The thesis addresses the translation process of organisational core values. Core values can be seen as the guiding principles that reveal how the organisation conducts its business. These are often written down as a part of the company’s philosophy and tend to be explicitly articulated to all their entities and functions throughout their organisation. By doing so, the organisation wish to benchmark certain behaviour among their employees. In this thesis, the purpose is to explore how the employees in a subsidiary translate and understand the core values of their Swedish employer. Our aim is to investigate what happens with the meaning of the core values when translated by the employees, as well as to see how these values are visible in the employees day-to-day actions. In this study, a qualitative approach have been used and a case study has been conducted in one of H&M’s subsidiaries. Through 12 semi-structured interviews with employees with different roles in the organisation we have been able to create further understanding of the phenomenon of core value translation in a Chinese setting. H&M is a large, multinational retail company with presence in 49 countries all over the world. This case study can serve the purpose guide managers wanting to understand how their Chinese colleagues accept and interpret their strategies, as more and more Swedish companies are expanding to China. The nature of the study is of abductive character, where we have used the ‘systematic combining’ approach. This enabled us to incorporate new theories and data throughout the research process to facilitate our understanding of our findings. The theoretical background has thus served as base for our understanding and have been constantly reviewed and revised during the research process. Our conclusion from this study is that the translation of the core values relies on the institutionalised organisational procedures and processes set in place. What supported the translation process were mainly the daily conversations with fellow colleagues and repeated procedures, such as meetings and interaction between positions. We also found that those values that had a clear practical usage, tended to be easier for the employees to translate into own actions. Our main finding is however, that the employees translated the core values into a guiding tool that supported and joined the workforce in their daily activities. All parts of the value ‘package’ had been re-contextualised to fit the employees in their local context and were visible in their actions in various ways, but with the common purpose to guide.

Using data from the 2000 American National Election Study and the Uniform Crime Reports, this research studies the impact of core values and contextual effects on gun control policy preferences. The research seeks to produce a contextually sensitive model of gun control policy preferences that accounts for the nature of the elite message war regarding the issue of gun control and for both long and short-term contextual factors that might sway individual opinions at the point of stimulus (e.g., the survey question). While the analysis does find conditioning effects, the effects do not conform to the theoretical expectations, and they are generally weaker than expected. In contrast, the research demonstrates the strong connections that formed in the public’s mind between ideological, partisan and gender-based core values and gun control policy preferences. These results are consistent with research that found the effects of political messages often vary in counterintuitive ways due to variance in the strength of the message and political awareness (Zaller 1992). Replicating this research across various time periods permits the investigation of the decay rate of impacts on individual policy preferences created by substantial, one-time contextual effects. It may be that contextual effects have a substantial impact in the short-term, but these short-term impacts are mitigated over the longterm by continual reinforcement of the basic themes employed by elites in the message war surrounding the issue.

Research has indicated that positive and negative attitudes toward intercollegiate athletics can contribute to the perceptions of both congruency and incongruency with the established university mission and values. Core values are considered to represent philosophical viewpoints and organizational priorities, further providing a sense of purpose to stakeholders. As such, established core values are expected to be applied and enacted in daily interactions in order to fulfill the mission and vision of an organization. Over time, however, the increase in negative attitudes attributed to athletic department behavior brings into question their perceived alignment with the university core values and brand. The potential existence of incompatibility and misalignment among internal constituents concerning core values has been linked to the starting point for conflicts within the organizational setting. Thus, attitudes toward athletic department behavioral congruency or incongruency with stated university core values is worthy of investigation in order to determine the consequential impact on the university brand. The purpose of this study was to investigate stakeholder attitudes toward athletic department behavioral congruency with the stated core values of Texas A&M University and assess the subsequent implications for the university brand. Personal interviews (N=13) were conducted with individuals from each of six university internal and external stakeholder groups: current students, alumni, faculty/staff members, community members, athletic department personnel, and athletic department boosters. Findings revealed four primary themes: 1) 'Excellence' Equals Winning, 2) For Public Relations Purposes Only, 3) Separation and Isolation of the Athletic Department, and 4) Lack of Leadership from the Top-Down. Implications communicated the necessity of a consistent and accurate representation of the Texas A&M brand at all university levels. Further, the implementation of a unique, potentially more effective model for core value congruency and brand management was presented. Finally, the necessity of promotion and implementation of the core values from university and athletic department leadership was recommended for core value effectiveness and brand consistency.

