This study is about job training for people with psycho-social problems without income. The purpose with this sort of job training is to bring these people back to the regular labor market as well as the experience of having a job. In the labor market situation in Sweden today there’s no guarantee that the individual will return to the labor market after having undergone job training. The aim of this study is to understand how supervisors at job training activities experience that the organizations of the activities and resources affect their work. We shall also explore how the supervisors assess if the structure of the activity weaken or enhance the job trainees’ social exclusion. Our research questions are:       1. How are job training activities organized? 2. How do the supervisors work with the job trainees’ social exclusion? 3. How does the structure of the activity affect the supervisors’ discretion?   We have in this study done interviews with supervisors. To understand our result we have used Hasenfelds (1983; 2010) and Lipskys (2010) theories about human service organizations and the discretion of street level bureaucrats.The result shows that the job training activities are organized in different ways. The supervisors work with the social exclusion by creating routines in the every-day life, a social network and increased self-confidence for the job trainees. The result also shows that all the supervisors experience a great discretion in their work but that this discretion is affected by external factors.

Following the principle as caring PID (People In Need) actively, respecting the needs of PID and assisting PID who are elders, orphans and low income households with self-sufficiency, Social Assistance Program aims to ensure that their living standards are above the poverty line. However, officers (Li-clerks) and undertakers of social assistance section are indispensable to applications for social assistance because, in most cases, these public servants must be active to assist PID. The purpose of this study is to analyze how officers and undertakers of social assistance program perceive the Public Assistance Act and related social assistance laws and how they use discretionary behaviors on social assistance when facing applicants for low income households and encountering the problems which arise from the process of enforcements of social assistance policy. This study also intends to analyze how applicants for social assistance perceive the qualification check and whether or not the social assistance programs function effectively under the regulations of social assistance qualification system. Besides, this study chooses Chijin District in Kaohsiung city, where people receive relatively scarcer resources, to be the object of study and does in-depth interviews with officers, undertakers of social assistance programs and applicants for the qualification of low income households. Findings and suggestions come last. The main findings of this study are as follows, 1.The functional roles that officers and undertakers of social assistance section are supposed to do should be established. 2.Due to the qualification check under paper review, the assistance programs are unpractical. 3.The structure of administrative bureaucracy limits the access to social assistance services. 4.The regulations cannot regulate a changing society; the resilient discretional behavior can complement the ineffectiveness of regulations instead. 5.The social assistance resources from civil society could instantly assist PID, which could relieve the ineffectiveness of the qualification review system. 6.Assistances with subsidy in cash ignore the needs of each case. The following is the suggestions of this study, 1.Creating incentives as many as possible for PID being independent will help PID away from poverty. 2.The integration of governmental resources for social assistance and civil social assistance is important. 3.The regulation of social assistance should leave some spaces for appropriate discretion behaviors.

This dissertation is mainly anchored in police administrative neutrality. First of all, according to political literature, it analyzes the role of the police when they execute the governance power in a state. Secondly, from police science literature, it explores the reasons the police involve with politics. Thirdly, based on legislative procedure, it analyzes the different opinions a government and legislature have regarding to ¡§civil service administrative neutrality.¡¨ This dissertation also, according to the study of administrative neutrality from foreign administrative law and professors, seeks the criterion of police administrative neutrality. Finally, throughout the previous media reports, it sorts out the police administrative bias and turns it into study material and judgmental source for this thesis. The author discovers three steps to examine police administrative neutrality, and delivers a case study: mass media expose police administrative bias during the police enforcement tasks of the 11th presidential election. 1. Rule of law: to analyze if the police achieves tasks based on law, and due process of law or standard operating procedures. 2. Execution Neutrality: to analyze if administrative discretion is proper and impartial according to administrative principles. 3. Administration Neutrality: to analyze if politics interferes with police duties. If this occurs, it may result in a partial administration. The police symbolize the governance power of a state, and play different roles as government changes. In an authoritarian state, the police are a tool to suppress people against the ruler; in a democratic state, police authority is restricted to a certain level. Lately, political environment and political party change has become normal. The police ought to acknowledge a truth; governments change but administrations remain. To strengthen democratic functions as the police performs duties, they should prioritize public interest, follow rule of law, adopt political policies, assure legality of human rights, maintain equality of political parties, and present the appropriate assistance to people in the specialization area of public order maintenance.

