The purpose of this essay was to examine and compare what attitudes Swedish and Belgian social workers may have towards residential care and foster care for children and young people. To answer the purpose eight qualitative interviews with four Swedish and four Belgian social workers were made. The results were analyzed by theory of organization and professional acting space. The results of the study show that the social workers in both countries preferred foster care, especially for small children, and that the Swedish social workers had a more negative attitude towards residential care than the Belgian social workers. Even though the Belgian social workers preferred foster care, they found themselves forced to choose residential care due to lack of available foster care facilities, something that did not seem to affect the Swedish social workers. Factors that affected the Swedish and the Belgian social workers professional acting space were the consent from parents, discussing with colleagues and specialization of interventions.

The aim of the study was, through qualitative interviews with school counsellors in Swedish primary schools, to study what the counsellors are experiencing condition their ability to work proactively according to the Swedish Education Act provisions on student health. During the study, six interviews with school counsellors who worked in the same suburbs, was conducted. The theoretical approach that was used is Michael Lipsky's theory of street-level bureaucrats and the term discretion. The overall outcome of the study was that the interviewed school counsellors felt that they did not have good opportunities to work preventively as the Education Act requires. The main reason for this was the school counsellor’s heavy workload. The results of the study were divided into three categories, which in turn were followed by several themes to highlight the conditions governing school counsellor’s opportunity to work preventatively.

The aim of this study has been to highlight the situation for young men within the context of honour. The aim has also been to highlight the restrictions of young men within the context of honour, and how they rebel against those demands. The study was based on a qualitative research method and carried out in Sweden. The results have been analyzed using the hermeneutic perspective. The results showed that the situation for young men within the context of honour is often manifested by controlling their sisters and the expectation that the young men support their families in the future by marring a woman who has been approved by the collective. The young men are restricted because they are not free to dispose of their spare time themselves, cannot choose their future partner or socialize with people from other cultures. The young men can rebel against these restrictions by negotiating with those in authority within the family, by gaining support within or outside the context or by breaking away from it. The conclusion of the study was that by highlighting the situation for young men within the context of honour you gain understanding for the context as a whole.

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The present study deals with the scope of action available to a social worker when analyzing, assessing and proposing measures regarding young persons experiencing social problems. The interest in the subject area emanates from the fact that the number of youth placed in different forms of round the clock out-of-home care in Sweden increases, whereas research in the subject shows that such placement gives few positive results and sometimes even has negative consequences for their development. The study investigates how the preconditions of the social worker influence their scope of possible action, in particular as regards their place of work, the situation of the individual dealt with, and the profession itself being one based both on scientific evidence and knowledge gained by experience. Lipsky’s theory on ”street-level bureaucracy” and Hasenfelds theory on human servicing organizations form the theoretical framework of the present study. The empirical input comes from interviews with focus groups of active social workers. The analysis of the interviews shows that social workers generally feel that they have a broad scope of action as far as the regulatory framework and office management are concerned. They have, however, less room of manoeuvre when it comes to the resources of their place of work and their ability to use the whole range of possible measures may be limited by an insufficient level of experience and a weak management structure. According to the interviews social workers feel that the situation of the juvenile clients themselves constitutes the most limiting factor. It is evident that placements in out-of-home care are almost exclusively done for protective reasons, when the social worker sees no other possibility to break a seriously destructive way of life.

The aim of this qualitative study is to understand how first-line managers lead their employees in the implementation of social service legislated value-base for elderly people. We wanted to understand what kind of leadership the managers used and how this leadership is formed by their acting space. Method: For this study is a qualitative method used. Trough semi-structured interviews, with 7 first-line managers, the empirical data were collected. Theory: For the analysis of the empirical data was Kurt Lewin’s three classic leadershipstyles used; the autocracy, the democracy and laissez-faire, and the theoretical concept of acting space. Result: The result of the study showed that the most common leader-style is the democracy style among the first-line managers. In the work with the social service legislated value-base for elderly people it is important to be a present leader that supports and include the employees in this work. However there are situations where the leader has to use an autocracy leader-style. The leadership is shaped by the acting space the first-line manager has. It can be affected by the organizational conditions like resources and the possibility of education for both the managers and the employees.

The aim with this study was to examine how middle managers in their position in the middle of an organization perceive their occupational role and its possibilities and limitations in the light of leadership in social work. Our study was conducted by qualitative research through semi-structured interviews in a middle-sized municipality in the southern part of Sweden. A total of eight middle managers were interviewed, four operating within the care of older persons and four operating within the care of persons with disabilities. The results showed that the middle managers felt like several groups had different expectations of their occupational role and most of them found that the solution was to prioritize and to be able to decide themselves how their work should be executed. Role conflicts could arise when the expectations between different groups or between other expectations and the middle managers’ expectations of themselves collided. These role conflicts became especially clear when the middle manager did not agree with what the political administration demanded. Conversely, the middle managers also mentioned advantages with operating in a political organization. Generally, the middle managers expressed adequate opportunities to influence their organization and occupational role, despite having several rules and guidelines to follow. Furthermore, the middle managers operating within the care of older persons had their offices together with the staff, whereas the middle managers operating within the care of persons with disabilities had their offices together with other middle managers. While their geographical positions were this different, both sides were generally content with their current position and expressed that it was positive for their leadership and role. Steadily having to balance different tasks and live up to different expectations was expressed as both a difficulty and as the aspect that made the profession enjoyable.

