A comparison of strategic alliances and mergers & acquisitions and their impact on shareholder value has been done. By using an event study methodology, the announcements of these strategic approaches has been analysed in order to understand which strategic approach affect shareholder value most favourably..

The aim of the following thesis is to examine if the ideology behind the copyright laws of today poses a threat to creativity and the cultural heritage. The organizations Association of American Publishers and Authors Guild are subject to an ideology- analysis which seeks to examine their ideological views on copyright and the possible threat to creativity such a view brings. The conflict between the two organizations and Google Book Search is used as a context where the ideology is being brought to light. Stanford Law School professor, Lawrence Lessigs work is used as theory and an alternative to the examined view on copyright. The result suggests that the organizations see copyright as the only effective incentive to creation and therefore they think stronger intellectual property laws are needed.

Title: Brand loyalty and switching behavior ? A case study of the Swedish ketchup market Authors: Marcus Andersson Mattias Hedblad Tutors: Björn Bergenståhl, (Professor) Department of Food Technology, Engineering and nutrition, Division of Food Technology, Lund University Frans Melin (MBA PhD) Department of Business and administration, Lund University Ragnar Sjögren Johansen, (Marketing Manager Sauces) Procordia Food AB Problem: The market for daily groceries is mature and the competition has become tough. For the manufacturers to be able to grow they have to compete for the existing consumers. The problem is for the manufacturer to protect its consumers and still be able to gain consumers from its competitors. Purpose: Our ambition is to study consumers brand loyalty for daily groceries, with the purpose to understand how loyalty starts, how it can be strengthened, and how it can be broken.

This master?s thesis is about freedom of information ideas in the European Union data retention directive, 2006/24/EC. The directive means that data about electronic communications services will be retentioned. The aim of the thesis is to examine what ideas related to freedom of information that appear in the directive and how these ideas belong to the ideology of freedom of information that is common within the library community and to the juridical restrictions. In the light of surveillance tendencies that have occurred over the last years, the most well-known is probably the USA Patriot Act, it is interesting to study how freedom of information ideas appears when surveillance is legislated.

This essay presents an alternative approach to the predominant democratic analysis of the European Monetary Union. As the Treaties stipulate the political conduct within Monetary Union and put certain restrictions on the European politicians they are to some extent constitutional in their character. Essential for constitutional theory is the concept of precommitment; according to which a decision is made in t1 purposing to obstruct certain actions in t2. In light of this the aim of this essay is to investigate whether or not delegating monetary responsibility to the ECB can be seen as an example of constitutional precommitment and if so, if this constitutional perspective can add something to the predominant democratic analysis of the EMU. According to the author the EMU is by and large a form of precommitment as the leading politicians in Europe figuratively have tied their hands from intervening in the common monetary policy.

AbstractBusiness, or business decisions always involves an endangerment from the company?s aspect, but when it comes to business with foreign countries the risk profile looks quite different from the profile the company has when its doing business inside the country. Therefore, it is extremely important for an export company or import company to carefully consider the risks that are enclosed with the deal, before he makes the decision to enter a deal. One of the most important risks a company have to considerate when doing business with foreign countries is the currency risk. A company is exposed to currency risk when either long-term or short-term changes in the exchange rate may affect the result of the company, competitive position and growth.

This master thesis concerns the relation between law and the theory of the conceptual metaphor which has developed within cognitive linguistics. Although its main focus is abstract thinking, it also covers a wide range of aspects within cognitive linguistics, such as the prototype theory and radial categories. In order to address this relation, three questions will be dealt with. Firstly, does the theory of the conceptual metaphor have relevance to interpretation of legal rules and contracts? Secondly, can the same theory explain why a legal rule or a contractual term has been interpreted outside of its most given area of application? Thirdly, when an interpretation is not predictable from a legal viewpoint, can such an explanation answer to that fact? Answering the first question will require a descriptive analysis of the conceptual metaphor and cognitive linguistics.

