This thesis sets out to investigate three questions, first, how the Belarusian democratization process has progressed since the country?s independence in 1991 to the year of 2006. Second, how the relationship between Russia and Belarus has progressed during this time and third, if and how Russia has affected the democratization process. The study has been conducted through qualitative method, mainly using books and articles as sources of information. It has been found that the democratization process in Belarus has evolved in a negative direction ever since the presidential election of 1994.

The purpose of this master?s thesis is to contribute to the development of business relationships between a supplier and its customers. The research area and research problem was further developed into three research questions. The research questions concerns the following subjects: the substance of business relationships and dimensions within relationships management that can be used in order to contribute to the development of a company?s business relationships.

The computer consultant company Create in Lund AB wishes to facilitate their invoice routines, as it at present is required that the administration finds and compares information from two different systems.The purpose of this thesis is to develop an invoice management system that simplifies the invoice management process for the administration at Create. During the development of the system, I have chosen to follow the software development process Unified Process and also tried to find design patterns that can be applied to the integration.The result of my project is a self-contained application developed using the Java programming language that communicates with the databases of the other two systems and presents relevant information to the user as a set of invoices. Of the 23 design patterns I studied, I used four of them in the invoice management system. However I couldn?t find any connection between any design pattern and the integration of systems.

Title:Changes in the auditing work of asset management companies.Advisor:Bengt BengtssonExaminer:Stig SörlingAuthors: Mattias Skog & Andrea CyganikPurpose:The purpose is to examine how the work of auditing asset management companies has changed since the crisis 2008.Methodology:The study is based on an adductive approach using a quantitative method.Theoretical framework:The theoretical framework includes previous studies and literature concerning the auditing business, the financial crisis, principal agent theory and stewardship theory.Empirical findings:The empirical material is based on answers from 22 auditors in 6 different auditing firms, and it was conducted by sending them a survey.Conclusion:The study showed that the major changes were changes in laws and regulations controlling the auditing business. New guidelines and laws were set to try and improve the quality of the auditing business while trying to restore stained reputation. New regulations were also set to increase the control the government have of inspecting the business through finansinspektionen..

Sma?fo?retagen sta?r fo?r en stor del av de svenska arbetstillfa?llena pa? dagens arbetsmarknad vilket a?r en intressant kontext att underso?ka pa? grund av deras bidrag till ett ha?llbart ekonomiskt samha?lle. Det finns en problematik inom strategiforskning da?r forskningen har fokuserat pa? sto?rre fo?retag vilket medfo?r att befintliga teorier och modeller inte a?r anpassade till sma?fo?retagens situation. Studien utreder strategi i va?xande sma?fo?retag utifra?n ett praktiskt perspektiv fo?r att sedan fo?rklara sma?fo?retagens strategiarbete med o?vergripande strategiteori fo?r att skapa en djupare fo?rsta?else av sma?fo?retagens strategiarbete Forskningen har resulterat i tre identifierade omra?desgrupper som pa?verkar hur strategi utformas och bedrivs i va?xande sma?fo?retag.

Thesis purpose: This thesis will through a case study of a recently rebranded bank ?Jyske Bank?, seek to research deeper within the field of service sector rebranding. The internal communication used in connection to the rebranding, will be analyzed in order to investigate what initiatives Jyske Bank?s organizational leaders launched to implement the rebranding and furthermore whether the initiatives have worked. The research questions are: - What are the critical initiatives behind the re-branding process, and have these initiatives been successful?- Furthermore, to determine the success: To what extend does the intended image, created by the organizational leaders of Jyske bank, in relation to the rebranding, correlate with the identity held by the organizational members? Methodology: This thesis employs a mix of quantitative questionnaires and qualitative semi structured interviews.Theoretical perspectives: Corporate rebranding framework (Daly & Moloney, 2004) and a conceptualization of the employee branding process (Miles & Mangold, 2005)Empirical data: The empirical data was collected from in depth interviews with management and questionnaires from employees.

This essay is using theories about social norms, and wage determination to evaluate why there is a gender wage gap on the Swedish labour market. To identify the essence of the gender wage gap investigations on specific jobs where the genders are over-, under and equally represented has been made. Also a poll has been sent out to alumni business economics from School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg to evaluate their labor market from a gender wage gap perspective..

