Denna studie tar sin utgångspunkt i en tidigare medarbetareundersökning som utfördes i ett kunskapsföretag hösten 2013. Den undersökningen visade att en av arbetsgrupperna (verksamhetsutvecklarna) upplevde att arbetet påverkade deras fritid.   Därför genomfördes en kvalitativstudie med fokus på intervjuer i syfte att få kunskap om fenomenet och dess orsaker till varför individen har svårt att koppla bort arbetet på sin fritid. De frågeställningar som ligger till grund för denna studie är; vad är det som gör att verksamhetsutvecklarnas fritid påverkas negativt av arbetet? Vad är orsakerna i organisationen som gör att individen tar med sig arbetet hem? Vad kan organisationen göra för att verksamhetsutvecklarnas fritid inte ska påverkas negativt av arbetet? Resultatet visade att alla respondenter har oreglerat arbete, gällande fyra dimensioner; tid, genomförande, plats och samarbete. De känner sig ensamma i sitt arbete och upplever låg grad av socialt stöd men även otydliga krav. De upplever också att organisationen har en otydlig struktur samt upplever oklara förväntningar från arbetsgivaren. En annan slutsats är också att respondenterna är relativt nöjda med sin flexibla arbetstillvaro. Studien visade också att organisationen borde satsa mer på utbildning, teambuildning samt att arbeta för tydligare krav och förväntningar för att motverka att verksamhetsutvecklarnas fritid ska påverkas negativt av arbetet. / This study takes its premise in an earlier survey amongst persons working in a knowledge based company during the fall of 2013. That survey showed that one of the workgroups (the activity developers) perceived that the work interfered with their free time. That is the reason a study was done with the purpose of acquiring knowledge by interviewing activity developers about the phenomena, in which the individuals experience difficulties with disconnecting themselves from work in their free time.  This study aimed to acquire knowledge about the underlying factors relating to this phenomena. The questions that form the basis of this study are; what are the causes that negatively impact the participant’s free time? Could it be related to organizational problems? How could an organization limit this impact?  The result indicated that all participants have what we refer to as unregulated work, based in four dimensions; time, execution, workplace, and collaboration. According to the study it is clear that the participants feel that there is a lack of support in their work; experience a low degree of social support in the workplace, and it that clear goals are lacking. Management of expectations, is also seen as a contributing factor. The study concludes that the organization should invest more in education, teambuilding and work towards defining goals and tasks in order to reduce the impact on the participants and their free time.

The ushering in of the new democratic order in South Africa in 1994 brought with it far-reaching changes that impacted on the lives of every citizen. South Africa was faced with the task of translating the dreams of its citizens into reality. To do so, the state, through its various departments had to revisit it approach to service delivery. this led to the extensive restructuring processes that characterised the first decade of democratic rule in this country. The changes that occurred and are still occurring in education are remarkable and commendable. Post 1994, the Ministry of Education had to dismantle the apartheid structure and create a unified education system. During apartheid there were 19 Education Departments, which had to be amalgamated into one National Department, which is further divided into nine Provincial Education Departments (Hofmeyer, 2000:2). this was to create a more equitable system of financing in a context of the huge demand on the limited financial resources and to create a policy framework, which gave concrete expression to the values, which underpinned the post apartheid state. The first five years of reconstruction were dedicated towards the dismantling of apartheid, and the creation of structures and procedures. This included transfers of staff, offices, records, assets and more than ten million learners and educators into the new system without compromising service delivery. Educators are central to educational change, the policy on norms and standard for educators were introduced in 2000 (Robinson, 2003:19). This policy created the framework and procedures for the approval of teacher education programmes and outlined the kinds of qualifications that the Department of Education would consider for funding and for employment. The policy provides an outline of the knowledge, skills and values that are seen as the hallmarks of a professional and competent educator (Robinson, 2003:21 ). / (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2006

The thesis evaluates mobility based on mobile phone positions. The aim is to develop and assess different methods for travel demand estimation based on CDR data. Besides this estimation location data in cellular data is explained in more detail and a previous work based on mobile phone data and travel demand estimation is reviewed. The different methods of travel time estimation include both static and dynamic estimation. The static travel demand estimation evaluates movements in the city based on predefined time periods, whereas the dynamic estimations are based on different definitions of a trip. A trip can be defined as movements between important places, or just simply count a trip between each position, or a filtering of active states to create more accurate origin-destination matrices. The second part of the thesis includes evaluation of travel time based on CDR data before the final conclusions are drawn. The main finding of the thesis is that it is possible to assess mobility in a city based on CDR data, even if there are no validation data available.

