The pressure on businesses to “give something back to society” has increased considerably in the last decades and concepts like Corporate Social Responsibility gained enormous populari-ty. While for many years companies have been distributing cash and goods to charity, attach-ing to the CSR agenda a philanthropic nuance, many companies have recently started to shift away from philanthropic giving

This study reports on the results of research undertaken to assess the role of oil palm cultiva-tion for local livelihoods in the sub-district of Karaket in Thailand. Oil palm cultivation has become a product of heated debate within the international community and various stakehold-ers have raised serious concerns over its environmental and social sustainability. Karaket has recently experienced s

This study focuses on two key elements. The first is the implementation of EU directive 2004:38 in Sweden and how the right of residence is determined by three Swedish authorities. The second is how well Michael Lipsky’s theory on street-level bureaucrats can describe the reality of the civil servants who work with determining the right of residence. The material for the study is the actual text o

This study discovers how the microentrepreneurs running water refill stations (WRSs) assess the income generation potential of drinking water sale in Jakarta including the motivations to start up and sustain the business as well as the challenges they face with in the water market. The study further provides insights on the broader externalities to which WRSs have contributed. The design of the re

This Master’s thesis aims at examining the light rail project in Lund, Sweden, and its discursive and material foundations as well as consequences. Through a discourse analytical deconstruction of the project, the thesis analyses the essence and legitimacy of the political process and its construction of urban visions of the desirable city, for which the building of a light rail system is being po

Social capital is the key to an effective and well functioning liberal democracy according to Robert D. Putnam in the theory about Making democracy work, and Bo Rothstein in the theory about the Logic of the social trap. The solution to create social capital is according to Putnam a high level of participation in civic communities in the civic society and according to Rothstein the need of univers

The world has during the latest decades seen the rise of transnational public-private partnerships. The political debate about the partnerships’ role in global governance is often polarized. Some scholars state that partnerships are more effective than other type of state-centric structures and the argument is at present a major source of legitimacy for the occasionally criticised partnerships. Ho

The well-stated fact that institutions matter, according to new institutionalism, is the starting point for this thesis. On this basis, institutional change will be the focus for the three approaches historical institutionalism, rational choice institutionalism and sociological institutionalism. These approaches however focus on different storylines to the same story of institutional change. This

Denna uppsats är en metautvärdering av det svenska skolsystemet. Den teoretiska grunden är att det skett en förändring av den svenska förvaltningen till följd av idéströmningar som i stort härrör ur New Public Management. Det har i sin tur inneburit att styrningsfilosofin kommit att gå från regel- och detaljstyrning till mål- och resultatstyrning. Kritik mot detta styrsystem har därefter uppkommit

Environmental degradation is often understood as linked to poverty and ignorance of ecosystem values. Taking point of departure in the theories of ecological economics and political ecology, this study seeks to offer an alternative explanation of the concurrence of environmental degradation and economic challenges. Through participatory observation, semi-structured interviews and group interviews,

The following essay examines the view of children as political participants is expressed in Swedish governmental investigations supporting decision making concerning children’s issues and matters of interest for children. The aim is to investigate, through an analysis of ideas, which view of children as political participants is dominating and where it has received its influences. Ideal types of c

According to postcolonial theory relationships between western and non-western societies are characterized by west being dominant. Europe’s relationship with Africa is not new, but 2005 EU decided to change their African strategy, because they determined that Africa had improved in recent years. This resulted in a new partnership that is called Africa-EU Strategic Partnership and is based on the p

Title: The retreat from the ambiguities of entrepreneurship: A study of Business Incubators Submission date: May 22th 2013 Course: BUSN49 Degree Project in Managing People Knowledge and Change- Master Level Authors: Rasmus Jonsson & Emilia Olandersson Supervisor: Kate Sullivan, Department of Business Administration, School of Economics and Management, Lund University & Stefan Sveningsson,

The Swiss foreign policy offers a deviant case. Most countries that were neutral during the Cold War have during the last decades become more cooperative, while Switzerland on the other hand still contains a rather stable foreign policy. Because traditional theories in International Politics offer no concrete explanation to this puzzle, I have been oriented towards decision-making theories in dome

The aim of this study is to use frame analysis to identify different narratives surrounding the Swedish debate on a so called meat tax. The Swedish ministry of agriculture released a report in January 2013 with the message that the meat consumption needs to decrease to reach more sustainable levels. One way that it could be accomplished is through the implementation of a carbon based tax on meat.

Through Robert A. Dahl’s criteria of democracy I am in this bachelor’s thesis pursuing a normative analysis. I am using the criteria as values that are being examined through a normative given this value- method. The case I am examining is the implementation of road tolls in Gothenburg. The material analyzed, in order to see if the values are considered, are articles collected from local newspaper

The redistricting process in the United States of America has been viewed as an unfair, manipulative procedure of drawing redistricting lines to benefit the politicians in power. In an attempt to stop this by creating a more transparent and improved redistricting process, certain states have implemented redistricting commissions for both state legislative and congressional redistricting. This stud

Leadership is proposed by scholars and the broader societal discourses as a panacea to organizational problems. Furthermore, there has been an overly positive view of leadership presented within these discourses. We propose to examine these discourses on leadership within a specific organizational context. Additionally we look to understand the interplay between these discourses and the leadership

This study aims to evaluate whether the process of the Swedish development cooperation is democratic or not, by measuring if the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are able to participate and influence the decision-making process. The background of the study is an interview with the Swedish minister of development cooperation where she emphasized the significance of a more focused and results-b

The core subject of financial mathematics concerns the issue of pricing financial assets such as complex financial derivatives. The pricing technique is pervaded by the concept of arbitrage: mis-pricing will be spotted and exploited, resulting in a risk free return for any arbitrageur. A mispriced financial asset will expose the issuer to be exploited by the market as a money-pump. To prevent arbi