This study aimed to provide more general knowledge about the mechanisms which link natural resources with civil war outbreaks. The theoretical point of departure was the feasibility hypothesis hypothesis of Collier et al. (2009) in which the authors state that the paramount interest of researchers of civil wars should be directed at the structural conditions within a country. One of their assertions pertained to the role of natural resources. Those provide a potential revenue source for insurgents to finance their rebellion. Hence, the higher the dependence of a state on natural resource exports, the higher should be the probability of civil war outbreak. However, this account was heavily criticized by other researchers. Some claimed that the conceptualization of the Primary Commodity Exports (PCE) variable does not cover relevant natural resources (Fearon 2005), others pointed at the problem of reversed causality and endogeneity (Gleditsch 1998) and also others stressed to differentiate between different natural resources according to their proneness to be looted by rebels (Ross 2003). In order to address these problems, a new variable was conceptualized. The "extraction feasibility" variable measures the degree of extractability of a particular resource. It is composed of two notions, namely...

Purpose The purpose of the study is to explain what affect customers’ relationship commitment to non-profits organizations. Methodology This study employs the quantitative approach with the help of webbased survey. Findings Relationship commitment has two direct antecedents, namely trust and relationship benefits. Communication between organization and customers has an indirect effect on relationship commitment which is partially mediated by trust. The relationships between constructs are controlled by the length of the membership in the organization. Research limitations/implications The study has several managerial implications. Thus, the established associations between relationships constructs adopted from for-profit industries do not fully explain the drivers of customers’ relationship commitment in the non-profit sector. The special attention should be payed to establishing the successful two-ways communication with the customers in order to facilitate commitment. Theoretically-wise, the study re-examines the earlier established model in the new context and by doing so introduces the new model which is relevant for the context of customers of non-profit organizations. The study however has some limitation such as an application of convenience sample, a limited availability of the survey, a possible language barrier. Originality/value The study proposes the new model which explains commitment and its antecedents in the context of customers’ relationship with non-profit organizations. Keywords Commitment, non-profit organizations, relationship marketing, quantitative study

The interest in vegetarianism and veganism is increasing and the dietary option of abstaining from animal food products is currently a widely discussed and social relevant issue.The present study aims to provide a quantitative overview of the vegan diet, particularly the sociological aspects related to adoption, maintenance and obstacles connected with this diet. A web-based survey was conducted on facebook groups related tovegetarianism and veganism. 8531 participants (86.3% females) answered the survey, from those 6761 were vegan. Moral/ethical, animal and environmental protection, and health benefits seem to be the main reasons to adopt a vegan diet. Furthermore, demographic factors seem to have an effect on both the adoption and maintenance of a vegan diet. Younger participants appear to put more relevance on ethical/moral reasons, environmental and animal protection for adopting and maintaining a vegan diet. Living in a vegan household suggests less perceived difficulties and obstacles to the maintenance of a vegan diet and highers the relevance of moral/ethical reasons, environmental and animal protections as main motivations for a vegan diet. Also, being a female seems to higher health benefits as a source of inspiration to start a vegan diet but it also seems to increase the perceived difficulties.

Corruption is an area that has intrigued plenty of political scientists. This thesis is an attempt to examine how corruption is affected by the sheer amount of public outsourcing with a sample of countries used in a qualitative multivariate analysis. The variables used to control the correlation are inspired by previous research on what causes corruption, while the sample of countries used are those countries that had representation in the indexes used between 2012 to 2015. The main findings are that spending more on public outsourcing tend to lead to slightly less corruption. These results are inconclusive since the main findings was a non-statistically significant when introduced to my set of control variables. However, there is a silver-lining to this inconclusiveness, that being to pinpoint a mechanism for outsourcing and/or corruption: civil wages.

Background: The need for structured practice has in recent years appeared in connection with the request for a more evidence-based nursing. In psychiatric care with its complex disabilities, it is important to have methods to identify these. Research has demonstrated the importance of patient participation in nursing that has been shown to affect their mental health. It is essential to get to know how patients with mental illness are capable of involvement in their life situation. The ICF emerged as a useful theoretical framework for development of questionnaires of patient participation. Aim: The aim of the present pilotstudy was to develop and test a questionnaire for participation, based on ICF. Method: This pilotstudy had a quantitative approach and was based on a draft for the purpose described. For the development process two expertgroups were used, one consisted of nurses with experience of ICF and one by former patients recruited from psychiatric patient organizations to discuss participation and item selection. The final questionnaire was answered by 29 nurses, who also could comment on the content in three open questions used for face validity. Cronbach´s alpha was used to calculate internal consistency. The final goal is to develop a concept of two questionnaires for participation. One that will be answered by nurses and another part based on patients self-assessment. During this pilotstudy, the nurse`s part was focused. Result: The result indicated good internal consistency both in the whole Assessment of Participation in Psychiatric care (APP) (0.900) and for each item (0.892-0.904). We also found indication for good face validity.  The result of this pilot study can be useful for further research and development.