Background: Today businesses are largely structured in projects and temporary organizations. In many companies, the ability to pursue projects is decisive for the business efficiency and competitiveness. The risk literature do not discuss identification and handling ofproject risk in building- and construction companies to a large extent, which has led us to investigate how project risk can be treated and handled in Swedish building- and construction companies. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to cover and describe business risk in Swedish building- and construction projects with focus on different risks and risk tools, and also to modify a model for evaluating the business risk maturity. Realization: This thesis has both traces of a case study and a cross-section study and examines eight different companies that are active in the building- and construction business.

Background: Different cultures meet to a greater extent than before as a result of the increasing globalisation. Therefore, international leaders have to count on greater differences in behaviour of their employees within organisations than they have experience from. It can consequently be difficult in an international environment to understand what motivate individuals of a different culture. Purpose: The purpose of this report is to make greater understanding for how national cultures influence leaders methods to motivate their employees in an international environment in Spain where two different cultures confront. Performance: The study has been made by 14 qualitative interviews with Spanish and Swedish leaders in Spain.

Colour has encountered to be a significant part in marketing, which advantageously can be used in todays competitive market. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the colours varying associations and present ideas how colours can affect the hotel business. In coherence with the purpose we deveoled the research question, which resulted in following: How can hotels affect their servicescape and identity by the help of colour?The study has a qualitative method that began in an empirical problem that has been tested against theory, which subsequently developed the research question. This implies that our study alternated between induction and deduction.

The aim of the thesis was to provide further understanding on how Swedish consumers use the Internet as an information source in their purchase decision process. The subject was investigated from different perspectives: gender, product type and information type. The authors used a quantitative approach, and a survey (n=120) was conducted. It was concluded that men and women are equally influenced by traditional word-of-mouth, but more men than women search for product information online and they are more likely to let their purchase decision to be influenced by it. Women tend more to trust commercial sources.

SammanfattningVi har undersökt hur kreditprocessen påverkas ur kredithandläggarens perspektiv, av att det kreditsökande småföretaget använder sig av en extern rådgivare eftersom tidigare forskning tyder på att det blivit svårare för dessa företag ett erhålla finansiering från banker. Ändringen i förmånsrättslagen 2004 är en bidragande faktor till småföretagens prekära situation eftersom det försämrade bankens utdelning vid en eventuell företagskonkurs. När en småföretagares kunskaper inte räcker till, kan en extern rådgivare konsulteras för vägledning i kreditprocessen. Vårt syfte med uppsatsen var att beskriva kredithandläggarnas uppfattning om den externa rådgivarens olika funktioner i kreditprocessen samt att analysera hur kreditprocessen påverkas av att en extern rådgivare agerar i småföretagets intresse. Vi har genom en kvalitativ undersökning och studerat fyra kredithandläggare i fyra olika banker med erfarenhet av vårt ställda problem och fångat deras respektive betraktelser.

As IT service departments in organisations are becoming more complex and customised, the indirect costs are increasing in relation to the total costs. The difficulty of fully estimating and identifying the spread of the cost in the IT service department is increasing. As a result, firms tend to budget the business unit as a total cost rather than as a spread of defined costs. In order to deal with this challenge an ABC calculation will be applied. The Time Driven ABC model will be conducted in OMX´s Servicedesk unit within the IT services.

The students participating in my development work will work with a process book for handicraft studies. In the beginning of their studies, the students need practical knowledge about the development of the profession itself, but they also need to be challenged and learn how to solve problems on their own which will help them gain a deeper knowledge of the subject.    I focus on open questions to create a process with the students. This process is created when working with Solution-Focused-Education. Through ?assessment for learning? we can help the students to improve their self-assessment and understanding of the learning process.

The aim of my study was to describe and interpretate how an international adopted person look back at and describes her learning process individually and in interaction with others. Data are based on one in-depth interview with a phenomenological inspired approach.The findings showed that the interviewee has repressed a great deal of her former life from her country of origin. According to the interviewee, the process of learning in interaction with other people has worked well. She has furthermore never felt that other students have treated her differently based on her appearance. There is some ambivalence in how the interviewee describes this though, which opens up for other interpretations..