This thesis investigates the existence of the turn-of-the-month (ToM) effect on the Swedish stock market and further examines whether this calendar anomaly is persistent but different during the Covid-19 pandemic. The main purpose of this study is to determine if the ToM effect is significant in the Swedish stock market over twelve years, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. The major finding is that the ToM effect is statistically significant for all indexes except for the large cap. The ToM window for the mid- and all cap indexes is significant for the last four trading days of the month to the first trading day of the next month. It is also significant for the small cap index during the last four trading days of the month to the first two trading days of the next month. The results of a significant ToM effect are similar to those of prior research, except that the Swedish stock market has an earlier ToM window. The Covid-19 pandemic is divided into three windows – before the virus has reached Sweden, before vaccinations, and after vaccinations. The results indicate that the ToM effect is insignificant when Covid-19 had not yet reached Sweden. Additionally, this study discovers a significant ToM pattern in the small cap and mid cap indexes, but not for the large cap or all cap indexes before vaccinations and after vaccinations. Hence, the ToM effect is persistent but different during a time of a major crisis, which in this paper is the time of the Covid-19 pandemic.  The research approach is deductive and quantitative. All data is collected from Nasdaq as observations of the daily adjusted closing prices starting from 1/4/2010 to 4/22/2022, and consists of the indexes: OMXSCAPGI, OMXS30GI, OMXSSCGI, and OMXSMCGI. The daily returns are then regressed on dummy variables for the trading days, by using different ToM windows to find results if these ToM windows are significant or not.

Background: The Covid-19 pandemic came suddenly and despite our efforts to limit the spread of the virus many people lost their lives. Nurses, the largest group of health care workers, played a crucial role in the caretaking of patients. They cared, informed, screened, organized and managed teams, making them central to patients´ care in that crisis. Aim: The aim is to explore nurses´ experiences of caring for Covid-19 patients at hospitals during the Covid-19 pandemic. Method: A qualitative review based on ten scientific articles. They were analyzed with a thematic inductive analysis following the Braun and Clarks model. Results: Two themes were identified: struggling with new challenges and coping with new challenges. With the respective subthemes: Personal Protective Equipment, fear of Covid-19, feeling lost, abandonment and growing as a nurse and finding strength within the team. Conclusion: This research shows that nurses faced many difficulties while caring for Covid-19 patients, whether it was the lack of PPE, the constant changes in protocols or the fear of being infected. More studies are needed to better prepare nurses if a similar situation occur, which would ensure good and safe nursing care for patients.

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This thesis explores the challenges associated with developing the health care workforce in a Swedish municipality in the post-Covid-19 era. And it explores leaders' perspectives on workforce development. The study uses semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis to uncover key themes and gain insight into the challenges and opportunities these leaders face. The results reveal major challenges associated with the shortage of manpower and the difficulty of attracting and retaining new employees. The results of the thesis reveal also many important aspects that need to be worked on to develop the healthcare workforce in Sweden. The most important of which are long-term strategic planning, recruitment and retention strategies, data-based decision-making, developing communication between leaders and employees and various levels and departments within healthcare institutions, coordination and cooperation with other institutions and government agencies, work. In addition to the importance of life-work balance, promoting a culture of education and continuous development. The findings of this thesis provide valuable insights for policy-makers and operating leaders in Swedish municipalities, particularly in the healthcare sector, with regard to developing strategies to meet workforce needs. This thesis also provides a knowledge base for future research by providing a contextual understanding and theoretical and practical knowledge in relation to workforce development in the field of healthcare.

This study aims to generate а comprehensive understanding of how the Covid-19 pandemic has influenced the investment approach of venture capital funds in the Fintech industry. This aims to bring further insights into how venture capital investors react to the Covid-19pandemic. Furthermore, this research aims to identify the degree to which this reaction is аconsequence of rational decision-making instead of cognitive biases. Simultaneously, this paper will provide insights into the future trajectory of the Fintech industry, showing how major global events such as the pandemic can shape its direction whilst bringing new perspectives to similar phenomena. The following theories are tested against the findings in order to clarify if and where specifically new knowledge is created: Innovation diffusion theory, Rational Choice Theory, Behavioural Finance (with the addition of the Adverse Selection Principle), and Real options theory. A qualitative method base, an exploratory approach with а subjective ontological approach, an interpretive epistemological approach, and an abductive research approach was chosen as suitable research philosophies. A literature review was conducted to uncover areas of interest that require more investigation. The effect of the pandemic on the investment approach in the FinTech industry was identified as а key area for research. The research is based on semistructured interviews with venture capital investors in Sweden. Empirical evidence was generated through an interview with eight venture capital investors at relatively high levels of specificity in terms of the professional hierarchy. The empirical data were analysed using interpretive content analysis which is а thematic data analysis approach. The results of this study provide evidence that the Covid-19 pandemic has indeed had a significant influence on the investment approach within the Fintech industry. The empirical evidence suggests that the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital solutions which in turn has fostered growth and competition and attracted interest from investors. With this said findings revealed that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused а change in investor approach. Additionally, the participants revealed а multitude of varying responses which indicates complexity and uncertainty in the investment landscape.

