Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Persona studies'

The persona is an essential part of personality development that allows individuals to exhibit conventionally acceptable behaviors and to adapt them as necessary in social situations. The Jungian concept of the persona is underrepresented in depth psychological studies and so merits more development. This research aims to answer how the persona affects character development and individuation journeys through the narratives of Japanese anime. Also included was the exploration of the archetypal presence of Dionysus. Using a hermeneutic analysis of four anime series, both the protagonists and antagonists were explored at length. Additionally, pivotal fighting scenes were considered to demonstrate persona development or dissolution. Through the process of the research, I found that analysis of villains yielded more results in regard to the persona. Findings indicate that Dionysian myth is often apparent within anime, despite its cultural dissonance. A broader understanding of the persona could have an influence on the field of media studies as a way of exploring narrative within and outside a specific tradition. Findings also indicate that the depth psychology concept of the persona may also be more complex than initially thought; specifically, it may be a multilayered structure, rather than a singular one. Persona identification turns individual characters into a vessel for unconscious contents. Further analysis of persona identification can be a tool to help make inferences about the personal and collective unconscious. Keywords: persona, individuation, Dionysus, anime, inflation, persona identification

Abstract

Aim: The aim of the study is to analyze ten different columns written by Linda Skugge, in order to see what kind of rhetorical means she uses to get her message across. It is also to examine if, and to what extent, these means are of female nature, and to see what kind of persona Skugge uses in order to be trustworthy.

Method: Rhetorical analysis of ten columns written by Linda Skugge

Main results: The study has shown that Skugge´s rhetorical strategies differ from the ones recommended in theories about female speech. Skugge writes with a lot of character and emotionally based arguments, which, according to the theories, is more of a male way of speaking. Skugge gives an impression of being strong, competitive and offensive in her character, but also reveals that her role is consciously chosen in order to receive respect and to gain power.

Number of pages: 42

Course: Media- and Communication studies D

University: Department of Information science, University of Uppsala

Period: Spring 2005

Tutor: Amelie Hössjer

Keywords: rhetoric, rhetorical analysis, feminist studies, persona, Linda Skugge

Known to be one of the most important resources, but also one of the most difficult ones to obtain, the workforce constitutes (consistence) the core of any organization. To find the right person for a particular position is not a trivial task. The recruitment of new staff members is important for any organization in general, but for treating organizations in particular. In order to provide the best service for its clients, it is, for a treating organization, vital to recruit nothing but highly qualified personnel. A well educated workforce can more easily stick to the treatment program and thus maintain treatment integrity. The purpose of this study is to examine how the recruitment process is executed by three treating organizations situated in the municipality of Örebro. Moreover the purpose is to evaluate the process in terms of strengths and weaknesses with the objective of pinpointing parts in the recruitment process in need of improvment. A theoretical framework capturing definitions and theories; treatment conditions, organization theory and the recruitment process. In order to answer the research questions, according to the study’s purpose, a qualitative method was adopted. The data sample ecompassed six personers: two managers and four group officers. The results in brief: The recruitment process of “Ungdoms- och familjeenheten” (the study’s delimit of treating organizations) in the municipality of Örebro has strengths as well as weaknesses. The major strength is the recruiter’s unanimous understanding for the importance of hiring a workforce holding a suitable education fulfilling all requirements. The major weakness is the recruitment process’s lack of a common structure (also read as action plan or policy). This might be due to the fact that recruiters rely on previous experiences.

Bakgrund: Tjänstesektorn i Sverige växer och marknaden blir allt mer kunskapsintensiv. I och med detta blir de anställda en allt viktigare resurs för organisationer. Därmed står dagens privata organisationer inför utmaningen att rekrytera och behålla kompetent personal i organisationen. Även den offentliga sektorn blir alltmer kunskapsintensiv och således föddes vårt intresse för att göra en jämförelse mellan offentlig och privat sektor vad gäller styrning

för att behålla sina anställda. Studien utgår ifrån fem styrningsverktyg som är centrala för att behålla anställda i organisationen. Styrningsverktygen är: rekrytering, lön och

belöningssystem, arbetsutformning och arbetsinnehåll, karriär samt lojalitet.

Syfte: Vi ämnar beskriva hur ledningen samt de anställda i kunskapsintensiva organisationer använder samt uppfattar styrningsverktyg för att behålla kompetent personal i organisationen.

Vår avsikt är sedan att beskriva om, och i så fall vilka, skillnader som föreligger mellan offentliga och privata organisationer.

Genomförande: Studien är av kvalitativ art och 15 intervjuer har genomförts på två revisionsbyråer samt Skatteverket. Vi har även deltagit vid två informationsträffar, en för vardera sektor.

