The purpose of this essay is to apply Activity Based Costing on a Service and Support function in order to identify and allocate costs for providing support for IT deliverables..

Capital structure is without doubt one of the most frequently studied and controversial areas of modern financial theory, and will certainly continue to receive considerable attention from researchers worldwide. There is still no universal explanation of how an optimal capital structure would be designed for maximum appreciation, despite the development of several theories focusing on the subject. Equity and debt are the two main financing options that in combination explain the business's capital structure. The results of several research studies conducted in the subject has many times pointed out that there are specific factors that are directly related to the company's capital structure, and that there are clear sectoral differences in corporate debt. A study of the capital structure is considered important and interesting to implement due to the reasons above and the purpose of this study is to analyze and try to explain the similarities and differences between different industries in terms of how growth, profitability and size affect the debt level.

This report deals with activities that from a CSR perspective are considered to create a shared value for a medium-sized construction company in Sweden. The CSR definition used in the report is the European Commission?s since it reflects the valuecreating aspects of CSR, in contrast to the traditional philanthropic aspect of CSR.Companies in the building construction industry have difficulties identifying activities that create value in society and in the company. The aim with the project is to, from a CSR perspective, identify and evaluate value creating activities in a building construction company. The activities will be evaluated with respect to competitiveness and how they can be implemented into an organization.

In today?s modern age, energy consumption has become a major issue, both from an environmental viewpoint and cost perspective. Because of a rapid technologic change and increased costs of production of electricity, the demand to develop effective methods for energy efficiency industries have grown.The electricity-intensive industries, such as plastic industry, the demand to reduce energy consumption has grown significantly over the past 10 years, which have led to the development of different methods to determine and locate energy-consuming parts in the industry. This also means being able to prioritize and organize activities in the industry.In this study the measurements of voltage, current, power and PF performance on injection molding machines (K-TEC 275 form Ferromatik Milacron in Germany) with a focus to locate, within a machine, various measures that could improve energy use in the plastics industry, in this case RostiGP in Gislaved. These measurements have been carried out with the help of a power quality clamp meter to carry out time logs of the machines for some time during normal word rate.

The competition for Norway spruce pulp wood in Central Sweden increases, forcing the supply-structure of Holmen to face two important challenges. Firstly, it is of the outmost strategically importance to secure the long-term supply of Norway spruce pulp wood to the industries. Secondly, Holmen desires to increase the obtainable volume of Norway spruce pulp wood. This would enable the company to choose volumes in the lower price-segments and thereby decrease the dependency of costly marginal volumes. As this work shows, one part in managing these challenges could be to lower the quality standards concerning root rot (Heterobasidium annosum). Facts presented in the work shows that: 1. Technically, the TMP-industry of Braviken can handle a much more rotted pulp wood than that used today, although the cost of refinement increases.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to give a contribution to the studies of what strategies those are of importance for challengers in consumer technological markets aiming for the market leader position. To be able to investigate this phenomenon we have chosen to study Microsoft?s second position in the video game console industry. In addition, we want to illuminate Microsoft?s competitive advantages, how Microsoft can take advantage from Sony?s setbacks and what strategies those are of importance for Microsoft in the battle of becoming the market leader.

Zakrisdal and the west coast region of Karlstad was at one time a protected area where the ammunition factory AmF Zakrisdal 1941-1994 was situated. This factory manufactured explosives for the Swedish armed forces and for export. In this context it is an interesting paradox that the production of ammunition, mines and armorpiercing grenades for more than 50 years has preserved the environment surrounding the factory.The factory is now gone and the production is moved to Karlskoga. Plans are being made to build housing for 3-4000 residents and other enterprises within the area. The area now stands before yet another change, most likely the most profound to date.The inspiration for this work comes from the economic historic Jan Jörnmark.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the target to convert the Swedish military aviation industry towards working within the civilian sector was planned and implemented parallel to the target of building a world-class military aircraft. A number of Government bills have been studied, bills directly connected to the JAS-project as well as bills dealing with civilian project ?s for the military aviation industry. The first group includes bills dealing with the JAS-project ?s role in the overarcing defence policy, as well as the Government ?s bill specifying the guidelines for the JAS-project.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how the ongoing controversy surrounding the Internet, the phenomena of digitalization and file sharing will affect the music industry in the form of the ?big five? labels. Furthermore the thesis aims to present a recipe of strategies for the companies? survival by studying their situation through a theoretical perspective in conjunction with a comparative analysis with industries facing the digitalization challenge. The theoretical contribution lies in the strategic perspective at an industry level.

