Many knowledge-intensive organizations are experiencing difficulties retaining talented graduate recruits, as young engineers tend to change jobs frequently at the expense of employers’ seeking to keep their competitive edge. The current study examined the predictive strength of numerous work related employee attitudes for turnover intentions and behaviors. A survey based on well-established measures was distributed to employees of two technically oriented companies. The investigation identified opportunities for mental work and stimulation, possibilities to discern one’s own work performance, feelings of being locked-in, and job offers as predictors of employee turnover intentions and behaviors. The results indicated that young engineers act different than other occupational groups with regards to turnover, highlighting a need for between-groups comparisons.

Syftet med detta arbete var att ta reda på om intresset för naturvetenskap hos eleverna i år 6 – 9 påverkas av tidigare lärares intresse och engagemang i dessa ämnen. Tio stycken lärare som jobbar i de tidiga åren i grundskolan intervjuades om deras intresse för naturvetenskap och hur de bedrev sin NO-undervisning. Tidigare elever till dessa lärare fick i en enkät svara på frågor om deras intresse för NO och när de hade NO för första gången. De flesta lärare som jobbar med elever i år ett till fem undervisar i biologi, resten av ämnena är det olika med och beror på deras egna kunskaper och intressen. Eleverna tycker bäst om kemi och teknik medan biologi hamnar längst ner på listan. Resultaten visar att lärarnas engagemang och intresse för NO i de tidiga åren i grundskolan inte har särskilt stor betydelse då det gäller elevernas intresse för naturvetenskap i de senare åren i grundskolan. / The purpose of this study was to investigate whether interest in science among pupils in grades 6 – 9 in elementary school depends on earlier teachers’ interest in and commitment to science. The investigation was carried out by means of both interviews with ten teachers, who teach in the earlier years of the elementary school, and surveys with 269 pupils in grades 6 – 9. The findings show that most of the teachers in grades 1 – 5 teach biology but teaching in physics, chemistry and technology depends on the teachers’ knowledge and interest. The pupils like chemistry and technology the most whereas biology is the least preferred subject. The findings also show that pupils’ interest in science, in grades 6 – 9, does not depend on the earlier teachers’ commitment and interest in the subjects.

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Purpose – The purpose of this research was to explain the determiners that influence customer loyalty in rural grocery stores with a comparison of Sweden and Spain. Design/methodology/approach – This is a quantitative research using a multi-cross sectional design with an explanatory approach. The data was collected with a questionnaire survey that was distributed using a face-to-face and online method. Findings – The findings of the research revealed significant support for customer perceived value, satisfaction, trust and commitment to influence customer loyalty. The research also confirms that there are differences in customer loyalty regarding rural grocery stores between Sweden and Spain. Research limitations/implications – This thesis extend previous research by testing an adapted conceptual model of customer loyalty in a context of rural grocery stores and explain the determiners of customer loyalty in Sweden and Spain. The limitations of the research are discussed and directions for future research areas are suggested. Practical implications – The study provides rural retailers with suggestions for marketing strategies related to the determiners (i.e. customer perceived value, satisfaction, trust and commitment) that might influence customer loyalty and attract the rural customers. Originality/value – This research adds to the current stream of rural research by investigating how customer loyalty can enhance profitability. This research has originality since it makes a comparison of two countries, which can be of great interest and inspiration for how to maintain and develop rural grocery stores. Lastly, the research is significant as it provides implications to rural retailers as well as Provincial Governments.

Previous research has shown how venting one’s feelings can reduce the negative emotions of a consumption experience. This study proposes a general process of how consumers with feelings of unfairness due to a negative consumption experience can achieve emotional disclosure and reduced unfairness by posting online reviews. By using an experimental design with scenarios, this study tests how the perceived unfairness in this process is affected by the party encouraging the consumer to post an online review and the consumer’s public commitment. A student sample was divided into four groups and the perception of unfairness was compared between the groups depending on whether the party encouraging the feedback was a company perceived to be responsible for the sense of unfairness or an independent party and whether when the consumer was identifiable or anonymous to see if public commitment had an effect. Results showed that emotional disclosure was found to reduce the perceived unfairness in all groups. There was no significant difference between being encouraged by the company or independent party. Furthermore, no public commitment was in effect, even when participants’ answers were thought to become known to others. The results indicate that companies may prefer to encourage consumers to provide feedback themselves rather than using a third party and that posting online reviews will not make the consumer committed to their feeling of unfairness.

ABSTRACT ESCALATION OF COMMITMENT IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS: A GOAL SETTING THEORY PERSPECTIVE BY VIJAY KASI Aug 30, 2007 Committee Chair: Dr. Mark Keil Major Academic Unit: Center for Process Innovation Information technology (IT) projects are prone to failure. One explanation for the high failure rate among IT projects is that managers overly commit to a failing course of action, a phenomenon referred as escalation of commitment. While the notion of goals and commitment are central to the phenomenon of escalation, very few prior studies have investigated their impact on escalation. In this study, a research model rooted in goal setting theory is advanced to better understand escalation of commitment of IT project managers. A role-playing experiment with 350 IT managers was used to test the proposed research model. The results of the study suggest that IT managers are more willing to escalate their commitment under the influence of easy and vague goals compared to difficult and specific goals. Initial goal commitment of IT managers and the level of project completion were found to have a significant effect on IT manager’s willingness to continue. Initial goal commitment of IT managers was also found to moderate the relationship between goal difficulty and willingness to continue. In other words, when there is a higher level of goal commitment, an easy goal will have a greater effect in terms of promoting an individual’s willingness to continue.

