Vandalism is a form of a crime and threatens the safety and unity of a neighborhood. To inspect the issues of vandalism, a case study of Hovsjö in Södertälje is chosen. The area has most immigrants mainly from the Middle Eastern descent. Attempt is made to investigate these issues of vandalism with the help of theory, public documents of the area, history, physical evidence using photographs and conducting interviews of the residents and the authority. The issues of vandalism upon thorough analysis are found to be very subjective and are open to different interpretations. Thus, this thesis is about the authors’ version of interpreting the issue as immigrants from India. One of the key findings from the study is that there is a clear lack of trust between the authorities and the residents of Hovsjö. The reasons for this lack of trust is due to many issues but mostly revolve around the integration of the immigrants into the Swedish society. Thus, few ideas are recommended as an attempt to encourage better integration of immigrants into the Swedish Society and other generic ideas to prevent vandalism and increase the social capital. These ideas include ‘earliest is best’, ‘one size does not fit all’, ‘break the ice’, ‘get the right mix’ etc. among others. / Vandalism är en form av ett brott och hotar en grannskapets säkerhet och enhet. För att inspektera vandalismfrågor väljs en fallstudie av Hovsjö i Södertälje. Området har en majoritet av invandrare främst från Mellanöstern. Man försöker undersöka dessa frågor om vandalism med hjälp av teori, offentliga handlingar i området, tidigare historia, fysiska bevis med fotografier och genomföra intervjuer av invånarna och myndigheten. Frågorna om vandalism efter grundlig analys har visat sig vara mycket subjektiva och är öppna för olika tolkningar. Således handlar denna avhandling om författarnas version av att tolka frågan som invandrare från Indien. Ett av de viktigaste resultaten från studien är att det finns en tydlig brist på förtroende mellan myndigheterna och Hovsjöbor. Orsakerna till denna brist på förtroende beror på många frågor men handlar mest om integrationen av invandrare i det svenska samhället. Således rekommenderas få idéer som ett försök att uppmuntra en bättre integration av invandrare i Swedish Society och andra generiska idéer för att förhindra vandalism och öka det sociala kapitalet. Dessa idéer inkluderar "tidigast är bäst", "en storlek passar inte alla", "bryt isen", "få rätt blandning" etc. bland andra.

This is a qualitative study of how teachers of Quetzaltenango in Guatemala view their role as teachers in relation to the pupils and their families, as well as their opinions of the Teacher Education, their colleagues and the government. Finally, we attempt to answer the question of what role school and teachers play in a new democracy like Guatemala. The results of our study show that the teachers see school as a way to a better future for their pupils yet they lack a sense of pride for their profession. They are facing challenges in their work related to a lack of resources and the family situations. Leftovers from dictatorship, such as mistrust between people and towards the government and low power of initiative affect the teachers in a negative way. These leftovers are undesirable in a democracy. Power of initiative is a vital quality of the citizens in a country that wants to develop itself economically and socially and trust is necessary for people to be able to cooperate. Therefore, the design and quality of the Teacher Education is crucial, since the new teachers will act as a link between the democratic ideals and the young citizens who constitute the future of Guatemala. However, the Teacher Education does not only attract students who want to work as teachers. This has a negative affect on the ability to create a sense of mutual identity between the future teachers, which we believe is needed in order for the teachers to realize their great importance. We come to the conclusion that the teachers engaged in horizontal relationships of mutuality and cooperation manage to accomplish more in their profession. They have the ability to involve the parents and make them conscious of the importance of school, which makes it possible for education to have a positive impact on democracy. However, the vertical relationships of authority and dependence, which derive from authoritarian systems keep influencing teachers and prevent them to exert the positive influence they have the ability to do.

