This study aims at using discourse analysis to analyze SFI students attitudes to religion and religiosity in an SFI-context. The questions are: How is the discourse constructed and maintained by religion and religiosity of SFI students in an SFI context? How do SFI participants experience that their religion has affected their time at SFI? Using a case study approach, interviews were conducted with a group of SFI students. The results show that the religious discourse in SFI is influenced by the SFI-context and affected based on the current education discourse that exists there. Furthermore, the discourse is designed and maintained by the participants private religious beliefs and the religion of the majority of the group, One canhere speak of a strong social unit forming a plausibility structure The power structure that emerges is that the majority has the power to define the significance of religion and place within the SFI context.  In the SFI-context the participants view is that religion is something private that should not be expressed in the school environment. They express that they do not want to talk about religion among a collection of people from other cultures since one would not want to risk creating conflict.

The field of marketing does not only consist of traditional marketing and the focus on promoting products and services to increase sales. In recent years a new branch within the marketing field has been established with the focus of promoting behaviours that will benefit the individual and the society as a whole; social marketing. Our purpose with this paper is not only to introduce the reader to social marketing but to describe and explain how social marketing campaigns are created and how the campaigns can be evaluated. The purpose is fulfilled through the use of a qualitative method, namely a case study. Our research question guiding our study is “How can social marketing be understood through the use of an empirical case study?” Our unit of study is the Swedish company IQ-initiativet AB which uses social marketing as a tool to encourage responsible drinking among Swedes. In order to uncover the case of IQ and to answer our research question we used three subquestions. Firstly “How can a social marketing campaign be recognized?”, secondly “How is a social marketing campaign created?” and finally “How is a social marketing campaign evaluated?” To adapt these sub-questions to IQ we performed four in-depth interviews with representatives from IQ, their PR-firm Forsman & Bodenfors and evaluation company Xtreme Nordic. The questions mainly concerned IQ’s national campaigns, which have been shown through various media channels. An interview was also done with the organization IOGT-NTO who promotes a completely sober society in order to get a perspective of the current situation of alcohol consumption in Sweden. From interviews, other sources and earlier research within the field we conclude that even though social marketing is about behavioral change, creating that change is difficult and evaluating an eventual change is even more difficult. IQ focuses on promoting responsibledrinking but cannot link a change in reduced drinking to their specific campaigns. However that does not stop them to do their job. With this case we provide in-depth insight into how one Swedish organization works for healthier drinking behavior. Although the case does not provide empirical generalizations, it provides theoretical contributions that are beneficial for several different stakeholders. Social marketers, campaign organizers/evaluators, commercial marketers and students can benefit from this comprehensive review of social marketing theory and view how it has been appliedin the real life case of IQ. A comprehensive analysis of social marketing is presented in order to increase awareness of the tools that are available for promoting positive behavioral changes in society. The case of IQ exhibits fully functional social marketing campaigns which facilitates understanding and learning for readers by viewing theory in action. The work presented here promotes the development of problem solving skills in order to avoid the common difficulties related to social marketing campaigns and hopes to inspire those interested in future research opportunities.

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of a staff development program designed through the cascade-training model by the MoNE on primary school English teachers and their actual classroom practices. In line with this, it aimed to establish a connection between aspects of planning, implementation, and evaluation of staff development and their impact on teachers and students. A qualitative case study was employed and data were collected from 10 teachers, eight teacher trainers, and three faculty members through semi-structured interviews. Moreover, 23-hour seminar and 50-hour classroom observations were conducted, and the documents related to the seminar and actual classroom practices of the teachers were analyzed to complement the interview findings. The results indicated that the effective practices (e.g., use of participant-centered approaches, English as the medium of instruction, practical ideas and suggestions and course book based activities) and ineffective practices (e.g., lack of needs assessment, traditional way of session delivery, and lack of follow-up) employed in the planning, implementation and evaluation phases of staff development had an impact on teachers&#039 / (1) pedagogical beliefs, (2) pedagogical content knowledge, (3) actual classroom practices, (4) personal and professional growth, and (5) students. The findings further revealed that these five levels of impact interacted with each other based on the characteristics of the teachers (teaching experience and gender), their motivation, self-concepts, and the teacher education programs they attended.

