The aim of this thesis is to clarify the affect that preferential and regional trade agreements have on the World Trade Organization (WTO), as being establisher of the international trading regime. The essay is an explanatory literature study, which strives to answer the following questions:Are regional and preferential trade agreements a threat or a complement to the WTO?Is an undermining of the MFN principle weakening the WTO?How do regional trade agreements made by the EU affect the future of the WTO?The empirical material is to be analyzed using an explanatory framework, which is based on neo-liberal instutionalism, theories on regime changes and a game theoretical approach, using prisoner?s dilemma. I will employ the EU-ACP relation, the Cotonou agreement to exemplify how an agreement of this kind can have an influence on multilateral trade. The result shows that preferential agreements do have an impact on the WTO, one that is fairly negative in scope.

In this study we have focused on the operational management of the public pre-school in Sweden. We have studied how the governance system is designed, why it is designed this way and what impact it has on the operational management. This has been analyzed from a theory stating that there are two types of organizations: pay-driven and function-driven. Through a case and document study we came to the conclusion that the pre-school is a function-driven organization but is nowadays acting on a market and have adopted characteristics of a pay-driven organization. We connect this change to the phenomenon New Public Management.

Knowledge organization is perceived as a central, constituting activity defining the notion of libraries. Critique calling for a new theoretical foundation voiced by active researchers within library and information science concerning the current knowledge organization has been utilized as a point of departure. Specifications concerning a new theoretical foundation implied by these critiques are considered within this thesis and theory found in The Order of Things by Michel Foucault proposed as an alternative theory for understanding knowledge organization as a human science where meaning, value and representation, by which the ordering of things is possible, is acknowledged as a result of human activity and history. Thus meaning, value and representation must be perceived as dynamic. An example of implementation of the proposed theory has been achieved by the use of bibliometrics.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate how the distance between real estate manager and the managed item influenced the real estate management process. The overall real estate management within Lantmännen Fastigheter AB was investigated to give suggestions on how to improve the quality of the real estate management within the company. To do this, questionnaires, interviews and observations was performed within the Lantmännen Fastigheter AB organization. Real estate managers answered questions about their role as real estate manager, maintenance planning, decision processes, leasing and strategies within the company.The analysis of the questionnaires, interviews and observations showed that the real estate managers wants to rearrange their spent working hours around on working tasks to spend more time on the tasks that brings income and spend less time on tasks that are unsatisfying and unnecessary. The analysis also shows in which areas the real estate managers want more support and education and that they mostly work with unplanned maintenance.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka vilka orsaker som hindrar ett företag att effektivt utnyttja sin business intelligence-process samt hur ett företag bör agera för att skapa högre effektivitet i business intelligence-processen. En fallstudie valdes som forskningsstrategi med kvalitativ empirisk data, vilken samlades in genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer med användare av business intelligence-processen. Studien visade att orsaker som hindrar ett företag att effektivt utnyttja sin business intelligence-process var: avsaknad av inriktning för insamling av information, överflöd av information hos beslutsfattare men samtidigt brist på information inom vissa områden. Det var heller inte klarlagt vem som skall ta del av vilken information, en central lagringsplats för omvärldsinformation saknades, underrättelserna var inte alltid anpassade till beslutsfattarna, ansvarsområden inom processen var oklara och stöd saknades från ledningen. För att skapa en effektiv business intelligence- process visade studien, att ett företag bör arbeta efter en processcykel med klara ansvarsområden, en väldefinierad inriktning för insamlingen av data och information, en väl utkommunicerad lagringsplats för information om omvärlden, analyser som täcker användares olika behov, kontinuerlig kommunikation mellan BI-enheten och beslutsfattare samt säkerställa att tillräcklig med resurser allokeras till business-intelligence processen..

Social media constitutes an increasing part of organizations and businesses today, regardlessif its segment is B2B (Business to business) or B2C (Business to consumer). The use ofsocial media has been self-evident for many companies, especially throughout the B2C area.The study examined attitudes towards Web 2.0 and social media in the B2B-segment, andwhat advantages and disadvantages that might exist with the use of the implementation. Inorder to answer the research question a qualitative case study on the company IFS (Industrialand Financial Systems) was made..