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to explore the early adopters of clothing libraries and find out why they become members of this new fashion business model within collaborative consumption. The study aims to obtain an evaluation of clothing library users and understand their motives and determinants for joining a clothing library. Methodology - The study pursues a quantitative approach. Firstly, the background research was conducted during which data were collected through open-ended interviews with managers of five clothing libraries in Sweden. This enabled the researchers to establish categories of determinants for clothing libraries which were then verified in the next part of the research: a survey filled out by clothing library members. The survey was distributed to members of five clothing libraries in Sweden and resulted in 30 responses from users from all five clothing libraries. Conclusions - The outcome of this study shows that clothing library members are not a new segment of collaborative consumption but rather they are already existing second-hand consumers. Joining clothing libraries merely adds another channel of consuming used clothing. Although the intentions to join a clothing library are mostly based on sustainable motives, style and design are still highly valued by the members.

The Disney princess line includes nine films, in our study we have extended this line to include the latest three films from Walt Disney Pictures that follow the same pattern. These films are Tangled (2010), Brave (2012) and Frozen (2013). We have conducted our study using the same method used by England, Descartes and Collier-Meeks (2011) in their study of the first nine films, starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs produced in 1937 to Princess and the Frog from 2009. A quantitative study was executed where we focused on gender role portrayal, the main characters behavioral characteristics and performed rescues. We applied the following theories to our result; the Social Constructivism, Laura Mulvey’s theory of the Male Gaze, Michel Foucault’s theory of power and discourse, intersectionality and Claude E. Shannon and Warren Weaver’s model of communication. Our result of the content coding shows a more nuanced depiction of both male and female main characters where the roles have shifted. The female main characters have been asigned a more traditionally masculine role in the films. The story in all of our three films revolves around the female main characters efforts to achieve their goals. The male main characters have abandoned their shiny armour and white horse and persued a role as the one who leads the female to her goal. A one-way analysis of variance was implemented to see differences over time in gender role portrayal of men and women. The result suggest that the male and female roles have changed over time, altough the men are those who have changed the most.

Social media has been used as an instructional tool for authentic learning in order to enable adaptability through experimentation and action rather than passive listening and regurgitation. The problem addressed in this study is that it is not known how English composition students’ perceptions of authentic learning are impacted by the use of online social media as instructional tools. Authentic learning is characterized by multiple elements, including collaboration, reflection, and communication. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the perceptions of undergraduate 1st year freshmen composition students using social media as instructional tools, across 9 elements of authentic learning. Bandura’s social cognitive theory and Siemens’ theory of connectivism guided this research study:. Research questions were used to examine the relationship that exist across undergraduate freshman composition students' perceptions using social media (i.e., Facebook and Twitter) as instructional tools of the 9 elements of authentic learning. A previously validated survey instrument aligned to Herrington and Oliver’s authentic learning framework was used to collect data from 50 students and then analyzed using a Pearson product correlation. Data showed multiple statistical significances and revealed that students perceived that social media provided them opportunities to collaborate, reflect, and articulate authentically when it was used as an instructional tool. The results from this study may contribute to social change by providing insight into whether or not universities should support faculty who want to use social media as an authentic learning strategy with college students.

The aim of this study was to investigate how physical education (P.E) teachers in Sweden perceive their education in relation to their actual practice of the profession, both in terms of the scope of different educational areas during teacher education and the perceived value of those areas. This was done through a questionnaire sent to P.E teachers in Sweden, receiving 85 answers. Previous research has shown that teacher education often fails to prepare the students for the profession, and often fail to change the perception of the teacher role that the students have at the beginning of the teacher education. Therefore, the current study tries to use a phenomenological approach to find out what areas of the teacher education that P.E teachers perceive as having been premiered with regards to time, as well as the perceived value of all areas of teacher education. The results of this study show that the respondents primarily perceived research methods, content knowledge and practical development of different sport skills to be the primary focus of the teacher education. Those areas, with the exception of research methods, are also the ones perceived to be most important to the profession. At the same time many respondents criticise this. They claim that the teacher education should focus more on learning to teach others, rather than developing their own sporting skills. The main flaw in teacher education appears to be communication, and the education in areas related to communication. Many respondents highlight the lack of education in conflict management and communication as the most prominent area not being taught enough, together with social factors such as social class and gender. Teacher education seems to be perceived as somewhat successful in the choice of areas being taught, with some apparent holes. Further research would be needed to determine the factors behind the results, with regards to the teachers themselves and their opinions.

In the present study, I have analysed changes in writing and genre in grade 9 during the period 1992–2013. My hypothesis requires more informal language and thus poorer adjustment to the right genre. I use a language theory (Teleman 1985) and theories that highlight the chang-es in school and rest of the community. The study material is taken from the years 1992, 2003 and 2013, and consists of 64 essays. The quantitative analysis of student texts reported in study 1 is based on word variation (OVIX), nominal quota value (NQ), percentage of long words, the average graphic sentence length, noun phrases longer than one word and the number of words in student texts. Sub-study 2 is a qualitative genre analysis of six selected essays, in which two from each year were analysed. The selected essays are the closest to and farthest from the prose style genre normally used in society. The analysis showed the following results. OVIX, nominal quota and noun phrases show a negative change in students’ discursive language over time. The differences between the stu-dents declined between 1992 and 2003, but increased during the period 2003–2013. Long words, the average sentence length and the number of words increased between 1992 and 2013. Study 2 showed a result that did not differ much over time. Questions in the texts increased in 2013. The students who wrote mainly in genre-adapted style are also capable of writing about the stances they take on various topics.