During the search for a thesis topic, the researchers established contact with a civil servant at Växjö Municipality in Sweden who introduced them to the prospective project of the Reuse Village as part of the city’s waste management plan to enhance circular economy. Hence, the researchers’ purpose for this thesis is to explore the determined values and stakeholders’ involvement linked to the engagement of entrepreneurs towards a circular economy. Moreover, a thorough explanation of the literature review is conducted including the environmental, economic and social sustainability, in addition to the entrepreneurial and stakeholders’ involvement and the different sustainable oriented entrepreneurs and the values that could possibly influence the entrepreneurs. The researchers used mixed research methods that comprise of qualitative interviews, secondary research, and case studies based on documentary secondary data to give a deeper explanation of the stakeholders and entrepreneurial involvement and show their position in the field of circular economy especially in the Reuse Village project. The main findings of the thesis elaborate more on the importance of circular economy that governments and local municipalities are pushing for. The outcome presents the directions that stakeholders lean towards, regarding the Reuse Village, and shows how the relationship between the stakeholders plays a major role in the progress of the notion of circular economy.

Numerous studies raise the topic of highly educated immigrants whose education and list of qualifications devalue in the context of the Swedish labour market. However, little is known of those with foreign background who enter into higher education in Sweden. Our study attempts to shed some light onto the value of higher education relative to that of a person’s ethnic background. The background material features nine in-depth interviews of foreign background academics, as well as data extracted from an extensive survey study previously carried out at Växjö University.  Initially, the quantitative data showed that students with foreign background, including Swedish-born children of immigrants, had not managed to find qualified work upon completion of studies to the same extent as their Swedish background counterparts. The individual stories given in interviews support the assumption that social capital, in the form of access to networks or membership thereof, may decide the physical location of individual careers. Those who stayed in the region were either brought up locally or had established themselves through work practice. In some respects, those who left can be considered outsiders, whose chances of finding work largely depended on their establishing themselves elsewhere. Some had managed to find qualified work beyond their own acquaintances, but only through a long period of unemployment or doing unqualified work. When it comes to the ethnic backgrounds of the interviewed, positive and negative aspects were brought up by some, while others did not consider it relevant with respect to their own careers. However, their stories provide examples of how ethnicity works as a deciding factor on the labour market in much the same way as, for instance, class and gender. In turn, this is an indication of underlying mechanisms on the labour market that rest on social ties.

<p>Numerous studies raise the topic of highly educated immigrants whose education and list of qualifications devalue in the context of the Swedish labour market. However, little is known of those with foreign background who enter into higher education in Sweden. Our study attempts to shed some light onto the value of higher education relative to that of a person’s ethnic background. The background material features nine in-depth interviews of foreign background academics, as well as data extracted from an extensive survey study previously carried out at Växjö University. </p><p>Initially, the quantitative data showed that students with foreign background, including Swedish-born children of immigrants, had not managed to find qualified work upon completion of studies to the same extent as their Swedish background counterparts. The individual stories given in interviews support the assumption that social capital, in the form of access to networks or membership thereof, may decide the physical location of individual careers. Those who stayed in the region were either brought up locally or had established themselves through work practice. In some respects, those who left can be considered outsiders, whose chances of finding work largely depended on their establishing themselves elsewhere. Some had managed to find qualified work beyond their own acquaintances, but only through a long period of unemployment or doing unqualified work.</p><p>When it comes to the ethnic backgrounds of the interviewed, positive and negative aspects were brought up by some, while others did not consider it relevant with respect to their own careers. However, their stories provide examples of how ethnicity works as a deciding factor on the labour market in much the same way as, for instance, class and gender. In turn, this is an indication of underlying mechanisms on the labour market that rest on social ties.</p>

Place branding is commonly conceptualized with a focus on big cities, such as London, New York and Singapore, building from concepts and models from mainstream branding theory. In contrast to such conceptualizations, this thesis focuses on place branding in small and medium-sized cities. The present thesis aims to study place branding from a geographical perspective. It starts with debates theoretical and empirical understandings of place branding; what it is and how it is affecting the places where it is introduced. The thesis develops and argues for a perspective of territoriality and relationality to place branding discussing concepts, methods and empirical approaches to carry out place branding research using geographical perspectives. Empirically, this thesis focuses on in-depth studies of place branding in small and medium-sized cities in Sweden. By analyzing the development of place branding over the course of time, nuances and aspects of both territorial and relational origin emerge, situating place branding practices within a wider spatial contextualization. Four individual papers are presented, which taken together contribute to the aim of the thesis. Paper 1 introduces the place branding research field in geography and how it has developed; Paper 2 investigates the phenomena of flagship buildings located in small cities and towns; Paper 3 discusses the relationship between policy tourism and place branding; and Paper 4 analyzes how local environmental policies are affected by green place branding. The thesis demonstrates the complex and continuously interchangeable spatial structures and place contexts that create and re-produce the geographies of place branding. Here, research models and methodological examples are presented to illustrate how place branding can be studied from a geographical perspective and thus improve theoretical understandings of place branding. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Manuscript. Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>