Resultat: Alla valda styrningsverktyg används inom båda sektorerna, men de används på olika sätt. Styrningsverktyget karriär är mer framträdande inom den privata sektorn och här är även de anställda mer intresserade av att göra karriär än inom den offentliga sektorn. Även lön används som styrningsverktyg på olika sätt. Här är det den offentliga sektorn som använder styrningsverktyget mer, då de är noga med att skapa en lönestruktur för de anställda. Ett annat sätt att styra för att behålla sina anställda är friheten. Här har det under studien framkommit att de anställda inom den offentliga sektorn har stor frihet vad gäller sitt arbete och de menar att de inte har några problem med att kombinera sitt arbete med privatliv. Även på revisionsbyråerna anser de att friheten är stor, men under årets första månader kan det vara svårt att kombinera sitt arbete med privatlivet då arbetsbelastningen är stor.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att analysera och undersöka hur motivationsarbetet ser ut inom företag

med anknytning till turismbranschen. Undersökningen har genomförts genom att studera relevanta

teorier inom området och sedan kopplat dem till en empirisk studie som har innefattat företag med

olika kopplingar till turismbranschen. Undersökningen är genomförd med en kvalitativ metod där

fokus har legat på att undersöka hur motivationsarbetet ser ut inom turismbranschen. Jag har varit i

kontakt med både anställda och chefer för att undersöka om motivationsarbetet ser ut som de

anställda önskar att det ska. Använder cheferna sig av de motivationsverktyg som de anställda

uppfattar som viktiga eller råder det skilda åsikter om verktygens betydelse. Undersökningen

behandlar också belöningar av monetär och icke-monetär karaktär som kan användas inom

turismbranschen och även hur de uppfattas av inblandade parter. I diskussions delen av uppsatsen

har jag sedan försökt att finna gemensamma och övergripande mönster som verkar finnas inom

turismbranschens motivationsarbete.

Resultatet av undersökningen visar på att motivationsarbetet är en viktig del av arbetet på

arbetsplatsen. Det råder dock skilda åsikter om vad det är som motiverar till arbete och även ger

glädje i samband med det. Anställda inom turismorganisationer framhåller främst

motivationsfaktorer av ekonomisk karaktär när de beskriver vad det är som motiverar dem och även

skulle få dem än mer motiverade. Cheferna försöker istället framhålla motivationsfaktorer som inte

sätts i förhållande till något ekonomiskt. De anser att faktorer som personlig utveckling, karriär och

intressanta arbetsuppgifter fungerar lika bra för att motivera personalen. Trots att det råde skilda

åsikter om vad det är som bäst motiverar till arbete är det ett viktigt område att arbeta med.

1

Branding of people is a relatively new concept within the branding area. This concept has grown rapidly and its importance is increasing. Our purpose of this thesis is to describe how a strong personal brand is developed and how it is sustained. We also want to highlight what factors that determine who will succeed to develop a strong personal brand and who will not and if the associations that other people have of you can be determined by the brand owner.

We have chosen to do a qualitative method by conducting interviews with five wellknown Swedish persons that we argue have or are beginning to develop strong personal brands within different areas.

The frame of reference consists of some concepts on traditional branding and models within the personal branding area. We found that the existing literature within personal branding was not sufficient to fulfil our purpose and therefore we have created a research model. The empirical findings are applied to the research model in the analysis.

We argue that the base to develop a strong personal brand is to truly know who you are and what you stand for. When you have a clear understanding about who you are, it is important to be consistent in the messages that you communicate in order to avoid confusion among other people. To have a strong personal brand, you also need to be well-known among more people than just your family and friends.

Personal branding is to a large extent about how other people perceive you and we argue that you can to some extent affect this image by being consistent and clear about who you are and what you stand for. People cannot see your thoughts, only your actions.

All people have a personal brand but we believe that the process to develop your personal brand depends on what goals you have with it and what you want to accomplish. All people do not gain anything by having a strong personal brand but we believe that all people can use some parts of the concept in order to know who you are and what you stand for.

ABSTRACT

Internally displaced persons remaining in camps

- who are they, why do they stay?

A case study of internally displaced persons in Sri Lanka

Essay in Political Science C, by Rebecka Johansson, fall 2004

This essay is a case study of internally displaced persons in camps in the district of Vavunyia in northern Sri Lanka. The main question was; Why do some internally displaced persons remain in camps when many displaced people already have settled elsewhere? The aim of this study was to examine why some people stay in camps even after a ceasefire agreement has been signed and though many people already have settled. The literature on solutions of conflict-induced displacement is not conceptually rich or theoretically exact. Therefore this study also tried to make a model for analysing why some individuals remain in camps. The model is based on the political scientist Robert Dahl theories on “political resources”. The concept used in this essay is “personal resources”. The personal resources examined were social situations and land and property ownerships and political and legal rights. The study assumes from the hypothesis that the remaining people in camps lack these personal resources which are of importance for their ability and motivation to settle outside the camps. The personal resources have been divided into structural and agential factors.

