Barriers between international students and Swedish companies
Master thesis in Business Administration
By Silvana Agolli Sokol Qytyku
Supervisor: Dr. Per Eisele
June 2008
Table of content
Acknowledgements 3 Abstract 4 Background Introduction 1.1 The ICT sector development in Sweden 5 1.2 Swedish labor market 6 1.3 TelecomCity 7 1.3.1 The companies 7 1.3.2 The University 7 1.3.3 The municipality 8 1.4 Blekinge Institute of Technology 9 1.5 Actual residence permits procedures 11 1.6 New proposal for high skilled migrants 11 1.7 The proposal of EU Blue card 12 Problem Definition 2.1 Background 13 2.2 Research problem 13 2.3 Research questions 14 2.4 Research objectives 15 Research Methods 3.1 Research approach 16 3.2 Research purpose 16 3.3 Research strategy 17 3.4 Research ethics 18 3.5 Sampling techniques 19 International Students Survey 4.1 Introduction 20 4.2 Students general information 20 4.3 thesis work 21 4.4 Work in Sweden 22 4.5 Going back to homeland 22 4.6 Difficulties and rejections 23 4.7 Help from BTH and expectations 23 Interviews with Managers 5.1 Introduction 25 5.2 Recruitment and selection process 25 5.3 Foreign workers 26
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
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Table of content
5.4 Procedures of hiring foreign workers 26 5.5 Swedish language 27 5.6 Thesis works 27 5.7 Cultural diversity 28 5.8 General suggestions from managers 28 5.9 International office activities 29 Discussions and Recommendations 6.1 Discussions 30 6.2 Conclusion 32 6.3 Recommendations 32 References 34 Persons interviewed Appendix 1 37 Appendix 2 38 List of figures Figure 1.1 Figure 1.2 Figure 1.3 Figure 3.1 Figure 4.1 Figure 4.2 Figure 4.3 Figure 4.4 Figure 4.5 TelecomCity 8 Students registered 10 Student graduated 10 Forms of interviews 19 Year started at BTH 21 Year planning to finish 21 Application for job or thesis 21 Work and live in Sweden 22 Going back to homeland 23
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An Evaluation Of The Types Of Subject sAn Evaluation Of The Types Of Subjects Used In Social Psychological Research Over the past few years there has been a growing concern about the validity of psychological research, due to the fact that an overwhelming majority of studies have used university and college students as subjects who have been tested in academic laboratories on tasks which are quite ...
Chapter 6
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Acknowledgments
At first we would like to thank Mr. Anders Nilsson for suggesting us to work in this case and for the help he gives us in contacting other peoples. A special thanks to our supervisor from BTH University Mr. Per Eisele who teaches and put us in the right way during time we wrote this report. Thanks for your time spending with our report Mr. Per and we really appreciate your suggestions, they make us expand our knowledge and be prepared for our feature carrier. Many thanks to all managers that find time to meet with us and to be interviewed, a special thanks goes to Mr. Richard Liden network mana ger also our external supervisor, who give his contribution by answering all the questions we had and also helped us to make new connection with other managers. Many thanks to Mrs. Lina Berglind and to all BTH staff members which in direct or indirect way helped us to complete this report. Last but not list we would like to thank all students who participated in the online interview. Finally we would like to thank our families . that supported us during our educational pursuits and our friends that encoura ge us, believing in ourselves.
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Abstract
Title: Barriers between international student’s and Swedish companies Course: Master thesis in business administration, 15 ECTS Date: June 2008 Authors: Silvana Agolli and Sokol Qytyku Supervisor: Dr. Per Eisele
In this thesis report we have conduct a primary research on Blekinge area, while it is a shortage of IT workers and at the same time there were a lot of internationals students that graduated every year and didn’t get those available jobs. In this investi gation we wanted to find out the investigation barriers of international students and Swedish companies, by collecting data in both sides independently. Therefore we use a qualitative data collection and a combination of research strategies by using non-standardized, one-to-one interviews and from this group we used face-to one to-face interviews with managers and online survey to collect data from international students. On chapter 4 there is a full description of the data collected from student electronic survey and on cha chapter 5 is the complete report of the data collected from managers and BTH staff members. On the discussion section we make a clear logical explanations and also identifying the links between the findings and research question, and this section is concluded with a conclusion of the barriers between student and companies, which were the Swedish language, the long and risky process of visa for foreign workers. This report is finalized with some recommendations which are directed to students; to BTH in general and to companies, they explain how those barriers can be overcome in the future, how s the tree parties to work together and to m ake it easier and to create more opportunities for make international students to find work or thesis work in Sweden.
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student’s Keywords: international student s barriers, IT companies, foreign workers, language barriers, qualitative research.
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Chapter 1
Background Introduction
1.1 The ICT sector development in Sweden
Over the 20th century Sweden shifted from traditional industries with low processing content, such as forest products and iron ore, towards those requiring advanced processing skills and technological input. This shift gathered momentum in the mid -1990s, when research and 1990s, development (R&D) concentrated industries such as information technology (IT) and rated pharmaceuticals replaced more traditional, engineering led industries as the driving force of engineering-led economic growth. The IT sector has grown rapidly, attracting impressive investment and making extensive use of the Internet. Sweden is now one of the world leaders in terms of investment in information and communications technology (ICT), and also in terms of the number of personal computers, Internet connections and mobile phones penetration. During this tr ansition several industrial sectors, including textiles and iron and steel contracted, while others, such as shipbuilding, disappeared completely(Report, 2006a) (Report, 2006a).
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At the moment Sweden is one of the most advance countries worldwide in terms of eden telecommunications and Internet infrastructure and usage. As in most other European countries, the number of fixed-line connections has decreased in line with the rise in mobile line mobile-phone subscriptions (Report, 2006b).
During the late 1990s the devel opment of the telecoms and IT . development sectors was the main engine of economic activity in Sweden. Despite the global recession in the ICT industry, which led to a severe downturn in Sweden’s telecoms sector and in much of the rest of the ICT industry in 2001 -03, the country has retained its leading position. There are a number of highly regarded IT clusters in Sweden, with the Kista 5
neighborhood in Stockholm (the Swedish “Wireless Valley”) recognized as a world leader in research and product development of wireles s and mobile technology. TelecomCity in southern wireless Sweden has over 100 specialized companies, while the area around Linkoping University in east central Sweden is one of the world’s fastest -growing science parks, focusing on software growing development and electronics. Telematics Valley near Gothenburg has around 50 companies ics. developing telemetric (transport, communications and information technology) services for the automotive industry, while the Oresund region around southern Sweden is recognized as the IT centre for the Nordic region as a whole, with over 12,000 centre companies (Report, 2008).
