Gender equality as a Swedish norm, but who’s included? - a critical analysis of the Swedish parental insurance

This thesis purpose is to investigate to what extent gender equality norms have developed in Sweden over the last 40 years. In order to do this I will use Carol Bacchi’s method, ”What’s the problem represent to be”, and six questions that she has created within this method. These questions are applied on four different governmental propositions, that discuss the parental leave insurance and gender equality, from the year 1973 until 2014. Together with Bacchi’s method, this thesis theoretical framework will be influenced by feminist postmodern thoughts. In the analysis, four different key concepts are identified. These concepts; The State, Family: men, women and parenthood, Work and, Flexibility and freedom of choice, are central in all four propositions. Outside the propositions, a few norms have been identified and analyzed. The most central norms are: to have an employment, the twoness norm, and the heteronorm. Even if Sweden has had good preconditions and created equally formal rights for both men and women, there are still obstacles and norms in society about how a mother, father or a parent should be. Even if gender equality norms have changed, the basic assumption, that parents should be able to combine work and family, is still central

Institutional conditions for integrated mobility services (IMS): Towards a framework for analysis

The present text is a theoretical framework that has been developed with the aim to generate knowledge of and policy recommendations for the promotion of integrated mobility services (IMS), with specific regard to institutional dimensions. Integrated mobility services are services where the passenger’s transport needs are met by a service that not only integrates a range of mobility services, both public and private, but also provides one-stop access to all services through a common interface. These types of services are currently being developed in several cities globally, and the purpose of the project is to understand and explain how institutions can enable, but also impede, their realization. Institutions are defined as a relatively stable collection of rules and practices, embedded in structures that enable action. In the project a broad theoretical approach, developed by an interdisciplinary research team, will be applied. As such, the framework includes factors at the macro, meso and micro levels, thus including extensive societal trends as well as individual\u27s needs and behaviour. The macro level includes broader social and political factors, including both formal rules and more informal social norms and perceptions. The division between formal and informal variables recur on the meso and micro levels respectively. The meso level – which includes both public and private actors at regional and local levels – consists of both formal institutional factors such as taxation and regulations, and informal factors such as organizational culture and inherited networks between regional actors. Each actor enters the collaborative processes that signify IMS with their own ideals, interests and expectations, and it is in these processes of negotiation that the framework takes it point of departure. It is also in this context that business models will be developed, another central aspect of the realisation of IMS. Finally, the framework also includes the micro level, where an individual perspective is placed at centre stage. Individuals are affected by various formal incentives and push factors, as well as more informal aspects such as self-image and social status. Through the application of the framework in a number of case studies, empirical findings will help illuminate which institutional factors enable or constrain the development of IMS. The findings will provide the empirical and analytical foundation for suggestions on how formal and informal rules and practices can be modified to enable new IMS to contribute to sustainable mobility

Kan grupprättigheter rättfärdigas? En normativt jämförande studie av fyra liberalistiska teoretiker och deras argumentation om grupprättigheter

The purpose of this essay is to compare point of views from four different liberal scholars concerning multiculturalism and group recognition. As well as to investigate if there are any conflicts between liberal values like liberty, equality and self-determination. The material is based on Will Kymlicka, Susan Moller Okin, Joseph Raz and Chandran Kukathas ideas about liberalism, multiculturalism and group recognition. And in this thesis I compare their similarities and differences in their arguments. This thesis answers two questions; firstly if minority cultures should get recognition from a liberal state, and given that the answer of the first question is yes, by which ways and means. This essay will also show the dilemmas between those liberal scholars and why it can be difficult to agree when they all take points of departure from the same ideologi. My analysis is divided into three different categories: conflict, group recognition and cultural importance. Conclusion of the essay is that the answer depends on how the scholars understand and define these different values

Managing negative eWOM in the retail industry : A qualitative study of proactive and reactive strategies

