<p>A variety of factors are the reasons for adjusting or changing company’s strategy, such as the change of customer demand, company’s internal financial factors, the influence of external environment and so on. This research is to find out the link between the change of external environment and the adjustment of internal strategy. Choose the suspension of one flight in SAS as the case to state this point. Show the strategy change of SAS when they were facing the serious impact of financial crisis.</p><p>SAS as the biggest airline in North Europe it could be a typical firm to investigate this kind of situation. A deep-interview and reading the published reports of SAS are the main data collection approached. Some resources were from the internet because it is real-time news and the reports from the company are published on their website. The interviewee is from the top of the company who is familiar this area and has full experience in international business. The study used lots of theories from different books and journals to integrate the information that we collected to analysis and achieve our final conclusion.</p><p>After analyzed the study it found the SAS used the retrenchment strategy as their new international strategy to reverse the negative situation. The financial crisis affected the customer demand badly not just in China also around the world and forced them to change the strategy. The report ultimate believed there were still a lot of other factors, beside the financial crisis, caused the adjustment of strategy in SAS.</p>

<p>This thesis deals with interactional patterns in verbal disputes as portrayed in the written dialogue of Swedish drama over three centuries. The overarching aim is to contribute to research into conflict talk in Swedish dialogue, but also to contribute to historical pragmatics and linguistic stylistics.</p><p>The teoretical and methodological framework combines elements from conversation analysis and theories of communicative events (activity types). A corpus of 30 drama texts, written during the 18^th century, the late 19^th century, and the late 20^th century, was examined for examples of conflict events that are lexically marked as such in the texts (by words such as <i>argument</i>, <i>dispute</i>, <i>quarrel</i> etc.). </p><p>A total of 47 conflict events were identified in 21 of the 30 drama texts. The construction of the beginning of the three most significant types of conflict sequences found within 45 of the 47 events, totalling 111 sequences, is analysed in detail. The three sequence types concern differences in opinion (disagreement sequences), accusations (complaint sequences) and directives (rejection sequences).</p><p>One result of the study is that complaint sequences are shown to be by far the most common conflict pattern in the data. Another result is that few differences are found regarding the construction of the sequences over three centuries. For the most part, it is the same sort of moves that are frequent no matter which period the data stem from. One conclusion is therefore that the conflict patterns in drama dialogue appear to be relatively stable over time.</p><p>The study also deals with the dramatic functions of the conflict patterns (the events, sequence types or moves). Two functions are discussed, namely plot development and characterisation. While all conflict can further the process of characterisation, for example by showing the negotiation of differences in power between the characters, less than half of the events further the plot by having an effect on the disputants or other characters in the drama.</p>

The aims of this thesis were to describe the verbal interaction in workplace meetings and to relate them to the order of gender. The material consists of five workplace meetings with both female and male participants and was transcribed using a system developed for the purposes of the study. Both the videotapes and transcripts were used in the analyses. Three main studies were carried out. The first study aimed at describing the structuring of the verbal interaction during the meetings, especially in comparison with ordinary conversation. The second study tested the hypothesis that the men in the meetings would dominate the verbal interaction. The third study aimed at describing narratives in the material, especially two narratives told by a male participant in one of the meetings. The methods used in the studies combined qualitative analysis of small sections of talk with quantitative analysis of variables, coded in the material as a whole. The first study showed many similarities between the five meetings in the way interaction was structured, which indicated the possibility that the workplace meeting represents an activity type of its own. One main result was that although the meetings were managed with almost no formal procedures, the verbal interaction was still very structured, and handled with practices belonging to ordinary conversation used in an activity-specific way. The quantitative analysis showed no great differences between the men and the women and the hypothesis was not clearly verified. Two variables indicated that the men dominated the interaction and one variable indicated that the women dominated the interaction, but on the whole the similarities between the men and the women were greater than the differences. The qualitative analysis of the narratives showed how the narratives in the meetings were an interactional achievement and how their meaning was negotiated in the interaction. The analyses also showed how the meaning of the narratives was influenced by normative conceptions about masculinity and thus could be a means of doing gender.

The 1990s were one of the most profitable periods for European airline companies, mainly because of development of world economy and increasing globalisation trends. However, towards the end of the decade, a global economic downturn, high oil prices and new forms of competition turned the industry towards troubled times. The European air-travel industry had to face and accept the new airline business concept, called low-cost or no-frill airlines. In these conditions, traditional airlines had to rethink their strategies and question the old business model. As a response to the competition, European traditional full-service airlines formed alliances or networks to expand the route network and to increase efficiency. Although joint actions of airlines within alliances started to grow, full-service airlines continued to report losses in the weak business environment, in which the low-cost airlines were growing. This thesis aims at identifying the strategic decisions the European traditional airlines have made during the recent downturn in the industry and how the case companies perceive customer value in the alliance they are members of. In order to conduct this study, the authors have chosen two airline companies from two large European alliances. Interviews have been used as a main information source. Interviews were conducted with managers of companies, which at the same time were representatives of companies in the respective alliances. The secondary material such as previous interviews, annual reports of companies, recent studies in thefield, were used as complementary data. Findings and analysis at the end are introduced in response to general market situation, and as a company - alliance information.