Therefore Sweden is becoming more and more powerful in the . information and communications technology (ICT), all those companies are rapidly developing and becoming more specialized in this sector. During the past five years, Sweden has developed some of the most advanced e -services functions and effectively embedded Internet and mobile services in nearly every aspect of Swedish life, creating increased demand for devices, wireless networks and content. According to “The Economist magazine’s Intelligence Unit ” ranked Sweden at the third place in e The ereadiness, outranking Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Finland. The unit also called Sweden “best in class” in mobile penetration, Internet use and e -government applications. government Another study by Eurostat estimates that 75 p ercent of Swedish companies use broadband, percent compared with only 53 percent for the EU as a whole. However, only 19 percent of Swedish companies offer products to businesses and consumers via the Internet. This presents Swedish companies of all sizes with a future growth opportunity (Inc, 2006).
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1.2 Swedish labor market After a long period of relatively high unemployment parti cularly for young people, academics and immigrants, the economy is now in an expansive phase with many more jobs coming on the market. At the same time an unexpected increase in the number of jobseekers coming onto the market means that the level of unempl oyment is expected to remain about the same in the year to unemployment come. The unemployment rate for 2006 was 8.4%. The estimated level for 2007 is 7.3%. This figure represents jobseekers registered at the Public Employment Services as openly unemployed and those participating in labor market programmers. Due to large number of retirements in the years ahead labor shortages in many areas will arise ages which could threaten future growth. Various measures are being put into action to counteract this; the above information is retreated from www.arbetsformedlingen.se . There is still significant growth in jobs on the Swedish labor market, though recently there has been a certain slowing down in this growth rate.
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There is major employment growth in the private sector. New jobs are being created in most occupational sectors. There continues to be good access to labor in quite a lo of industries, lot though many employers are experiencing difficulty in finding trained personnel. The problem is most serious in the IT companies they report difficulties in finding trained staff. In industry there is some difficulty recruiting certain type of engineers as well as qualified skilled workers. For a long time now it has also been hard to fill certain public sector posts requiring a university/college education the above information is retreated from “the European jobs mobility portal”.
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1.3 TelecomCity Karlskrona region meant purposeful gathering efforts of a unique kind and a focusing of business and trade and education politics over the last decade. Which now has created unique business and development opportunities for IT and telecommunications companies. In five years the Karlskrona region has brought ou more than 3000 new IT jobs, close to 20% of the workforce is out lose employed in the IT and telecommunications industry, as many as in Stockholm and most likely a European record. With close to 8 new students, per thousand inhabitants, in IT and telecommunications programs at university level – the education capacity is one of a kind. ns The environment continuously generates new companies that work with telecommunications, mobility, Internet and with the convergence between them. They develop new solutions, servic es and products of world class. Therefore TelecomCity is a network consisting of a continuously growing number of different members. It is a unique cooperation between companies, the university and society that is recognized by a continuous dialogue. Telec omCity is the platform for this dialogue and cooperation.
1.3.1 The companies It is through constant growth that the TelecomCity region can sustain it’s attractively and competence. The growth takes place both in numbers of people and in competence, both in the existing companies and in new ones. The number of employees has increased during the past five years increased by approximately 2500 employees.
1.3.2 The University The buildup of a forceful university is the most important long term action in order to make TelecomCity an internationally leading development environment. Over the past ten years the
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number of students with a focus on IT has increased from 100 to 2000. Research is conducted, esearch mainly in signal processing and telecommunications.
1.3.3 The municipality At a continued growth of the business sector as we can see today, the development of the Karlskrona region can be compared with the growth of other university cities. That means a population growth of about 15-20% up until the year 2020. This places great demands on the city 20% and municipality, its planning and infrastructure. The investments made by the municipality during the 1990´s in facilities for the companies and the university were just a start. TelecomCity is an international environment and has agreements of co -operation with other important operation networks in telecommunication; for example Telecom Corridor and Telecom Valley those are organized and work in a similar way as TelecomCity. ork
The Essay on student company
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BTH
Companies
Karlskrona Kommun
Figure 1.1: This diagram clearly explains the connection between the three parts and the TelecomCity. Figure 1.1: This diagram clearly explains the connection between the three parts and the TelecomCity.
They are also building on the co operation between business, university and society. The co-operation universities are profiled on and prominent in telecommunications and information technology. rsities The municipalities support the fast growth through offering infrastructure for the companies and residential areas for the employees. The exchange between the companies , universities and municipalities of the different regions brings further dynamics and development. The co operation encompasses for example student exchanges, technology transfer, contacts and establishment services for companies and other organizations i n each other´s respective regions (Richard Lidén 2008)
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1.4 Blekinge Institute of Technology Modern information technology (IT) has not only passed through every professional area but also the day-to-day life and leisure time of each human being. IT is everywhere and the future for day BTH students is not only to be found in the IT industry but also in the advanced engineering industry, the growing electronic games industry, in commerce, in the service sector etc. At games Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH) education and research are of a very high international standard and learning is the focal point for student , teacher and researcher alike. students, BTH is the most distinctly profiled university in Sweden, with a clear focus on Applied IT and Sustainable Development of Industry and Society. BTH is a broad -based university of based technology. Business administration, social sciences, the humanities and hea lth sciences are obviously influenced by the Applied IT profile, resulting in a fruitful meeting between th e humanities and technology. Three campuses of BTH in Karlskrona, Ronneby and Karlshamn are hree growing continuously as student environments and it is no t only the unique archipelago environment that contributes to enriching student life.
BTH for the year 2007 had over 7000 students and approximately 260 faculty members, at the moment there are around 30 nationalities which makes BTH one of the most attra cted schools on the southern part of Sweden with a high international culture environment. For this project we did a bit deeper research regarding engineering student registered for the last two years on BTH as it’s shown on the figure 1.2.. From the above chart we see the 2006-1(VT) that means the 1(VT) students registered at the spring semester and 2006 2006-2(HT) that means students registered at the autumn semester. Therefore it’s understandable that is a quite growth of the students registered from year to year at BTH. However we also were interested to see how many students graduated and collect their diplomas for the past last years in the majored master program also that have programming courses as obligatory see figure 1.3. obligatory,
Note the figure 1.2 cannot be co 2 compared with figure 1.3 because some of the master programs that are included on the figure 1. are new master and students are not yet graduated. Also is 1.2 another factor that the figure 1.3 shows low numbers of students that collect their diplomas, 1.3 because some students have already find a job and don’t b other to collect their diplomas. All the bother above information is collected from BTH student affair Karlskrona, from Mr. Piotr Urbanski coordinator at international office and from the official BTH website.
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Number of students registered in 06 06-08
400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 2006-1 (VT) 2006-2 2006 (HT) 2007-1 (VT) 2007-2 (HT) 2008-1 (VT) 1 Students
Figure 1.2; shows the students registered at BTH the last two years. Note: on the chart are only : engineering master students that have programming as obligatory course of their master programs.
