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The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine the different ways thatFamiljehemscentrum use to increase the number of families that show interest in takingcare of foster children. This thesis will examine which families are targeted by Familjehemscentrums present communication, which families they should target in thefuture and also the best way to do that. In order to answer these questions a number of interviews were conducted. The first interview was a group interview with three social workers that all work at Familjehemscentrum. Three more individual interviews were conducted with representatives from foster families to investigate how they were recruitedand what they think about being a foster family. The study is based upon relationship management and different communication models identified in the Excellence-study. The results of the interviews showed that Familjehemscentrums communication is directed at heterosexual, non-religious, Swedish born families that live outside of the city. If they widen their target group to include homosexual, religious and non-Swedish born families they would have more families to pick from when deciding who should take care of a foster child. The social workers explained that they would like to see more young families become foster families. The conclusion of this thesis is that Familjehemscentrum can target these young families, along with other types of families, by using social media in a greater extent and also by using the present foster families as a type of ambassadors.

Although little empirical evidence exists to support this contention, the extant literature suggests that firms can potentially achieve two types of benefits from developing a CRM orientation: (1) increased efficiency in the allocation of resources destined for relationship building and maintenance activities, and (2) enhanced exchange relationship outcomes through the provision of superior customer value (Zablah, Bellenger, and Johnston 2004). This effort focused on the latter of these purported benefits and sought to answer the following two fundamental questions: (1) does a CRM orientation influence the outcome of customer-provider relationships and, if so, how; and (2) does CRM technology have an effect on the relative success of CRM initiatives? In an attempt to address these questions, a conceptual model of "CRM success" was advanced and tested utilizing data from, both, customers and their providers. The conceptual model, which is based on interactive communications theory, posits that a CRM orientation has a positive effect on the quality of the product, service and planned interaction messages providers convey to their customers. The model also suggests that the quality of these messages directly influences customer-perceived relationship value which, in turn, drives other relationship attitudes, perceptions and, ultimately, customers’ behavioral intentions. Finally, the model proposes a moderating role for CRM technology: the association between CRM orientation and message quality is expected to increase (decrease) as the assimilation of CRM technology within firms increases (decreases). The model was tested utilizing (multi-level) SEM techniques. The results provide partial support for the proposed model and suggest the following: 1. As firms’ level of CRM orientation increases, customer-perceived message quality decreases. This inverse relationship between CRM orientation and message quality does not hold true across accounts of different sizes. For large accounts, message quality tends to increase as firms’ level of CRM orientation increases while the opposite holds true for small and medium-sized accounts. 2. The relationship between CRM orientation and message quality is not contingent upon the extent to which firms have assimilated CRM technology. Rather, firms’ level of CRM technology assimilation appears to exert a direct effect upon message quality. 3. Customer-perceived relationship value (CPRV) mediates the effect that product, planned and service messages exert upon customers’ relationship attitudes, perceptions and, ultimately, behavioral intentions.

The purpose of this project was to interview mothers of newborns who participated in early intervention services focusing on the implementation of a tool developed at the Family, Infant and Preschool Program (FIPP) in North Carolina. The intent was to examine the experience of mothers and home visitors employing the tool, which was designed to enhance the mother/infant relationship. However, a stronger focus on the relationship between mother and home visitor emerged throughout the interviews. Among some participants the relationship among practitioner and parent appeared to create a safe space to share, practice strategies and grow. Although characteristics of FIPP practices associated with the tool remained consistent among home visitors, the way in which services were implemented were unique to each home visitor and parent. Mothers participating in the project were identified as coping with numerous life stressors associated with poverty at the time of the interviews.

This study investigates whether the parent-adolescent relationship is related to the academic, social, and personal-emotional expectations of adjustment and actual adjustment to college during the transition to college. The mother-adolescent relationship was more consistently linked to college adjustment than the father-adolescent relationship both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, and students identified their parents and especially their mother amongst the first people who they go to for support. More African Americans than students from other ethnic backgrounds and more dormitory residents than commuters identified their mother as their first supportive figure, suggesting that the students’ living arrangements and their cultural backgrounds need to be taken under consideration when studying this transitional period.

