<p>The aim of the study is to understand the level of co-operation between emerging and commercial farmers in a Water User Associations. The effort is expected to inform policy and improve practice in the building of new water institutions as government strives to implement IWRM.</p>

In recent years the Internet has greatly changed the travel industry and the emergence of social media has driven this change further. In the past travel companies have been natural links between customers and suppliers but today customers can buy travel directly from the supplier, making it difficult for travel companies to attract new customers and retain existing customers. As social media is revolutionizing the way people communicate, the trend suggests that it is becoming increasingly important for firms to take part in this technological development to interact with customers. Although Internet and social media has a major impact on firm-to-customer and customer-to-customer conversations, there is little guidance in academic literature and organizational contexts on how to use social media in an effective way. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to describe and explain how social media has transformed the relationships between selected Swedish travel companies and their customers, and how these firms create and sustain value and relationships through social media. Furthermore, we will give implications for management on how to utilize social media to create and sustain value and relationships. The results of our research confirm that social media is transforming the relationships between firms and customers. From our findings we conclude that the customer has become more empowered, that interaction now occurs through a two-way communication and that social media has made industries and relationships more transparent. The results also indicate that firms do not realize the value that can be created through social media for the customer as well as for the firm. The use of social media among the interviewed firms varies with some firms using social media through many tools and some firms not using social media at all. Our findings implicate that being aware of what value is created and why the firm is involved in a certain social media tool increases the likelihood of success. The firm should further not be afraid to experiment with social media. However, social media also presents challenges. As social media is characterized by rapidly changing trends, it is difficult to predict what will happen not only in a distant future, but even so just a few years ahead.

This study intends to find out how Swedish stock photography agencies use the Internet and specifically their websites as tools for building their brands. Lately more and more specialized stock agencies are emerging and due to the digital revolution these agencies are almost solely Internet based. Thus online-branding tools and strategies are especially important in order to survive in this competitive market. Even though there are plenty of dot-com companies out there running an Internet-only stock agency is a rather new way of conducting business. Thus the author is of the opinion that there is a limited research on the subject. A qualitative research method was chosen as the research problem demanded in-depth information in order to reveal the studied area. Three stock agencies, Folio, Miro and Picturo, were sampled and in order to obtain the necessary information telephone interviews were conducted. According to existing marketing literature the theory section is built up of the three basic foundations: Brand building, the Internet and One-to-one marketing. Moreover the theory chapter in this study intends to function as a framework in the process of gaining new information about this business area. That is also the reason why the study is built up on an inductive scientific approach without testing an already existing theory model. The analysis concludes that none of the examined companies utilizes the power of the Internet and its features to a satisfying extent. Partly they do not even provide standard tools and thus creating a strong bond between the company and the customer is made difficult. The author argues that in order to become an innovative and dynamic company it is crucial to have an effective, well-designed and easy to use website. Hence it is not only important to have an esthetical appealing site but also one that provides a high level of service and one-to-one tools. To be ahead of time as well as to be sensitive for technologies on the rise is especially important for stock agencies, as they now almost solely are web-based. To sum up existing technology should be used to it’s fullest extend in order to create a professional website and strong online-brand building tools.

Vårt syfte med denna studie är att genom en undersökning av reklambyråer få en förståelse för hur de går tillväga med sin egen marknadsföring riktad till marknaden av reklamköpare. Vi vill därmed se om tillgänglig teori kan tillämpas på en reklambyrås externa kommunikation. Det ingår även i vårt syfte att genom denna studie kunna förse Stigges Reklam med förslag till deras marknadsföring. / Our purpose with this study is to, through research of advertising agencies, gain an understanding how they market themselves to a market of advertising buyers. We want to see if available theory can be applied to an advertising agency’s external communication. It is also included in our purpose to provide Stigges Reklam with propositions to their marketing.