This thesis deals with interactional patterns in verbal disputes as portrayed in the written dialogue of Swedish drama over three centuries. The overarching aim is to contribute to research into conflict talk in Swedish dialogue, but also to contribute to historical pragmatics and linguistic stylistics. The teoretical and methodological framework combines elements from conversation analysis and theories of communicative events (activity types). A corpus of 30 drama texts, written during the 18th century, the late 19th century, and the late 20th century, was examined for examples of conflict events that are lexically marked as such in the texts (by words such as argument, dispute, quarrel etc.). A total of 47 conflict events were identified in 21 of the 30 drama texts. The construction of the beginning of the three most significant types of conflict sequences found within 45 of the 47 events, totalling 111 sequences, is analysed in detail. The three sequence types concern differences in opinion (disagreement sequences), accusations (complaint sequences) and directives (rejection sequences). One result of the study is that complaint sequences are shown to be by far the most common conflict pattern in the data. Another result is that few differences are found regarding the construction of the sequences over three centuries. For the most part, it is the same sort of moves that are frequent no matter which period the data stem from. One conclusion is therefore that the conflict patterns in drama dialogue appear to be relatively stable over time. The study also deals with the dramatic functions of the conflict patterns (the events, sequence types or moves). Two functions are discussed, namely plot development and characterisation. While all conflict can further the process of characterisation, for example by showing the negotiation of differences in power between the characters, less than half of the events further the plot by having an effect on the disputants or other characters in the drama.

This thesis explores young people's interaction with different individuals through a variety of media. Three girls and three boys aged 16–18, from an urban school, a rural school and a suburban school, were each observed for a week, at school, at home and during leisure activities. The data analysed consist of field notes, video and audio recordings, and texts written by the participants. The aim of the study is to investigate how young people’s use of language varies in relation to different contexts. Questions are asked about what activities they participate in, what media they use and how they use them, and how they express themselves orally and in writing in different contexts and through different media. The study is based in sociolinguistic theory and activity type theory. Data were collected using ethnographical methods, and analytical tools were drawn from a broadly defined field of discourse analysis. The investigation sheds light on the relationship between what young people are doing socially in any given situation and how they interact. Variation in linguistic styles is made visible by a study of the same individuals involved in different communicative activities. Young people are shown to be a heterogeneous group who engage in different sets of activities. The study questions prevailing definitions and categorisations of adolescents’ linguistic styles and use of electronic media. The outcome is a complex description of everyday interaction, which is found to be shaped by the frames for communicative activities, the technical characteristics of the media employed, and individual factors. In conversational turns, Internet chat messages and text messages, young people select resources from their individual linguistic repertoires in order to achieve specific goals or construct particular roles through their interaction.

Recent work suggests an emerging new paradigm for the Scandinavian ice sheet (SIS); one of a dynamically fluctuating ice sheet. This doctoral research project explicitly examines the history and dynamics of the SIS at four sites within Sweden and Norway, and provides results covering different time periods of glacial history. Two relatively new dating techniques are used to constrain the ice sheet history: the optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating technique and the terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide (TCN) exposure dating technique. OSL dating of interstadial sediments in central Sweden and central Norway indicate ice-free conditions during times when it was previously inferred the sites were occupied by the SIS. Specifically, the SIS was absent or restricted to the mountains for at least part of Marine Isotope Stage 3 around 52 to 36 kyr ago. Inland portions of Norway were ice-free during part of the Last Glacial Maximum around 25 to 20 kyr ago. Consistent TCN exposure ages of boulders from the Vimmerby moraine in southern Sweden, and their compatibility with previous estimates for the timing of deglaciation based on radiocarbon dating and varve chronology, indicate that the southern margin of the SIS was at the Vimmerby moraine ~14 kyr ago. In central Sweden, consistent TCN ages for boulders on the summit of Mt. Åreskutan and for the earlier deglaciated highest elevation moraine related to the SIS in Sweden agree with previous estimates for the timing of deglaciation around 10 ka ago. These results indicate rapid decay of the SIS during deglaciation. Unusually old radiocarbon ages of tree remains previously studied from Mt. Åreskutan are rejected on the basis of incompatibility with consistent TCN ages for deglaciation, and incompatibility with established paleoecological and paleoglaciological reconstructions. Altogether this research conducted in different areas, covering different time periods, and using comparative geochronological methods demonstrates that the SIS was highly dynamic and sensitive to environmental change. / At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Submitted. Paper 4: Manuscript.