In theory, the logic behind partnerships is simple: All organisations have strengths, but no organisation has all the strength required to do everything. Triggered by global perspectives and challenged by sustainability objectives, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 pointed out needs for corporate responsibility. In this conference, Private-public partnership, PPP, was identified as a potential way to work towards sustainability, especially as a way to emphasize a corporate responsibility commitment. Nowadays, organizations exist to satisfy the needs and interests of all their stakeholders, such as customers, markets, shareholders, as well as secondary stakeholders such as media, NGOs, and society at large. Addressing all stakeholders and working towards a sustainable business development makes PPP a potential solution, but also a source of challenges.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether there are any key factors for success to look for in launching a new business that affects the subsequent performance of the venture. Further on, the study will examine if there are any differences between believed and actual factors for success for an entrepreneur and the key factors for success given by existing theory. The purpose of looking in to the assumed gap between existing theory and entrepreneurs? believed and actual factors is to distinguish factors that make start-ups evolve. It is then important to investigate how they have worked with their business start-up and how they have worked with key factors for success in order to understand the impacts of their decisions.

Aim: The challenges that arise from the development of the digitalization are forcing organizations to adjust their activities and operations to meet the needs of the society and organization´s important stakeholders. To be able to keep up with the developments organizations are constantly changing. These changes must be communicated to their stakeholders in a way that makes sense to them and to ensure that mutual understanding is achieved for the change to be succesful throughout the organization. The main purpose of this paper is to study an organizations communication during a change process. The focus lies on organizational communication strategies and the sensemaking processes as organization communicates about the change to its important stakeholders.Contribution:This paper will contribute to the field of organizational communication by filling a gap on empirical studies of internal communication during an organizational change.Method: The main method for this paper is the qualitative interviews.

Information handling has been a key issue for different companies for a long time. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is used to transfer different business documents from one company to another. This is done in such way that the information itself is separated from how this information is stored and handled in the companies internal systems. As different companies have different systems there is a need for a standardised format for this exchange. There is a big difference between EDI-systems based on what kind of EDI-standard is used. The most common standard in Europe is EDIFACT, but with increased interest of using the Internet for business communication there is a need for a standard that is adjusted for use over the Internet.

Problem: The question is if investors falls into psychological decision traps when they are about to make an investments decision. Research in other areas suggests that this may be case. The reason is that they are not aware of that psychological decision traps exist. If so, it can lead to pernicious consequences for the return on the portfolios they manage. Purpose: To investigate if investors fall into four different psychological decisions traps: anchoring, confirming evidence, overconfidence and regression towards mean, at investments in IPOs Method: We have collected data through a form of experiment.

Abstract ? ?Costs to consider in connection with the implementation of a new ERP system?Date: January 8th 2013Level: Master thesis in business administration, 15 ECTSInstitution: School of Sustainable development of society and technology, Mälardalen UniversityAuthors: Sanna Hellblom-BjörnTitle: Costs to consider in connection with the implementation of a new ERP systemTutor: Cecilia LindhKeywords: ERP-system, business system, implementation, implementation costsResearch question: What costs and issues should companies take into account in order to  establish a realistic budget in connection with the implementation of a new ERP system, and increase the chances for a successful implementation?Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to investigate the hidden costs that may arise in connection with the implementation of an ERP system that companies should take into account in order to establish a realistic budget. The paper will also examine how companies can reduce their costs and affect the outcome of the implementation. It should be investigated by means of interviews, reports and articles.Method: In order to answer the question in the paper secondary data is collected in the form of articles, books and reports. Primary data was collected through interviewing a company that has implemented a new business system, a company that performs implementations and a Senior manager of ERP Services.

In this paper we have looked closer on a car-retailer in the middle of Sweden. We have chosen to dig deeper in the different problems that can occur, related to the supply. Soon we realized that that the problems weren?t related to stock management. Through studying the whole of the company, we have identified reasons to why details aren?t in the stock.

This study aims to investigate how value is constructed in horse business, in order to increase knowledge and contribute to development of theory in this field. This is important since the horse plays a significant role in the rural development in Sweden. The study assumes that value is something created through relationships in the social network. Therefore theories of sensemaking are combined with a discourse analytic method. By interviewing customers to two companies, one with orientation on trotting horses and one with orientation on showjumping horses, it was found that value is constructed through retrospective stories.

More than 90 % of all business activity in the world market consists of small and midsized companies today. Recent studies have shown that there has been an increase in small companies? certification to ISO's management standards. Smaller organizations tend to have more limited amounts of resources at their disposal than larger ones. This can result in difficulties during the implementation process of ISO 9001.