The purpose of this thesis is to examine and analyze the characteristics of the management control system private equity firms use to manage their portfolio companies. The thesis takes a share holder value perspective, and it is assumed that the goal of the management control system is to increase the shareholder value in the portfolio company. In a qualitative study two private equity firms and two portfolio companies, one for each private equity firm, were studied in detail. In total, nine in debt interviews were completed. The results from this study suggest that the characteristics of the control system are dependent on the surrounding context; the focus on shareholder value and the specific characteristics of the private equity industry shape the characteristics of the management control system.

Companies of today are facing a development where it is more significant to focus on existing customers since the approach constitute a more cost reducing way, compared to finding new customers. During the last decades the marketing has therefore moved towards a relationship based marketing. Companies emphasize creating long-term relationships with customers, instead of consider the sale as a non-recurrent phenomenon. To engender customer loyalty has been an essential objective in the creation of long-term relationships.In this essay the authors have chosen to do a study which enlighten how companies in the ready-made apparel business produce added value to their brand and through this generate customer loyalty. Through a case study we analyze how Filippa K, Tiger of Sweden and Gant do to maintain value in their brand, in both a business- and customer perspective.

The furniture retail industry in Sweden has gone trough large changes during the last decades. Today the industry is tough and in the maturity stage where few new companies enter, especially if they do not have a unique offer. The furniture companies have become larger and fewer, the changes have lead to difficulties for smaller and medium sized companies to grow and be profitable.Our purpose is to analyse, evaluate and compare three smaller companies in Stockholm with the intention to find what kind of marketing strategies they are using to survive on the Swedish market. First we interviewed the three companies to see what they do to survive on the market, then we asked 100 persons to fill in a questionnaire to see if they had the same opinion as the companies described.With help from theories we prepared questions which laid the foundation to the empirical part of the essay.The result from this study shows that the three companies differ from each other when it comes to using relationship marketing and placing the customer in the centre. All of them are aware of the importance of doing so, but because of different limits and possibilities they can not fully adjust everything to the customer.

Consumption of meat and poultry has increased during the last ten years while the production in Sweden has decreased. Cheap imports are competing with Swedish products and consumers, restaurant and retail let the price decided what to purchase. Swedish food producers can become better at communicating the added values that meat and poultry produced in Sweden has. Social media gives companies a possible tool for communication in order to communicate and create a relationship with consumers. The rise of social media does not only affect consumer decisions making, but also corporate communication. The objective of this project is to investigate how social media can connect the farmer to the consumer.

AbstractTitle: Leadership and ethics in the Real estate agent-industry Level: Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration Authors: Paula Massamiri & Therese Delmar Supervisor: Lars-Johan Åge, Jonas Molin & Jens Eklinder Frick Date: 2014 ? May Purpose of study: The aim of this study is to create an understanding of how leaders trough a Structural ethical climate can contribute to a Situation-based ethical decision-making of their employees. Method: We have used a qualitative method and conducted semi-structured interviews with respondents from real estate agent firms. When we studied our phenomenon, our overall research deign was qualitative interviews. Our data has been analyzed with an abductive method of analysis, influenced by Grounded theory. Results and conclusions: The study shows that leaders in the real estate agent-business trough a Structural ethical climate contributes to a Situation-based ethical decision-making of their employees by acting as role models, leads by example, highlighting the office values and rewards & punishes behaviors to control their employees? ethical decision making. Suggestions for further research: We believe that future studies can be conducted through observations to study both leaders and employees, to pay attention to employees? opinions and reflect on what affects them.

The comprehensive purpose of this Master of Science thesis is to examine which fleetmanagement services for engineering vehicles, ?Fleetech? preferablyought to develop inorder to reach a broad market and meet the demands of contractors.Scanty explained, fleet management is the management of a company's vehicle fleet and theservices can include a range of functions such as driver management and fuel management. Inshort the thesis encompasses four sections:1.Survey of the general contractor industry: The survey has been preformed toevaluate the potential size of the market for fleet management services in the generalcontractor industry.2.Needs analysis: The needs analysis aim was to define what contractors tasks andgoals are, and to determine what functions they want and need from a system.3.The use of CAN and the technical premises: The prerequisite for developing asophisticated and generic system is that vehicle data can be accessed from the CANbuss.The use of CAN standards in construction equipment has therefore beenexamined.4.Specification: An explicit set of requirements have been set to be satisfied by a fuelmanagement service, based on CAN standard protocol J1939.Important conclusions: The use of CAN protocol standards are extensive and the prerequisitesfor developing elementary and CAN based services good. The services should be compatiblewith different manufacture?smachines.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how key performance indicators are being used as performance management tools within the production industry. Specifically the purpose is to investigate how the KPI:s within the telecommunications industry drives reusability regarding production test systems. This thesis will also highlight today?s cost models and suggest improvements of the KPI and what new ones could be introduced. A case study at Ericsson AB has been performed.

Context: During the 21st century several alarming reports have been published that deals with the depletion and pollutant of the earth by human interference. The earth is an ending resource and so are the mountains and bedrocks which are continuously mined in order to harvest its minerals. The idea behind Urban Mining is to (re)invent processes enabling further purpose for materials both from old deposits and new products providing secondary raw materials and energy. This thesis aims to investigate the challenges and opportunities of how firms and organizations can and will be able to strike a better balance between product-/service systems, economic growth and environmental stewardship in the context of Urban Mining as an approach. With the innovation of processes, technology, business- planning and creation in focus.Objective: How to future proof a business model for Urban Mining by the usage of business model design.Method: This thesis will be conducted using a case study approach, meaning that it will incorporate qualitative, exploratory and descriptive characteristics - aiming towards enabling both applied and fundamental research.Results: The result evaluates the business model element differences between traditional C&D industry and Urban Mining industry.