The purpose of the study is to investigate the ongoing implementation process of Växjö municipality’s waste plan from 2015. In order to complete this purpose, the following three questions have been formulated: [1] What public management is being applied to implement the waste plan? [2] To what extent have the respective objectives in the waste plan been achieved so far? [3] Was any management control more successful in the implementation process? By applying a modified version of Lennart Lundquist's analysis tool control dimensions on the waste plan, this qualitative content analysis will answer the first question by categorizing which of the dimensions used in public management of the waste plan's objectives, its interim goals and its actions. Next, the latest follow-up of the waste plan is presented to answer the second question to finally compare the results of these two to answer the last question. The study results in a presentation of the public management applied to each objective, a presentation of how well the respective goals have been achieved where one clarifies that public management does not affect how successful implementation of goals will be.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the environmental work of the municipal of Växjö and to investigate how the leaders have worked with this action program; a fossil fuel free Växjö. To accomplish this propose the following question was used: • How did the leaders of this successful action program a fossil fuel free Växjö work? The empirical part is based on the years reports, written by the municipal it self. Also reviewed articles were use for the empirical framework. The outcomes that were discovered during the writing of this thesis were that the cooperation between the actors was very strong. Since the aim of the program for a fossil fuel free Växjö was clear and the cooperation between the leaders within the program was so good, were the outcomes also positive. To sum up was the will to get a better environment that gave Växjö attention for its good work.

Sustainable cities is an area that has grown in size over the last couple of years. The SESAC (Sustainable Energy Systems in Advanced Cities) is a EU-project looking at the potential to increase the share of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and promote energy efficiency measures in different EU cities. This master thesis is a part of that project. Specifically, the thesis examines the cities of Grenoble, Delft and Växjö and looks at what measures regarding RES and energy efficiency have been taken historically, both under the SESAC project and otherwise, and assesses the possibility of further measures in the cities. The main RES evaluated are wind power (large scale and urban), solar (PV and thermal) and waste treatment (waste incineration and biogas production). The feasibility of these renewable technologies is evaluated both physically, technically and economically for each city. Further, the historical and current hinders and promoters in the form of different support schemes and other economic and institutional schemes are summarized for each country and city and the effects of which included in the feasibility calculations. Also, current CO2 emissions of Grenoble, Delft and Växjö are stated and the impact of implementing the measures examined is calculated. A comparison between the three cities is also made and suggestions are made to what they can learn from each other and what synergies there are.    Results show that the technical potential for RES is sizeable in the cities, as seen in Table 1. Important to note are the differences between the cities. Besides from their differences in population size, ranging from 83 000 (Växjö) and 96 000 (Delft) to 400 000 (Grenoble), available land area as well as climate are very different in the cities, therefore affecting the potential for the RES technologies.   RES potential [GWh] Grenoble Delft Växjö Wind 458 1,2 (Urban only) 297-2000 Solar PV 375 150 0,06-0,3 Waste treatment 41 11 10 Table 1. Technical potential of RES in Grenoble, Delft and Växjö Looking at the economic potential, however, the picture is not as optimistic. The only economically feasible investments of the options in Table 1 are investing in solar PV in Grenoble and Delft (IRR of 0-10%) and wind in Växjö (IRR of 4%). All other investments have negative NPV:s and IRR:s, meaning that either the cost of the technologies must be reduced or more favorable support scheme be introduced in order to make the them profitable.

The aim of this study is to shed light on the efforts of the municipality to counteract segregation during the period 2019 until 2022. Thus, to see the efforts of the municipality and what previous research has shown and whether the municipality's efforts have been successful. This study has shown that the municipality has carried out the necessary efforts to counter residential segregation, but they were not significant enough to conclude that they were asuccess. Because firstly, the construction of the numbers of the different types of housing, some of which are complete, is considered low compared to the number of rental properties in the district. Then also a lack of meeting places for young people in the district. Finally, this study also showed that the living conditions of the inhabitants of the district which were low during the year 2020,as well as the unemployment rate in the district that same year. as a result, the efforts of the municipality during the period 2019 until 2022 are considered insufficient to counter housing segregation in Araby.