Sedan år 2005 måste samtliga svenska börsnoterade företag presentera sin finansiella information samtredovisningen av densamma i enlighet med standarden IFRS. Detta har resulterat i att företagsledningenssubjektiva tolkningar, något som skapat möjligheter för ledningen att påverka redovisningen. Detta kanförklaras genom Agency Theory och Positive Accounting Theory, vilka beskriver att ledningen antas ageraopportunistiskt, i syfte att maximera sin egennytta. Ledningen tenderar att manipulera företagsredovisning, varav goodwill kan användas som en resultatjusterare.Denna studie belyser hur ledningens handlingsutrymme påverkar företags redovisning av goodwill,betingat av den organisatoriska nivån. Studiens hypoteser formas utifrån organisationsnivåns olikafaktorer, vilka även testas för att se hur faktorerna påverkar företags redovisning av goodwill. För attundersöka studiens syfte används en positivistisk forskningsfilosofi och därmed kvantitativforskningsdesign, vilket präglas av en deduktiv ansats. Insamling av data har åstadkommits via företagsårsredovisningar, något som sedan sammanställts.Studiens resultat indikerar att ju högre skuldsättning och starkare ägarkoncentration, desto mindregoodwill redovisar ledningen. Har företag en låg skuldsättning och svag ägarkoncentration leder det tillökat handlingsutrymme och därmed en potentiellt högre andel redovisad goodwill.Studien bidrar till insikt kring hanteringen av goodwill och att ledningens handlingsutrymme har enpotentiell inverkan på redovisningen av goodwill. Dessutom tillför studien kunskap för vilka faktorer sompåverkar företags redovisningsval. Avslutningsvis bidrar uppsatsen till ökade möjligheter att jämförastudiens resultat med tidigare studier, vilket kan resultera i att ägarna kan få mer kännedom om hur debäst reducerar ledningens handlingsutrymme och dess opportunistiska beslut. / Since year 2005 all Swedish listed companies has to present their financials and accountingaccording to the standard IFRS. This has allowed the management to make subjectiveinterpretations, which in turn has elaborated opportunities to influence the accounting. Thosepossibilities can be explained by Agency Theory and Positive Accounting Theory, which presumethe management acting opportunistically, in order to maximize self-interest. Management tend tomanipulate companies accounting, whereof goodwill can be used as an adjuster of results.The thesis disambiguate how management discretion affect companies accounting of goodwill,contingent of the organizational level. The thesis hypothesis elaborates thru factors of theorganizational level, which are also tested in order to see how the variables affect businesscorporations accounting of goodwill. A positive research philosophy is used in order to analyze thethesis purpose. The data collection has been accomplished using the company's annual reports.The thesis results indicates that the higher debt and stronger concentration of ownership, the lessamount goodwill is accounted. If companies has a lower debt and weaker concentration ofownership, it increases management discretion and thereby a potentially higher amount of goodwill.The thesis contribute to knowledge about managing goodwill and that management discretion hasa potentially impact on the accounting of goodwill. Finally, the thesis contributes to increasedopportunities to compare the thesis results with previous studies, which may result in the ownersbeing able to get more knowledge of how they best reduce management discretion and itsopportunistically decisions.

This study aims to describe and analyze how organizational requirements affect social workers in their work with child investigations in four municipalities in southern Sweden. We used focus groups interviews as a method and gathered data from four groups of 3-4 social workers. Once groups were established we presented the participants with a vignette study, and ended every session with general questions about different organizational requirements and how they affect their work. In the study we wanted to answer two questions: 1. How do the social workers describe different organizational requirements affecting their work with child welfare investigations? 2. How do the social workers work to meet the organizational requirements? To analyze the results we used Lipsky’s definition of discretion, grassroot-bureaucrats and people-processing organizations. The results from the focus group interviews was analyzed and showed that economical restrictions and documentational work were two major organizational requirements that the social workers were affected by. These components are a part of New Public Management (NPM) that is a management method that aim to make organizations work more effectively. Our results showed that the social workers had some economical restrictions regarding the range of efforts to offer a family due to the savings requirements that existed in the municipalities. The results also showed that the social workers experiences that they had a workload too high for their resources sometimes. Because of this, the social workers had developed strategies to cope with documentation requirements.

Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka hur barnperspektivet beaktas i socialtjänstens handläggning av ekonomiskt bistånd. Metoden som använts är en kvalitativ intervjustudie, där sex socialsekreterare som arbetar med handläggning av ekonomiskt bistånd inom en viss kommun har intervjuats. Studien utgår från handlingsutrymme som teoretisk tolkningsram. Studien är av relevans för socialt arbete då barn som befinner sig i familjer med ekonomiskt bistånd utgör en utsatt grupp som riskerar att hamna i fortsatt social utsatthet även i vuxen ålder. Studien visar att en majoritet av socialsekreterarna uppfattar barnperspektivet som otydligt angivet och att det finns en osäkerhet i hur man ska arbeta utifrån detta. Studien visar även att barn tenderar bli osynliga i handläggningen av ekonomiskt bistånd, samt att socialsekreterarna uppfattar att de inte har tillräckliga förutsättningar att arbeta utifrån ett barnperspektiv. Studien visar vidare att majoriteten av socialsekreterarna hyser önskemål om att arbeta mer utifrån ett barnperspektiv. / The purpose of the essay is to investigate how the child perspective is taken into consideration in the social services' management of financial assistance. The method used is a qualitative interview study. Six social workers within financial assistance have been interviewed. The study is based on the theory of discretion, and is of relevance to social work since children in families who receive financial assistance constitute a vulnerable group who is at risk of ending socially vulnerable even in adulthood. The results of the study show that most of the social workers perceive the child perspective as unclear. The study also shows that children tend to be invisible in financial assistance, and that the social workers perceive that they do not have sufficient conditions to work from a child perspective. The study further shows that most of the social workers have a request to work more from a child perspective.