(Only student with programming courses)
60 50 40 30 20 10 0 2004 2005 2006 2007 Students
Students graduated
Figure 1.3: this chart shows student that collect their diplomas in the last years.
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1.5 Actual residence permits procedures In order for a foreign worker to work in Sweden he/she must have a work permit except EU member countries and Switzerland that can stay without residence permit for less than three months, after that period they are suppose to apply for residence permit . Once you have been granted a permit, it must be entered into your passport before your arrival in Sweden; the permit is given in the country of origin from the embassy or Swedish consulate in that country. If there n is a temporary shortage of labor, or if you have obtained employment as part of an international r, exchange programme, the Migration Board may grant you a work permit. So me of the , requirements are;
You must have a written offer of employment in Sweden, made out on a special form which your employer can obtain via the Swedish Public Employment Service’s web site www.arbetsformedlingen.se. www.arbetsformedlingen.se . After approval from the Public Employment Service your employer must send the form to you so that you can enclose it with your application. Your employer shall guarantee you pay insurance coverage and other terms of employment equal to at least the collective agreement or Swedish practice in the profession or the branch of trade. You can apply and collect the visa only in the country of origins. Accommodation must have been arranged for you in Sweden You must be fully prepared to leave Sweden when your term of employment is over.
1.6 New proposal for high skilled migrant From March 2008 the Green party proposed a junior proposal regarding new rules governing labor force immigration. Under the terms of the proposal, Sweden would not send anybody back to their homeland if they had managed to secure employment. “This is the biggest reform of Swedish immigration policy for several decades,” said Migration Minister Tobias Billström and cy Green Party group leader Mikaela Valtersson in a jointly penned article in Thursday’s Dagens Nyheter. If a job seeker outside the EU receives a concrete offer of work from a Swedish emp loyer, this will in future be enough to secure permits for residency and employment. The proposal also sets longer time limits for residence and work permits. The first permit will last two years. If the applicant still has work after this period, the perm it will be extended by a further two years. After permit four years, an applicant will be eligible for a permanent residenc e permit. “From now on, no labor force immigrant will be forced to go home despite having work,” said Billström and r Valtersson.
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The government and the Greens also want to make it easier for job seekers to attain visas to ent travel to Sweden for interviews. Under the new regulations, an applicant who is offered employment will no longer have to return home to apply for per mits to live and work in Sweden, permits this information is retreated at www.workpermit.com.
1.7 The proposal of EU Blue card The European Commission is proposing a “blue card” scheme for highly skilled migrant workers to help plug Europe’s IT skills gap. The commission wants to make it easier for qualified migrants to enter the EU through the fast track entry and work permit scheme. It said Europe fast-track desperately needing skilled IT workers and engineers over the next two coming decades. The scheme will be demand-driven, and migrants will have to prove they have the offer of a job that driven, could not be filled by a national of the specific country. Therefore highly skilled workers with an employment contract, professional qualifications and a salary at least three times the national minimum wage could apply for the permit. Vice president Franco Frattini, commissioner for e Vice-president freedom, security and justice, said, “We want Europe to become at least as attractive as favorite migration destinations such as Australia, Canada and the USA” (Robecca, 2007) Therefore from USA”(Robecca, 2007).
the above description of the “blue card” it’s understandable that also Sweden is going to profit from this.
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Chapter 2
Problem Definition
2.1 Background Nowadays it has become easier for people and businesses to move free from one country to another, this movement has created more opportunities for businesses and for workers. As a result companies have more opportunities to find the best candidates for the right positions. On the other hand also employers have more opportunities to find their “dream job”. Therefore all those new opportunities have made the selecting process harder in selecting the right candidates. In the other hand many companies do not apply the direct hiring, but they corporate with other agencies that are specialized for recruitment. This movement has also positive and negative aspects regarding changes of the employment policies from one country to another. A lot of studies and resear ches have been done regarding the recruitment and selection researches process and how the companies should handle this process.
2.2 Research Problem Science and technology have been consequently in continues changes and growing, also the growing demand for workers in this sector is growing. Information and communication technologies (ICT) in the last decade, has had an enormous development and is one of the major sectors of Swedish economy. Area of Blekinge is one of the most developed a reas of Sweden in this sector . (Report, 2008).
There are two factors that make this area so important: . 1. Belekinge Institute of Technology. Which graduate every year top students in IT stitute engineering and other related area 2. Companies. Which are collected in the area and are connected all together by one name TelecomCity
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Therefore the university provides student, which are future employees for the companies operating in the area and there is a growth of business and the whole economy. The last decades the information and communications technology (ICT) has had a rapid growth and every year more and more IT professions are n eeded to feel the demand, at the moment the whole Sweden needed has a shortage of approximately 10,000 IT workers in all sectors according to Swedish labor market. Initially it was an idea from the Dean of school of Management MR. Anders Nilsson to conduct a research in the area of IT workers that are needed and the international engineering arch master student that graduate from BTH. Which also mention that are a lot of International student that like to get a job in Sweden but it’s very difficult for them. Therefore we did a preliminary study on this area by reviewing some literature and by arranging an interview with Mr. Richard Lidén network manager of TelecomCity. During the first interview with him we find out that only in TelecomCity members companies w ere needed approximately 1000 workers for the year 2008 and 400 were needed immediately. Mr. Richard mention that is almost impossible to full fill the demand with Swedish workers because there are not so many unemployment IT professionals in the area but also there are not a lot of Swedish t graduate to fill the worker shortage and also most of Swedish graduate have the tendency to move for work in bigger cities like Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malmo. Therefore one possibility to fill the shortage is by employing the international engineering graduated students from BTH, ying which are approximately 1000 every year. However everybody does accept the existing possibility solution but in reality many international student after graduation have to go back home becaus e they cannot find job in Sweden, therefore because it’s understandable that there are some problems or is a gap between companies and international student.
2.3 Research questions Analyzing the research problem, it’s understandable that there are a lot of q uestion marks that need answers but in this report wanted to focus on one research question, while there is a large shortage of the IT workers and in the other hand there are a lot of international students that graduate and don’t get those available jobs: The main research question of our research is: What are the barriers between international engineering students and the companies? Sub questions: o What are companies requirement? o What strategy dose companies use for recruitment and selection process?
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o How do companies feel about foreign workers and willing to follow the long procedures to employ foreign workers workers? o How do students approach Swedish companies? o Do international students like to work in Sweden and why? o How students like to accomplish their thesis work? o How can those barriers between student and companies be reduced, possible solutions?