The environmental threat is a stressing concern which must be addressed immediately. The urbanization has been growing in a rapid pace the past years. Today, more than 50 percent of the world’s population lives in cities, and the forecast tells us that it will increase to 70 percent in 2050. This puts pressure on actors like states, organizations, companies, and municipalities who must work to meet the urbanization immediately. The UN, the EU and WWF amongst others advocates that international cooperation between these actors is the best way to go, and that cities must be prepared for the problem that occurs today and the challenges for tomorrow. In spite of this, there is no substantial research on this topic, on what international environmental cooperation between cities could mean to a city or what the results could be. Växjö is one of few Swedish cities who work internationally with local as well as global ecological sustainable development. This study intends to discover the international cooperations in the topic of environmental sustainable development in the city in Växjö. The purpose is to see what impact the international cooperations have in the environmental work of Växjö, and to see whether environmental sustainable development is being urged on by international collaborations. By using a positive–sum game as a theoretical starting point, a case–study has been conducted, where interviews were made with representatives from Växjö municipal. The result of the study shows that the effects Växjö has obtained through these cooperations, do promote environmental sustainable development. If the collaborations take the form of a positive–sum game, all actors benefit from it and the environment as well. Since the international cooperations bring exchange of knowledge and sometimes external financial means to put into different projects, the city’s environmental sustainable development improves. / Klimathotet är ett tryckande problem som bör adresseras omgående. Urbaniseringen har ökat stadigt de senaste åren då idag över 50 procent av jordens befolkning bor i städer och prognosen förutspår att den siffran kommer att öka till 70 procent till 2050. Det här sätter press på aktörer som länder, organisationer, företag och kommuner som måste arbeta för att bemöta urbaniseringen omgående. FN, EU och WWF med flera förespråkar att internationellt samarbete mellan samtliga dessa aktörer är den bästa vägen att gå och att städerna måste vara beredda på de problem som idag finns och som kommer att uppdagas i framtiden. Trots detta finns inga studier på vad internationellt ekologiskt samarbete mellan städer innebär eller vad det resulterar i. Växjö är en av få svenska städer som internationellt arbetar med lokal och global ekologisk hållbar utveckling. Studien ämnar undersöka Växjös internationella samarbete inom ekologisk hållbar utveckling i staden. Avsikten är att se vilken roll Växjös internationella samarbete spelar i deras hållbarhetsarbete i Växjö samt undersöka om och hur ekologisk hållbar utveckling i staden kan drivas framåt av internationella samarbeten. Med ett plussummspel som teoretisk utgångspunkt i fallstudien genomförs en intervjustudie med representanter från Växjö kommun. Resultatet visar att de effekter Växjö erhållit genom sina internationella samarbeten leder till ekologisk hållbar utveckling i staden. Ifall samarbete tar formen av ett plussummepsel medför det att samtliga inblandade aktörer går med vinning ur samarbetena och att miljön och klimatet gynnas. Detta genom att internationellt samarbete medför betydande kunskapsutbyten och externa finansiella medel att lägga på projekt, som således driver hållbar utveckling framåt i staden.

This thesis is about hiring processes in the university sector. More particularly, the focus is to identify if the employment of lecturers obeys the principle of objectivity, impartiality and meritocracy. The thesis is based on a so-called mixed method research. Partly, the extent of compliance is tested in a quantitative survey of six Swedish universities, partly each one of the 73 employment notices is analyzed in a qualitative text analysis. The source of information is public government documents from the examined universities. The survey is limited only to include employments until further notice. Therefore, all sorts of temporary employments are excluded. The focus is on the academic subjects of social science, sociology and political economy. Furthermore, the thesis only investigates employments from the years of 2011-2019. To create an understanding in what way the state institutions should handle their exercise of power, the theory Quality of Government (QoG) is being used. The theory is also used for analysis and as an inspiration for the assay scheme, which is used to assess if the employments are considered “narrower” or “more open”. The variables used in the survey are; notification time, number of applicants, the use of peer review, language of the announcement, and a type of “employment conversion”, made possible by law. The result of the thesis shows that there is an extensive amount of employments which in one way or another violates the principle of impartiality. For example: 24 percent of the employments has less than 2 applicants. 17 percent of the employments is missing impartial peer reviews. 89 percent of the employments are only given noticed in Swedish. 29 percent of the announcement texts are written in a narrow, excluding way. To sum up, we can see indications of partial employments. There are distinctive variations between the universities and among the academic subjects. The most important conclusion of this thesis is that all partial employments are a problem, with shortcomings in quality and in public trust as consequences.