Background: Thanks to the globalization and the EU the international trade is growing faster than ever and companies are able to change ownership across the borders of the nations. Today one can talk about global marketplace with a deeper integration of the economies of the world. The rapidly growing list of mergers of Swedish companies since the last 10 years indicates that the global companies of today is using mergers as a strategic tool for continue their growth. However the number of unsuccessful mergers is big. The need of understanding and knowledge about different cultures is growing in the global business climate of today, since the collaborations across de national borders are increasing.Problem formulation: Which international strategies are fortunate in international mergers with Swedish companies?Purpose: The purpose is to analyze the integration of the three mergers; Vin&Sprit ? Pernod Ricard, Astra - Zeneca and Telia ? Sonera.Method: This study is a case study with a qualitative approach.

When referring to the same event, people can have different assumptions. What is interesting to see is why these assumptions are different, why do people have different stories? Some of the reasons could be different levels of expectation, different communication channels or even different cultural backgrounds. We have analysed all these by having a case study within a company that has recently gone through a change management/strategy implementation process.The research reviewed in this paper originates in two different worlds. One world is a research world where stories come from textbooks and articles.

This study aims at examine what kind of interest the European Union (EU) have in promoting a democracy process in Eastern Europe. The study is a descriptive case study where the case Ukraine is used to draw general conclusions. The questions asked to pursue the aim are: why does the EU want to promote a democracy process in Ukraine, what kind of methods does the EU use  and why is Russia trying to prevent the EU-Ukraine development and instead supporting a Russia-Ukraine development. In this study an analytical model is created and used to analyze EU:s way in promoting democracy in Ukraine. The analyze model consists of six steps used to describe the general promotion of a democracy process and it?s applied in the empirical analysis.

The purpose of this study is to make a close and critical scrutiny of the EU Lisbon Strategy and the assumption of `sustainable growth´. A basic question is to clarify what is meant by `sustainability´ in the economic and the environmental dimension respectively, and also, to analyse the meaning of `sustainable growth´. Secondly, I try to investigate the relationship between the economical and environmental dimensions of the strategy. Are the goals of the dimensions compatible and mutually supporting or are they conflicting? By illuminating these issues the study moves towards a final set of questions: What are the arguments that encourage or counteract the Lisbon assumption of `sustainable growth´? Is the European Union approaching `sustainable growth´ looking at different economical and ecological indicators? What are the prospects for the Lisbon Strategy as a way towards global `sustainable development´?.

This report is written for a consultant networking company with the purpose to review the development ofthe company's remote connections from a user friendly and security perspective.This includes an investigation of the possibilities to consolidate existing authentication methods foraccessing customers. The problem lies in the amount of methods being used. Through case study wefound that smart cards, SMS-service, software and hardware tokens exist.The only method feasible from a security perspective is smart cards. Since the method is not commonlyused by the company's customers a standardization of it would be counterproductive.Also, the purpose of this report is to investigate how the ongoing internal development of the remoteconnection will affect the company's clients. Within this framework we have also verified a designsuggestion.We interpret, after the completion of the case study, that the internal development of the remoteconnection is marginally affected by legal perspectives.

This study aims at examine what kind of interest the European Union (EU) have in promoting a democracy process in Eastern Europe. The study is a descriptive case study where the case Ukraine is used to draw general conclusions. The questions asked to pursue the aim are: why does the EU want to promote a democracy process in Ukraine, what kind of methods does the EU use  and why is Russia trying to prevent the EU-Ukraine development and instead supporting a Russia-Ukraine development. In this study an analytical model is created and used to analyze EU:s way in promoting democracy in Ukraine. The analyze model consists of six steps used to describe the general promotion of a democracy process and it?s applied in the empirical analysis.

This master's essay is about seasonality in Bristols slave trade until the American Revolution 1776. The essay uses the Voyages database as the primary material. The essay's method is to study monthly distribution at different points of the slave trade ? the departure from Bristol and the arrival at the American destination. The seasonality of slave purchases in Africa is primarly studied through the monthly distribution of departures from Bristol for a specific region in Africa.