Thesis advisor: Mariela Páez / In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated persistent educational inequities and added exponentially to the existing “education debt” (Ladson-Billings, 2006). Public schools’ sudden shift to remote learning marginalized a large population of students, including young bilingual children from immigrant backgrounds. These students are among the most vulnerable when it comes to remote learning not only because of accessibility issues, but also because many of these students’ families live in underserved and under-resourced communities that were negatively affected by the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and persistent systemic racism (Fortuna et al., 2020; Schmit et al., 2020). Hence, there is an urgent need to understand pandemic-related experiences of immigrant families with young bilingual children and to respond with educational strategies that strive to mitigate the negative effects of this educational crisis. This dissertation study comprised of three papers addresses this need through a collaborative project with 20 immigrant families with 42 young bilingual children and two community organizations from the Metro and Greater Boston Area. Paper 1 used sequential mixed methods to provide an in-depth account of immigrant families' remote learning experiences and investigate structural barriers such as lack of support and oppressive practices that hindered the establishment of home-school connections during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Paper 2 employed transformative mixed methods to document the development, implementation, and evaluation of a family engagement and remote learning program—the Home Connection. This program was firmly grounded in the equitable collaboration framework of family engagement to build a strong partnership with the family participants and to recognize the crucial roles of the families as co-designers, co-educators, co-researchers, and co-evaluators. Paper 3 is a practitioner inquiry reflecting on what I have learned as a teacher-researcher implementing culturally sustaining pedagogy to partner with immigrant families and teach young bilingual children from diverse backgrounds during pandemic remote learning. Findings from this dissertation documenting the struggles, resistance, and solidarity of these immigrant families will help inform educators, administrators, and policymakers in their planning and delivering of learning experiences and family engagement initiatives that center on the motivation, needs, and assets of diverse students and their families. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

The purpose of this study was to explore the resiliency of Head Start teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study explored the role social support (as an external factor of resilience) and self-efficacy (as an internal factor of resilience) played in the resilience of Head Start teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study employed a sequential explanatory mixed methods design involving two phases: a quantitative and a qualitative phase. Participants in this study were 99 teachers in rural eastern Tennessee and some rural parts of Virginia, North Carolina, and New Mexico, who were Head Start teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Three survey instruments were used to collect quantitative data. The Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale was used to measure self-efficacy, the Comprehensive Evaluation of Social Support (CESS) was used to measure the level of social support, and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) was used to measure resilience. The survey was followed by qualitative interviews with 6 participants randomly selected from 23 participants in phase 1 of the study who agreed to participate in the interview. The results showed that social support (p = .036) and self-efficacy (p ≤ .001) impacted resilience in Head Start teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, self-efficacy was a better predictor of resilience in Head Start teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic than social support. There was no interaction effect of social support and self-efficacy on the resilience of Head Start teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic (p = .078). Also, none of the six dimensions of social support used in this study (supervisor emotional, supervisor instrumental, coworker emotional, coworker instrumental, organizational emotional, and organizational instrumental) significantly predicted resilience in Head Start teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The themes that emerged from the teacher interview were acquisition of skills, families of children, increase in children’s challenging behavior, within-school support, outside-school support, and increase in confidence as a teacher. The limitations of the study and recommendations for practice and future research are included.