This is a bachelor essay in business and administration with concentration in accounting. The purpose of the essay is to describe and analyse how an auditor, who has had a close cooperation with a small owner-led company in several years, can obstruct the specific familiarity-threat and if it appears, secure that it does not affect the independence of the auditor.The conclusion of this essay contains two models which intend to describe how an auditor, as a suggestion, can obstruct the specific friendship-threat and if it appears secure the independence of the auditor..

Today there is a research project undertaken by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences along with Wången (a highschool specialized in trotter training), which focuses on trotting horse training, performance and health. The project investigates how exercise intensity and feeding strategies affect the development of growing horses. The project includes two groups of horses where all 16 horses are fed in the same way. One group of eight individuals are trained 100% compared to conventional training and the other group are trained 20% less than the other group. All horses are trained twice a week and are out at pasture beyond that.

The purpose of this work is to map what inspiration means to people who work with music, how it feels when you are inspirated compared to how it feels when you`re not. How does inspiration affect us? Are we depending on it? What do you do when you lack inspiration? Is it possible to ?inspire? one self? My method has been to interview eight persons, selected by me, who all work with music. I have used literature, for instance about our intelligence, and also different theories on the subject of inspiration. The results of the interviews show that our experiences of inspiration are individual.

In today?s constantly changing market place most organizations need to reorganize. Reorganization carries risks that could jeopardize the organization's well-being and profitability. To minimize these risks, companies need a tool to help them analyze how the reorganization will affect the business before they make major changes. Such tool has now been developed by researchers at KTH.

In the light of new technology health care is now given the opportunity to form a more mobile way of working that would bring about potential gains in terms of efficiency and quality. On the other hand, a more mobile health care also requires a more generous handling of personal information, something that may raise issues in terms of privacy. This study shows that the privacy of the patient requires two things: (i) that the personal information of the patient is handled in a way that generates her an overall positive expected utility and that (ii) the negative expected utility that each risk of an information leakage causes is offset by the expected utility it also makes possible. The first requirement (i) is shown, in comparison with today?s way of working, to be met due to the potential gains in efficiency and quality in combination with no increase in the probability of informational leakage or negative effects of such a leakage. The second requirement (ii) was also considered met since no separate risks of information leakage could be identified that was not offset by the gains it made possible in terms of expected utility..

Postoperative site infections are the second most common health care associated infection in Sweden. Surgical procedures can lead to postoperative site infection causing great suffer for the patient and an extended care time with an increased cost as a result. In preparation for surgery, it is important that the skin is well prepared with antiseptics to decrease the risk of postoperative site infection. The purpose with this study was to shed light upon the skin preparation before surgery and its significance to postoperative site infection. Ten scientific articles have been scrutinized and compiled and two themes have been identified ? the preoperative and the intraoperative skin preparation.

This paper describes how radiation affects the body, the somatic and genetic effect that can occure in exposure of ionizing radiation and how to protect yourself against it. How radiation affects the cells and why you can get cancer if you get exposed of a large amount of radiation is mentioned. Research after a threshold is mentioned and what Sweden does today to improve the radiation protection by laws and regulations. Explaining the atom, what radiation is and how the ionizing radation interacts with the atom. How backscatter affect the picture and the workers and how to protect yourself from backscatter is mentioned. Radiation doses, dosimetry and rules for those who practise radiation is shortly described..

This examination intends to find out what thoughts children in around 12 years of age thinks about their own television consumption. To examine this, the questions in issue is: ?What does the children watch on television?? ?Why do they watch the programs they do?? ?How do the children speak about their own consumption?? ?What does the children learn from TV?? ?Are the children concious of the impressions they take from TV?? ?Do they speak critical about TV?? ?Is there anything indicating on some kind of influence from the childrens television consumption?? .To answer these questions I have chose to hold qualitative interviews, to let the children?s own thoughts be the foundation of the examination. The theories in this examine are that the person who does the consumption from different forms of television takes the information personally out of her own reality. Meaning that the person watching is the judge of how she applies the information to herself.