The Dark Side of the Word-of-Mouse Effect- An experimental study of how negative information in today?s social media can influence consumer perception As a result of the electronic revolution of information dissemination, social media as a phenomenon has come to play an important part, both in society at large but also when it comes to business and marketing. Nowadays, knowledge and opinions about brands and products are spread by reputation through a wide range of social media platforms, a phenomenon which in the literature is referred to as word-of-mouse or electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM).The purpose of this paper is to investigate how people?s opinions towards a company and its product are affected by negative information in terms of eWOM. Or more precisely, whether or not there is a difference in this effect depending on information content, concerning company values on the one hand and product attributes on the other.This was done in an experimental setting where two groups of respondents were subjected to fictitious information of different types using established social media platforms.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine the information needs of reporters at a Swedish daily newspaper, and see if they are met by the information resources provided by the newspaper. It examines if there are resources which are not used and why. The examination is based on Henczel?s model for information auditing.

The aim of this small thesis is to investigate if the probability of business failure is higher at the time of divestment than at the time of acquisition for portfolio companies that have been subject to private equity ownership. The background for this thesis is the widespread critique aimed at private equity firms, claiming that they increase the risk in their portfolio companies. We have performed a study of 53 buyout transactions, involving Swedish manufacturing companies, covering a time span of 13 years, from 1995 to 2007. We find evidence of an increased risk of business failure for the portfolio companies with a short forecasting horizon (within one year). The absolute increase in the sample is however small.

Banks have been some of the biggest operators on the market of business customers financing. When the Swedish Förmånsrättslagen was changed 2004 the banks became more restrictive to allow traditional bank loans. The change made it more difficult for customers to get their loans granted. For that reason customers had to find other forms of financing. Factoring is an alternative that means companies can mortage/sell their claim on customers to finance companies.

This report is a joint venture with SCA Skog AB in the Jämtland forest management area. The company is a major player in the timber market in northern Sweden, and also a large business globally with offices in over 100 countries. The purpose of the study was to find out how timber suppliers want feedback/follow-up after completion of timber business. To determine this, a questionnaire survey was sent out to 75 landowners who supplied the wood for the company during the past year. The questionnaire consisted of a total of 15 questions with the opportunity to comment on certain issues.

Syfte: Förklara begreppen empowerment och medarbetarskap samt visa hur de kan tesig i praktiken inom kulturnäringarna.Metoder: Kvalitativ metod med material från litteraturstudier och ostruktureradesamtal med medarbetare på olika positioner och nivåer i åtta gävleorganisationer inomkulturnäringarna.Resultat & Slutsats:Observationerna gjorda på plats stämmer relativt bra med befintliga tankar om välfungerande organisationer i litteraturen. Organisationer inom kulturnäringarna överlever alla på något vis genom sina medarbetares kreativitet. För att utnyttja det på bästa sätt bör organisationen......vara organisk, det vill säga kunna anpassas efter de personligheter ochkompetenser som finns i den. Detta sätter å andra sidan höga krav pårekrytering och social kompetens....ha någon form av plattform (i uppsatsen också kallat idékatalysator) där medarbetare från organisationens delar kan mötas, utbyta information och komma med synpunkter på varandras idéer. Detta kräver dock att man har ?högt i tak? samtidigt som man respekterar varandras expertområden....göra medarbetare delaktiga ? då ökar deras engagemang och viljan att vårda det de själva är med och bygger upp.

 Bachelor thesis within Business AdministrationTitle: Effective estate managementAuthor: Joacim StåhlPatrik StyrbjörnTutor: Gunnar WramsbyDate: 2008-06-05Subject terms: Estate management, efficiency, key figure, good examples, manager, real estate Abstract:Background: Concerning the global economy and the picture given in real estate business that efficiency and profitability are needed to survive is it intresting to study and search for good example to reach an effective and profitable estate management.Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to describe the work of real estate concern to reach efficiency and profitability from the owner/manager perspective.Method: Through qualitative interviews with eight respondents in four different real estate concerns describe good examples on effective estate management and with this fulfil the purpose of this essay. Two interviews per company were made, one at the company and one over phone to reach better security concerning the answers.Theory: The theory is divided in to four mainparts were the first two explains estate management and financial control. Thereafter comes an impression concerning efficiency and how efficiency is secured in estate mangement from a theoratical perspective.Empiri: This part of the essay is about the interviews made and through them show how real estate concern works with efficiency by focusing on good examples in which the companys find themself efficient.Analysis: Comparing the theories and the empirical research to analys and try to describe efficient estate management.Conclusions: Efficient estate management is about controlling the costs and especially about the opreating costs. Important to reach operative efficiency is therefore to continuosly follow up the costs and to do readings every month. To compose and continuosly work with budget and action plans for each estate is important in order to reach efficiency in the management of estates.

Title: Register now and stay in touch ? a study about the relationship between CRM-system and business performance.Purpose: The purpose with the study is to identify if there is a positive relationship between CRM-system and business performance in Swedish multinational companies in the industrial sector.Audience: This essay is addressed to the Swedish multinational companies in the industrial sector.Methodology/ Approach / Design: We have applied a qualitative method, with a deductive approach. Through an in-depth interview with the case company Benzlers AB, which provided the empirical basis, supplemented with the CSI-values.Conclusion: The study has presented evidence, that there is a positive relationship between CRM-system and business performance which has been confirmed by the positive increase in the CSI-value after the implementation of the CRM-system.Originality/ Value/ Contribution to knowledge The study contributes with its own results that fill in the knowledge gap about the subject in Sweden. The study finds that the CRM-system effectives the interaction with the customer and thereby business performance increase, with the CSI-value as unit. This therefore increases the value and importance of investigation of Swedish multinational companies, whose purpose is to satisfy the customer and at the same time, increase the business performance.Future research: For future research we suggest publishers to base the empirical basis through additional in-depth interviews with added case companies. In order to confirm the relationship between its validity in the industry, and also indentify what happens between inputs and outputs, which leads to increased business performance.Keywords: Customer Relation Management (CRM), CRM-system, customer satisfaction, business performance, Customer-Satisfied-Index.Thesis type: Business economy 61-91, Bachelor essay, Marketing (15 credits), spring 2010th..