Abstract Coming to new job is not that easy, sometimes the feeling of insecurity appears. Working for recruitment agencies includes constant changes of colleagues and places of work and at the same time one has two different managers. Who does the individual turn to when problems occur and who do the employed see as his/her manager? Why do people search for work in recruitment agencies? How does it feel not having a fixed place of work or colleagues and how do the aspects of this affect the employed psychosocial work environment? This is a few questions asked when we tried to find answers on the employed feelings about his/hers psychosocial work environment in a recruitment agency. The purpose of this study was to find a deeper understanding on employees working in a recruitment agency experiences their psychosocial work environment on the basis of social support, demands and control. To find answers on our questions we made a deep qualitative interview with eight employees from a recruitment agency. We had help from the recruitment agency with the selection of respondents from our criteria’s. They had to be from different ages, genders and come from different ethnical backgrounds and the time of employment had to vary between them all. As earlier researches we discovered some deficiencies within the recruitment agency and particularly about the social relations. Coming to demands our respondents has not expressed any despair. On the other hand there are suggestions that the demands are higher from the customer and the stationary employees, than from the recruitment agencies managers. The employed recons they have control over their working situation, based on their right of saying no to assignments that does not appeal them. Earlier research shows that employees within a recruitment agency are employed for an average of two years and that personal turnover is high in this business. Our respondents has worked in this trade of industry for two weeks up to four years and a number of them has been offered stationary employment at customers. All of them have turned them down with the justification about them being comfortable in the recruitment agency business and that the customer has not been appealing. Our conclusion is that the experience of the psychosocial work environment can be seen as good. The positive experiences outweigh the negative experiences. Keywords: Psychosocial work environment, social support, demand, control, consultants and recruitment agency.

The travel agencies exist on a market that is distinguished by increasing competition. A majority of the travel agencies offer different services that all satisfie the same customer need. However, one major difference in the market aspect is the service quality, this making it an important mean of competition. There are several acknowledged methods of measurement when it comes to service quality and it is important to use an instrument that takes into consideration the fact that charter tours is a complex merger of several services. The purpose of this essay is to establish if the SERVQUAL method is a suitable instrument for measuring service quality in the travel industry. This study is a thorough analysis and evaluation of what Apollo’s customers think about the service quality of Apollo as well as how they perceive that Apollo fulfils their travelling expectations. Moreover, the essay will examine which factors affect travellers’ experiences of the service quality on charter tours. The study has an objective outlook and the authors have applied a deductive approach. The authors have performed a quantitative study on 70 of Apollo’s customers. The aforementioned study was carried out using a questionnaire that was based on the SERVQUAL method and the theories that were used in the theoretical part of that study. The result show that the SERVQUAL method only considered the aspects that involve the travel agency and did not consider the other aspects that affect the traveller’s overall experience of the service quality. In conclusion this study determines that the SERVQUAL method is not a suitable instrument for measuring service quality on charter tours in the travel industry. / Researrangörer verkar på en marknad som kännetecknas av en ökad konkurrens, där ett flertal researrangörer erbjuder olika tjänster som tillfredställer samma behov. Något som särskiljer researrangörerna åt är kvaliteten, vilket medför att den blir ett viktigt konkurrensmedel. Då det finns flera erkända metoder för att mäta upplevd tjänstekvalitet är det viktigt att använda ett mätinstrument som tar hänsyn till att charterresor är en komplex uppsättning av deltjänster. Syftet med denna uppsats är att klargöra om SERVQUAL metoden är ett lämpligt mätinstrument inom reseindustrin genom att analysera och utvärdera vad kunderna anser om Apollos tjänstekvalitet samt om Apollo uppfyller kundernas förväntningar. Detta med hjälp av att undersöka vilka faktorer som påverkar resenärers upplevda tjänstekvalitet på charterresor. Uppsatsen utgår från ett objektivistiskt synsätt där författarna har tillämpat en deduktiv ansats. En kvantitativ enkätundersökning har utförts på 70 stycken av Apollos kunder där enkätundersökningen är baserad på SERVQUAL samt de teorier som behandlas i studiens teorikapitel. Resultatet visar att SERVQUAL metoden endast tar upp de aspekter som rör researrangören, och inte alla de aspekter som påverkar kundernas upplevda tjänstekvalitet. Med detta som utgångspunkt anser författarna att SERVQUAL metoden är bristande som mätinstrument när det gäller att mäta resenärers uppfattning av tjänstekvalitet på charterresor.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of gender, age, duration of relationship, self concept clarity and personal agency in predicting romantic relationship satisfaction of emerging adults. Participants were consisted of 344 (70.3% female, 29.7% male) volunteered undergraduate students from one of the state universities in Central Anatolia. Age of the participants ranged from 18 to 25 with the mean of 20. 85 (SD = 1.65). The data was gathered using four instruments namely, Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS), Self Concept Clarity Scale (SCCS), Multi-Measure Agentic Personality Scale- Short Form (MAPSSF), and personal information form. In order to analyze the data, hierarchical regression analysis was conducted. Results revealed that gender, age and duration of relationship were not significant predictors of romantic relationship satisfaction / whereas self concept clarity and purpose in life dimension of personal agency were significant predictors which explained the 12% of the total variance in romantic relationship satisfaction scores of emerging adults. Results of the study are discussed in the light of the relevant literature. Finally implications of the study and recommendations for further research are presented.