Aim: The objective of the study was to create knowledge on how supply chain management (SCM) can generate and impact satisfaction related to dealer - original equipment manufacturer (OEM) relationships. In this context, the after-sales market was investigated since it became the cash cow of the automotive industry after the financial crisis in 2008. The aims were to design comprehension of: Impact/importance of satisfaction Interrelations of SCM/relationship elements Recommendations for SCM strategies Method: The qualitative research focused on dealers and experts, who were questioned via structured interviews. Thereby relational content analysis was used to detect and categorize 15 codes, condensing the findings in a context model. Result & Conclusions: The research identified commitment, trust and communication to be substantial important within relationships. The OEM has to ensure a sustainable, transparent, adaptive and open relationship while guaranteeing satisfying experiences. The outcome is a “Relationship-Satisfaction Model”, where each element is placed in different importance groups, including adjustment recommendations. As a supporting concept for strategy adaptation, the “4S” model of SCM was deduced. Suggestions for future research: The limitations are related to the examination of a single industry sector and the derivation of theory from dealer experiences in one culture solely. Here diversification of the generated model will support and extend the findings. Contribution of the thesis: The model suggests different focus areas of SCM to improve future-orientated strategies for OEM’s. This conception can create competitive advantage in SCM, while contributing innovative knowledge to the current theories on satisfaction within dealer-OEM relationships.

It is generally assumed that when natural habitat is converted to human-dominated cover such area is “lost” to its native species. Extinctions will ensue. The literature generally assumes that species are extirpated as natural area is reduced, following the well-known species-area relationship (SAR). However, SARs have consistently over-estimated species losses resulting from conversion of natural habitat to human-dominated land covers. We hypothesize that the overestimation occurs because these area-based models assume that converted habitat is “lost”, eliminating all species. However, in the real world, conversion of natural land cover to human-dominated cover frequently produces new land covers, different from the original habitat, but not necessarily completely inhospitable to biodiversity. We evaluated the responses of total avian richness, forest bird richness and open habitat bird richness to remaining natural area within 991 quadrats, each 100 km2, across southern Ontario. Total bird species richness does not follow SAR predictions; rather, the number of bird species peaks at roughly 50% natural land cover. The richness of forest birds does follow the usual SAR power-law as a function of forested area. In contrast, richness of birds that prefer open-habitat does not increase monotonically with either natural- or human-dominated land cover. However, we can partition human-dominated land cover into an “available human-dominated” component and “lost” habitat. Richness of open-habitat species relates to the amount of available human-dominated cover. Distinguishing three habitat types (natural, available human-dominated, and lost) permits accurate predictions of species losses in response to natural habitat conversion.

Det här arbetet studerar med hjälp av en attitydundersökning förhållandet mellan anställdasoldater och Försvarsmakten i syfte att utveckla förståelsen för soldaters commitment till sinarbetsgivare. Frågeställningen lyder Hur ser soldaters relationer ut till arbetsgivarenFörsvarsmakten? Arbetets teoretiska grund hämtas i begreppet relationship commitment och närmare bestämtden del som benämns attitudinal commitment. Den begreppsdefinition som nyttjas bygger ihuvudsak på Meyer och Allens (1991) tre komponenter av relationship commitment, det villsäga affective commitment (känslomässig), continuance commitment (kalkylativ) ochnormative commitment (normativ). Begreppsdefinitionen inkluderar även åtta påverkansfaktorer som var och en ges en tydlig knytning till respektive komponent avrelationship commitment. Påverkansfaktorerna utgörs av personlig kompetens, deladevärderingar, förtroende, upplevelser, relationsfördelar, relationsavvecklingskostnader samtskyldigheter och tvingande miljö.Till skillnad från många tidigare studier görs här en tydlig koppling mellan påverkansfaktoreroch komponenter. Vidare studeras relationen mellan arbetstagare och arbetsgivare inomoffentlig sektor vilket även det är relativt ovanligt. Tidigare har framförallt relationer mellanorganisationer inom privat sektor eller olika former av nätverk studerats.Undersökningens resultat visar att soldaternas relation med Försvarsmakten framföralltbygger på en känslomässig grund där personlig kompetens och upplevelser samt deladevärderingar har störst betydelse. Därtill kan föras att även förtroende har viss betydelse förrelationen. Inom den kalkylativa komponenten spelar en förväntan om personlig utveckling enviss roll, men i övrigt har komponenten begränsat inflytande på relationen. I studienkonstateras också att det i princip inte finns någon normativ grund i soldaternas relation medFörsvarsmakten. / Using an attitude survey, this essay studies the relationship between employed soldiers and their employer the Swedish Armed Forces in order to develop an understanding of therelationship between these parties. The research question is: What do soldiers' relationships totheir employer, the Swedish Armed Forces, look like?The theoretical basis of the study is build on the theories of relationship commitment, andmore specifically the part that can be linked to attitudinal commitment. The conceptualdefinition used is mainly based on Meyer and Allen's (1991) three components of relationshipcommitment, namely affective commitment (emotional), continuance commitment(calculating) and normative commitment (normative). The concept definition also includeseight influencing factors, each given a clear linkage to the respective component ofrelationship commitment. The influencing factors are personal competence, shared values, trust, experiences, relationship benefits, relationship termination costs, obligations andimperative environment.Unlike many previous studies done in this area, a clear link between the influencing factorsand their respective components is defined. In addition, the survey covers the relationshipbetween workers and employers in the public sector which is also relatively rare. Previously,mainly relationships between organizations in the private sector or in various forms ofnetwork have been studied.The results of the survey show that soldiers' relationship with the Swedish Armed Forces arebased in particular on an emotional basis, where feelings of personal competence, desire forexperiences and shared values are most important. In addition, trust has some but lesssignificance for the relationship. Within the caculating component an expectation of personaldevelopment play a certain role but otherwise the component has limited influence on the relationship. In principle, there is no normative basis in the soldiers' relationship with theSwedish Armed Forces.Keywords:

V. V. Petkevičius. JAV ir Kinijos ekonominių dvišalių santykių analizė 2004 – 2014 m. / Tarptautinės politikos ir ekonomikos magistro baigiamasis darbas. Vadovas prof. dr. Egidijus Motieka. – Vilnius: Mykolo Romerio universitetas, Politikos ir vadybos fakultetas, Politikos mokslų institutas, 2014. Jungtinių Amerikos Valstijų ir Kinijos santykiai pastaruoju metu, viešajame diskurse, tampa vis dažnesne diskusijų tema. Auganti Kinijos galia ir JAV ekonominės problemos bei pirmieji silpstančios galios požymiai šias diskusijas paskatina dar labiau. Būtent santykių tarp šių valstybių vystymąsis yra viena aktualiausių temų daugumai pasaulio valstybių. Galiausiai kodėl silpstant Vakarams bent jau kol kas nesimato tiesioginės konfrontacijos su Kinija? O taip pat, kaip elgsis JAV augančios Kinijos galios atžvilgiu? Kol kas šie klausimai išlieka neatsakyti, tačiau atsakymai į šiuos klausimus gali būti rasti JAV ir Kinijos dvišaliuose ekonominiuose santykiuose. Pagrindinis darbo objektas – 2004 – 2014 m. JAV ir Kinijos ekonominių dvišalių santykių tendencijos. Darbe analizuojant JAV ir Kinijos tarpusavio užsienio prekybos srautus, o taip pat abipuses tiesiogines investicijas bandoma išsiaiškinti galimas priežastis, kurios lemia dabartinius ganėtinai šiltus minėtųjų valstybių santykius. Taip pat analizuojant galimus politinius pokyčius abiejose valstybėse bandoma identifikuoti galimas šių pokyčių įtakas ilgalaikiams dvišaliams JAV ir Kinijos santykiams. Darbo tikslui pasiekti buvo... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / V. V. Petkevičius. Analysis of the United States and China bilateral economic relationship 2004 – 2014 / Master’s thesis in International Politics and Economics. Supervisor prof. dr. Egidijus Motieka. – Vilnius: Faculty of Politics and Managment, Institute of Political Science, Mykolas Romeris University, 2014. The relationship between the United States and China in these days are one of the most popular topics in public discourse. The rise of China’s power and economic problems and first weakness signs of the United States are promoting these discussions even more. The relationship between these two main world economies are very important to other countries. Naturally there are some questions like: why there is no direct confrontation between the United States and China if they are competing in the global political arena or how will the United States react in the meaning of rising China? For now these questions are unanswered, but the answer might be in the bilateral economic relationship between these two countries. Main thesis object is tendencies in the United States and China bilateral economic relationship in the period of 2004 – 2014. By analyzing the amounts of the United States and China bilateral trade and foreign direct investments, author tries to find potential reasons why these two countries are not confronting each other. Also by analyzing potential political changes in these countries, author is trying do identify the main outcomes and potential influence... [to full text]

This study compares same-sex friendships, cross-sex friendships and romantic relationships in young adulthood in terms of the negative effects of various conflict issues, the different conflict management strategies and relationship maintenance strategies employed in these relationships, as well as the perceived rewards and costs, the integration of the networks, and perceived overall quality. The main purpose is to investigate cross-sex friendships and discern its similarities to and differences from romantic relationships and same-sex friendships, as well as the gender differences that emerge. Data is collected by means of questionnaires, from a sample of 298 Middle East Technical University Students. Cross-sex friendships were rated as the poorest relationship in terms of quality, rewards/costs, or the frequency of maintenance behaviors and conflict occurred at very low levels in these friendships. Women employed more relationship maintenance strategies in their same- and cross-sex friendships compared to men. In addition, men preferred the dominating and women the accommodating strategies of conflict management in their same-sex friendships. It was concluded that same-sex friendships remain to be the accepted and approved form of friendship among this sample of Turkish young adults and cross-sex friendships were distant and inferior to the other two relationships. Finally, there were some differences across these relationships as to what predicted relational quality, yet in general the rewards and maintenance strategies predicted quality better than costs and conflict behaviors