Globally, the tourism industry is recognised as one of the fastest growing industries, generating high revenues and creating a vast number of job opportunities. In South Africa, this is no different and, in recent years, the tourism industry has outshone the country's gold exports therefore claiming its position as the fourth highest earner of foreign exchange to date. Yet the industry is still to receive the attention it deserves from conventional economics. This research aimed to fill this gap in South Africa by providing an understanding on the determinants of international tourism demand for South Africa. The first objective of the study was to provide a broad overview of the tourism industry of South Africa. The discussion focused on the supply and demand sides of tourism which, in turn, are divided into the domestic and international tourism markets. There has been a high growth, especially in the international market since 1994 and, while domestic and international markets continue to grow, seasonality remains an issue. Tourism has a significant impact on economic activity, employment, and the balance of payments and therefore the industry has great potential. The second objective was to create a theoretical understanding on the different factors that could determine the international demand for the tourism product. From this discussion it was found that there are various economic and non-economic factors that are believed to have an influence on tourism demand. Income, prices, transport cost, and the exchange rate are amongst the favourite economic variables with travel time, population, marketing expenditure, climate, and capacity being the more popular noneconomic factors. Among these, certain threats were also identified that could have harmful impacts on tourism growth. The third objective and main aim of the study was to determine which of the factors identified earlier determine the demand for international tourism to South Africa. This was done through an empirical investigation. Data from all the continents were used to attain an international perspective on tourist arrivals (tourism demand). The results indicated that capacity and climate factors determine tourism demand in the short term with income and transport cost influencing South Africa as a tourism destination in the long term. The last objective was to determine whether certain events or disasters that take place globally have a negative influence on tourism demand to South Africa. The event that was looked as was the terror attacks on the United States in September 2001. It was found that although the overall tourism activity of the world became stagnant during this period, the effect was not that considerable in South Africa's tourism arrivals. Tourism in countries such as the United Sates, on the other hand, has still not recovered fully after this event. / Thesis (M.Com. (International Commerce))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

A better understanding of people’s attitudes to housing is fundamental to attracting new residents and retaining those who already live in or close to the central city. As such, this study operating in a Canadian context adopts Hägerstrand’s model for the process of innovation diffusion. The study draws on the findings of an online survey and interviews with city planners in both Edmonton and Winnipeg to explore the demand and supply dimensions of city-center living and attitudes towards different types of housing and neighbourhood design. The study shows that the central area in Winnipeg and Edmonton are at different stages regarding housing. Prospective home owners who are interested in housing in the central area share a number of environmental attitudes. These attitudes were related to the care for recycling, the importance for eating organic food, the use of public transportation, volunteering in non-profit organization to help the community and the interest in attending cultural activities. Based on the results of the study, it can be expected that housing types such as apartments, townhouses and even loft housing can be more common in the future and especially in Winnipeg since apartments and townhouses are already common in Edmonton.

The hypothesis in this paper is that the existence of retail markets may not necessarily be determined by spatial factors and increasing return in transportation (or increasing returns in retailing), but can be explained by the rational behaviour of firms operating in a stochastic environment. It is shown that demand uncertainty can serve as an independent source of retail trade. Consequently, the ability of firms to process information and predict demand (i.e., to decrease demand uncertainty) may affect the characteristics of retail markets. The results indicate that risk-averse firms always devote resources to demand forecasting; producers are better off trading with retailers than with final consumers; and the volume of output supplied through retail markets is greater than it would be if producers traded directly with consumers (thus benefiting social welfare). Furthermore, the paper shows that technological progress in data-processing, which allows for cheaper and better predictions of market demand, increases the number of firms operationg in retail markets. (authors' abstract) / Series: Discussion Papers of the Institute for Economic Geography and GIScience