Reasons behind a low level of trust in middle managementThe purpose of this study was to investigate reasons behind the low level of trust in a large Swedish industrial company and to get a perception of what parameters the company can work with to increase level of trust. The question we been focusing on is how rewards and punishment can drive the organizational culture as organizational cultures is driven by different behaviors. As far as we could see there was no research or studies on specifically rewards and punishment connected to culture and its development.This is a qualitative study, and we made an approach to use Kathy Charmaz variant on Grounded Theory as a method. Interviews with managers in three different levels at the same department has been done. The study started with Jacobsen & Thorsvik's model, the transformation process to understand how different elements of the organization are connected. Using Schein's three-level model, the questionnaire was constructed. When analyzing the results from the interviews, mainly Ekman's LGSP model and Schein's three-level model was used.During the interviews was it obvious that all managers worked to develop the culture but without greater success. We found the organization had structural problems that made it difficult to develop trust and sometimes managers behaved in a way that was driving the culture in wrong direction according to company strategy. We noticed a widespread unconsciousness amongmanagers on how organizational culture is developed and how they were affecting their coworkers.When those who work in an organization become insecure, the uncertainty makes it difficult to build trust between different units. The uncertainty creates various negative behaviours that drive culture in the opposite direction to the desired.

Technological innovations in data transfer and communication have given rise to the virtual team where geographically separate individuals interact via one or more technologies to combine efforts on a collective activity. In military, business, and spaceflight settings, virtual teams are increasingly used in training and operational activities; however there are important differences between these virtual collaborations and more traditional face-to-face (FTF) interactions. One concern is the absence of FTF contact may alter team communication and cooperation and subsequently affect overall team performance. The present research examined this issue with a specific focus on how communication modality influences team learning and performance gains. Evidence from a recent study on virtual team performance (Singer, Grant, Commarford, Kring, and Zavod, 2001) indicated local teams, with both members in same physical location in Orlando, Florida which allowed for FTF contact before and after a series of virtual environment (VE) missions, performed significantly better than distributed teams, with team members in separate physical locations in Orlando and Toronto, Canada and no FTF contact. For the first mission, local and distributed teams exhibited no significant difference in performance as measured by the number of rooms properly cleared in the building search exercises. In contrast, for the second mission, occurring after each team had completed the opportunity to discuss mission performance and make plans for future missions, local teams performed significantly better than distributed teams; a pattern that continued for the remaining six missions. Given that the primary difference between local and distributed teams was how they communicated outside of the VE during after action reviews (AARs), and that the localiii distributed difference was first detected on the second mission, after teams had completed one, 10-min discussion of mission performance, a tenable conclusion is that certain team characteristics and skills necessary for performance were communication-dependent and negatively affected by the absence of FTF communication. Although Singer et al. (2001) collected multiple dependent variables related to performance and communication activities, these measures were not designed to detect communication-dependent team factors and therefore incapable of supporting such an explanation. Therefore, the present research replicated Singer et al. (2001) and incorporated additional measures in order to determine if specific communication-dependent factors could explain the inferior performance of distributed teams. Three factors critical to team communication, particularly during the AAR process, are the similarity of team members. shared mental models (SMMs), team cohesion (task and interpersonal), and team trust (cognitive and emotional). Because evidence suggests FTF communication has a positive effect on processes related to each of these factors, the current study tested whether distributed teams exhibit less similar mental models and degraded cohesion and trust in comparison to local teams, which can affect performance. Furthermore, to test the prediction that distributed teams possess degraded communication and would benefit from improved communication skills, brief team communication training (TCT) was administered to half of the teams in each location condition. Thirty two, 2-person teams