The irrigation organizations have been organized in Taiwan for more than 400 years and set the foundation of Taiwan¡¦s agricultural development. This dissertation analyzes the 17 Taiwan irrigation associations¡¦ financial statements and discusses how the members of advisory board of irrigations associations interact with resources, rules and communication from the agency theory. The conclusions in the dissertation are as follows: 1.The type of city irrigation associations sold their useless assets and got the money to maintain and operate the associations. The type of country and fragmentary irrigation associations still irrigate the farms, but they have no unused assets to sell. The finance of these two types irrigation associations are not so sufficient, they should take actions to improve their finance by themselves or by the government. 2.Those factors as the levels of educations, the vocation, the types of associations-attending, the number of the types of associations-attending, the major cadres in the associations, the time to be a member of irrigation association, and be a politician or not, will influence with the members of advisory board of irrigations associations to communicate with members, know about the rules, constitute the irrigation association, and make the commitments to the associations. 3.The members of advisory board of different types of irrigation associations have different attitudes toward the constitutions of irrigation associations and the commitment of organizations. Especially the members of advisory board in the type of fragmentary irrigation associations, they are more concerned about the constitution of the irrigation associations, and the commitments of organizations are stronger. The suggestions have been addressed as follows: 1.The government should set up a system to monitor the finance of the irrigation associations. 2.The government should bring the new thoughts of business management to the irrigation associations. 3.The irrigation associations should operate more diversely. 4.The government should subsidize farming. 5.The government should support the irrigation associations to enlarge the irrigation areas.

The manager's personal wealth is one of the central building blocks of agency theory, which considers wealth to be an especially important source of individual utility. The managers' financial position, or the portion of their financial well-being that is not dependent on the firm, is also introduced in the original formulation of upper echelons theory. However, despite the importance of executive personal wealth to both theories, it is rarely mentioned, and even more scarcely studied. My research builds on and extends agency and upper echelons theories by focusing on executive personal wealth, defined here as the portion of executive net worth that is not attached to current employment at the firm (i.e., not contingent on current or future earnings). As such, this research provides an initial answer to the following research question: how does the average personal wealth of the top management team as well as within-team differences in wealth influence firm strategic choices with respect to risk? Specifically, I argue that external wealth alters how managers view firm decisions regarding risk; thus, I hypothesize that average top management team (TMT) wealth is negatively related to firm unrelated diversification, positively related to R&D investments, and positively related to firm risk. Next, I propose that two types of within-group diversity ? TMT wealth diversity and TMT pay dispersion ? attenuate the effect of average TMT wealth on these firm outcomes. I test my hypotheses on a panel dataset of over 700 firms/TMTs from the S&P1500 over 2002?2008 using panel tobit and fixed effect models, and conduct multiple robustness checks. Empirical results strongly and consistently support the hypothesized main effects of wealth. However, the results regarding the moderating effect of within-group diversity are weak, as the majority of the moderation hypotheses are not supported. The main conclusion is that wealthier TMTs are less risk averse with respect to firm strategic decisions, which manifests in greater R&D spending, lower unrelated diversification, and higher overall firm risk. Theoretical and empirical implications as well as suggestions for future research are discussed.

In our ‘projectified’ and ‘knowledge-intensive’ society, industrial projects have been proposed as important “journeys of knowledge creation” or “places for knowledge integration”. To date, such perspectives have mainly used traditional cognitive and contextual theories of knowledge and have thus mostly been focused on human actors and their interaction. However, other research suggests that a) knowledge can be seen as a process (knowing) and b) that projects can be seen as actor networks made by human as well as nonhuman elements.   Combining these two insights, a complementary epistemological perspective is created in this thesis. Drawing from the processual ontological notion of ‘project becoming’ and the actor-network theory notion of ‘heterogeneous engineering’, the processual concept of heterogeneous project making is suggested here. The purpose of this thesis is then to create a processual and interrelational perspective on how knowing is shaped through heterogeneous project making. The empirical basis of this thesis consists of a six-month ethnographical study of an industrial project in the telecom industry that was set up to develop and manufacture a radio base station.   The perspective presented in this thesis suggests that heterogeneous project making can be seen as the continuous shaping of past, present, future and context (knowing dimensions) which in turn shape and relate to a knowing trajectory. The notion of a knowing trajectory implies movement, a path, which is suggested here as elusive, fluent and influenced by the work of many heterogeneous actors, rather than being the result of a (socially or technologically) deterministic process. The perspective developed also conceptualises and illustrates how such a knowing trajectory takes shape. Finally, theoretical and practical implications of this perspective are suggested. / QC 20100804