Foreseeing future changes in economic activity is of up most importance to a wide array of actors. The time lag in the presentation of official GDP statistics means that to somewhat accurately capture a tendency of where the business cycle is heading one need turn to qualitative sentiment indicators such as Purchasing Managers? Index (PMI) and official sentiment indicators for valuable clues. This thesis uses in-sample and out-of-sample methods to evaluate how well PMI and official Business Tendency Surveys (BTS) in Sweden and Denmark fair against the year-on-year growth rate of industrial production. Moreover, various Swedish regional sentiment indicators get examined and a case study of the indicator for the Öresund region is performed.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate if a dynamic investment strategy on the Swedish asset market can accomplish better returns then a static investment strategy. The dynamic investment strategy is created by incorporating business cycle predictors and firm-level variables to predict future stock returns. The predictive regression is calculated wih 60 months of observation (1999 01-2005 12) and is then used to estimate future returns for 23 months in the period 2004 01 -2005 11. The structure of the regression, with linear functions of ? and ?, goes back to Shanken (1990) and Avramov and Chordia (2005) has had success with the variables chosen.

Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur småföretag väljer mellan olika finansieringsformer. Metod: För att uppfylla uppsatsens syfte så har vi tillämpat en kvalitativ metod, där en studie genomförts genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med företagare i fyra utvalda småföretag. Slutsatser: Denna undersökning visar på att småföretag bland olika finansieringsalternativ har mest kunskap om bankfinansiering, varför metoden känns trygg och således ofta tillämpas av småföretagare. Kunskapen om andra finansieringsalternativ är bristfällig, och det anses för tid- och kostnadskrävande att skaffa sig kunskap tillräcklig djup nog för att kunna förankra finansieringsbeslut i. .

Abstract Squares, these public rooms have always fascinated me. I find them interesting because of their variety in shapes, functions, design etc. Stortorget in Lund is one of Sweden?s oldest squares, this essay is dedicated to this particular square. Of all the possible ways that you could approach Stortorget in Lund I have decided to do it from an urban design point of view.

Sweden has a long tradition as a mapmaking nation. Tens of thousands of historical maps,dating from the sixteenth century and onwards are still preserved in archives today, providinga rich resource for studies of city growth and changes in the landscape through time. For morethan ten years an effort has been made by public authorities to transfer this material frompaper onto digital media. Due to modern technology, as for example GeographicalInformation Systems (GIS), researchers have been given improved possibilities to study andanalyze this material. This study uses a qualitative approach, based on both literature studiesas well as map studies.

Business Intelligence (BI) is a competitive concept for enterprises to consider. The concept is based on the idea of using business data in order to effectively analyze activities within an enterprise in order to enhance decision processes in the organization.The purpose with this study is to help Akademibokhandeln AB to analyze what BI-requirements they may have, and to create a recommendation on what sort of BI-tool that would fit the enterprise's needs.The requirements analysis was conducted with the help of internal personnel. Four different tools on the BI-market have been examined, analyzed and compared: IBM Cognos 8 (IBM Cognos), Microstrategy 9 (MCST), Qlikview 9 (Qlikview), and SAP Business Objects BI (SAP BO). These tools have been compared with the help of two models (BRI and BCI) that is based on the BI-requirements analysis, with the cost aspect taken into consideration in the BCI-model.Using the BRI-model, the comparison results in a technical evaluation. Here, IBM Cognos gets the highest result just ahead of MCST and SAP BO.

Today every organization is committed to some kind of environmental scanning in order to get necessary knowledge of the world around them. The acquisition, organization and storage of information in combination with a strategic use, is today an important factor for a successful organisation in any sector of our society.In this Master thesis I have studied how an organisation such as The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (Svenskt Näringsliv) handles its information resources. I have also looked at the flow of information within the organization. The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise is Sweden?s largest business federation representing 50 member organizations and 55 000 member companies.

ABSTRACT This essay is about traffic analysis of Web servers. The purpose is to investigate if companies analyse the traffic on the Web server and if they use this information to create more than simple statistic reports. The questions that we will answer are the following: ? How common is traffic analysis on the Web server among companies? ? Is the Web administrator limited in analysing the Web traffic, if the company has the website on a Web hotel? ? Does the company uses the results they get from analysing the traffic on the Web server for updates and changes on the Web page? To answer these questions we made a questionnaire investigation by telephone interviewing the companies? webmasters. The extent of the investigation was 20 companies in Blekinge.