2.4 Research objectives The primary objective of this research is to study and explore the barriers between international students and companies at the Blekinge area and recommending solution to the problem that can lekinge reduce the barriers and make it more easer for international student. The second objective is to elaborate more in depth what are the criteria’s that the companies are looking for to the international graduate students in order to be consider potential employer national candidates. The third objective is to find out how the companies handle the recruitment and selection process, does workers get the job immediately immediately. Forth, we are going to find out if companies are willing and able to employ foreign worker, the time involved on the process. Fifth objective is to find out what are the things that attract international students to work and live in Sweden and for how long do they plan to work and stay her here. Another aim of this project is to find out, how the school is helping or associating the student to find or get in contact with companies not only for work but also for thesis work.
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Chapter 3
Research Methods
3.1 Research approach The main purpose of this study is to explore and identifying the barriers of internationals engineering students and companies. There are three research approaches that are used in every research, the deduction approach, the induction approach and a combination of the both ation approaches. The deduction approach is used more in scientific research, which involves development of a theory that is subject to a rigorous test. However, having a clear understanding of the research questions and research objectives that we are aiming to achieve, we are forced to use the induction approach, in which we are going to collect data and develop a theory as a , result of data analyses. According to (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2007) this theory is more useful for applied research, most of the times you have to s rch, start from scratch and build up a theory and in our case theory, this is the most suitable approach to the problem and also this approach has a flexible structure to permit changes of research emphasis as the research progresses is needed, this approach will allow us to go more inside and understand why this specific phenomena is happening also this o happening, will help us to select our research design and data collation techniques. arch This research was based on the use of qualitative methods of data collection. Qualitative data . refers to all non-numeric data, which is based on the meaning expre ssed through words, this data numeric expressed is not-standardized and need to be classified into categories and the analysis is conducted standardized through the use of the conceptualization and logical thinking.
3.2 Research purpose Thinking about our research questions and research objectives and the way that we want to ask this questions is understandable that we are going to do and exploratory study that means finding out what is happening; to seek new insight; to ask questions and assess phenomena in a new light, willing to change direction as a result of new data that appears and new insi ghts (Robson, , 2002).
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The exploratory research is giving as more choices and is mor e flexible which fit perfectly to our interest (Saunders, et al., 2007), while there is not enough available information to answer our , enough research questions, we are going to conduct interviews to collect the needed information. During the preliminary study we try to find relevant information or study done in different count ries but we did not find something similar to our case or that can be close to our research. However we are also going to make use of some secondary data which is going to be collected in different ways like, some statistics will be collected from BTH, Tel ecomCity and also the library center and different databases, will provide supplementary information.
3.3 Research strategy There are different research strategies which are used in exploratory studies but some of them belong to deduction approach and others to induction approach. Allocating the research strategy by labeling to the attracted approach is not the most important but whether it will enable us to answer our particular research questions and meet our objectives (Saunders, et al., 2007) 2007).
An interview is purposeful discussion between two or more people (Kahn & Cannell, 1957) the use of the interviews is going to help us to collect data that are relevant to ou r research questions and objectives. In exploratory study in in-depth and semi-structured interviews can be very helpful structured to ‘find out what is happening [and] to seek new insight’ (Robson, 2002).
There are different . typologies used for interviews and there is overlapping between these, however in this research we are based on (Robson, 2002) see the figure 3.1. On the group of non non-standardized (qualitative) interviews belong also the semi semi-structured and in-depth interviews, which often are depth referred to as qualitative research interviews and the data collected is also analyzed qualitatively. Therefore in our research we are using the non -standardized (qualitative) interviews and from standardized that, the category of one-to-one interviews, which means the researcher and the interviewer, this one group is divided in 3 sub-categories face face, telephone and electronic interviews see figure categories face-to-face, 3.1. While we have mention above that we are going to collect data from international student . and company’s managers, we are using a combination of the two research strategies which we strategies, assume are the most relevant to collect the information needed. To collect the data from company managers we are going to use the face-to company’s to-face interview, there for will be a list of questions to be covered but the order of the question maybe varied depending on the flow of the conversation. However sometimes additional questions may be required to explore our research questio ns and objectives, the data will be recorded with note questions taking for every specific question. The questions used in the interviews with manager are on appendix 1. Analyzing the time that we have available to complete our thesis and the time that is needed to collect the data from international engineering student at BTH, we think that the online survey is
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a very suitable strategy to collect this data. Therefore the second strategy is the s surveys strategy, which is very popular because you can collect a large amount of data from a sizeable population and very economical way. We think this is a fare solution and we can get more responses than . conducting individual interviews with everyone which is also very difficult at this time of the vidual everyone, t year while every student is finishing up their studies and going in summer holidays Other good holidays. thing about online survey is that the responds are automatically collected as they are typed in, while is an online survey it will be on for a couple of weeks, therefore the student can answer at for the most convenience time for them. The survey is going to be with 16 questions, 10 of them multiple-choice questions and 6 open end question where student can give their opinion or choice experience.
3.4 Research ethics Before we start our research we had an in depth thinking about ethical issues that concern us in data collection and how we are going to get access to the specific information needed. The first problem associated with access is the physical access, while our research it has involve interviews with manager the physical access can be a very big barrier, and in reality it was a very big one for our case, getting in touch with companies and their manager it was a very long process and most of the times we had to wait up to 2 3 weeks to set up a meeting. Some of the 2-3 strategies that we use to gain access were; Using a suitable language in the email. Providing a clear idea of what we want. Also sending some of the possible questions that are going to be asked in the interview. Mr. Richard Lidén helped us for contacting other managers. People that work inside the organization helped us get access to the manager. By using all the above strategies we manage to get access to the company managers and collect the necessary information. During the time that we send out the online student survey which . student’s was distributed by email, we had to ask a couple of people to get the student email list. In the email that was sent to the students it was clearly explain what was the survey about and to whom its concern. Note; the list of students email delivered emails to approximately 300 students including Swedish student, however in our survey we were interested only in international student, therefore we explain on the first paragrap that this survey is only for international student paragraph, students.
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3.5 Sampling techniques Starting from our research questions and research objective the sampling techniques is already used for this particular research. While we are collecting information in two different groups (students and companies) sampling technique will enable us to reduce the amount of data needed via considering data only from the selected sample rather than all possible cases. ia Therefore, from the non-probability sampling techniques, it means that the probability of each probability case being selected from the total populations is not know and is impossible to address objectives that require making statistical information of t he population, and this technique fit perfectly to the our research objectives. From this sampling technique is use the purposive or judgmental ur sampling (Neuman & Kreuger, 2006) and to be more specific the homogeneous sampling this sampling, technique is being used to student data collection, because we are interested only in student that know or that have programming courses as obligatory in their master program and we are interested only in the international students, therefore by selecting the homogeneous sampli ng we are focused only in one sample in which all the s ample members are similar. For the data that we collect from the companies managers’ we use the snowball sampling this sampling, sampling methods allow us to contact one or two managers and from the data that we collected from them was used as a start to collect new data and to contact new managers, also this methods gives us on opportunity to stop collecting data when there are not more new cases ore when the information is starting to be repeated.