Denna uppsats är en jämförande studie av en privat och en kommunal verksamhet som båda bedriver omsorgsboenden. Syftet med uppsatsen har varit att bidra med kunskap om organisationers värdegrundsarbete utifrån ett chefsperspektiv med fokus på funktion, mål och utvärdering. Genom att jämföra en privat och en kommunal verksamhet med fokus på eventuella skillnader och likheter i ett värdegrundsarbete kan konstateras att skillnaden var mindre än förväntat. Utifrån att ett privata bolag säljer platser i omsorgsboenden till externa intressenter var en föreställning att värdegrundsord skulle spela en stor roll i marknadsföringen, vilket de inte gjorde. Vad såväl den kommunala som den privata verksamheten istället lyfte var vikten av en hållbar och varaktig verksamhet. Den privata liksom den kommunala verksamheten påtalade att värdegrundsorden och värdegrunden i första hand var riktat internt med start redan vid rekrytering av nya medarbetare, för att skapa en bra arbetsmiljö för såväl klienter, medarbetare som chefer. Där båda verksamheterna påtalade vikten att som chef och ledare vara genuin och leva värdegrunden för att på så vis kunna leda och guida sina medarbetare in i värdegrundstänket. Både den privata och den kommunala verksamheten har nedskrivna och uttalade värdegrundsord och värdegrund, och trots att värdegrundsarbetet idag är på lite olika sätt i de två organisationerna trycker båda verksamheterna på vikten av att hålla ett värdegrundsarbete levande. Där båda verksamheterna vill tro att deras verksamheter är bättre med värdegrundsord och en uttalad värdegrund än de skulle ha varit om de inte hade haft det. / This essay is a comparative study of a private and a municipal organization that both run nursing homes. The purpose of the thesis has been to contribute knowledge about organizations' value-based work from a managerial perspective with a focus on function, goals and evaluation. By comparing a private and a municipal organizations with a focus on any differences and similarities in a value-based work, it can be concluded that the difference was smaller than expected. Based on the fact that a private company sells places in nursing homes to external stakeholders, one idea was that core values would play a major role in marketing, which they did not. What both the municipal and the private organizations instead highlighted was the importance of a sustainable and lasting business. The private as well as the municipal organization pointed out that the core values were primarily directed internally, starting already when recruiting new employees, in order to create a good working environment for clients, employees and managers. Where both operations emphasized the importance of being genuine and living the values as a manager and leader in order to be able to lead and guide their employees into the value thinking. Both the private and municipal organization have written down core values, and despite the fact that the work with core values today are in a little different way in the two organizations, both points out the importance of keeping the work with core values alive. Where both businesses want to believe that their businesses are better with core values than they would have been if they had not had it

The purpose of this paper is to investigate what cultural changes can be observed in an acquired company’s corporate culture in one unit that is integrated in the acquiring company’s routines - but not physically integrated. This research aims to contribute to the understanding of post-acquisition situations in the long-term. To fulfill this purpose, the following questions were to be answered: how do the employees at the acquired (but not physically integrated) company unit experience the corporate culture seven years after the acquisition, and how do they feel knowing their unit will be transferred to the same location as the acquirer company? Answering these questions, an exploratory qualitative case study of GEHC in Uppsala was implemented with fourteen employees interviewed at GEHC Boländerna and the unit in Fyrislund. The results revealed that the culture at the acquired unit today is partly changed and the core values are no longer prominent to the same extent, despite being deliberately maintained by the employees. There is also a partly negative attitude towards the physical integration, as the last parts of the acquired company´s culture will entirely disappear as the employees will be divided into different departments once they move to Boländerna.

Abstract The purpose of my study was to examine how four social studies teachers in upper secondary school interprets the democratic educational mission and core values, and if they believe that the same values are tools to influence the students' democratic approach and if they think it is possible. It is also the study's minor purpose to make an analysis of my findings and previous research in the area to explain any similarities or differences in the social studies teacher's interpretation and practice of the democratic educational mission and core values. I used qualitative semi-structured interviews as a method in which the interview questions were based on my research questions. The two criteria I had for my sample of respondents was that there would be social studies teacher at a upper secondary school and that I wanted to have two of each sex. Their interpretation and how they think they practice the democratic educational mission and core values are similar. They highlight the importance of students who dare to say what they think, everyone should be treated equally and that they should prepare students for life in a democratic society. They also thought that they could influence students democratic approach but that there were other factors that weighed heavily, for example, the home environment. The answers from my study is similar to previous research. This I explained with the help of Dewey that the social studies teachers are democrats in one way or the other, because of that they possess a willingness to keep democracy and know how it works. Therefore, they convey similar democratic values and knowledge to students so that democracy can continue to exist while the students are given tools to change society within the democratic rules. Keywords: Social study teacher, the democratic mission, core values, education.

The concept of organizational culture has been a popular issue since 1980. Also, the study of cultural issues have been linked increasingly with organizational analysis. Since then, cultural studies have been researched tremendously and many researchers started examining the correlation between culture and corporate performance (Pettigrew, 1979; Pfeffer, 1981; Smircich, 1983). The past research findings have been proved that cultural factors not only provide rational explanations for corporate performance for good or bad but also they are surely an important managerial instrument for managers to improve their organizational effectiveness, as well. The methodology of this research is a case study of an IT industry. The research is conducted by a qualitative method of a one-by-one interview to discover the relationship between cultures and performance within an organization. The purpose is to investigate how culture affects performance and what factors would be most significantly to enhance its performance. From the research results, the cultural factors that trigger the corporate performance are those elements including leadership, culture values, staff, behavior, training, motivation, and cultural communication. That refers to an organizational symbolism such as legends, stories, myth, and ritual. Furthermore, the relation between the leadership and culture is somehow like a two-sided coin, which means a leader of an organization represents its culture and ideas; the organizational culture in return reflects the leader¡¦s core values, as well. Managers, therefore, attempt to let all members fit into its particular culture over managerial policy and human resources strategy to increase corporate effectiveness. As the result reveals, people are considered as the most important intellectual capital for the corporate, but the critical factor for it to be successful is culture.

