The purpose of this thesis is to examine the influence of e-commerce on the small-size companies in Sweden. This thesis describes the drivers for e-commerce adoption and investigates the barriers and benefits faced from the companies when starting the process of implementation. A qualitative research was performed and an abductive approach was used, where the research findings and the theoretical background were connected by going back and forward in the process of analysis. Interviews with small companies in Värmland Country, Sweden were conducted in order to answer the research questions. This study shows that Swedish companies have relatively well-developed e-commerce strategies comparing to other counties, but the gap between small and large companies is still visible. The decisions for e-commerce adoption are dependent on the knowledge of the owner /manager and e-commerce is extensively used as a marketing tool. Main benefits of e-commerce adoption are improved internal efficiency and increased information exchange. The results suggest that companies value less than before the cost factor and consider the lack of knowledge as a main barrier. At the same time many companies are not motivated enough to make improvements, because of lack of customer demand.

This paper will display a comparative analysis on how one culture is viewed, differently and similarly, by two other cultures, and how such perceptions impact on cross-cultural management. Hofstede’s (1980) studies on culture dimensions are incorporated substan-tially in the research, nevertheless, his assumption that culture is apprehended universal-ly will be refuted. The contribution of this research is that it is based on the presump-tion that culture will be viewed divergently by people of different cultural backgrounds, by employing a triangular comparison among three countries; Sweden, Australia and China.Whilst working in China, expatriates will encounter Chinese social values of guanxi and mianzi, which are terms well imprinted within the Chinese culture. Guanxi deals with how people in China establish, handle and maintain interpersonal relationships. Mianzi is a term for describing how Chinese preserve their pride and honour in social situa-tions. The concepts will be employed when conducting the comparisons of Australian and Swedish expatriate managers’ interpretations on the two respectively. Findings were qualitatively collected by interviewing expatriates from Australia and Sweden, to-gether with the theoretical framework, combined in a triangular analysis. It was con-cluded that the young Australian entrepreneurs scrutinized guanxi and mianzi in a more critical manner in comparison to the elder Swedish managers, who had a more neutral approach towards the Chinese social values.

Exports are an important source of income for Sweden. They are influenced by macroeconomic factors such as GDP. This paper examines the elasticity of Swedish export to changes in the GDP of Sweden’s 25 most important export partners. The sensitivity to changes in GDP, the elasticity, can be different for different goods. Therefore, we examine export elasticities for five different commodity groups, which include durable as well as non-durable goods. Moreover, special focus is put on the trade relationship between Sweden and Germany in order to see if their long common trade history has any impact on the elasticity of Swedish exports to Germany. The analysis is based on an export demand function that links exports to GDP and geographical distance. We include dummy variables in our regression model to control for EU-membership and common borders.       For Swedish exports to Germany, we find that exports of food and live animals are least elastic, whereas exports of machinery and transport equipment are most elastic. This is coherent with previous empirical findings about demand elasticities of non-durable and durable goods. We find that exports in two out of five commodity groups are unit elastic. This means that when German GDP increases by one percent, Sweden’s export to Germany in these commodity groups also grows by approximately one percent. Thus, Sweden is not able to capture additional profit through over proportional increases in exports to Germany. For Swedish exports to its 25 most important trading partners, on average, we find that exports of manufactured goods as well as machinery and transport equipment are the least elastic exports. This gives them the lowest growth potential.

The aim for this bachelor thesis is to find an answer for the placement of Migration and Vendel period graves on preexisting house constructions in Sweden. The reason behind these graves being built on their respective places will be analyzed, discussed and compared with similar finds in Scandinavia, where a wide contact net had been established during this time. Different kinds of social and religious meanings and functions with the grave mounds will also be taken into consideration during the discussion and analysis. The actual findings in the graves will be not be a part of this thesis, as the aim is to focus more on the grave itself as a cultural and social symbol for the people, and the values it had, during the time period it was built.

Recent media articles have illustrated different human resource management problems within Zara Sweden and the retail industry in Sweden. In these articles numerous employees speak about mistreatment and abuse at Zara Sweden. A union official states that Zara is not a unique case, but more so a representative case of the retail industry. Adding to this Zara Sweden has not performed well financially and they state that they are still trying to adapt to the Swedish market.   There is plenty of research explaining the relationship between human resource management and performance. Furthermore, a lot of research urges international companies to be locally responsive especially in their people management. To understand the level of local responsiveness it is important to first examine the cultural disparity between the organization and the employees, for this Hofstede’s cultural dimension was used. With this background the study explores Zara Sweden’s level of local responsiveness as well as their general human resource management practices from three perspectives. Semi-structured interviews have been used to understand the employee perspective. The two other perspectives come from the Annual reports produced by both Inditex and Zara and media articles.   Our findings demonstrate that media perspective and employee perspectives comply well with each other. However, there is a great disparity between the annual report perspective and the other two perspectives. The results show three major HRM liabilities, the sole use of internal promotion, general employee dissatisfaction and the lack of local responsiveness. Our aim is that this study will benefit the Swedish retail industry, to perhaps understand performance issues through study. Also, benefit Zara and Inditex if they have similar problems in other countries and the study might explain their lack of financial performance in the Swedish market. In general, this research could assist companies that are expanding into the Swedish market, seeing it emphasis the importance of regional adaption.

