurial perspectives – a case study of TOA Group Authors: Thi Thanh Thuy Le - Email: tle07001@student.mdh.se Theerata Thornjaroensri - Email: tti07001@student.mdh.se Supervisor: Bengt Olsson Research Problem: How do entrepreneurs play a vital role in the internationalization process of TOA Group? Aim of the Thesis: The purpose of our research project is to present a perspective that includes the entrepreneurs in the analysis in order to have a comprehensive understanding about the internationalization process of TOA Group, a Thai-owned paint multinational company. Method: The nature of the research is qualitative. The deductive and a single case study approaches have been applied. Both secondary data and primary data are used to conduct the research. The semi-structure interview is used to get the primary data. Conclusion: The establishment chain pattern of the Uppsala Model is too deterministic and mainly on learning process at organizational level. This research project adopts three entrepreneurial perspectives with three entrepreneur types. The TOA case shows that entrepreneurial perspectives directly influence the firm’s internationalization. Key Words: Internationalization, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial perspective

Empati kan beskrivas som en förmåga att veta vad en person känner och tänker. Denna studies huvudsyfte var att översätta C. Daniel Bat-sons empatiskala till svenska. Syftet var även att testa om det fanns skillnader vid perspektivtagande samt skillnader i empati när den and-re är snäll jämfört med elak. Deltagarna var 111 gymnasiestudenter som fick inta ett perspektiv, objektivt eller med inlevelse, och läsa en historia. Resultatet visade att det inte fanns könsskillnad, men det fanns interaktion mellan historia och läsarperspektiv; skillnaden mellan perspektiven fanns när personen var snäll. Det fanns också skillnad i empati beroende vilken historia deltagarna hade läst. Det var lättare att känna empati för en snäll person än för en person som var elak.

Purpose – There is growing evidence of organizations increasingly seeking to outsource logistics activities. This has been concluded in several other countries. There has not been made any prior systematic studies made over the practice of TPL usage in Sweden. Since Sweden has a large amount of manufacturing companies, the purpose aims to ex-amine and give a broad view of the usage of third party logistics (TPL) services for the manufacturing firms in Sweden. At the same time a comparison study will be made be-tween Sweden and the other countries. Design/Methodology/Approach – The empirical research is used to study the extent firms use the services of logistics companies; the decision making process for choosing contract logistics and its impact on the organization; The TPL services used and plans for the future in terms of the usage; TPL usage in a supply chain perspective. Findings – The study indicates that Swedish manufacturing firms are quite experienced in the use of third party logistics services. The usage of TPL services reveals positive and significant impact on the business performance within the organization; most of the users are satisfied with the services providers. Additionally, the usage of TPL services is expected to increase in the future. In terms of the supply chain perspective, certain number of respondent in manufacturing companies are aware of and influenced by the usage of the TPL services providers from the supply chain partners. Research limitations/implications – This survey focused on the largest, 350 manu-facturing companies in Sweden. However, many small- medium size companies also use the TPL services, study can be done to compare the use of TPL services in terms of the size of the companies. Further, concerning the supply chain perspective, research can be done to investigate whether more benefits in sharing the same primary TPL providers with major customers and vendors than in using different TPL providers. Studies can further be done to identifying who has more power in the supply chain concerning the use of TPL providers, for the Swedish manufacturing companies. Practical implications – The results provide managers with evidence supporting the benefits of outsourcing logistics activities. The study also contains useful information for the TPL providers concerning the most frequently used services and the potential services which are currently absent in the market. Originality/value – This study makes a significant addition to literature on logistics outsourcing, since little empirical research has been previously reported from Sweden. Moreover, the results of this study will also serve as a future benchmark for the entire Nordic region.

This article presents the results from a video-based evaluation study of a social robotic telepresence solution for elderly. The evaluated system is a mobile teleoperated robot called Giraff that allows caregivers to virtually enter a home and conduct a natural visit just as if they were physically there. The evaluation focuses on the perspectives from primary healthcare organizations and collects the feedback from different categories of health professionals. The evaluation included 150 participants and yielded unexpected results with respect to the acceptance of the Giraff system. In particular, greater exposure to technology did not necessarily increase acceptance and large variances occurred between the categories of health professionals. In addition to outlining the results, this study provides a number of indications with respect to increasing acceptance for technology for elderly. / <p>The final version of this article can be read at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15228835.2011.639509</p>

The background to this thesis is the debate of the last decades within exegetics, concerning the so called "New Perspective on Paul". Starting from this discussion, the thesis is aming to investigateand discuss the function of Abraham in Paul's argument in Romans 4. This is achieved by, to start with, a thoroughly examination and analysis of different translations of Romans 4:1. Secondly, by trying how the translation suggested by Richard B. Hays can be motivated using a narrative perspective of interpretation emphazising the context of covenant history of the text, and thirdly, by examin and discuss other interpretations of the text and compare their ability to bring intelligibility to the text. Moreover, theological issues is brought to the inquiry about the interpretation and about if and how the different perspectives are compatible.The thesis shows that there are good reasons, linguistical as well as theological, to approve the translation of Richard Hays and the presented narrative perspective. This perspective offers a sullotion to the discord between the Old and the New Perspective and at the same time taking seriously the critics from both sides. However, the perspective needs to be discussed and examined further.The conclusions are firstly, that the advantage of the narrative perspective lies in the problems of the other interpretations to acheive a coherent and intelligible account of the text, due to their lack of an overall theological frame of interpretation, secondly, that the terms in which the debate has taken place ("New Perspective"/"Old Perspective") are inaccurate, thirdly, the importance of reading the New Testament, especially Pauls letter to Romans, in its Old Testament framework, and finally, the significance of the interplay between exegetics and theology.

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of mothers perspectives of their childrens experiences in inclusive physical education. It describes the value mothers placed on physical education, the meaning they ascribed to their childrens physical education experiences, the role of the Personal Program Plan (PPP) in mothers communication with the school, and the other means of communication they used to share their thoughts about childrens participation. The stories of mothers of elementary (1 boy, 3 girls) and secondary (2 boys, 1 girl) aged children with spina bifida were collected and analyzed using the hermeneutic phenomenological methods of semi-structured interviews, artifacts, documents, and field notes. The thematic analysis revealed three themes: A Good Thing But, Connection to Disability Sports, and Beyond the Curriculum. Peters (1996) model of disablement provided the conceptual framework for the interpretation of the findings.

Video games are currently stigmatized in general culture as a lesser form of entertainment, and much of the current scholarly debate on them is unable to identify those games that also function as works of literature and to perform appropriate critical analysis. This thesis aims to rectify the above through two separate engagements. The first engagement demonstrates that the current scholarly debate over avatars can be redirected into a more productive debate on perspectives: the way in which a player is situated within a game and how this alters how the game story is told. The second engagement is with Espen Aarseths concept of ergodic literature, and thus demonstrate how this unique property of video games allows for the traversal of a video games narrative. These two issues when considered together provide a method for determining whether a video game is attempting to also be literature.