Interviews
Standardized
Non-standardized
Intervieweradministrated questionnaires
One-to-one
One-to-many many
Face-to-face interviews
Telephone interviews
Electronic interviews
Group interviews, focus groups
Electronic group interviews or focus groups
Figure 3.1: Forms of interviews. source Research Methods of Business Studies (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2007)
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Chapter 4
International Student Survey Students
4.1 Introduction As we have mention on the research methods chapter, for collecting the data from international students we build an online survey, which was 16 questions, 11 questions were multiple survey, multiple-choice and 5 were open-end questions see appendix 2. This survey was distributed to only the master students that have programming courses as the obligatory on the master program, this group was approximately 300 students included Swedish students. While our survey was concern only for ately international students, on the emai that was used to deliver the online survey link, we explain to email whom this survey is concern and what is it about, and which person to contact if someone had any question. The survey was online for approximately 30 days and we got around 25 participants and fro m them only 20 had completed all the survey, therefore we considered only 20 that fully completed survey, the online survey.. According to the number of students that we deliver the survey and to the 20 responses it looks a small number but 95% or the responds were the same, therefore we decided not to do a second delivery of the online survey. To report the inform ation that was collected from the responders we group question that had similarities or had connections together .
4.2 Student’s general information On the online survey we wanted to know some general things about the students and what do they study and the future study plans see also the whole interview on the appendix 2. So from he plans, that we find out that 95% of the responders were male and just 5% were females. The second question is about what did they study? And 60% of the responders were studying Msc in Computer science with 90 (ECTS), the other 30% were studying Msc in Software Engineering with 120 (ECTS), and the rest 10% was studying with 60 ECTS or 120 ECTS.
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The question of what year did they star the start master, we see that 44% started in 2006 and , 50% started in 2007 and only 6% started on 2008, see the below chart
In order to understand the future study plans of the responders we ask them when they are planning to graduate from BTH , see the figure 4.2
Figure 4.1; results of online survey for the specific for the specific title question.
Figure 4.2; results of online survey for the specific title question.
4.3 Thesis work For all master student the thesis work is a very big part and of their studies and there are different ways to complete a thesis project, we wanted to know how student like to complete their thesis work And from work? there responders we saw that 75% wonted to do a thesis work at any company and 25% wonted to do any project in their own. We also wanted to kno if know someone did try to apply or search for any thesis work in Sweden and 75% of the responders answer with “YES” and 25% of them with “NO” se the figure 4.3.
Figure 4.3; collected from online survey
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4.4 Work in Sweden In this group we are going to report the answers of those question from the online survey that questions have direct relation with searching work in Sweden. One question on the survey was if students like to work and live in Sweden (see figure 4.4) so 100% of the response wanted to live in Sweden. However in this question responders had the opportunity to comment their answer and 75% of their comments were; they wanted to stay in Sweden to get international experiences and 25% of them commented because of the wonderful Swedish environment. The second question of this group was if students have any job in Sweden and what difficulties did they have? The responds showed that 100% of the students don’t ds have jobs in Sweden and 60% of them explains that the jobs and most of websites are in Swedish so language problems and the rest have just given a short answer just “no” without any explanation.
Figure 4.4; collected from online survey ; collected from online
As we have mention on the above chapters in Sweden are a lot of cities that are very developed chapters, in the IT, we were very interested to find out what are the areas that students wanted to work and did really matter the place or are they willing to relocate, the responds showe that 90% showed were willing to work in all Sweden and 10% wanted to work in Blekinge area. ere The regulation to work and live in Europe are changing by introducing the EU “Blue Card” and trying to attract more high skill migrants, also Sweden is proposing a regul ation change making easier for skilled worker to find job and live in Sweden therefore we ask student what do they think about this and are they willing to search for a job here ? From the responders we understand that all the students are aware of those ch anges and 100% of them are willing to changes search for job here.
4.5 Going back to homeland One of the question that we ask to the international students was if they are planning ore like to turn back home? As it’s shown on the figure 4.5 65% of the responders do like to go back home and just 35% didn’t want to go back. This was also a question with comments and from them we
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saw that the major part of the responders wanted to go back home after they have got some experience in Sweden and the others are mentioning that there are a lot of good opportunities also back home.
Figure 4.5; collected from online survey this question was survey, also with a comment box
4.6 Difficulties and rejections Here in this section we are going to report what difficulties and what kind of rejections did they get during the time searching for job here. Therefore we ask if they have got any rejection from Swedish companies and what were some of the reasons that they mention on that? This was an open-end question and there were 3 groups of responds, first 35% mention that was a language end problem, the second group was also 35% declare that they didn’t had the required experience to full fill the job requirement in job advertisement. The third group was 30% of the responders, which mention that they didn’t, had any clear reason why there application was not considered for the position. What were some of the difficulties when applying for job in Sweden? For this question we had more clear idea for some of the difficulties that students have, and from the responds is shown that major problem was the language, “most of the websites are in Swedish, most of the job advertisement are in Swedish and for every available position is mention that they have to speak Swedish” those were some of the comments regarding the language difficulties. However some responders mention that beside the language most companies are looking for experienced persons.
4.7 Help from BTH and expectation Did you get any help from BTH or international office? From this question we wanted to find out if they got any help from the school, and 100% of the responds explain that they did not get any help from school regarding how and where to look for work. Expectation what school can do or organize for them to find job or thesis work? This was also an t open-end question and all the response fall in to four groups. end
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First 50% of the responders suggested that “the school should organize or have as part of the program an internship for student to work at the companies in order to gain some practical students training”. Second group, 20% of responders suggested that, “the university should have connection with companies, in order to help student to find any job or thesis work”. students Third group, 20% of the responders recommended that “the university should help them of how to approach the companies. Fourth group, 10% were not specified they mention that the school should help them but they don’t mention any specific way how. Therefore this was all the information collected from the online survey to the international students.
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Chapter 5
Interviews with Managers
5.1 Introduction In this section we are going to report the information that we collected from the interviews with managers of different companies here on the area of Blekinge. A general remark regarding the interviews with managers is that is very difficult to contact manager in a short notice, therefore you need to have a lot of time available in such cases. However according to the sampling technique that we use for collecting the data (the snowball sampling) we were going to stop the investigation or the data collection when the information was going to be repeated and there was nothing new from new interview that we make. Therefore for this report we organize 5 interviews with different mangers of different companies in Blekinge area, one faculty member and two persons from international office, see the persons contacted and interviewed in page 34 In the first interviews we started with one set of questions 34. and after every interview, the new things that were coming up we added at the question form, which was going to be asked to the next manager and after some interviews there was no new information and the question form was completed, see appendix 1. One the below paragraphs we are going to report the results of all questions that we asked at the intervi ews with the managers and BTH staff members.