Due to the fuzzy policy, the industry of cyber café in Taiwan has significantly presented to an atrophied situation since 2004. The industry rises and falls a slope which presents a dissimilarity result to that in the neighborhood nations, such as China, Japan or Korea. What is exactly the struggle in this industry in Taiwan? How to transform it? The thesis searches for the overall environment, the battle for Taiwan¡¦s cyber café, and the transformation strategy for the operators in the cyber café. This research adopted case study method in order to submit an entire analysis via a certain chain of Internet Café and the environment this industry has faced. It is the fact that the most competitive predominance is the ability of creativity and development in this case study recommended two suggestions. One is to adopt the Product Expansion Strategy for short-term, referring to expand a wide variety of products and augment the service. The other is to select a Market Development Strategy for long-term, taking advantage of the cyber café core system and its business model experience to expend the market of Southeast Asia. In competition, it is to use the Differentiation Strategy that makes its service be distinguished from the others and suggest the case study integrate its six new typical entertainments, Digital game, Digital Video, Digital Carol, E-learning, Digital Archives and Digital Read, into multiple services contributing to explore more consumers. It is expected that the Digital Content Entertainment Learning Center, transformed by the case study, combining the strength of its technical integration and its chain with the Digital Content the government promotes, is not only to enhance the positive value of cyber café in our society, but also to assist others cyber café to revise a business management so as to build up a blueprint for cyber café industry.

This thesis’ main theme is the relationship between teacher training, distance education, ICT and community. These aspects of an educational practice are conceptualised within a hermeneutical approach as aspects of edukation. The thesis consists of eight articles. These are all related to one specific teacher training programme, in the thesis considered as being one demarcated social context, and treated as a single case. In articles I-III, different theoretical conceptions are elaborated upon both in relation to the discipline of Education (in Swedish Pedagogik), and in relation to the hermeneutical approach. Articles IV-VIII reports on the analysis of several data-gatherings, understood as being parts of an embedded case study. Teacher trainees on the programme have responded to a questionnaire, and have been interviewed. Teacher trainers organising the programme have been interviewed, and governmental and local policies concerning both teacher training and distance education were included. The data were gathered with the intention of enabling an understanding of the conditions through which the teacher trainees understand their societal commission, as a strive for upholding and developing legislated constitutive values, such as multiculturalism, equity, democracy and freedom. All in all, the aim of the thesis is to present an overall understanding of the process of edukation, the establishment of an educative relationship between the individual and the society in distance-based teacher training. The analysis points towards an understanding that emphasises the possession by trainees of competencies that include self-sufficiency, self-direction in their learning and self-confidence providing independence from their fellow trainees, their trainers and society at large. Being assessed primarily on an individual basis does not seem to encourage the trainees to take a collective responsibility for their learning. The trainees seem to associate the social dimensions in the programme primarily to feelings of being at ease, rather than to aspects of learning. Seen as an overall aspect of a process of edukation, the norms and values developed when the trainees negotiate meaning and values appear, in this context, to promote individuality. Additionally, this understanding seems to apply to aspects of democracy as well. Having been able to regard the teacher training programme from different theoretical positions over time, and to consider the teacher trainees and their studies as belonging to a learning community; the Online Learning Community that intersects the issues of learning and technology with the issues of values and society, one might ask; is this then a story of community? If the trainees’ views on education and learning stem from a sense of community, then it might be that of a community as a place of belonging. This could be why the trainees regard the sense of being at ease in the study-group as being more important than the aspects of learning in the study-group. Learning might incorporate conflicting views and contrasting standpoints that potentially challenge the study-group and their sense of belonging. Feeling at ease and taking an inclusive stance might then be one way of ensuring that the group provides what it promises: a safe and warm place. This could be contrasted with the way community implies a strong normative tendency to embrace while disciplining, or as the trainees put it; you may belong here if you adjust to the norms of the group. This in turn begs the question: what is the ethical stance taken in a community, society or study-group? In this thesis, one possible interpretation of this matter is provided.

Detta är en fallstudie som handlar om arbetet med en sångelev som påstod sig inte kunna sjunga. Eleven hade byggt upp stora mentala hinder kring sin sångförmåga, och studien tar upp dessa hinder samt de processer som utlöstes vid försöken att komma runt dem.Syftet med studien är att undersöka tankegångarna kring undervisningen av eleven samt de övningar som användes. Studien belyser också de processer eleven och läraren gick igenom samt diskuterar deras betydelse och innebörd.Studien bygger på lärarens anteckningar från 30 lektionstillfällen, utspridda på ca två år, samt lärarens och elevens reflektioner efteråt.Resultatet visar några av de processer som bildades under arbetets gång, samt att eleven kunde klara av mer än hon trott var möjligt genom att utveckla rätt inställning och ha tillgång till bra verktyg. / This is a case study about a voice student who was certain she could not learn to sing. The student experienced severe mental impediments concerning her ability to sing. The study deals with these impediments and the processes involved while trying to overcome them.The purpose of this study is to closely examine the process of reasoning concerning the teaching and the applied exercises. The study also illuminates the processes the student and the teacher went through together, and discusses their meaning and consequence.The study is based on notes made by the teacher during 30 lessons covering a period of about two years, and subsequent reflections made by the teacher and student.The result shows some of the processes which emerged during the work, and that the student could manage more than she thought was possible by developing the right attitude and by gaining access to suitable tools.