In the fast pace of the development of the Internet and the increased use of it more and more people use interactive platforms to connect with each other. The increased opportunity and ability to share content with people around the globe has led to the emergence of eWOM. eWOM means that consumers generate content that is consumption-related and mainly directed towards other consumers. Today, social media sites are the biggest source to eWOM. Consumers are actively searching for eWOM in order to gain information and reduce uncertainty, as a part of their purchasing process. In general, consumers tend to trust consumer generated content more than marketer generated content. Therefore, eWOM becomes a crucial component to business performance.  Negative eWOM has been shown to affect the purchase intentions, loyalty and trust in a negative way, which eventually affects the turnover for a company. Negative eWOM has further been seen to have a larger impact on consumers, compared to positive eWOM. These consequences emphasize the importance of marketers being aware of negative eWOM and have strategies to manage it. The subject of eWOM has been acknowledged by practitioners and researchers. However, despite the increased interest in eWOM and its effects on business performance, there are still research gaps on how to proactively and reactively avoid and manage negative eWOM.  The purpose of this study was to examine and understand what strategies companies use in order to avoid and manage negative eWOM on company owned and external interactive platforms. To fill the identified research gaps, this study took an inductive approach and the authors conducted a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews. The sample was purposively selected to include respondents within different companies that had knowledge about the companies’ strategies and approach towards managing negative eWOM. The sample consisted of companies of different sizes, which provided different perspectives and rich information of how companies can approach negative eWOM. A thematic analysis was conducted in order to analyze the empirical data and present relevant findings from the data collection.  As a result of the thematic analysis, two global themes were identified: proactive strategies and reactive strategies. Within the global theme proactive strategies, five sub- themes were found: observation, detect critical potential scenarios and questions, communicate expectations, encourage feedback and facilitate contact. Within the global theme reactive strategies, six sub-themes were found: acknowledge or leave, do not delete, accommodative, defensive, answer in public, drive to private, and humorous and cleverly. These themes laid the foundation for a final conceptual model. The findings of this study suggest that marketers in retail use different proactive strategies to avoid negative eWOM from occurring in the first place. Moreover, the findings of this study show that marketers in retail, depending on the content of the negative eWOM and the platform it is taking place on, also use different reactive strategies to manage negative eWOM. The results also show that what strategy to use is to a large extent dependent on the individual’s subjective ability to interpret the negative eWOM.

Mikrolån - en (o)möjlighet? En kritisk studie av kvinnors möjlighet till empowerment genom mikrofinanser via mikrofinansinstitutet Jamii Bora i Kenya

Uppsatsens syfte är att utifrån perspektiven liberalism och radikalfeminism belysa och problematisera att mikrofinansinstitutet Jamii Bora i Kenya låter både män och kvinnor ta del av deras mikrofinansprogram. Studien genomförs som en teorikonsumerande fallstudie och belyser kvinnors möjlighet till empowerment utifrån aspekterna välmående, jämställdhet och självständighet. Utifrån liberalismen förstärks kvinnors välmående genom möjligheten till mikrofinanser. Ett radikalfeministiskt perspektiv ifrågasätter dock om detta hindras av kvinnans privata familjesituation. Gällande jämställdhet är liberalismen och radikalfeminismen överens om att strukturer måste ändras, men oense om hur det ska gå till. Enligt båda är det viktigt att organisationer och andra aktörer agerar som förebilder samt att ett genusperspektiv genomsyrar hela verksamheten. En central skillnad gällande självständighet är att liberalismen utgår ifrån individen medan radikalfeminismen pekar på de positiva konsekvenserna av att kvinnor som grupp tillåts ta del av mikrofinanser. En generell slutsats är att det finns både juridiska och byråkratiska hinder för kvinnorna att kunna utveckla sin egen verksamhet

Mobility-as-a-Service: A Tentative Framework for Analysing Institutional Conditions

A theoretical framework has been developed with the aim to generate knowledge of and policy recommendations for the promotion of integrated mobility services - or MaaS - with specific regard to institutional dimensions. These are services where a passenger’s transport needs are met by a service that not only integrates a range of mobility services, both public and private, but also provides one-stop access to all services through a common interface. These types of services are currently being developed in several cities globally, and it is essential to develop further understanding and explain how institutions can enable, but also impede, their realisation. Institutions are here defined as a relatively stable collection of rules and practices, embedded in structures that enable action. As such, the framework includes factors at the macro, meso and micro levels, thus including societal trends as well as individual\u27s needs and behaviour. The macro level includes broader social and political factors, including both formal rules and more informal social norms and perceptions. The division between formal and informal variables recur on the meso and micro levels respectively. The meso level – which includes both public and private actors at regional and local levels – consists of both formal institutional factors such as taxation and regulations, and informal factors such as organisational culture and inherited networks between regional actors. Each actor enters the collaborative processes that signify IMS with their own ideals, interests and expectations. It is in these processes of negotiation that the framework takes its point of departure. It is also in this context that business models will be developed, another central aspect of the realisation of MaaS. Finally, the framework includes the micro level, where an individual perspective is placed at centre stage. Individuals (in their roles as citizens, customers, and users) are affected by various formal incentives and push factors, as well as more informal aspects such as self-image and social status. Findings from literature as well as different cases illuminate the framework and which institutional factors enable or constrain the development of MaaS. The findings will provide the empirical and analytical foundation for suggestions on how formal and informal rules and practices can be modified to enable new MaaS to contribute to sustainable mobility.Full paper is available at: https://aetransport.org/past-etc-papers/conference-papers-2017?abstractId=5670&state=