A variety of factors are the reasons for adjusting or changing company’s strategy, such as the change of customer demand, company’s internal financial factors, the influence of external environment and so on. This research is to find out the link between the change of external environment and the adjustment of internal strategy. Choose the suspension of one flight in SAS as the case to state this point. Show the strategy change of SAS when they were facing the serious impact of financial crisis. SAS as the biggest airline in North Europe it could be a typical firm to investigate this kind of situation. A deep-interview and reading the published reports of SAS are the main data collection approached. Some resources were from the internet because it is real-time news and the reports from the company are published on their website. The interviewee is from the top of the company who is familiar this area and has full experience in international business. The study used lots of theories from different books and journals to integrate the information that we collected to analysis and achieve our final conclusion. After analyzed the study it found the SAS used the retrenchment strategy as their new international strategy to reverse the negative situation. The financial crisis affected the customer demand badly not just in China also around the world and forced them to change the strategy. The report ultimate believed there were still a lot of other factors, beside the financial crisis, caused the adjustment of strategy in SAS.

The aim of this study is to determine what can be known about the people who were able to write runes during the Viking Age. The investigation is based on the runecarvers’ own statements about themselves and their work, which is normally found in the signature or the carver formula of the inscriptions. The material comprises all carver formulas known from primarily Scandinavian Viking-age runic inscriptions, but since most of the inscriptions are found on rune-stones, there is a focus on runecarvers who worked in this material. In the study the form and content of these carver formulas are closely analyzed in different ways. It can for example be shown that the choice of verbs in a carver formula is primarily determined by chronology, which is also reflected in the geographical distribution of different verbs in the material. The study also shows that the carver formula is normally positioned finally in the text, and that the examples of other positions might be determined by the content of the rest of the inscription. In some cases the runic monument is signed by more than one name, which has been interpreted as indicating the existence of workshops. Even if this is true for parts of the material, many of the co-signed stones seem to be the products of carvers who only worked occasionally. An investigation of the personal names and the use of attributes such as patronymic, titles or bynames, shows no difference from the normal Viking-age population, which indicates that the rune-carvers were not members of a special social class. The latter part of the study deals with the relationships between the rune-carver and the sponsor of the runic monument. Special attention is paid to some local carvers in the Mälar Valley in order to determine their social status and the extent of their production of rune-stones. The study shows that some of these carvers belonged to a wealthy group of land-owners with contacts abroad, and many of them have executed about ten rune-stones, often in the vicinity of their own dwellingplace. In conjunction with this, there is also an attempt to see to what extent the writing habits of these local carvers are influenced by more productive and presumably professional carvers. This investigation leads to a re-evaluation of one of the most famous carvers in the district, Åsmund Kåresson, which also has some implications for the picture of how the rune-stone custom was introduced into central Sweden at the beginning of the 11th century.

The aim of this thesis is to shed light on the handbook as a multimodal resource from a reader perspective, with the material consisting of 32 Swedish handbooks on gardening from 1643 to 2005. The study draws theoretically on social semiotics and multimodal discourse analysis, as well as dialogism. There is an emphasis on the addressivity of the text, which is taken as a starting point for tracing signs of the intended text use in the design of the texts. The analysis is meaning-based, with the focus placed on functional features in the design of the texts. The first part of the study considers the reading goals afforded by the thematizations conveyed in titles, headings and text type patterns. The core function of these texts turns out to be action orientation, although the more recent books often include sections oriented towards other goals, like shaping individual aesthetic taste. The second part illustrates how the multimodal cohesive patterns in the books afford non-linear reading paths and make the texts searchable, which is enhanced by the presence of devices such as indices and tables of contents. Concentrating on six of the books, the third part of the study maps out the role of the reader that is naturalized by the design of the text, drawing on appraisal theory, and shows the strong, authoritative role taken by the authorial voice. The evaluative patterns naturalize a fact-seeking reading. However, the most recent book, from 1996, emphasizes emotions to a greater extent, naturalizing a parallel reading that invokes sensory experience. The conclusion drawn is that the core characteristics of the handbooks are action orientation, searchability and factuality. As different parallel functions in recent books are discerned, a tendency towards diversity and multifunctionality is described. The range of semiotic resources has also expanded, it is noted, and there is growing support for the view of a tendency towards the visualisation of written texts.