The market of today consist of products/services who resemble each other, the differences are small. Their for it?s necessary for the companies to provide added values to the product so it will stand out from the rest of the products and lead to purchase. A well used strategy in the fashion industry is marketing with celebrities, this is considered successful because it brings attention and strengthening to the brand. Because of this, the strategy also branch out to other industries, but the question is if it?s as successful there? There?s also a serious down-side with the strategy and that is that there?s a great risk with using celebrities.

The aim of this essay is to get a deeper understanding of a teachers' profession and to get knowledge of how earlier experiences can influence you as a teacher. I have interviewed a female teacher, Pia to get this understanding. As a tool to get the teacher's whole story I used the life story method. In her profession she is influenced by her own importance of security as a child.Her own needs of security has given her an deeper understanding for pupils like herself during the childhood; insecure and afraid. Her understanding for all kinds of behavior among the children has increased by her own experiences.The story shows that Pia is frustrated by the fact that she can't control her own working time.

The purpose of this study explains the relationship between corporate governance and the auditor's role in Swedish family firms with the definitions micro, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and how this relationship is affected by the firms strategy. The study is based on a survey sent out to 3000 Swedish SMEs, of which 280 responses from family firms could be used. Our findings showed that the auditor in the family firms didn?t have a specific role or contributed added value to the firm, and that the strategy didn?t affect the outcome. Furthermore, we found correlation between the perceptions of the auditor's role and added value depending on the family firms type of corporate governance.

During 2001-2002 a prototype, IMIS (Integrated Mobile Information System) was developed at BTH (Blekinge University of Technology) to demonstrate how mobile IT-systems can be used in healthcare. The prototype was based on the activity theory of Engeström. An ongoing project started in spring 2003. The purpose of the project is further development of IMIS with special focus in the diabetes healthcare. Participants in the project are scientists and students at BTH, ALMI Företagspartner, Blekinge FoU-enhet, Barndiabetesförbundet Blekinge, Blekinge Diabetesförening, Vårdcentralen Ronneby and Vårdcentralen Sölvesborg.

Nystartade mjukvaruföretag som står i begrepp att lansera en B2B-mjukvara på internet har speciella förutsättningar då företagets främsta tillgång ? mjukvarukonceptet ? lätt kan återskapas av andra aktörer och därmed begränsa möjligheterna till värdeskapande. Konkurrensövertaget är lättförgängligt, vilket kräver ett grundligt strategiskt förarbete. Syftet med examensarbetet är att utreda hur Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS) då kan användas för att hitta ny lönsam målgrupp och alternativ strategisk ansats. Bakgrundsmaterial samlades in från strategimöten hos intressenten och dess affärskontakter.

This report intends to analyze the difference between the original rules and a modification of the rules for the Scandinavian version of the world famous dice game yatzy (yahtzee). Several works are made previously existing strategies for yatzy and Yahtzee.The study was conducted using the optimal strategy calculated and implemented in the programming language Java. The execution of the application to create the file containing the optimal strategy was running on leased powerful servers from Amazon and took just over six hours each.A simulated player played 100,000 games based on the strategy, to obtain data which then was used to plot graphs and analyze the expected score and its standard deviation. The expected value (mean) and standard deviation of the score for the possibility of three or four throws were 233.00 ± 44.82 and 280.07 ± 41.25.In view of the results drawn the expected conclusion that the four possible throws provides increased probability of getting a high score, unlike the case where the player may only be able to throw the dice three times. The fact that the variance is lower in the case of four throw session is equivalent to that the likelihood to get close to the expected value increases..

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.

This thesis aims to describe and characterise the foreign policy change the United States has experienced towards Europe. This thesis claims that the United States is presenting a more supportive attitude today towards the development of the European Union. This more positive attitude has developed during successive U.S. administrations and has become visible since the end of the Cold War.Washington is today less ambiguous and less ambivalent towards the integration of Europe. The United States appreciate that a common foreign- and security policy in Europe is in accordance with American interests.