The topic of this essay is core value issues, how they are mediated in school and how they are practiced. I am investigating a problem concerning the existential worth of the core values-content for children, or in other words, the difficulty of reconciling the theory of the core values and their practice. This problem is portrayed by two stories. The aim of this work is to investigate how to combine the core values theory with its practice, in other words, make it meaningful. In my essay, I turn to recent research in the field to provide a background to my issue, and hereby further point to my problem. To further deepen the understanding of the problem, I use the professor and educator Eugene Matusov´s theory of dialogic pedagogy. Matusov, much inspired by Bahktin, asserts that all human communication is inherently dialogic. Based on this thesis I have tried to understand my problem and examine what possible solutions Matusov can contribute with. What I have found is that core values practice, here illustrated by my stories and current research, is problematic because it very much is program-based. This tends to lead to correcting children's behavior through actions and prevention against bullying and abusive actions. This becomes the core values practice. Instead I argue based Matusov´s theory, that the core values practice ​​should rather have a broad democracy and community focus where norms, societal discourses and structures are examined in a joint effort. I also argue that meaning making and learning can, and aught to, be promoted through dialogic pedagogy.

Att företag tar fram kärnvärden som ett sätt att ge de anställda riktlinjer för hur de ska agera inom företaget blir allt mer vanligt, men fyller dessa kärnvärden till fullo den funktion i företaget som de är framtagna för? Syftet med denna studie har varit att ge en bild av hur ett specifikt företag, i denna studie Peab, arbetar med att förmedla sina kärnvärden och hur de anställda uppfattar och förhåller sig till dessa värden. För att få fram viktig bakgrundsinformation gjordes det en dokumentgranskning av det material som har tillhandahållits från Peab gällande deras kärnvärden och hur de arbetar med att förmedla dessa. I denna studie har en kvalitativ ansats valts och det genomfördes sex semistrukturerade intervjuer med två olika yrkeskategorier inom företaget, som i denna studie benämns som chefer och yrkesarbetare. Studiens resultat visar att den information som ges kontinuerligt till Peabs medarbetare skiljer sig åt beroende på vilken av de två ovannämnda yrkeskategorierna de anställda tillhör. Detta leder i sin tur till skilda uppfattningar om vad kärnvärdenas uppgift är i företaget och hur hög graden av överensstämmelse är mellan respondenternas egna personliga värderingar och kärnvärdena. / That organizations develop core values as a way to give employees guidance on how to act in the company becomes more common, but are these core values filling the function of the company as they are developed to do? The purpose of this study was to provide a picture of how a specific company , in this study, Peab, is working to convey their core values and how employees perceive and relate to these values. In order to obtain important background information, a document review was made of the material that has been provided from Peab concerning their core values and how they work to convey them. In this study, a qualitative approach was selected and six semi-structured interviews was carried out with two different professional groups in the company, which in this study is referred to as managers and skilled workers. Our result demonstrate that the information given continuously to Peab employees differ depending on which of the above two occupational categories the employees belong to. This in turn leads to different perceptions of what the core values role are in the company and how high the degree of agreement between respondents' personal values and the core values are.

This essay is a study of the core values of the Swedish preschool curriculum. The national preschool curriculum begins by outlining the foundation of core values which the preschool education rests on. In the new national preschool curriculum Lpfö18, which takes effect in the summer of 2019, the core values have been changed to some extent. This raises the questions: where do these core values come from and how different are they from previous core values? Therefore, the main research questions of this study are: what core values discourse is created in Lpfö18 and how does it compare to core values discourses from previous preschool curricula? The empirical data used for this study consists of extracts from different national preschool curricula and similar pedagogical texts in which core values are presented. To process the empirical data, the study used discourse analysis. In particular, the study used the terms “nodal points” and “floating signifiers” from theorists Laclau & Mouffe (2008) and was also inspired by the practices of text analysis outlined by Fairclough (2013). Through the use of discourse analysis, it has been possible to study continuity and change in the core value discourses as expressed in preschool curricular texts. The results show that the values most central to the core value discourse in the new national curriculum, such as democracy and human rights, can be traced back to the core value discourses in previous curricula and also to an international children’s rights discourse. The study also found that some core values from earlier curricula were still left as traces in the new text. Core values related to human rights in particular were found to be important in every version of core values discourse studied. However, there were also values which had been included in the discourse more recently or which had been excluded, which shows that there is both continuity and change in the preschool core values discourse.