comprised of undergraduate students were equally distributed into four experimental conditions (n = 8) based on the independent variables of location (local vs. distributed) and training (TCT vs. no-TCT). Teams completed five missions using the same VE system and mission tasks as in Singer et al. (2001), however in the present study distributed team members were in separate rooms in the same building, not separate geographic locations. In iv addition to performance data, participants completed a series of questionnaires to assess SMMs, cohesion, and trust. It was hypothesized that local teams would again exhibit better performance than distributed teams and that the local team advantage could partly be explained by a greater similarity in mental models and higher levels of cohesion and trust. Moreover, TCT teams in both locations were expected to exhibit improved performance over their non-trained counterparts. Analyses of the three team factors revealed the largest location and communication training differences for levels of cognitive trust, with local teams reporting higher levels than distributed teams early after the second VE mission, and TCT teams reporting higher levels than no-TCT teams after the second and fifth VE missions. In contrast, the main effects of location and communication training were only significant for one SMM measure agreement between team members on the strengths of the team's leader during the AAR sessions. Local teams and TCT teams reported higher levels of agreement after the first VE mission than their distributed v and no-TCT counterparts. Furthermore, on the first administration of the questionnaire, TCT teams reported higher levels of agreement than non-TCT teams on the main goals of the VE missions. Overall, teams in all conditions exhibited moderate to substantial levels of agreement for procedural and personnel responsibility factors, but poor levels of agreement for mental models related to interpersonal interactions. Finally, no significant differences were detected for teams in each experimental condition on levels of task or interpersonal cohesion which suggests cohesion may not mature enough over the course of several hours to be observable. In summary, the first goal of the present study was to replicate Singer et al..s (2001) findings which showed two-person teams conducting VE missions performed better after the first mission if allowed face-to-face (FTF) contact during discussions of the team's performance. Local and distributed teams in the current study did show a similar pattern of performance, completing a greater total of rooms properly, although when evaluating mission-by-mission performance, this difference was only significant for missions 3 and 4. Even though distributed team members experienced the same experimental conditions as in Singer et al. (no pre-mission contact, no FTF contact during missions or AARs) and were told their partner was at .distant location, familiarity with a teammate's dialect and other environmental cues may have differentially affected perceptions of physical and psychological distance, or social presence, which ultimately altered the distributed team relationship from before. The second goal was to determine if brief TCT could reduce or eliminate the distributed team disadvantage witnessed in Singer et al. (2001). Results did not support this prediction and revealed no significant differences between TCT and no-TCT teams with regard to number of rooms searched over the five missions. Although purposefully limited to 1 hr, the brevity of the TCT procedure (1 hr), and its broad focus, may have considerably reduced any potential benefits of learning how to communicate more effectively with a teammate. In addition, the additional training beyond the already challenging requirements of learning the VE mission tasks may have increased the cognitive load of participants during the mission phase, leading to a detriment in performance due to divided attention. Despite several notable differences from Singer et al. (2001), the present study supports that distributed teams operating in a common virtual setting experience performance deficits when compared to their physically co-located counterparts. Although this difference was not attributed to agreement on SMMs or levels of cohesion, local teams did posses higher levels of cognitive trust early on in the experimental session which may partly explain their superior performance. However additional research that manipulates cognitive trust as an independent variable is needed before implying a cause-and-effect relationship. Ultimately, this study's most significant contribution is identifying a new set of questions to understand virtual team performance. In addition to a deeper examination of cognitive trust, future research should address how features of the distributed team experience affect perceptions of the physical and psychological distance, or social presence, between team members. It is also critical to understand how broadening the communication channel for distributed teams, such as the inclusion of video images or access to biographical information about one's distant teammate, facilitates performance in a variety of virtual team contexts.