5.2 Recruitment and selection process The first question that we asked the managers regarding recruitment was the first from the ed appendix 1. How does you company handle the recruitment and selection process? From all the interviews conducted companies do advertisement in their websites and sometimes they advertise it also in local newspaper but as Mr. Peter Thorman mention “we do job advertisement on the local newspapers just to let other know that we exist”. Also companies that are part of 25
TelecomCity network have advertisement at their local websites. Some of the smaller companies most of the time didn’t have any specialized department that handled the recruitment process but that was the competence of the general manager, in the other bigger corporation they did had specialized department inside the company. How many workers do you need annually? The answer to this question was depending on the company size and what the company was doing, for instant Mr. Ola Helgotsson declare that “in a small company like Densitet I am willing to employ up to 20 persons in the consultant department but I am looking for people with experience in their field”. Mr. Peter Thorman also mention that “ small companies and especially consultants companies are more depended on the other big IT production companies, therefor even if they wanted to grow it was difficult for T therefore them, so the safe way is to follow the others”. Also he mention that most of the times consultants e companies need people with experience. Do candidates get a direct job or d they get a trial time at first? All the companies interviewed do confirmed that most of the time candidates have a trial time for a period of 6 months , before they sign the contract.
5.3 Foreign workers Do they have any foreign worker? Most of the companies that we interviewed did have foreign nies workers but most of the time those workers were from EU countries for instant Mr. Tony Wilsson mention “in their production department in Karlskrona they did have two worker s from Poland”. Do you like to have foreign workers? All the interviewers were quite positive to have foreign ign workers; companies that already had foreign workers were quite satisfied. Mr. Peter Thorman added that “foreign workers should be a bit higher in professional qualification compare to Swedish candidates in order to compete”. ates
5.4 Procedures of hiring foreign workers What do you think for the actual procedures of hiring a foreign worker? As we have mentioned on the chapter one the procedures that have to be followed in order to bring someone t o work in Sweden. From the interviewers 50% of them declare that the actual procedures are too risky because in the end after 3-4 months if the worker does not get the visa the company has to start 4
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all over. The other 50% mentions that if the person is wor thier they were willing to follow all the worthier procedures. Since the government is in discussion, for making it easier, for foreign workers to work and live in Sweden, what do you think? Around 80% of the interviewers confirmed that this is a good movement from the government so they will have more option to select the most suitable person for the available position. The other 20% of the interviewers still think that this act is not going to help very much, so the situation will be more or less like it is at the moment. Also we have to mention here that Mr. Piotr Urbanski explain that “there is a considered number of actual there student that have applied for another master program starting in autumn 2008 just to extend their residence to stay here in order to gain advantage of the new regulation changes.
5.5 Swedish language What is the official language of your compan From the interviews, it resulted that 80% of the company? companies that were interviewed had Swedish language as there official language of the company, therefore all papers and documentations were in Swedish language but all the workers at their companies did speak fluently English. The other 20% of the interviews which result to be young companies, have English as the official language of the company and all the worker spoke English fluently but all the company meetings are carry out in Swedish while everyone is Swedish mention Mr. Mikael Ganehag Brorsson Brorsson. Is Swedish language, a must for the workers working at your company? For all consultant s companies it is very important that the workers speak Swedish, while they are going to work in different costumers (other companies).
For most of the companies that have production er department, mention that Swedish language is not a mast but still worker have to know or understand some Swedish, Mr. Ola Helgotsson mention that “in our company we have two students doing there thesis work and at the same time they attend language courses at the BTH.
5.6 Thesis work Have your company ever receive any request from any student of BTH for any thesis work, or ave any work application? From the interviews we find out that m ost of the times companies were most able to arrange any thesis work for student however sometimes they did receive application at students the wrong time, when the company was too busy with other things and had no body available to take care of the students according to Mr. Tony Wilsson. Also some other consultant companies
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mention that “they are working for other companies and they need only professionals’ workers and is very difficult for them to get thesis student” according to Mr. Peter Thorman. Are you willing to arrange any thesis work for student s? All companies that had a production department were more able to arrange thesis work for students, and some time “they welcome the opportunity that the students can build up their own project and the company can help with facilities etc of course if the project has any relation with the company” according to Mr. Mikael roject Ganehag Brorsson. Also Ms. Richard Liden mention that many companies arrange thesis work only to the candidate which are consider as future potential workers at the company.
5.7 Cultural diversity Does culture of the foreign workers will affect you decision of approval? According to the managers interviewed, 100% of them are very positive about different cultures also the companies that already have foreign workers are mentioning that is v ery good to have a diversity of culture in the work environment and that is a perfect opportunity to learn about different cultures. In the other hand most of companies expect students to be more integrated in Swedish culture and lifestyle. Note, this question don’t have to do with believes and faith but is just for , the culture in general.
5.8 General suggestions from the company managers ions In this paragraph we are going to present some of the suggestions or feedback regarding student in general or BTH and how things can be different for the near future. TH First suggestion is from Mr. Ola Helgotsson, who is concern that the students should have more Helgotsson, group work and problem solving. Mr. Richard Lidén suggestion was that students should be more active and have more participation in the activities organized from international office and try to learn more Swedish. Mr. Toni Wilsson and Mr. Mikael Ganehag Brorsson suggestion was; if international student have more knowledge of Swedish language it will be easie r to find a job in Sweden. easier Mr. Peter Thorman suggestion was; international student have to be involved more in the Swedish language, culture and other activities that will give students different knowledge about how things work more efficient around here. Also school should use some standardized test
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regarding the student’s knowledge on the major that they are enrolled, which will make it more s easier for the companies to select the best candidates, while those test at the moment are used s from companies to test their workers. est
5.9 International office activities Based on the results that were collected from the student’s online survey and the interviews from mangers we decided that it will be a good idea to make an interview with international office, to have a more clear view about the actual situation. Therefore we had an interview with Mrs. Lina Berglind we asked her; what are some of activates organized from international office to bring together companies and students ? She mentions that they all are aware of the current situation and they are trying different techniques to make companies more interested in the international studen t. After international office deeply had analyze the situation had decided that instead of bringing companies to the students they are trying to coach students how to fit more properly in the Swedish culture. She also mention that they are arranging tutoring of how student to build Swedish CV (curriculum vitae), how student ng to approach companies and giving courses of Swedish language for free which in other universities are not free of charge.