Purpose - The purpose of the research is to study how category management is implemented by Chinese Lianhua supermarket. Design/methodology/approach - This paper is adopted a single case study of qualitative ap-proach with explanatory and exploratory design as our research strategy. The method of the re-search is developed by the following three steps: (1) based on the previous literature, we elaborate category management background, its definition, explain category management process, analyze its demand side and the benefits it brings to retailers; (2) according to the above literature and theories, we create a working model which combines category management and its demand-driven side feature (i.e. customer focus, category management collaboration and strategic retailing positioning) in order to analyze the implementation of category management in Chinese super-market retailing; (3) we find a Chinese supermarket that is carrying out category management and conduct a case study based on it. With consideration of the working model, we explain how cate-gory management is implemented in the supermarket, find barrier and challenges during the im-plementation and make the corresponding suggestions to the current situation. The case study is based on interviews with major representatives from Lianhua supermarket and one of its suppli-ers in order to achieve insight into the essence of the problem. Findings and analysis - The implementation of category management in Lianhua supermarket includes “strong outlet” strategy aiming to deal with the supermarket development in a fierce competitive environment. Besides, Lianhua supermarket closely carries out the category management process and adapts the process according to its own positioning. Insufficient systems to support the implementation of category management, collaboration with suppliers is still on the fence, lack of internal managerial techniques and conflicts between category concentration and customers’ personalized shopping are the major barriers and challenges facing to Lianhua supermarket during its implementation of category management. Authors suggest Lianhua supermarket to invest IT resources, establish win-win strategic relationship, enhance top management commitment, improve internal collaboration and improve category performance measures. Research limitations – This research only restricts insights of category management on single case and specific geographical location. As for whether the research is also applied to other industry, the researched hasn’t been concerned and needs further research. The case study in the research is conducted only from retailer’s point of view. Findings obtained from the interviews are mostly from Lianhua supermarket side. The inadequate interview from supplier side is a clear limitation of the study, but it leaves an interest for future research.

Denna kvantitativa studie behandlar anställdas hälsa i förhållandetill krav-kontroll-stöd modellen. Studiens syfte är dels attundersöka hur krav, kontroll och stöd korrelerar med hälsa iarbetslivet. Vidare undersöks i vilken typ av arbetsbelastningsläge;aktiv, passiv, spänd eller avspänd, som den anställde skattar sinhälsa högst. Resultatet beräknades med hjälp avstatistikprogrammet SPSS och bygger på en enkätundersökning(N=137) som genomförts på arbetsplatser i tre svenska städer.Korrelationsanalyser, T-test och ANOVOR tillämpades. Resultatetvisade att höga krav korrelerade negativt med hälsa. Hög grad avkontroll samt hög grad av stöd korrelerade positivt med hälsa. Stödfrån chef samt arbetskamrater visade sig vara den viktigaste typenav socialt stöd för en hög nivå av hälsa. / This quantitative study discuss employees health in relation to thedemand-control-support model in the workplace. The studyexamines how demands, control and support correlates with healthat work. Additionally the study investigates which type of socialsupport that is most important to occupational health. Moreover thestudy examines in which work situation the employee experiencehighest health; active, passive, high strain or low strain. The resultwas calculated using the statistical program SPSS and is based on asurvey (n = 137) by a convenience sample of workplaces in threeSwedish cities. Correlations and analyzes of variances wereapplied. The results showed that high levels of demands correlatesnegatively with health. High levels of control and support werecorrelated positively with health. Support from manager andcolleagues were shown to be the main form of social support for ahigh level of health.

The objective of this study is to develop a general understanding of the evolution of the commercial communication satellite industry. Initial information classifies the industry as an oligopoly with the vendors as price setters. The approach to this thesis is to examine the supply and demand of satellites as a capital good. Assuming the demand curve slopes downwards, the study examines the change in the price of a standard unit satellite. The underlying motivation is the conventional identification problem. Over three generations, the technical attributes of communication satellites are advancing. Taking the hedonic regression approach, the price of satellites is shown to decrease over time. Exploring the relationship between price and complexity, it is demonstrated that in the short-run the oligopoly structure of this industry is accompanied by a simple form of cost-plus price-setting. This finding solves the identification problem, so that simultaneous equation methods are not required. Assuming a constant degree of monopoly power in the industry, changes in multi-factor productivity are estimated. Productivity growth increases until 1980, but decreases slightly afterwards. The learning coefficients estimated for this industry are smaller than those found for the airframe industry. The fall in quality-corrected prices, however, is not big enough to support the interpretation that the expansion of satellite capacity was due to supply shifts along a stationary market demand schedule. Factors driving demand lead to a faster rate of expansion outside the original western world, but in the second half of the period, the ability to use software data compression moderated the rate of growth of demand for new satellites. The study explains the adjustment of the stock of satellite capacity in response to the desired stock: the speed at which countries adjust their stock depends on their characteristics and regional profile.

