Akademische abhandlung--Göteborg. / Contains added title-page not included in paging. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. [vii]-x.

Akademische abhandlung--Göteborg. / Contains added title-page not included in paging. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. [vii]-x.

The study addresses the outward cross-border linking of the Swedish economy and its most important transnational corporations during the 20th century. It explores the aggregate level of Swedish industry, and most importantly, the firm level of a group of eight long-standing transnational corporations, which during the post-1945 period represented roughly half of Sweden’s foreign industrial activity in terms of employment, e.g., Alfa Laval, ASEA, Ericsson, Sandvik, SKF, AGA, Electrolux and Atlas Copco. Since most of these corporations existed already a century ago it was possible to explore their historical trajectories within the general process of globalization. Hence, the study contributes to the testing of the globalization thesis with a small, open, developed economy as the point of reference. Based on aggregate national data and data on levels of foreign activity of Swedish transnational corporations the study presents a phase model of globalization, identifying first an ‘initial phase’ of globalization from ca 1871 to 1929, second a ‘stagnation phase’ (1930-1949), then a third ‘expansion phase’ (1950-1979) and finally, a ‘highlight of globalization’ phase, beginning in 1980 and continuing into the 21st century. In order to gain deeper insights into the historical process of Sweden’s outward economic linking it then looked in more detail at the eight firms mentioned above. Employing a quantitative formal model of foreign corporate activity, the study focusses on changes in the relative magnitude of foreign employment and sales (‘intensity’) and on the geographical distribution of foreign subsidiaries (‘extensity’). The two former categories are combined into an ‘index of transnationality’, which serves as a principal analytical tool for uncovering long-term change. The study concludes that for Swedish industry and its largest transnational corporations the term globalization represents more of a historical, continuous long-term trend than an exclusively contemporary development. In fact, the only period in time when we see a general stagnation in the positive trends was 1930-1945. Moreover, the study found at least two periods of rapid outward linking on the part of some of the most important Swedish corporations, apart from the current one, that is, the decade and a half preceding World War I and the 1960s. Nevertheless, levels of relative magnitude of activity abroad and of geographical spread attained by Swedish industry and its transnational corporations during the last two decades, were in many respects unprecedented. Findings on the variations in the actual pace of globalization during the whole 20th century demonstrated firstly, that positive change in geographical spread of the group of long-standing transnational corporations proceeded at an increasing pace when calculated in absolute terms. For the 1960-1999 period, the existence of positive long-term trends in the magnitude of both foreign sales and foreign employment were discovered. Also, there was an acceleration of the pace at which foreign sales increased over time, when calculated in absolute terms.

Background: Leadership can be understood from the perspective of corporate leaders and employees in two retail organizations such as ICA Maxi and IKEA in Sweden. Research to date has tended to pay little attention to the study of leadership and its related issues in retail organizations. Hence this study attempted to fill the gap by exploring the specified aims and objectives. Aims and Objectives: The aim and objective of this study are to offer new and profound insights into how corporate leaders engage employees when leading organizational change, and the rest. Additionally, to provide a deeper understanding with respect to the key challenges facing corporate leaders when leading organizational change in ICA Maxi and how they address these challenges. Method: By employing qualitative modes of inquiry and by using a case study approach, this paper sought to help illuminate the research questions and objectives in detail. This research was exploratory, interpretative, and inductive in nature and the empirical data were collected through a semi-structured and face-to-face interview from six corporate leaders/managers and six employees in ICA Maxi and IKEA in Sweden.      Findings: In addition to several other findings, this empirical research found that corporate leaders engage the employees by creating question and answer time in a way that demonstrates leadership in action. Furthermore, the corporate leaders not only engage the employees in a way that enables them to mobilize the support of the employees; but also, the corporate leaders engage the employees by voluntarily relinquishing leadership to them for the short-term. This research paper also found that corporate leaders who align themselves with vertical leadership tend to support vertical-participatory leadership in practice and both vertical-participatory leadership and participatory leadership can be problematic when leading organizational change. The corporate leaders in the retail organizations, ICA Maxi and IKEA could face challenges of adaption, a barrage of why questions from the employees, and a situation where the employees can become afraid of taking responsibility for wrongdoing. Finally, this study found that corporate leaders tend to address the challenges they face when leading organizational change by means of providing the right information and by joint consultation with the employees. Contributions: Theoretically, this research has contributed to filling the gap in the literature by adding to the growing body of research with respect to the phenomenon of leadership in retail organizations such as ICA Maxi and IKEA. Practically, this qualitative study has contributed to our understanding of how daily routines could be improved between the corporate leaders and employees in these retail organizations, ICA Maxi and IKEA. In terms of managerial contribution, this exploratory study has contributed to reminding the corporate leaders about the need to accelerate their leadership roles by implementing important policies with respect to selling products that are environmentally sound. As regards societal contribution, this thesis has contributed in creating awareness by highlighting different ways that corporate leaders could engage the employees appropriately and inappropriately.