Denna uppsats är en undersökning av hur kontakten är mellan småföretagare och redovisningskonsulter. En stor del av de mindre företagen överlåter en del eller allt redovisningsarbete till konsulter. Denna kontakt är definitionsmässigt en business to business- kontakt, men konsulten har ett övertag då dennes ekonomiska kunskaper normalt är större. Jag har undersökt denna problematik genom att göra en enkätundersökning med aktiebolag med 1-10 anställda som respondenter. Jag gjorde även besöksintervjuer hos två småföretagare samt en intervju via e-post med en redovisningskonsult.

A wish for a higher standard of living has driven the rate of consumption in Sweden. Mainfocus in business is on a higher growth and profitability where some companies use a lowprice strategy to win competitive advantage. The positive consumption pattern spiral is oftendiscussed in media, while criticism is limited and often refers to the environment. In order toreduce our ecological footprint we should consume more sustainably. More and morecompanies implement CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) in their business strategy tobecome more sustainable.

The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of how venture capitalists can use their network in order to reduce information asymmetries between themselves and the venture management team. A qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews, consisting of open questions, have been used to receive gradate information in order to reach our explorative purpose. Our theoretical framework consists of relevant studies made on the dynamics of networks and the problems that can arise in the complex relationship between a principal and an agent. We have been interviewing two venture capital firms and therepresentatives from two business angel networks. We also made an additional interview with an influential financial actor in order to try to verify our conclusions Our conclusions are that an extensive network can be used by venture capitalists in order to; verify ventures? technologies, complement the competences in the venture management team, and arrange co-investments, resulting in reduced information asymmetries between themselves and the venture management team.

The Dairy business is changing a lot because of some scandals in the agricultural area for example the BSE crises in Great Britain. Because of the scandals the food industry and the farm association have created a certifying system; IP-Sigill Swedish standard system. We contacted Skånemejerier as they have been successful in the certifying area. They asked us if we wanted to do a study in the certifying area of dairy farmers. At Skånemejerier they gave us most of the literature in the area about certifying. The result of the study, is that we have taken up the most common remark?s. The most frequent remark is journal over routines in management of dairy cows on daily basis. Another remark of the study is that the frequency of the remarks decreases with greater production..

This thesis describes and examines a new line of business, CleanTech. CleanTech comprises a wide range of different types of companies and is not yet well defined. In this thesis only the Swedish market is considered, and a variety of players on the market are included to give the most extensive picture of the current situation. Recent research shows that a gap has arisen between governmental financing and private equity-investments in CleanTech-companies. This gap occurs mainly in companies in expansive phases and causes problems both for the companies and for the line of business as a whole. To investigate this gap the Swedish CleanTech-business is described in terms of earlier and existing financing, age and size of the companies and their turnover and profit.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att analysera mobil operatörernas behov att omsätta och värdera sig till de teknologiska förändringar ch marknadsförutsättningar genom att lägga fram alternativa affärsmodeller. Nya nätverk och teknologier håller på att förändra den stabila mobiltelefonimarknaden och därmed branschförhållandena för opertörerna. För att inte tappa marknadsandelar och attrahera nya kunder måste de vara proaktiva i med sina strategier vilket inte är falle idag. Vi har i analysen kommit fram till tre olika affärsmodeller vi anser vara lämpliga att ta i beaktning vid anpassning till de kmmande marknadsförhållandena..

The purpose of this essay is to investigate how well vision and strategies communicates from division level to underlying business unit levels with focus on the Balanced Scorecard Concept. The investigation was carried out within the ANS division and two of its underlying business units at the LFV Group (Swedish Airports and Air Navigation Services). ANS is responsible for the air navigation services in Sweden and the production of the services is carried out of the business units AER (En Route) and ATA (Tower and Approach). With Air Navigation Services means supervision and conducting air traffic mainly within national air space. The purpose of the services is to insure that air traffic could be carried out in a safe way.The Balanced Scorecard was introduced for the first time in the beginning of the 1990´s.