Earnings management can be used to respond to a variable economics environment to improve firm performance under efficient contracting perspective but earnings management can also be abused to hurt a firm¡¦s performance under opportunistic behavioral perspective. Investors, therefore, have difficulty to understand and know about the purpose of earnings management, especially for firms in Taiwan that are very likely to engage in earnings management due to poor governance. Although numerous literatures have shed light on managers¡¦ incentives on earnings management and the effects of earnings management on firm performance, little attention has been devoted to disentangle the relation among corporate governance, earnings management and firm performance. The purpose of this dissertation is to unravel manager¡¦s intension on earnings management and to clarify whether proper governance can alleviate the abuse of earnings management and, therefore, enhance firm performance. Without distilling the effect of corporate governance on earnings management, the empirical results indicate that there is an inverse relation between earnings management and firm performance, implying that managers are more likely to exploit the latitude of earnings management to mislead investors and gain opportunistic profit. This dissertation further examines the relation between earnings management and the features of corporate governance including ownership structure and board characteristics. These results show that stronger corporate governance can effectively reduce the abuse of earnings management. Furthermore, this dissertation provides the evidence that the relation between earnings management and firm performance is improved when the use of earnings management is monitored under proper governance.

This dissertation consists of three papers relating to the field of Law and Economics. The first two papers examine the impact of increased judicial discretion on both racial disparities and inter-judge disparities in the federal criminal justice system. The third paper analyzes the effects of OSHA programs on workplace safety, wages, and employment. The common thread throughout this work is a focus on how legal actors and institutions affect substantive outcomes of individuals. / Economics

The labor market is a key aspect of democracy and the country's economy, it is part of human life that affect us all the time linked to the economic and social aspects such as standard of living, class, identity, welfare etc. Labor market policy results in policies that are used to increase employment and thus reducing unemployment and improving labor market functioning. The purpose of this study was to explore and describe how the implementation of labor market policy measures goes to and how much leeway employment agents on AF (arbetsförmedlingen) in Västerås have. We have chosen both quantitative and qualitative methods in our study. First we did a quantitative survey where we had a questionnaire survey with agents employed at the AF in Västerås. In terms of qualitative approach, we did a half - structured interview with the employment office manager in Västerås, where we used the same questions that we had the quantitative survey. This will also help us to detect if street-level bureaucrats and top officials (bureaucrats) have different perceptions / views regarding how much leeway employment agents on AF in Västerås have.

This study represents a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the Supreme Court of Canada's treatment of the exclusionary rule set out in s.24(2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The objective of this thesis is to contribute to the theoretical debate between legal positivism and legal realism by examining judicial discretion and the application of s.24(2) by the justices of the Supreme Court. The goal of this work is to demonstrate the weakness of the positivist school in its basic premise that judicial decisions are based solely on the application of the rule of law. It is contended that Supreme Court decisions are derived not only from the words of the law, but also from extra-legal factors, since judges possess certain predispositions by virtue of their own personal experiences. This thesis will illustrate that the exercise of judicial discretion by the Court in its interpretation of s.24(2) has had a profound impact on the nature of Canadian criminal justice policy, moving Canada even closer to the due process model of criminal justice and further from the crime control model than was intended by the framers of the Charter. Both the qualitative and quantitative analysis of s.24(2) Supreme Court decisions show that the language of this provision is often circumvented by the justices who are not constrained by either the intention of the framers or even their own precedent. Consequently, the vague wording of this provision coupled with the discretion conferred on these justices allows the Court to read the exclusionary provision in a manner that best accommodates the exclusionary philosophies of the majority of Supreme Court justices.

The purpose of this study is to understand the collaboration between school and social services. The primary focus of this study is the subject of interaction. The study analyzes how confidentiality affects collaboration between school and social services and examines what effect the organizations’ different roles have on collaboration. The method used is qualitative interviews and the gathered empirical data has been analyzed using theories of discretion and street-level bureaucracy. Eight professionals have been interviewed; four social workers from social services and four teachers. All participants agreed that collaboration is necessary between schools and social services but there is a mutual lack of knowledge about each other's organizations. The study concludes that because of the organizations' differing tasks, it is difficult for them to know who should take responsibility in their interaction. There are some methods that facilitate achieving good interaction.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Bonn, 2005/2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [424]-444) and register.

Thesis (M. P. A.)--Texas State University-San Marcos, 2005. / "Spring 2005." "2006"--Spine. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-55).