The result of this study suggests that the given hypothesis was right; the remaining displaced persons lack most of the examined personal resources. Their social situation was characterised by low status, small social network in the place they fled from, low education and unskilled work. A majority of the displaced who remained in the camps were landless. Until recently their legal right to choose settlement was restricted. The only personal resource that the majority of the displaced possessed was the political right to vote. The lack of personal resources affects both the displaced persons’ ability and motivation to find a durable solution.

Worthy to note is that it is impossible to draw clear distinctions between what is to be seen as agential and structural factors. Landlessness which in the introduction was categorised as a structural factor was proved to also constitute an agential factor as it affects people’s motivation to return.

The study shows that the circumstances surrounding internally displaced persons are complex and constitute many obstacles to their possibility to find permanent settlements. The most obvious factors, like not having any place to return to and deprivation of the legal rights of choice of settlement, can be the most important explanations.

In Madagascar, the barriers to persons with disabilities’ employability are multifaceted and relate to accessibility, funding, attitudes, and policies. Managers lack knowledge on disability and still perceive disabled persons as incompetent and associate them with costly accommodation needs. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the management strategies and leadership styles that managers could use to enhance the employability chances of persons with disabilities. The conceptual framework featured the concepts of empowerment, employability, disability identity, and relevant transformational leadership theories. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 28 managers in private companies, institutions, cooperatives, and organizations in 3 regions of Madagascar. Data analysis was done with open hand coding and using NVivo 12 software. Key findings related to enabling management strategies that included promoting fair recruitment, tailoring jobs to disabled workers’ competences and health conditions, ensuring communication and reasonable accommodation. The study revealed the merit of an inclusive transformational leadership in fostering the employability of persons with disabilities, through coaching, in-training supports, compassion and kinship, motivation, and trust building. The study benefits managers who could better attend to disabled workers’ vocational needs. The study contributes to positive changes by influencing attitude change within the workplace and the community that could pave the way to an inclusive society in which disabled people could enjoy their rights to work.

Abstract Due to the current competition in the labour market, organizations are forced to take actions if they are to stay competitive. Employer branding is a competitive strategy that have skyrocketed in practice in recent years. In the academic literature, the concept of employer branding is also fairly new which explains the lack of research on the subject. With empirical support, we have studied an overlooked aspect of the recruitment process that we think is important from the basis of the employer branding activities that organizations today are involved in. Failed recruitments are today a growing matter of concern for organizations and one of the underlying reasons for this can be how organizations work with their employer brand. Because of this, we have looked closer on employer branding from the perspective of organizations, and the effect it might have on failed recruitments. The empirical results from this study shows that the image that organizations mediate during their employer branding activities is of great importance for recruiting the right kind of employees into the organization. These results find theoretical support that stresses the weight of congruence between the individual and the organization, because there is a major risk of non-congruence if the wrong image of the organisation has been mediated. The result of this study contributes to an understanding of how employer branding can reduce the risk of failed recruitments.

Antalet personer med demenssjukdomar ökar i takt med att befolkningen blir allt äldre och en stor del av vården av personer med demenssjukdom utförs av anhöriga. För att kunna stödja anhörigvårdare är det viktigt att sjuksköterskor har kunskap om hur anhöriga upplever sin situation. Syftet med studien var att beskriva anhörigas upplevelse av att vårda personer med demenssjukdom. För att besvara syftet har en litteraturstudie genomförts där 12 kvalitativa artiklar analyserats. Ur analysen framkom sju teman: Upplevelse av stress, svårigheter och otillräcklighet, Upplevelse av sorg och förlust, Upplevelse av förändrade relationer och roller, Upplevelse av förpliktelse, Upplevelse av välbefinnande, Upplevelse av stöd, samt Upplevelse av att bemästra och skapa mening i sin situation. Resultatet i denna studie kan bidra till en ökad förståelse för hur anhörigvårdare upplever sin situation, något som erfordras för att sjukvården skall kunna erbjuda anhöriga som vårdar personer med demenssjukdom ett adekvat stöd.

The number of people with dementia is increasing whilst the population gets older.  A great part of the care is provided by relatives. In order to support family caregivers’ nurses are required to obtain knowledge about how relatives perceive their situation. The purpose of this study was to describe the experience of relatives providing care for persons with dementia. To answer the purpose a literature study was made where 12 qualitative articles were analyzed.  Findings illustrates seven themes: The experience of stress, difficulties and inadequacy, The experience of grief and loss, The experience of changing relationships and roles, The experience of obligation, The experience of wellbeing, The experience of support, and finally The experience of coping and making sense of the situation. The result of this study could contribute to an increased understanding of how family caregiver’s experience their situation. This is required in order to offer relatives who provide care for a person with dementia an adequate support.