Detection of leukocytes in semen from boars is part of the routine control of semen quality. Leukocytes in semen can cause damage to spermatozoa that leads to impaired fertilization. In the artificial insemination (AI) industry there are standard routines for the quality control of the boars and of the neat semen before use. Since 2001, Quality Genetics has not done the leukocyte examination on semen samples from boars which are used for the production of pigs for slaughter. The purpose of this study was to investigate the occurrence of leukocytes in semen from AI-boars. The questions addressed were whether there are boars that have leukocytes in their semen and how frequently it occurs and, moreover, if there are differences between breeds, or even between individuals whose semen was checked before use in AI-dose production compared to those which were not. The study included a total of 135 AI-boars, of which 67 were Hampshire, 35 Yorkshire and 33 Landrace, all belonging to Quality Genetics AI-station in Hållsta.

Small!size!enterprises!within!the!outdoor!industry!seldom!use!a!structured!process!or!method!when!involving!users!in!product!development.!One!reason!for!this!is!that!many!structured!development!processes!are!designed!for!large!companies!with!very!different!resources.!When!involving!users!in!product!development!processes,!the!most!common!user! is! an! elite! athlete.! She! or! he! often! has! different! requirements! than! the! regular!consumer!and!in!the!customers?!point!of!view;!this!leads!to!nonCmaximized!developed!products.!!The! result! of! this! thesis! is! a! user! involvement! process! for! small! outdoor! companies!based! on! the! Sister! Kenny! Research! Center! Innovation! Handbook,! a! product!development!process,!which!itself!is!based!on!a!phaseCgate!model.!The!process!focuses!on!the!user!category!enthusiastic!amateurs,!since!this!is!what!companies!in!the!industry!require.!The!process!also! focuses!on!how!and!where! small!outdoor! companies! should!involve!users!and!give!recommendations!on!how!many!users!that!should!be!involved!in!a! product! development! process,! different! from! what! the! theory! recommend.! The!process! also! builds! on! that! ideas! should! come! from! the! users! first,! and! then! being!further!developed!by!the!company's!product!developers.!The!degree!of!communication!between!users!and!the!company!is!shown!and!the!report!clarifies!the!user!involvement!intensity!in!product!development!processes.!!The!involvement!process!that!has!been!developed!has!also!been!summarized!in!a!guide!that! can!be!used!by! a! company!on! a!daily!basis.!This! contains! information!on,! among!other!things,!how!users!are!selected!and!how!to!plan!a!workshop.!!! !.

The music distribution in Sweden and the world is rapidly changing. The music industry, however, has been reluctant to change the way they distribute music. The consequence has been that illegal music files have been available for downloading to anyone with an Internet connection. Because of the illegal downloading a new law have been implemented in an attempt to stop this behaviour. Our theory is that in implementing the IPRED-law, the sites that were hosting most of the illegal material will experience a severe decrease in traffic.

Since 2007, I´ve been working in the steel industry in a place called ?SSAB?. That?s why itseemed right to contact them for this thesis.The SSAB concern is global, but SSAB Sweden involves raw steel producing in Luleå, heavyplate producing in Oxelösund, and sheet metal producing in Borlänge..

The construction industry is often criticized to be an industry of narrowness and slow of change. The traditional construction process is considered to create gasps of inferior quality, delays and increase of disputes. Meanwhile, productivity is lower compared to other industries and the prices are increasing. In this debate, it has been assumed that the reported figures are monitoring a reflection of reality, but there might be an error in the statistics which suggests that the focus is at the wrong place. A study of the monitoring and the measurements of the results are to consider, instead of spending time and resources on issues and actions The Last Planner System is an executive planning tool which creates a predictable workflow and creating value throughout all the different stages.

The purpose of this study is to examine how well the teaching of physical education meets the needs of a future life in the building and construction industry. In order to answer the survey's purpose, we have carried interviews with teachers for the subject Physical education and health as well as with teachers for the Building- and construction program in order to through their experience gain understanding of common health problems in the profession, but also to gain a deeper understanding of the importance of the subject Physical education and health for this profession. We have reported and described previous research and then analyzed it during our processing of collected data material. The result of the interviews showed that the teachers as far as possible are trying to adjust the lessons to suit this practical program. They also indicate several aspects to consider in order to further customize the education for students in the Building- and construction program.

This research is based on the observation that people in the service industry is being replaced by technology.  This insight formed a foundation for the presentation of the problem this essay is based upon. We began to speculate over how tourist information bureaus handle the changes, regarding information technology, in their surroundings when their main task is to inform and communicate with their market. Information technology has created new possibilities for organizations to reach their consumers and it has influenced all kinds of industries. We decided to examine organizations in the tourism sector because it is one of the biggest and fastest growing industries in the world. The entering of information technology in the tourism industry has changed its structure and we want to examine how tourist information bureaus succeed to deal with this phenomenon.The aim with this essay is to examine how and to what extent tourist information bureaus integrate with changes in their surroundings caused by information technology and which values that slip away/ is added by the adaption.