Based on current competitive market, supply chain becomes to be more and more important to overall corporate strategy. Finding good suppliers makes much more senses for the companies nowadays as purchasing is one of the basis parts on the upstream of the supply chain. China has been very successful on turning itself into a production powerhouse in just two decades, so how to find and select the convenient suppliers in China is a very important and modern topic. The thesis has been starting with the introduction part, where the importance of outsourcing, Chinese current manufacturing capabilities and some other factors will be introduced. Besides, the purpose of this thesis is to study and analysis the criteria and processes are used by PCH International on the selection of suppliers in China. The authors try to understand how foreign companies find the right Chinese suppliers based on a case studying, which is PCH International, an Irish company. Within the theoretical framework part, the authors discussed the supplier selection criteria firstly, which are very important and necessary to evaluate suppliers’ performances. Then the thesis was provided with an insight into some common theoretical methods, which followed by the supplier selection processes. Total Cost of Ownership, Data Envelopment Analysis and Mathematical Programming are presented in basic term. The part in the theoretical review was informed about the structure of the supplier selection process, starting with the preparation step, followed by prequalification and evaluation steps and resulting in the final selection of the suppliers. In the methodology part, the approach for the research will be presented, it will be divided into four parts, which are choice of topic, choice of method, data collection, research’s validity and reliability. The empirical finding part consists of practical information which was provided by the case company mentioned above through questionnaires and interviews. The values of the evaluation criteria are depend on the respective goals. For data analysis, the theoretical evaluation models, on the other hand, are not used by this case. The company uses their own methods which are presented in the empirical part as well as in the analytical part of this thesis, the reasons will be describe carefully in this chapter. Finally, this thesis ends with a conclusion, which with the answer of the research question.

Purpose: This thesis uses a case study approach. The purpose is to conduct a critical review of the potentiality of intrapreneurship/corporate entrepreneurship to create an attractive workplace that 1) draws Generation Y as potential employees, and 2) retains them by satisfying their demands, unlocking their full potential through motivation. Background: It is now time for Generation Y to enter the workforce and their values and expectations on the workplace is different from the generations before them. This causes difficulties for organisations to attract and retain Generation Y but it is necessary in order to become a competitive performer in the future. In order to attract and retain Generation Y companies need to motivate their employees, foster and encourage creativity, and create an exciting work environment. This can be done through corporate entrepreneurship/ intrapreneurship and it is therefore interesting to see how Generation Y responds to this concept as well as if it contributes in creating an attractive workplace. Method: The authors made use of a mixed method concurrent triangulation strategy within an explorative sequential design. Where qualitative data was gathered through an explorative pre-study and then through case studies with two companies, simultaneously quantitative data was collected through surveys and the study ended with a qualitative confirmatory study where the results of the analysis was tested against a third company. Conclusion: The result of the study indicated that the companies investigated all had a high level of corporate entrepreneurship, it was also confirmed that Generation Y are suited to become intrapreneurs and that they would feel attracted and more likely to retain in an organisation that promotes intrapreneurship. It was furthermore concluded that corporate entrepreneurship contributes in creating an attractive workplace also for non-intrapreneurs.

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Abstract Purpose/Aim: The aim of this paper is to find out how the company Japanporten can improve their communication through their website. I want to find possible weaknesses in the communication style, and suggest solutions to those. All for the purpose of managing to create understanding and interest to fulfil the purpose and goal for the communication. Material/Method: I have used a qualitative research method, where I have interviewed the manager of Japanporten and made an contents analysis of their website. Main results: Japanporten supplies good functions on their website. The have a clear purpose and explain who they are and what the can do for the visitor. The main weakness is the argumentation to create and keep an interest from the visitor. To improve the communication Japanporten should use more and better arguments and improve the navigation and design of the website.