This dissertation consists of three interrelated studies focusing on the use of business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce (e-commerce) to facilitate supply chain transactions. B2B e-commerce enabled supply chains produce substantial savings for organizations by reducing the amount of time and money necessary to negotiate contracts, processes orders, and pay suppliers. However, doubt exists as to whether reduced transaction costs are a sustainable competitive advantage for organizations. The advent of widespread and cost effective B2B e-commerce enabled supply chains coupled with increasingly complex, dynamic, and global competitive markets are encouraging organizations to form long-term relationships with their trading partners to achieve sustainable competitive advantage from improved supply chain performance. Competition is no longer restricted to large firms and end-product producers, but now encompasses the extended organizational supply chain. Using three separate, but related theories, these studies investigate 1) the factors affecting satisfaction with B2B ecommerce trading relationships, 2) the antecedents and effects of risk and trust on assurance desirability in B2B e-commerce partnerships, and 3) the impact of enterprise risk management procedures on the achievement of sustainable competitive advantage from B2B e-commerce enabled transnational alliances. Critical to achieving sustainable competitive advantage from B2B e-commerce capabilities is the existence of long-term mutually satisfying buyer—supplier iii relationships. The first study examines the antecedents of relationship satisfaction between B2B e-commerce trading partners. Using the relational view of the firm, a theoretical model is developed to investigate the direct and countervailing effects of trust and risk on relationship satisfaction. In addition, the indirect effects of justice and commitment on relationship satisfaction are also investigated. A field survey is used to collect data from 205 industry professionals concerning B2B e-commerce trading partnerships. Structural equation modeling is used to evaluate the hypothesized model relationships. The results support all hypotheses and indicate good model fit with strong explanatory power. This study contributes to the accounting information systems and strategic management literature by investigating the interactive but independent roles of risk and trust within B2B e-commerce trading relationships. The second study examines the integrative effects of power, risk, and trust, along with their antecedents, on the desirability of assurance over a trading partner’s ecommerce processes. Using the resource advantage theory of competition as a foundation, a research model is developed to examine the relationships among the various trading partners and organizational factors that drive demand for a high information governance structure such as assurance. A field survey is used to collect data from 205 industry professionals to enable the evaluation of the complex relationships in the overall research model using structural equation modeling. The results support all hypotheses and provide good model fit, strong explanatory power, and strong support for the theory. This study expands the literature on management control systems within interorganizational relationships by addressing three contemporary concerns in the literature: (1) the minimal consideration of the impact of information technology in these iv relationships, (2) the minimal consideration of the impact of variances in the relative power of the trading partners, and (3) the need to consider the dual influence of risk and trust. Globalization places greater emphasis on the development of transnational alliances. The greatest benefits from alliances are derived from high-level information sharing, but risk escalates with information sharing. The purpose of the third study is to examine the influence of enterprise risk management (ERM) on risk and trust associated with transnational alliances and the resulting impact on interorganizational information sharing. Survey data is gathered from 200 senior-level managers monitoring transnational alliances. Structural equation modeling is used to test the hypothesized relationships. The results provide strong support for the hypothesized relationships and the overall research model, showing that high ERM leads to decreased risk, increased trust, and improved information sharing.

This study investigated the development of trust between strangers interacting via avatars in virtual worlds. The first part of the study analyzed perceived trustworthiness based on the visual appearance of avatars; the second part makes observations of two strangers self-disclosing information via avatars in a virtual world; the third part analyzed an experimental situation of two individuals interacting via avatars, where avatar appearance was changed and participants were recruited based on their experience with interacting with others via avatars. Findings showed that perceived trustworthiness does vary based on the visual appearance of the avatar. A positive relationship was found for self-disclosure and experience, in that those who have previously chosen to participate in a virtual world were more likely to share more detailed information about themselves. Non-significant differences in self-disclosure were found for avatar appearance; however, experience in using virtual worlds was significantly different for the willingness to share information before engaging in a task: experienced participants shared more information than inexperienced participants. This suggests that self-disclosure might be influenced by appearance at the point of formation in that the experienced are willing to overlook the avatar, and less so when there are other sources of information to base trust-behavior on (Altman & Taylor, 1973; Nowak & Rauh, 2006). Recommendations were made for modifications for similar experiments trying to validate an objective measure of trust, and for continued research in the development of trust between strangers interacting via avatars.