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Chapter 6
Discussions and Recommendations
In this chapter we will remind the reader about the problem description and according to our finding we will make a discussion make links to the finding and to the research questions, also will be a short conclusion of the barriers and in the end will be a section of recommendations of f how the situation can be overcome and any ideas for future research.
6.1 Discussions While there is a shortage of labors i IT sector in the Blekinge area and there were a lot of s in international engineering student which graduated every year from BTH and didn’t get those students jobs, therefore in this discussion we will make connection and logical explanations of the , findings. First, we wanted to find out if international students like to work in Sweden and what are the reasons? Therefore from the results the section 4.4 clearly explains that 100% of students wanted to work in Sweden and also we see that at the moment no one of them has a job or a thesis work in here. Also we understand those students are willing to relocate and go where ever the work is available, this shows one more time that student are very interested to stay in Sweden. From the students section 4.4 and 4.5 most of the student wanted to stay here in order to get some experience and students et experience, after going back to their homeland and from them just 35% wanted to stay here for long period. This explain one more time that students are quite aware of the actual difficulties of finding a job in Sweden, however regarding the proposal of EU “Blue Card” and Swedish proposal for regulation changes, and 100% of the students are wil ling to take advantages of that and we see in willing the section 5.4 that there are a lot of student which are registered for another master program just to extend their visas.
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Secondly, thesis work is a process that student have the opportunity to conduct a project for a company, but companies have to spend a lot of time and have available people to follow a thesis project. However from the company side thes is project are considered as a long interview thesis process, which is a perfect opportunity for the student. From the section 4.3 we see that 75% of students wanted to conduct a thesis in a company and also they had applied for that but they didn’t get anything. Also from the section 5.6 we see that many companies are willing to arrange thesis work only to future potential worker, this means that international students are not considerate future potential workers and their applications are declined. derate Thirdly, investigating the company requirements and recruitment process, analyzing the results stigating on the section 5.5 more or less all companies require that their workers speak Swedish language and this is reflected also to the section 4.6 from the student s results, where they mention that in all available jobs Swedish language is a must, and some of the work advertisement are in Swedish also some of the company websites. Also in the section 4.6 from the students results we see that most companies claim that they need peop le with experience and the student don’t have the necessary experience, that is reflected also in section 5.2 where in consultants companies , most of the times recruit experienced workers. Fourthly, at the moment in order to get a working visa in Sweden first, you need a job from a company and after that following other procedures and steps mention in section 1.5 however if 1.5, companies are hiring other specialized recruitment companies (such as; Manpower Poolia, Manpower, Monsters etc) to handle the recruitment and selection process, which in this case its more complicated for international workers to get in touch with companies. However in our case from the management interviews it result that all companies in the region are handling the process itself and this is considered a positive factor. Also from the managers interviews we find out that all the workers have 6 months trial before they get permanent job contract therefore the first time every foreign workers will have a contract only for 6 months, however at the moment only to ve applying for a work permit it take more than 3 month and as a result the whole process it becomes very long and risky. Fifthly, analyzing how companies feel about foreign workers and visa pro cedures, we see on section 5.3 companies are positive about the general phenomena but in the other hand they just raise the bar for foreign workers, therefore they demand that those workers should be higher in qualification than Swedish workers, regarding the visa procedures many companies feel more positive about the regulation changes, which in our point of view will increase the chances of the international students find o job in Sweden also a lot of students feel the same way while they have applied for another master just to get residence extension.
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6.2 Conclusion The main research question of this report was to identify the barriers of international students and companies and reflecting to the results of student’s survey, interviews with managers a nd the above discussions. We conclude that the main barrier is the Swedish language however at the language; moment even the companies that are willing to accept foreign workers that don’t speak any Swedish claim that the visa procedures is long and risky process Therefore we expect that after process. regulation changes, international graduated students will have more chance s to find jobs in Sweden.
6.3 Recommendations We wanted to finalize this report with some recommendations of how barriers should be overcome, which will be targeted to all three parties; from student’s side, from BTH in general ill and from companies. There is a lot to be done from the student’s side; they should take more advantages of the free Swedish courses on BTH and also have to implicate themselves more in the activities organized from the BTH, which intend to integration of international students in the Swedish culture and Swedish lifestyle, therefore they have to take more advant ages of the available recourses. While re advantages in the BTH are around 30 nationalities and everyone’s have their own culture and lifestyles it will be more convenient if everyone adapt something from Swedish culture and lifestyle, wh ich it will give more advantage to students to approach companies. As it came out from the student electronic interviews and the interviews with managers s companies are mostly interested in the workers that have some experience, therefore our advice to the international students is that they look for jobs in companies that have any production he activities, like Ericsson, Telenor or UIQ, while those companies have lower req uirement about Swedish language and work experience. From the BTH side; while there ar e some activities that the school is doing in order to help are students to get use to living in Sweden Also it will be a good opportunity if the school can Sweden. arrange something about the thesis work; therefore students can have a short experienc in real experience life work environment. We are recommending this because many companies are willing to ork arrange thesis work and if the school is cooperating with companies it will be easier to find common solutions of this from the all three parties can benefit. The idea of school using standardized tests to test student’s knowledge we think that is a good idea and will help also in raising the school quality in general. Therefore the student can have a kind of certificate that will distinct them for their achiev ement, we are referring to the
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management results in section 5.3 while they are interested that foreign worker should have higher qualification and this will increase the chances of international students being selected. Also according to the results, the strategy used from the international office in section 5.9 we believe that is a very good initiative and it has to be supported from all the students. Also we think that some more things should be added to that instead of organizing something only for international students to be integrated in Swedish culture it will be good if Swedish students are rnational also part of that specific activity, therefore the international student can see the cultural in practice and more alive.
From the company side: our recommendations are, that companies should be more open recommendations regarding international students or foreign workers in general and less sensitive about minor things, they should put first what is best for the business in general and considering international students as potential future workers, this activity will create more choices and for companies will tential be more easy to get the right people on board. While the government is proposing new regulation to make it easier for high skilled migrant to move from country to country, also companies have , to be prepared to absorb new changes changes. We suggest that companies and school should work closely and try to find possible corporation which will influence the growth and development in both sides and in the region as well. Conducting this research we admit that it was a unique experience for us and a more deep is understanding of how primary research should be handled. We hope and wish that our recommendations will help and will become reality in the near future.
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References and Appendixes
Report, C. (2006).
Manufacturing.. Country Profile. Sweden ; Economist Intelligence Unit , p39-41. Report, C. (2006).
Transport, communications and the Internet. Country Profile. Sweden p22-25. ).
Sweden, Report, C. (2008).
Manufacturing.. Country Profile. Sweden ; Economist Intelligence Unit , p39-41. Inc, G. G. (2006).
Sweden Career Guide 2006: Information Technology Employment Trends. Sweden Career Guide, p1, 4p. Robecca, T. (2007).
