Introduction: Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, is seen as an important part of an organization, where communication functions as creating relationships between the organization and social actors. CSR is about the company's social responsibility for how they affect society from an economic, environmental, and social perspective. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to account for communicators' views on CSR communication and how they deal with the possible opportunities, challenges and risks they experience in communicating CSR. The purpose is also to discern the similarities and differences that the communicators have regarding the view of CSR communication, in order to gain a greater understanding of the prerequisites of CSR communication. Method/material: The data for our study have been collected by semi-structured interviews with four communicators with knowledge in CSR communication. These have then been analyzed through a thematic analysis. Theory: The study contains theories related to the subject, such as theoretical concepts about CSR and CSR communication, the stakeholder theory and greenwashing. These have set the knowledge and structure of the interviews and helped us understand the results. Result: The results of the study show us that communicators have different prerequisites for communicating CSR. Based on, for example, industry standards and different stakeholders which therefore have different expectations. Common to them are demands for transparency and authenticity in the communicators' work. This is supposed to reduce the risk of being met with suspicion and skepticism. Possibilities such as appearing as legitimate and credible as a company can be discerned.

<p>This dissertation comprises two essays on over-the-counter (OTC) markets, covering both the primary and secondary markets for municipal bonds.</p> <p>In the first chapter, I explore a novel channel through which exchange-traded funds (ETFs) improve pre-trade price transparency and thereby retail investors' bargaining power in OTC markets. ETFs are required to daily disclose their full holdings, often along with their constituents’ end-of-day prices, which are good timely references for investors to negotiate with broker-dealers, particularly when the securities have not traded recently. I find that ETF-held bonds have significantly lower retail markups than those of bonds not held by ETFs. This effect cannot be explained by selection or ETFs' own trading activity but is driven by the daily disclosures by ETFs holding the bonds. During 2010--2021, retail investors saved over $200 million when trading ETF-held bonds. There is also a spillover effect to the primary market---when municipalities have outstanding ETF-held bonds, their new issues have lower yields and smaller price dispersion.</p> <p>In the second chapter, I both theoretically and empirically document a non-monotonic relation between local municipal bond mutual funds, or informed investors, and underpricing in the municipal bond market. Empirically speaking, offering yields are higher in states that have open-end municipal bond funds, and with larger aggregate fund size. However, holding local fund size constant, yields decrease in the number of funds. Such relations hold when local funds' primary market participation is instrumented with the similarities in characteristics of new issues and existing bonds in their portfolios. I further confirm my empirical findings with a security underpricing model that incorporates the imperfect signals available to informed investors. Despite facing higher borrowing costs, issuers benefit from local funds' certification resulting in both institutional and retail investors' higher demand in the primary market.</p>

The coupling of light to ensembles of strongly interacting Rydberg atoms via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) has emerged as a particularly promising approach towards quantum nonlinear optics, allowing freely propagating photons to acquire long-ranged effective interactions of unprecedented strength. This thesis explores different photon interaction mechanisms enabled by this general approach, and examines how these can be utilized for various different practical applications. Considering dissipative photon interactions, we first examine the effect of blockade-induced photon scattering on the spatial coherence of collective Rydberg excitations stored in an atomic medium, and how this influences the efficiency of photon storage and retrieval. Based on this developed understanding, we examine the performance of single-photon switching capabilities enabled by dissipative scattering and establish optimized switching protocols over a range of parameters. We then generalize this to consider the many-body decoherence of multiple stored excitations. Here we identify a correlated coherence protection mechanism in which photon scattering from one excitation can preserve the spatial coherence of all others in the medium, and consider the utility of this effect for implementing robust single-photon subtraction. We then outline a new approach towards coherent quantum nonlinear optics via Rydberg-EIT, in which the emergent photon interaction features intrinsically suppressed photon losses. The underlying idea exploits Rydberg blockade to modify rather than break EIT conditions for multiple photons in close proximity, the effect of which alters the underlying dispersion relation of light propagation in a coherent fashion. We devise a specific implementation of this general mechanism fostering a reflective optical nonlinearity and discuss how this can enable efficient single-photon routing with a multitude of unique practical applications.

In this study the subject of ethics is examined, more specifically how ethical consideration might change for UX-designers when working on artificial intelligence. With the introduction of new, powerful AI tools such as chatGPT and Midjourney, these tools are finding their way into the hands of users all around the world. This being the case, ethical consideration in UXdesign is of great importance, as it is this discipline which shapes products for the needs of the consumer. The aim of this study is to examine how ethical considerations in UX-design for artificial intelligence tools might differ from traditional UX-practise. It is an important field to examine, as little to no prior research has been conducted on the intersection of ethics, user experience design, and artificial intelligence. Initially, a literature review was conducted in order to situate this study in the current field of similar research. Thereafter theories on ethics are presented to facilitate the coming discussion. A qualitative methodological approach was chosen as suitable for the study. By conducting a small-N-study and semi-structured interviews with design practitioners, as well as an AI expert, data was gathered on ethics, UXdesign, and artificial intelligence. This data was then analysed through text analysis and the interpretative research paradigm in order to identify patterns and themes. Four main themes are identified and presented, as well as discussed. The findings of the study show how aspects that have traditionally been connected to the technical development of artificial intelligence are of great relevance to the discipline of UX-design as well. These aspects; responsibility, explainability, and transparency, must be taken into account by design practitioners in design work for artificial intelligence in order to transfer knowledge of the tool onto the user. The findings of this study contribute to the intersection of knowledge of ethics, user experience design, and artificial intelligence by showing how the concept of responsibility in artificial intelligence is of equal importance to design practitioners. Furthermore, it also show that the concepts of explainability and transparency, which have hitherto been exclusive to the realm of AI-development, are applicable in design work. Additionally, based on these findings a prototype framework for the development of ethical guidelines for design practitioners in artificial intelligence is proposed. As for future work in the field, it would be of value if future studies would interview design practitioners with more professional experience of design in artificial intelligence, as well as confirm the findings of this study through the use of other methodologies through method triangulation.