Inom utbildningsväsendet återkommer att stipulera, reglera, föra in klausuler och skapa ramverk för hur lärare kan anamma skolverkets riktlinjer inom de skolämnen som eleverna ämnar studera. Allt som oftast fylls kurser inom såväl universitet som grundläggande utbildningar till en bredd som inte tillåter ämnesöverskridande arbete. Förlusterna när närvaron av ämnesöverskridande arbete uteblir kan mätas såväl höga som låga, inom området demokrati och samhälleligt engagemang tillskrivs förlusten högre på skalan. Ambitionen att undervisa studenter i politiskt engagemang möter hinder i lärares rädsla för det politiska samtalet, Habermas erbjuder den rationella utopin i det deliberativa samtalet, Dewey i egenskap av pedagog betonar vikten av ständigt engagemang för att bibehålla demokratins goda krafter. Behovet av att inkorporera fler aktörer i arbetet mot att skapa mer delaktiga medborgare ur skolelever emanera från brist på samarbete mellan ämnen, lärare men även i relationen mellan  föräldrar, politiker och utbildningsväsendet. Studier belyser hur elever söker efter mer politisk kunskap samtidigt som även studenter vid universitet vill erhålla mer praktiska råd och verktyg för att påverka sitt samhälle. Vikten av att utbildning stödjer eleverna i deras behov efter autonomi och engagemang överskrider enligt flertalet forskare neoliberalismens mål att ge rätt verktyg för bättre jobbmöjligheter. Studier visar att utvecklingen ifrån engagemang för sitt samhälle och mot individualistiska strävan leder till försämrade förutsättningar för elever att agera demokratiskt. Sammanfattningsvis visar studier i området undervisning för att forma aktiva medborgare att mer fokus måste riktas mot hur lärare, resten av samhället och slutligen eleverna bör samarbeta inom utbildningsväsendet för att främja politiskt engagemang. / Within the field of education, rules and maintaining a system where the educators are following a set of rules, is a common recurring structure. These structures often refrain from exchanging information between subjects and are more prone too single-subject focus. Not engaging in cross-subject education gains loses as well as victories, although within the realm of democracy and political engagement the losses are often more prominent. The fear of educating students is a fault with educators which forms an obstacle when ambition strives for more political engagement within education. Jurgen Habermas offers his theory of the deliberative conversation, that emphasizes rationality within discussion and the utopian belief that everyone can converse with one another. The pedagogy John Dewey emphasizes the need for constant development when addressing democracy within education too always keep evil at bay and aspire for good. Autonomy is essential to keep students aspirations for participation within politics, more and more students are in demand for more” hands-on” education. More is needed when one addresses how to make active citizens, studies show that more students lack in democratic values because rest of society is either not addressing political issues or are less interested in politics than obtaining a high-income employment.

In the present day, excessive social media use has become synonymous with the younger generation. Prolonged social media interaction has resulted in new terminology describing the compulsive need for internet and social media use: internet addiction. This is a new term, and while it has not been defined as a clinical addiction used in acute care settings (Zahrai et al., 2022), it is important to understand its symptoms, like excessive social media use. Given the rapid speed of social media integration in modern society, it is important to investigate how excessive social media use (ESMU), as defined by Zahrai et al., 2022, affects the way information is trusted. The present study intends to contribute to the understanding of trust dynamics in the era of mass media consumption, thereby studying if college students with ESMU show signs of trust when viewing a news report from a TikTok video, or from a video emulating a traditional news presentation. Another area of investigation for the current study is if the presence of a beauty filter placed on the presenter affects the trust of the participants. Further, if sex at birth has a significant difference in TikTok compulsivity (as defined by Meerkerk et. al, 2009 internet compulsivity scale), trust in news media, and trust in the studies presentation. 94 participants, who were all aged 18 or older and undergraduate students at the University of Central Florida living in the United States, completed an online survey-based questionnaire. The study consisted of a TikTok-modified Compulsive Internet Use Scale (CIUS), a Trust in News Media Scale, and a post-experiment-questionnaire. Participants were randomly assigned one of four fake-news presentations. All the videos had the same presenter and script, but differed in orientation (either horizontal, like a news story seen on a television, or vertical, like a TikTok video) and if there was a beauty filter placed upon the presenter. This created four conditions for participants. The results suggest that there is no difference in trust between any of the video conditions, regardless of orientation or filter. Furthermore, the results indicate that males have less TikTok compulsivity compared to females. In conclusion, the results suggest that there are differences in the sexes when it comes to TikTok compulsivity, however this does not affect the way individuals trust a news presentation. Furthermore, there is no difference in sex when it comes to trusting the news media. This suggests that college students with ESMU are spending more time on TikTok, and not displaying a deferral of risk when it comes to consuming information from the news. Further, college students with ESMU are not affected by a filter or the orientation of a video when receiving news. This indicates that they are both equally distrusting and trusting of news regardless of the platform it is received.