EC plans blue card to ease IT skills s hortage. Computer Weekly; 10/30/2007, p5 p5-5. TelecomCity organization, retreated on June 8, 2008 Link: Report, C. (2008).
Economic performance. Country Profile. Sweden, Economist Intellig ence Unit, p33 p33-35.
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967).
The discovery of grounded theory : strategies for qualitative research. Chicago,: Aldine. Goulding, C. (2002).
Grounded theory : a practical guide for management, business and ma rket researchers. London: SAGE. Neuman, W. L., & Kreuger, L. (2006).
Social work research methods : qualitative and quantitative approaches. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Robson, C. (2002).
Real world research : a resource for social scientists and practitioner researchers (2. ed.).
Oxford: Blackwell. Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2007).
Research methods for business students (4. ed.).
Harlow: Financial Times/Prentice Hall. Kahn, R. L., & Cannell, C. F. (1957).
The dynamics of interviewing : theory, technique, and cases. New York, N.Y.: Wiley. Internt references; Europe, the European job mobility portal, retreated on 2008/05/20 link: ®ionId=SE0&nuts2Code=null&nuts3Code=null®ionName=National%20Level ®ionId=SE0&nuts2Code=null& nuts3Code=null®ionName=National%20Level TelecomCity organization, retreated on June 8, 2008 Link: Blekinge Institute of Technology, retreated on June 2, 2008 link; http://www.bth.se/eng/aboutbth/ /eng/aboutbth/ Workpermit immigration and visa adviser, retreated on June 04, 2008 link; http://www.workpermit.com/news/2008-03-28/sweden/employers-may-get http://www.workpermit.com/news/2008 get-easier-workpermit-requirements-foreign foreign-workers.htm
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Persons interviewed for this project
Richard Lidén Network manager Bredgatan 18 SE-371 83Karlskrona, Sweden Phone +46 455 30 30 45 Fax +46 455 30 30 20 richard.liden@telecomcity. org www.telecomcity.org Anders Nilsson Dean of School of management Blekinge Institute of Technology Soft Center 372 25 Ronneby, Sweden Phone +46 457 38 56 03 Fax +46 0457 38 56 07 [email protected] www.bth.se
Ola Helgotsson Densitet AB. Consultant Manager, South Ronnebygatan 21A 371 33 Karlskrona, Sweden Mobile: +46 (0) 709 54 56 03 [email protected] www.densitet.com
Tony Wilsson ESRI S S-GROUP Sverige AB. Utveckling GEOSECMA Amiralitetstorget 3 371 30 Karlskrona, Sweden Mobile: +46 708 36 80 51 Phone: +46 40 664 39 00 [email protected] tony.wilsson@esri www.esri-sgroup.se
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Persons interviewed for this project
Peter Thorman SOFTHOUSE General Manager Campus Gräsvik 3A 371 75 Karlskrona, Sweden Software architect Drottninggatan 5 374 35 Karlshamn Sweden Karlshamn, Phone +46 735 30 90 11 [email protected] www.noda.se Mikael Ganehag Brorsson Noda Intelligent Systems AB.
Phone: +46 771 98 48 00
[email protected] http://www.softhouse.se
Lina Berglind International Office Student Administrator / Social activities
Piotr Urbanski International Office International Co-ordinator Blekinge Institute of Technology 371 79 Karlskrona, Sweden Office: +46 455 38 52 16 Phone: +46 708 54 51 00 [email protected]
Blekinge Institute of Technology 371 79 Karlskrona, Sweden Office: +46 455 38 52 08
[email protected] http://www.bth.se
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Appendix 1
Questions for the interviews with Managers uestions
At first we will make a short introduction of our thesis and what we are trying to find out so that the person has an idea of the problem. Some of the question that we are going to ask in the interviews with the managers: 1. How does you company handle the recruitment and sel ection process? 2. Do candidates get a direct job or do they get a trial time at first? 3. How many workers do you need annually? 4. Do they have any foreign worker? 5. Do they like to have foreign worker? a) If yes, are you willing to follow all the long process of hiri ng a foreign worker? b) If no, why? What are the things that stop you doing so? 6. While the government is discussing the low , for making it easier, for foreign workers to work in Sweden, what do you think about this? 7. What do you think for the actual procedures of hiring a foreign work er? ? 8. What is the official language of your company? 9. Is Swedish language, a must for the workers working at your company? 10. Have you ever receive any request from any student of BTH for any thesis work, or any work application? 11. Are you willing to arrange any thesis work for student? 12. Does culture of the foreign workers will affect you dec eign decision of approval? (regarding ? thesis work or work) (if necessary I will take an example)
13. General suggestions how the school can guide those student to find work or thesis work
in Sweden?
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Appendix 2
Page 1 of 3
BTH International Graduate Students
This survey is a master thesis project that will help identifying some of the barriers that have International student finding a job or a thesis work in Sweden. Please give your opinion or experience on the below questions. 1. Gender? Male Female
2. Which programme are you studying at BTH? Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering Masters of Science in Intelligent Software systems Masters of Science in Software Engineering Game Artificial Intelligence Masters programme European Master Course in Software Engineering Masters of Science in Mechanical Engineering Masters programme in Mathematical Modelling and Simulation Masters programme in Game design Master programme of Security Engineering Masters of Informatics Other
3. What year did you start your studies at BTH? 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
4. What year are you planning to finish your studies? 2008 2009 2010 2011 Other
5. What is your highest degree obtained before starting at BTH?
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Appendix 2
Bachelor Masters Master of Science Ph.D Other
Page 2 of 3
6. How would you like to complete your master thesis? Doing a project for a company Doing a project in your own I don’t know Other
7. Do you like to work and live in Sweden? Yes No Explain your answer.
8. Do you like to go back to your country of origin after finishing your studies? Yes No Explain your answer.
9. Have you ever apply for job or thesis work in Sweden? Yes No
10. If you have a job in Sweden, how difficult was to find it? (Mention some difficulties that you had)
11. With the new regulation changing and Blue Card, which are making it easier for residence and work permit in Sweden, are you willing to search for a job here? Yes No Other
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Page 3 of 3
Appendix 2
12. If you had applied for a job or thesis work in Sweden and you receive a rejection, what were the reasons that you didn’t get it?
13. Which is your favorite city or area of Sweden that you would like to work and live? All areas or cities of Sweden Blekinge area (Karlskrona, Ronneby etc) Other
14. What difficulties have you experienced when applying for a job in Sweden?
15. Did you get any help from the school or international office to find a job or a thesis work in Sweden?
16. What do you expect that school can arrange in order to help you to get a job or a thesis work in Sweden? (Give your suggestions )
The survey has been ended. Please Click Submit
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