Abstract The customer demand for ecological products has increased in recent years, within the garden industry this mainly concerns herbs and other edible plants. The organic trend is increasing and more people are aware of the environment and want to take responsibility for it through their purchases for their garden as well. In this essay the aim is to investigate customer demand and the possibility of selling organic perennial plants in eight garden centres on the Åland islands and in Gävle/Sandviken. I include two garden centres with an organic profile to get a wider point of view. I investigate the global market for organic perennials and look further into existing certification standards on the Swedish market today. The methods I have been using are interviews and a literature study. The study shows that the experienced demand for organic perennials is small in both of my investigated groups. The biggest motivation for starting to sell organic perennials would be to find a supplier of these plants and that more customer would ask for them. The certification systems on the Swedish market today do not concern specifically organic perennials; there is a lack of rules of conduct. In USA the demand for organic perennials has increased in recent years. Several nurseries with an organic profile have opened and programs for guidance of organic growers have been founded. In Germany the production of organic perennials is small and organic certification is lacking. In both countries further research on the market for organic perennials is suggested. / Sammanfattning Utbudet och efterfrågan på ekologiska produkter har under de senaste åren ökat. Detta gäller främst livsmedel men trenden kan också ses beröra växter. De ekologiska växterna tenderar främst att vara kryddor och ätbara växter, inte prydnadsväxter. Samband kan ses mellan konsumenternas medvetenhet om miljöfrågor och efterfrågan på ekologiska växter. Syftet med uppsatsen är att i huvudsak undersöka trädgårdshandeln i Gävle/Sandviken och på Åland och dess syn på möjlighet till försäljning av ekologiska perenner samt undersöka internationella erfarenheter kring produktion och efterfrågan, och att studera utvalda svenska kvalitetssystem för perenna växter. Frågeställningarna berör efterfrågan och inställningen till ekologiska perenner hos de utvalda handelsträdgårdarna, ekologiska odlares perspektiv, existerande certifieringssystem och den internationella marknaden med fokus på USA och Tyskland. Som metod använder jag mig av intervjuer samt litteraturstudie. Jag har intervjuat totalt tio stycken trädgårdshandlare, varav två stycken med ekologisk profil. På Åland och i Gävle/Sandviken är den upplevda efterfrågan på ekologiska perenner hos de utvalda handelsträdgårdarna liten och ingen av dem säljer ekologiska perenner. Trädgårdshandlarna är motiverade till att börja sälja ekologiska perenner om någon leverantör erbjuder sådant växtmaterial och ifall efterfrågan ökar. De två handelsträdgårdarna med ekologisk profil upplever inte heller någon stor efterfrågan på ekologiska perenner. De levererar inte perenner till andra återförsäljare. I USA har efterfrågan och utbudet på ekologiska perenner ökat. Den största kundgruppen är unga, miljöintresserade personer. Det har startats program för att hjälpa ekologiska odlare av prydnadsväxter. Certifierade plantskolor finns. I Tyskland består produktionen av prydnadsväxter av en liten andel ekologiska växter. Ekologisk certifiering för produktionen saknas. I både USA och Tyskland föreslås vidare forskning kring ekologiska perenner och deras efterfrågan. I Sverige saknas ett specifikt framtaget certifieringssystem för ekologiska perenner. GRO, E-plant och Svenskt Sigill omfattar inte ekologisk odling och certifiering av sådana växter. KRAVmärkningen omfattar även odling av perenner, men det saknas regler och förhållningssätt speciellt utvecklat för odling av perenner.