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Bakgrund: Organisatoriskt engagemang är ett begrepp som på senaste tiden har fått större plats i både forskning och i praktiken. I samband med covid-19-pandemin och upprättade restriktioner införde många organisationer distansarbete i någon utsträckning. Tidigare forskning om distansarbetets påverkan på medarbetarnas organisatoriska engagemang är tvetydig och har till stor del utförts med premissen att arbetssättet varit en valmöjlighet. Vid distansarbete i samband med covid-19-pandemin uppstår därmed en ny kontext för organisatoriskt engagemang. Det finns därmed anledning att undersöka hur medarbetare upplever att distansarbete i samband med covid-19-pandemin har påverkat deras upplevelser av organisatoriskt engagemang. Syfte: Studien syftar till att ge ökad förståelse för vad distansarbete innebär för organisatoriskt engagemang ur ett medarbetarperspektiv i samband med covid-19-pandemin på arbetsplatser där medarbetares förutsättningar för att interagera fysiskt med kollegor har förändrats under covid-19-pandemin. Metod: Denna studie utgår från en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi och ett fenomenologiskt perspektiv. Studien antar en fallstudiedesign samt abduktiv ansats. Det empiriska materialet är insamlat via semistrukturerade intervjuer med sex medarbetare från ett fallföretag. Slutsats: I studien framkommer det att medarbetarna upplever att flertalet aspekter har spelat in i hur deras organisatoriska engagemang har påverkats av distansarbete i samband med pandemin. Relationer är den aspekt som är mest framträdande i medarbetarnas utsagor, men även delaktighet, organisationskultur och organisationsstruktur har påverkat medarbetarnas organisatoriska engagemang. Medarbetarna upplever även att möjligheten till att arbeta på distans har en påverkan på deras organisatoriska engagemang och att denna påverkan har influerats av distansarbete i samband med pandemin. Aspekterna påverkar inte bara medarbetarnas organisatoriska engagemang enskilt utan är även i samspel med varandra. Ytterligare framgår det att interaktioner utgör en central del i samspelet mellan aspekterna. Studiens resultat visar på att helt ersätta fysiska interaktioner med digitala interaktioner har en negativ påverkan på medarbetarnas upplevelser av organisatoriskt engagemang vid distansarbete i samband med covid-19-pandemin. / Background: Organisational commitment is a concept that has gained popularity in both research and practice. During the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions that followed many organisations applied teleworking to some extent. Previous research on the effects of teleworking on coworkers’ organisational commitment is ambiguous and has mainly been conducted with the condition that teleworking was optional. Teleworking during the pandemic created a new context for organisational commitment. Accordingly, there is reason to study how coworkers experience of teleworking during the COVID-19 pandemic has affected their experiences of organisational commitment. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to gain new insight on what teleworking has meant for organisational commitment from a coworker perspective in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in workplaces where the conditions for the coworkers to interact with their colleagues physically has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methodology: The study draws on a qualitative research strategy and a phenomenological perspective. The study is a case study and has an abductive approach. The empirical evidence was obtained through semi-structured interviews with six coworkers from one case company. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that a multitude of aspects have affected the coworkers’ experiences of their organisational commitment in the context of telework during the COVID-19 pandemic. Relationships is the most prominent aspect in the coworkers’ statements, but participation, organisational culture and organisational structure have also affected the coworkers’ experiences of organisational commitment. The coworkers also experience that the opportunity to telework has an effect on their organisational commitment and that this effect has been influenced by teleworking during the pandemic. The aspects do not only affect the coworkers’ organisational commitment separately but are also interactive. The study found that the aspects mostly interact through the interactions between coworkers. Furthermore the study illustrates that entirely replacing physical interactions with digital interactions has a negative effect on the coworkers’ experiences of organisational commitment in the context of telework during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pharmaceutical industry has received increasing attention from society in recent years, mainly due to the development of vaccines to counteract the spread of Covid-19. While other industries have received sympathy for delays, inconveniences, and difficulties the pressure towards the pharmaceutical industry to produce the vaccine against the virus has increased. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has left no one untouched, it has affected the global economy, increased the unemployment rate, reduced incomes, and resulted in disruption for transportation. The Covid-19 pandemic has also left its mark in the pharmaceutical industry. When lockdowns were implemented, it caused restrictions of in country and cross border movements, hampering the transportation and delivery of pharmaceutical suppliers, causing shortages or disruptions. This has resulted in an industry where unpredictability is constant, while still aspiring to provide stability and safe products for the patients through their projects. Even though the industry is known for working on projects, it is still immature in comparison to other industries, regarding project management knowledge, and therefore also knowledge about risk management. Generally, the pharmaceutical industry is hesitant towards risk and being cautious can be beneficial when managing risk. However, the pharmaceutical industry is dependent on innovation and development of new medicines which is often associated with taking risks.  The purpose of this thesis is to provide insights into the beginning stages of risk management for projects within the pharmaceutical industry, during the covid-19 pandemic in Sweden. The Swedish pharmaceutical industry has during 2020 broken new records regarding exports and increased the volume by ten percent whereas the general export in Sweden has decreased. This study explores pharmaceutical projects’ risk identification by interviewing eight active project members who have been a part of projects both before and during the Covid-19 pandemic.  A qualitative method was chosen for this study, paired with grounded theory that has provided us with several implications for pharmaceutical projects and their risk identification. We have discovered indications for the structure of the risk identification process. This structure indicates four separate steps of the risk identification process. The first step is classifying risk, where cross-functionality plays an important role. Afterwards, the risk identification process enters the complex environment and continues to the second step. This step initiates the risk search - mixed approach, consisting of the individual and collective approaches towards risk search. Here, pharmaceutical projects can take guidance from stakeholders such as regulatory authorities. The third step is reaction which can be altered by unpredictable disruptions or governed by the stakeholders. In this case, the project re-assesses and returns to the second step risk search - mixed approach. However, if the reaction is not to re-assess, the process continues to the fourth step temporarily completed risk identification. Then, due to the long project lifespans, the project will ultimately return to the first step and repeat the risk identification process.  Our study contributes to new insights into pharmaceutical risk identification in several theoretical ways. Mainly, we have shown that contrary to previous theories, the pharmaceutical project risk identification entails the classifying of risks before the risk search. Additionally, our findings generate insights for practical purposes for project members and relevant stakeholders.