För många är arbetet den mest centrala delen ilivet där de flesta av dygnets vakna timmar spenderas. Studiens syfte var attundersöka yrkesstolthet och identifikation med arbetet. Enligt KASAM- teorin, känslaav sammanhang, är meningsfullhet en viktig komponent för individens yrkesstolthet.Åtta individuella kvalitativa intervjuer genomfördes med åtta deltagare iåldrarna 40 till 65 år med varierande yrken. Ett heterogent urval användes föratt få en så stor variation som möjligt. Resultaten visade att den viktigastekomponenten för yrkesstolthet var upplevelsen av att få göra gott i mötet medandra människor samt att arbetet känns meningsfullt. Att deltagarna hade olikayrken tycktes ej vara av vikt för vilka faktorer som associerades med stolthet.Resultatet visade för samtliga deltagare att trots att den ekonomiskabelöningen upplevdes som låg i jämförelse med yrkets åtaganden inte vägde överde inre faktorer som påverkade deltagarens upplevelse av yrkesstolthet.

In Sweden today almost all people are connected to a bank in some way. It can range from loans, savings, shares, etc. They have a current account where salaries, student aid etc. is paid. Due to the large selection of banks, it has become more important for banks to be competitive in their services to their customers so they don’t change bank. This has led to that more and more banks are trying to get their customers to be more loyal to the bank by being more competitive. Loyalty is the result of several interrelated factors such as customer satisfaction and service. This leads to the purpose of this study to investigate if the demographic aspects have any influence on loyalty. Through a questionnaire survey, this study examined whether there is an influence of the demographic aspects on loyalty. The questionnaire consisted of questions based on previous research. It was distributed to people in Kristianstad on three different locations. Overall response rate to the questionnaires distributed gave us a participation of 110 respondents. The results were then statistically processed in order to test if there is a significant difference in loyalty within the various demographic aspects. According to this study, we could not find any differences in the demographic aspects. However, we were able to find small differences in the mean values ​​between the different groups in the demographic aspects / I dagens Sverige är i stort sett alla personer på något sätt kopplade till en bank. Det kan vara alltifrån lån, sparande, aktier m.m. Nästan alla personer i dagens Sverige har ett transaktionskonto dit lön, studiemedel m.m. utbetalas. På grund utav det stora utbudet av banker har det blivit viktigare för bankerna att vara konkurrenskraftiga i sina tjänster till sina kunder så att de inte byter bank. Detta har medfört att fler och fler banker satsar mycket resurser på att få sina kunder att bli lojala mot banken. Lojalitet är resultatet utav flera sammanhängande faktorer som exempelvis kundnöjdhet och service. Detta leder till uppsatsens syfte att undersöka ifall de demografiska aspekterna har påverkan på lojalitet. Genom en enkätundersökning har denna studie undersökt ifall det finns en påverkan av de demografiska aspekterna på lojalitet. Enkäten bestod av frågor som grundar sig på tidigare forskning. Den delades ut till personer i Kristianstad vid tre olika tillfällen. Totala svarsfrekvensen på de utdelade enkäterna gav oss ett deltagande på 110 respondenter. Resultaten har sedan bearbetats statistiskt för att testa ifall det råder signifikanta skillnader på lojalitet inom de olika demografiska aspekterna. Enligt denna studie kunde vi inte påvisa några skillnader inom dem demografiska aspekterna. Däremot kunde vi urskilja små skillnader i medelvärdena mellan de olika grupperna i de demografiska aspekterna.

Research gap: Reputation is seen as an important asset for companies and can create competitive advantages. Within business-to-business the reputation of the company is argued to affect the relationship between buyers and suppliers and although the area is stressed to be important, it is still under-researched. Previous literature is not aligning when it comes to the importance of reputation and the duration of the relationship and it also states trust to have impact on important parts of the relationship, such as affective commitment and the willingness to invest. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis was to measure to what extent the duration of a buyer-supplier relationship affects trust, and to what extent trust affects the affective commitment and willingness to invest, when the reputation of the supplier was negative as the outcome of adverse publicity. Hypothesis: H1a; H1b: The duration of buyer-supplier relationship has a positive impact on Trust (integrity or benevolence) if the reputation of the supplier is negative H2a; H2b: Trust (integrity or benevolence) has a positive impact on affective Commitment, if the reputation of the supplier is negative H3a; H3b: Trust (integrity or benevolence) has a positive impact on willingness to invest if the reputation of the supplier is negative Method: The study had a quantitative approach and collected the data by a questionnaire sent to manufacturing business-to-business companies by email. 462 companies were contacted which resulted in 72 usable answers. Conclusion:The buyer-supplier relationship was not to a significantly extent affected by negative reputation and the duration of the relationship was not differing to a substantially extent. The different trust increased the buyers’ affective commitment and willingness to invest which demonstrates the importance of trust in the relationship due to negative reputation.

This thesis study is about the effects of tight budgetary control on managerial behaviour in the Swedish public sector. Managerial behaviour represents the four variables; motivation, organizational commitment, stress, and satisfaction. As previous research mostly investigated the effects of tight budgetary control on organizational performance in the private sector, this study can be seen as one of the first that focus on managerial behaviour and is based on the public sector. For the data collection process, an online questionnaire was created that has been distributed via email to the different participants. Moreover, the study is based on a sample of 62 managers from different municipalities and universities throughout Sweden. The result of the thesis research study revealed that the majority of the local managers in the Swedish public sector actually experience tight budgetary control. Furthermore, the statistical test of the created hypotheses showed that the behavioural factors, both, organizational commitment and stress were respectively negatively and positively related with tight budgetary control. However, for the behavioural variables of motivation and satisfaction no significant results have been found.