Undersöka vilka olika motivationsfaktorer och belöningar är motiverande för medarbetare samt vilka belöningar är motiverande på kort och långt sikt. Även undersöka hur medarbetare förhåller sig till belöningssystem Metod: Jag har använt kvantitativ metod bestående av enkäter. Data jag samlat in, kodades om till siffror och sedan redogjordes med hjälp av olika typer av diagram och tabeller, vilket blev grunden för min analys. Slutsats: Att ha bra kontakt med sina medarbetare och chefer, att få ta eget ansvar, utvecklingsmöjligheter/utbildningsmöjligheter, att få feedback och beröm samt att få högre lön är de mest motiverande belöningarna. Utvecklingsmöjligheter/utbildningsmöjligheter är mest motiverande på långt sikt medan de övriga nämnda belöningarna är mest motiverande både på kort och långt sikt. Anställda upplever en skillnad hos de båda belöningssystemen, monetärt anses vara orättvist medan icke monetärt anses vara rättvist.

Purpose: We wish to gain a deep knowledge about product development processes in relation to the aspect of time in companies in highly technological and rapidly changing markets. The purpose is to establish how organizations better can employ time as a resource to make the product development process more efficient. Conclusions: Information we gathered from theory and primary data show that information flow, synchronization and time profit when seeing time in three dimensions are factors which should be reflected in the architecture of a product development process. To illustrate our findings, we decided to create a model..

This thesis treats the information the insurance company is going to give the policyholders just before the insurance is to be concluded and soon thereafter. The purpose for the essay is to investigate whether the mentioned information can be considered to meet the purpose referred to its establishment. The investigation will also show if the penalty for not upholding this obligation is reasonable in relation to the aim the duty to inform the policyholders is meant to uphold.Information to be provided before the contract is concluded should facilitate the choice of insurance. The information to be given to the policyholders as soon as possible after the contract is concluded should be given as a form of confirmation and information on conditions that has not been stated before. The purposes that have been mentioned is for both the information to consumers and companies.The conclusion that can be made after the analysis is that the information is of great importance for the policyholder, both for consumers and companies.

Utvecklingen inom IT-området har under de senaste åren varit explosionsartad. Allt fler branscher har börjat att leta efter nya sätt att tillämpa de olika framsteg som skett inom områdetDetta arbete behandlar en kombinerad litteraturstudie och intervjuundersökning kring objektorientering och Business Process Reengineering. Problemställningen för detta arbete har varit:- På vilka sätt kan objektorientering tillämpas för att utveckla de synsätt och de metoder som används inom Business Process ReengineeringSyftet med arbetet var att hitta ett antal generella tillämpningsområden utifrån problemställningen, samt att hitta ett antal fördelar, som dessa generella tillämpningar skulle kunna medföra.Resultatet av detta arbete visar att det finns områden inom Business Process Reengineering, där en objektorienterad tillämpning skulle kunna medför stora fördelar. Som exempel på detta kan nämnas förbättrade möjligheter att skapa och anpassa de informationssystem som skall stötta verksamhetsprocesserna. Även möjligheterna att skapa dynamiska metoder, där varje metodsteg utgörs av färdiga moduler som sedan kombineras, bör nämnas som en fördel..

This bachelor thesis in business economics raises the topic about Corporate Responsibility (CR), this topic is currently being discussed in a variety of channels and today an increasing number of companies are involved in corporate responsibility. How do Skanska work with sustainability and why are they doing this? It is also important to see the results of the work with sustainability will lead to. We will go into more depth in one of Skanska's projects, project M25, to investigate the CR strategies they use and see how they actually work with sustainability. The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze how and why Skanska is working to implement CR policies in their operations and more specifically from the M25 project in order to achieve sustainable business development.

In order to become even more competitive, a partnering with other niche players is essential in achieving a competitive advantage and it enables opportunities for reintermediation. From an intermediate perspective, there are great possibilities for those who become content coordinators to enter the market. By becoming a bundler of services and products, the content coordinators will become the actors that will capture the most profit in the value web. The value creating drivers that have been identified in the business landscape of intermediates concern owning the content or owning the customer relationship. We find the possibilities of an intermediate actor, such as a content coordinator to achieve competitive advantage through strategic fit is subject to the context and the ability of creating more innovative and co-creative distribution systems.

I denna uppsats undersöker vi unga kvinnliga modekonsumenters attityder gentemot hållbart mode. Vi studerar också deras upplevda skillnad mellan hållbart och vanligt mode. Slutligen undersöks på vilket sätt de mjuka värdena påverkas av den hållbara egenskapen. Vi har använt oss av semistrukturerade intervjuer med sex kvinnliga respondenter i åldern 29-35 år. Resultaten har analyserats med hjälp av Maslow´s behovspyramid, ABC-modellen, konsumtentbeteende enligt Kotler et al.