This thesis project focuses on the need for better tools for analyzing competition for forest fuels in Sweden, in particular how policy measures may influence the market and involved actors in different regions of Sweden. Raw materials from the forest have for long constituted important inputs in the Swedish forest industry. Today some of these raw materials are increasingly used as inputs also in bioenergy production, largely driven by bioenergy promoting policies, and there are signs of increased competition for forest fuels which may have various and uncertain effects on the industries in question. The thesis project explores the possibilities to adapt previously used forest sector equilibrium models into a new model suitable for analysis of Swedish forest fuel markets, called the Swedish Forest Sector Trade Model (SFSTM). The approach takes into account regional differences in supply and demand for 23 types of products produced and/or used by eight types of producers, plus consumers, in five different regions (four Swedish and one international).

Since the Chinese economy?s reform in 1980, it has been attracting enormous foreign investments. Many Swedish firms from different sectors such as technology, manufactory production, consumer, service industries and so on, had started their investments in China. China has become the first choice for global manufacturing due to the huge market, continuous economic growth, stable political situation, sound investment environment and the WTO membership. In addition, China's enormous potential in finance, service, infrastructure, telecommunications, wholesales and retail industries will also attract a great deal of foreign capital.

This paper explores a model for self-assessment of purchasing maturity in large companies. The author adapts contemporary purchasing theory and further enhances existing tools and procedures to create a survey based instrument for maturity measurementThe paper also explores potential methodological challenges associated with conducting a more extensive study of purchasing maturity via the proposed model. A preliminary study is made and the learnings discussed.The preliminary findings of the survey indicate that the purchasing maturity varies with industry. The purchasing function average score was found to be 3,4 out of 6 with samples spread across the whole spectra ? agreeing with previous theories stating that the purchasing maturity is highly varied between different industries..

This study tests two financial valuation models empirically by valuing three stocks from three industries, with the purpose of studying how well valuation models work empirically and to make a forecast. The models which will be tested are residual income valuation and discounted cash flow. Nine stocks will be picked strategically from the Swedish stock market and additional analysis will follow in the analysis chapter.Based on analysis and valuation, the commodities industry has decent valuation as the healthcare industry is undervalued thanks to the high valuation of AZN. The energy industry has low value due to the capital intensive nature of the industry. When it comes to the models and their practical implementation, DCF has been the most problematic to apply empirically whereas RIV was better but it still shows extreme values, which teaches the student the clear difference between theory and empiri..

Many companies have historically forced their interests through without any thoughts about the future needs of the humans and the society. In the last few years voices have been raised for a change, companies need to take their responsibility regarding sustainable development.The purpose of the report is to describe and explain possible relations between sustainabil-ity performance of companies and profitability, valuation, industry and size respectively.To be able to judge the sustainability performance of the companies Folksam (2006a) have been used. This is a solid investigation of the companies listed on the A- and O-lists of the Stockholm Stock Exchange by the end of 2005. The sustainability marks have been com-pared with the chosen key values for each hypothesis respectively. With this quantitative data as foundation, a quantitative approach and a deductive method have been used.In the first area of the investigation, profitability, the authors found correlation for the main hypothesis between sustainability performance and ?Return on Total Assets? through a statistical test.

The purpose of this final thesis is to investigate the effects of seasonal changes in the horticulture industry. In this study this includes mainly garden designers, constructors of gardens and parks and horticultural businesses at Österlen. Today the most important issue,both in private and in public environment, is that the winter occupation in this area is not big enough. The consequence of this issue can result in the loss of competence to other industries if educated personnel has to stay employed only over season. The study is trying to identify and rank factors that are contributing to the problem, and propose solutions that means work opportunities for companies in the horticulture industry as well as for their employees, during twelve months of the year..