The essay aims to empirically examine which public administration values that are used when recruiting municipal directors, with a focus on whether job advertisements contain a comprehensive picture of this important public mission, which can contribute to suitable people applying for this type of position. The purpose is limited to the following questions, which we intend to construct a theoretical framework around in order to be able to answer at a later stage: • Which public values are prominent in job advertisements for the recruitment of municipal directors and which values appear to a limited extent or not at all? • How are public values formulated in job advertisements for municipal directors in the form of word choice and reasoning? • What does the process look like in the creation of job advertisements for municipal directors? Recruiting well in terms of presenting from the beginning a comprehensive picture of the values and tasks of the position is important; especially in public administrations as employment affects the social-, political-, and economic parts of society. The issue of recruitment becomes interesting, as we can study to what extent democratic and economic values that managers need to relate to emerge already in the initial phase of recruitment. The municipal director becomes particularly relevant because he/she works in an organization that manages several welfare services within a broad spectrum with a large turnover. Through an empirical analysis of a quantitative and qualitative nature of job advertisements and e-mail interviews, we can conclude that it is economic values that primarily appear in the job advertisements. The descriptive study has managed to produce data which indicates that there is a local variation of values, that the complexity of the role does not emerge, it focuses to a large extent on economic values. This data may be useful for future studies that may conceivably investigate potential institutional change in public management or if party affiliation affects the content of the advertisement.

In a workplace, fostering a culture of transparency, openness, and conflict resolution can create an environment where employees feel comfortable expressing criticism. The purpose of this study is to investigate how employees at a governmental organization perceive the space to voice criticism internally within the workplace. For example, previous research shows that depending on the nature of the criticism employees will consider the pros and cons before presenting it. Previous research also shows that when employees perceive that their voice is limited, they may respond by remaining silent despite management asking for open discussions. To answer the purpose of this study, a qualitative interview study has been carried out consisting of interviews with six state-employed individuals at a Swedish authority. The interviews have been recorded, transcribed and the generated data has been the basis for a thematic analysis. The empirical work has been analyzed based on Habermas theory of communicative action. The study's results show, among other things, that employees who perceive that the manager listens actively, and prioritizes what the employee wants to express, experience a positive space for criticism. Furthermore, the study shows that employees are less inclined to express criticism again if the manager has diminished previously expressed criticism, and that this nurtures the perception of a limited space for criticism. Additionally, the findings show employees perceive they can influence the reception of their criticism by considering how it is expressed. Employees seem to feel that it is more important for them to be listened to, than that the expressed criticism leads to an actual change. / Att ha högt i tak på en arbetsplats kan exempelvis innebära en transparens, en öppenhet, en strävan efter konfliktlösning samt att önskemål och missförstånd kan diskuteras. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur anställda på en statlig organisation upplever utrymmet att framföra kritik internt på arbetsplatsen. Tidigare forskning visar exempelvis att beroende på vad kritiken handlar om överväger anställda för och nackdelar med att framföra den, samt att när anställda uppfattar att deras röst är begränsad kan de svara genom att vara tysta trots att ledningen efterfrågar öppna diskussioner. För att besvara syftet har en kvalitativ intervjustudie genomförts bestående av sex statligt anställda individer på en svensk myndighet. Intervjuerna har spelats in, transkriberats och det genererade datamaterialet har legat till grund för en tematisk analys. Empirin har analyserats utifrån Habermas teori om kommunikativt handlande. Studiens resultat visar bland annat att anställda som uppfattar att chefen lyssnar aktivt, samt prioriterar vad den anställde vill framföra, upplever ett positivt kritikutrymme. Vidare visar studien att anställda är mindre benägna att framföra kritik igen om chefen har förminskat tidigare framförd kritik, samt att detta bidrar till en upplevelse av ett begränsat kritikutrymme. I studien belyses även att anställda uppfattar att de kan påverka mottagandet av kritiken genom att överväga hur den uttrycks. Anställda tycks känna att det är viktigare för dem att bli lyssnade på, än att den framförda kritiken leder till en faktisk förändring.

The role of precise forecasts in the energy domain has changed dramatically. New supply forecasting methods are developed to better address this challenge, but meaningful benchmarks are rare and time-intensive. We propose the ECAST online platform in order to solve that problem. The system's capability is demonstrated on a real-world use case by comparing the performance of different prediction tools.

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