This thesis takes a historical approach to its subject and focuses on Swedish cinema of the 1940s and 1950s. The thesis argues that Swedish cinema experienced a renaissance in the 1940s, lasting approximately from 1940 to 1953. It further suggests that one of the most important filmmakers in this renaissance was Hasse Ekman. By focussing upon Ekman and this renaissance, a much-needed contextualisation of Ingmar Bergman will be achieved. Ingmar Bergman is one of the most well-known and well-researched filmmakers of all time, but there are still gaps in the material surrounding him, and one such gap concerns his cinematic origins. Bergman was a part of the 1940s renaissance, during which Bergman worked with, and was influenced by, other filmmakers and in particular Ekman. The thesis is divided into three parts. The first part introduces the relevant literature and discusses ideas of authorship and national cinema. It also provides a historic overview of Swedish society and cinema during the 1940s and 1950s, providing the context needed to better understand the films of Ekman, and Bergman too. This part also looks at the 1930s to illustrate what came before this renaissance, and how the films of the 1940s differed from what had gone before. The second part is a chronological overview of Ekman's career from the late-1930s to his move to Spain in 1964. The last part is a discussion of Ekman's relation to Swedish society and his view of the world, based on close textual readings of his films. The aim of the thesis is to present, for the first time, a coherent and extensive overview of Ekman's career and body of work, while also situating it in the specific context in which it emerged, thereby shedding new light on an important, though neglected, episode in cinema history.

I den här uppsatsen undersöks hur frågor med finalt eller används i sverigesvenska och finlandssvenska servicesamtal vid biljettkassor. Huvudsyftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur den här typen av frågor fungerar i sina interaktionella sammanhang och att på så sätt få reda på vad det finala eller bidrar med i interaktionen. I uppsatsen undersöks också likheter och skillnader gällande användningen av frågor med finalt eller i de sverigesvenska och finlandssvenska samtalen. Målet med detta är att bidra till forskningen om svenska som pluricentriskt språk. Teoretiskt och metodiskt utgår undersökningen från den samtalsanalytiska metoden Conversation analysis (CA). Särskilt fokus i undersökningen läggs vid frågornas förhållande till samtalens preferensstruktur. Analysen av samtalen identifierar tre återkommande användningsområden för frågorna: att ge sig in på den andra partens område, att skynda på samtalet och att hantera känsliga ämnen. Dessa användningsområden återfinns i både de sverigesvenska och de finlandssvenska samtalen. Undersökningen visar att frågor med finalt eller i det undersökta materialet används oftare i de sverigesvenska samtalen än i de finlandssvenska, men att de förekommer regelbundet i båda de språkliga varieteterna. Det finala eller konstateras öppna upp frågornas preferensstruktur och göra det lättare för respondenten att ge svar som utan det finala eller skulle ha kunnat uppfattas som interaktionellt oönskade. Genom det finala eller positionerar sig frågeställaren som mindre säker och frågorna framstår som mer förbehållslösa, försiktiga och garderande. Tillägget av eller gör preferensorganisationen i samtalen mer flexibel, och i samtalen används frågorna som en metod för att utföra potentiellt problematiska handlingar och beröra känsliga områden på ett interaktionellt smidigt sätt.