This thesis in Global Development has looked at the personal experiences of non-European medical doctors that have migrated to Sweden to find out what they have encountered during the process of trying to obtain a Swedish medical license and if there are signs of discrimination. Sweden has a shortage of doctors, but has not resorted to brain drain. Contrary, it is difficult for non-European doctors to work as doctors in Sweden. This thesis has used a qualitative research strategy and five non-European unemployed doctors that were trying to get Swedish medical licenses as well as one non-European doctor that was working, were interviewed. Empirical data from a seminar with Swedish doctors about the pro-cess that foreign doctors have to go through to be able to work in Sweden has also been used in this thesis. The results showed that doctors from non-European countries have stricter requirements to fulfill in order to be able to practice medicine in Sweden than doctors coming from European countries. The system for accepting foreign doctors and validating their competence was flawed. The pro-cess was confusing, frustrating and unnecessarily long. Although there was no direct discrimina-tion or prejudice, European doctors were favored by the system. / Denna C-uppsats i Global Utveckling har tittat på personliga erfarenheter av icke-europeiska läkare som har migrerat till Sverige för att ta reda på vad de har stött på under processen av att skaffa svensk läkarlegitimation och om det finns tecken på diskriminering. Sverige har brist på läkare, men har inte tillgripit ”brain drain”. Tvärtemot är det svårt för icke-europeiska läkare att arbeta som läkare i Sverige. En kvalitativ forskningsstrategi har använts och fem icke-europeiska arbetslösa läkare som försökte få svenska läkarlegitimationer samt en icke-europeisk läkare som arbetade intervjuades. Empiriska data från ett seminarium med svenska läkare som handlade om processen som utländska läkare måste gå igenom för att kunna arbeta i Sverige har också använts i denna C-uppsats. Resultaten visade att läkare från icke-europeiska länder har strängare krav att uppfylla för att kunna arbeta som läkare i Sverige än läkare som kommer från europeiska länder. Systemet för att ta emot icke-europeiska läkare och validera deras kompetens var bristfällig. Processen var förvirrande, frustrerande och onödigt lång. Även om det inte fanns någon direkt diskriminering, så var europeiska läkare gynnade av systemet.

Title: Female leaders within the bank sector.   Level: D-level in Business   Author: Emma Roos & Fanny Wiklander   Supervisor: Maria Fregidou-Malama   Date: 2011 – January   Aim: The aim of this study is to examine which factors are behind the low number of female leaders compared to male leaders within the bank sector.   Method: We have adapted a qualitative method. This means that the researcher works close to the object of research and tries to understand it. We believe that this is a suitable method for our study since it’s based on seven personal interviews. Moreover, we have studied existing theories about the subject and connected these theories with the empirical chapter in order to draw conclusions.      Result & Conclusions: Our study shows three main reasons that might explain why there are more male than female leaders within the bank sector. They are; women’s inability to show what they can do and to take risks, the heavy responsibility for home and family that is put on women and also that the traditional image of the male boss still exists. We think that a fundamental change in the way women’s role is regarded is necessary, both in society and in companies. To do this there need to be awareness about the problem and it needs to be up for discussion all the time as long as the inequalities remain. We believe that mentorship can be a useful tool for women who want to advance in their careers.          Suggestions for future research: This is an interesting subject and as long as there are inequalities in society there is still reason to continue to explore the subject. One could for example examine other sectors than the bank sector or compare the female/male-ratio in leading positions in private and government owned companies. It might also be interesting to include male leaders or women who have not advanced in their careers among those who are interviewed.          Contribution of the thesis: Our research has contributed to us understanding why there are more male leaders than female leaders in the bank sector. We also hope that the study will help young women to see and understand the most common obstacles in women’s careers in order to minimize them for themselves. We also believe that board of directors in general would benefit from reading this thesis since it would give them a greater understanding of the problem and hopefully speed up the process of obliterating the inequalities. The study has shed light on the problem and also tried to give suggestions on how to diminish it.

The object of this study was to examine the extent of gender discrimination in the Swedish labour market by using a randomized correspondence testing procedure. To gather the data we utilized a field experiment where fictitious job applications where conducted and sent to real employers. The applications were carefully matched and differed only in gender which was signaled by a traditional Swedish male name or female name. The responses were then analyzed and were the basis in our tests for discrimination. We found only minor evidence of discrimination. Statistically significant discrimination was only found against males in the restaurant business and discrimination against females in full time positions.

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The district nurses' duties with all organisational changes, above all during the last 20 years, have been changed. Economy and listing governs which visits that to be prioritized. The aim with this study was to examine what district nurses in the primary care in Uppsala län has for view about their occupational role. The method was qualitative and the selection comprized ten district nurses in Uppsala län that were interviewed individually on the basis of a semi structured interview guide that the authors the actual created. In the wide analysis of the results could a theme, As a rubber screw in a shrinking hole and three central categories be discerned, Occupational role, Diversity and Organisation. The district nurses enjoy with work and their choice of profession despite higher demand, stress and low staffing. They experience that the profession role have become unclear and others professions has poor knowledge about which competence they hold. They have an interest of working preventive and a holistic view when thinking about nursing care among children and adults. The feeling of not be needed as a profession, not to become seen with the competence that they possesses, is experienced very frustrating and the obvious role the district nurse earlier had in the primary health care and society seem to fade increasingly. The district nurses description of their profession role can compared as a rubber screw which reflects the flexibility but also the resistance against increasingly healthcare. The shrinking hole symbolize the majority organization changes as forced the district nurses to priority other duties than public health work and a decreased sphere of activity.