This study examined if diagnostic overshadowing occurred with lay people in regard to individuals with an intellectual disability, as well as investigating how lay people essentialize different categories. It was hypothesized that essentialistic thinking could be offered as a partial explanation for diagnostic overshadowing because certain mental health disorders would be categorized as having a strong, unchangeable biological component to them. Three hundred and thirty undergraduate general psychology students from the University of Central Arkansas completed the Essentialism Belief Scale on nine different concepts, read different case descriptions of an individual with or without an intellectual disorder, and gave their impressions of the individual as experiencing anxiety, depression, and if the person had an intellectual disability. Contrary to expectation, lay people did not demonstrate diagnostic overshadowing. Therefore, the relationship between essentialistic thinking and diagnostic overshadowing could not be confirmed and suggests that diagnostic overshadowing may occur for reasons other than essentialistic thinking. Interestingly, when essentialistic thinking was analyzed using a principal components analysis, a three-factor solution for essentialistic thinking was found, accounting for 72.22% of the variance, with the three factors appearing to demonstrate a biological, non-biological, and mental health grouping.

Syfte:            Syftet med denna uppsats är att få en inblick i hur företag ser på rekrytering via bemanningsföretag. Vilka är de bakomliggande motiven till att hyra personal istället för att anställa och dess fördelar/nackdelar?

Metod:          En förstudie följd av en kvalitativ undersökning med intervjuer. Intervjumetoden blev i ostrukturerad form där respondenterna fritt fick tala utifrån den egna referensramen. En telefonteknik användes vid bokning av intervjuer.

Problem:      För att uppnå en maximal lönsamhet och samtidigt behålla kvalitet och ha snabba leveranser till kund, försöker företagen att minska på det bundna kapitalet. Vid en fastanställning kan det bli problematiskt ur denna aspekt då företaget efter en period inte längre är i behov av den fastanställda personalens kompetens. Trenden att hyra personal istället för att anställa har därför ökat. Vad blir effekterna av detta? 

Målgrupp:   Denna studie vänder sig till företag som är intresserade av att hyra personal eller som redan hyr personal. Men även för bemanningsföretag, blivande konsulter samt övriga intressenter som har en direkt eller indirekt anknytning till detta ämne.

Slutsatser:    Genom studien har vi, utifrån våra respondenter, fått reda på bakomliggande motiven till inhyrning av personal samt de fördelar och nackdelar detta innebär. Fördelar: flexibilitet, produktiv personal, undvika personalbrist, kompetens samt nytänkande. Nackdelar: motivationsbrist, illojalitet, urholkning av företagskultur, stämning på arbetsplatsen samt att företag kan hamna i en beroendeställning. Baserat på vår undersökning har vi kunnat dra slutsats om att personalinhyrning även är en konkurrensfördel. Det är viktigt för företag att integrera konsulter i företaget med de fastanställda för att skapa en starkare gemenskapskänsla. Det är även viktigt med tydlighet när konsulter ska rekryteras.

Purpose:       The purpose of this essay is to gain insight into how companies look at recruiting through employment agencies – which the underlying rationale is to hire staff instead of employing and its advantages and disadvantages.

Method:       A feasibility study followed by a qualitative study with interviews. The interview method was in unstructured form in which respondents were free to speak from their own frame of reference. A phone method was used in the booking of interviews.

Problem:      In order to achieve maximum profitability, while maintaining quality and have fast delivery to the customers, companies are trying to reduce the part of capital that is tied up. It can therefore be a problem for companies when they employ someone permanently and after a period of time realizing that they no longer are in need of this person’s skills. The trend to hire staff instead of recruiting has because of this reason increased. What are the effects of this?

Audience:     This study is aimed to companies who are interested in hiring staff or companies that hire staff already. But even for workers, prospective consultants and other stakeholders who are directly or indirectly related to this subject.

Results:        Through this study, we have, based on our respondents, found out the underlying reasons for hiring of personnel and the advantages and disadvantages that entails. Advantages: flexibility, productive staff, avoiding staff shortages, competence and innovations. Disadvantages: lack of motivation, disloyalty, erosion of the corporate culture, morale, and that company could be in a position of dependence. Based on the survey, we have been able to draw conclusions that staff hiring also is a competitive advantage. It is important for companies to integrate consultants into the company with the staff to create a stronger sense of community. It is also important to have clarity on consultants to be recruited.