Vertical brand extensions have been used as popular strategies in the lodging industry. Research on brand extension that is related with brand trust and brand loyalty has been useful in making brand extensions successful. However, previous research focused on aggregated relationships among brand trust, brand loyalty, and brand extension. In addition, it has been found that quality and price distance from a core brand of the brand extension has an impact on the success of the brand extension. Therefore, this dissertation proposes a theoretical model with six hypotheses investigating relationships among brand trust, brand loyalty and brand extension simultaneously. Further, the impact of distance from a core brand (brand distance) on the brand extension was examined. Data was collected using an online panel. A final sample of 396 was used for the data analysis. Structural equation modeling (SEM), a Chi-square difference test, and independent t-tests were utilized to test the hypotheses. The data was randomly split in two. One half of the dataset was used to test a measurement model and the other half of the dataset was used to test a structural equation model. The findings suggested there were positive relationships between brand trust and brand loyalty, brand trust and brand extension, and brand loyalty and brand extension. Furthermore, it was found that brand distance plays a significant role not only on brand extension, but also on the relationship between brand trust and brand extension and the relationship between brand loyalty and brand extension. This study contributes to vertical brand extension literature by providing a theoretical model by which simultaneous relationships among brand trust, brand loyalty and brand extension were investigated with a moderating factor: brand distance. The findings of this dissertation have important managerial implications for lodging industry brand managers. / Ph. D.

Social support is an important prerequisite for us humans to maintain healthy and rewarding relationships vis-à-vis our work. Further, social support is about giving the individual resources such as encouragement, information and tools which lead to positive health and good work achievements. Previous research indicates that middle managers constitute a professional group of people lacking in resources and support, which makes it difficult for them to do a good job. Additionally, this area of research is not much researched. For these reasons the aim of this study is to narrow the research gap with regard to our understanding of middle managers’ experiences of social support. The empirical data on which the study is based consist of seven semi-structured interviews with middle managers from a specific municipal administration in the municipality of Norrbotten in North Sweden. This study was conducted in close cooperation with the municipality and it was the municipality itself that selected the respondents/interviewees, which admittedly may be a shortcoming of the study. This is explained more in detail in the method section. The results show that the coworkers are a great asset to the social support the middle managers receive, for example by being able to ease the burden and assist the middle managers with new knowledge in their work. Indeed, the support of the coworkers seems essential in providing the middle managers with social support. Also, the results show that middle manager colleagues can be a valuable resource in social support: in the study the middle manager colleagues give each other advice and in doing so they are able to ease the burden of work they experience. However, the middle managers also experience a lack of giving each other feedback. They experience that “negative feedback” is not exchanged between them for fear of it being sensitive. Conversely, “positive” feedback is not exchanged since the middle managers judge themselves bad at praising each other. The results also show that the middle managers all feel trusted by their supervisors, which in turn makes them more confident and allows them to make difficult decisions. Furthermore, the results show that the middle managers feel that there are deficits in social support and they experience a lack of resources, which make it harder for them to carry out certain work tasks. In particular, the lack of resources pertains to skills development in finances, financial systems and HR related matters. Lastly, the middle managers feel that elearning within the municipality is insufficient due to difficulties of learning through this mode of teaching