Title: The Relationship between Internationalization and Firm Performance Seminar date: 5 June, 2008 Course: Masters thesis in Business Administration, Programme for Managing People, Knowledge and Change, 15 University Credit Points (15 ECTS). Authors: Cheng Hsun Chiang and Márton Pap Advisor: Dan Kärreman Key words: Internationalization, Performance, Multinationality, Degree of Internationalization (DOI), Country of Origin Purpose: To illuminate various crucial aspects of internationalization by systematically contrasting the different models of the multinationality-performance relationship and searching for underlying reasons. Methodology: Meta-analysis on previous theoretical and empirical research. Our emphasis in this paper has been put on the qualitative aspects of the previous research unlike many other conventional meta-analyses that focus on the comparison of the empirical data. Theoretical perspectives: Five main models have been developed by earlier studies to describe the relationship between internationalization and performance: positive linear, no or ambiguous relation, inverted U-shaped, standard U-shaped and S-shaped curve.

Farmers Cooperative has in recent years developed from national markets to cross-border, international, collaborations. One example is the merger between the Swedish dairy company Arla and Danish MD Foods, where the companies collectively are sought to reduce transaction costs and thus improve efficiency. The Swedish market for commodities (fertilizers and pesticides) in agriculture has for many years been dominated by a few large players, with little opportunity for grain associations and local grain companies to offer their customers a varied range of commodities with a competitive pricing.To change this state, a majority of Swedish and Danish grain associations and local grain companies have established a trans-national cooperation. Through the establishment of the organization DLA Agro, they offer their customers a good variety of products with competitive prices. This study investigates thus according to the theory of cooperative models to what extent and how the DLA Agro helps to create benefits for the Swedish member companies.

Sweden is a member of the European Union since 1995. The European Union issues directives that cover different areas. Member states must implement these directives into their national legislation. The European council issued in 1993 a directive that took action on the organization of working time, also known as the working time directive. The full name is: Council directive 93/104/EC of 23 November 1993 concerning certain aspects of the organization of working time.

There is a lot going on in the construction business right now. It feels like everywhere you turn there is a building sight. Furthermore the business is heading a generation change and the need of recruiting new construction engineers is huge. How is the business going to handle the transition that they are facing? The question has been in progress for at while and I wanted to find out what the current students feel about taking the step into the working life and replace the veterans.A research is made about student?s opinion about their education and future work life.

The purpose of this study is to analyze how customer oriented businesses can use loyalty programs to create loyalty and how loyalty can be increased. We have in this study chosen to refer loyalty program to the loyalty program that belong to the company Jula AB. Our study is written in a qualitative method. In our method, we chose to interview people in Jula organization to get a business perspective to our study. We have also chosen to assemble a focus group of Jula-club members to also get a customer perspective on the subject.

Vår slutsats är att ekonomisk brottslighet som begås av anställda, det vill säga individuell yrkesbaserad brottslighet, inte förebyggs med hjälp av interna kontroller, definierade av COSO. Syftet med vår uppsats är att förklara hur företag, med hjälp av den interna kontrollen förebygger individuell yrkesbaserad brottslighet. De visade sig att 40 % av de tillfrågade respondenterna varit utsatta för individuell yrkesbaserad brottslighet. Uppsatsen baseras på surveymetoden och undersökningen genomfördes med enkäter. Vi har valt tre teorier som grund för vår undersökning vilka är; situationell brottsprevention, rutinaktivitetsteorin och agentteorin. Utifrån dessa teorier och COSO-modellen vill vi förklara hur förebyggande åtgärder kan förhindra individuell yrkesbaserad brottslighet. Vidare formulerades hypoteser som vi avser att testa.

Detta examensarbete handlar om införande av Lean Administration i administrativa stödprocesser. Examensarbetet undersöker hur Leanverktyg kan bidra till att standardisera dokument och dokumenthanteringen och därigenom eliminera slöserier. Parallellt erhålls kvalitetssäkring och effektivisering, samt att kapacitet frigörs till värdehöjande aktiviteter. Studiens fokus och tyngdpunkt beträffande empirin bygger på aktionsforskning bedriven hos ett tradingföretag där den stödjande dokumenthanteringen till arbetet med utfallsprover studerats närmare.Bakgrunden till studien kan härledas till den globala konkurrensen som medfört att fler företag i större omfattning arbetat med att förbättra och effektivisera sin verksamhet. Fler företag har även valt att fokusera på sin kärnkompetens och har därför outsourcat delar av sin verksamhet.

This thesis aims to examine the conditions for entrepreneurship in Taiwan by the occurrence of cultural phenomenon guanxi. Based on the concept of familiness and guanxi, the family is central in this study of family business. Traditional descriptions of the Asian culture claim that guanxi is vital in the business context. Though, recent studies indicate that significance of guanxi seems to be changing. Therefore the purpose of this thesis is to create an understanding of the importance and relevance of guanxi in the context of Taiwanese family business.By travelling to Kaohsiung, Taiwan to interview six managers of Taiwanese family firms this study?s empirical material was gathered for further processing based on a qualitative approach.

AbstractTitle:Sustainability reporting- For whom and what? What is the opinion of analysts, consultants and fund managers on sustainability reporting?Level:Bachelor thesis in business administration, 15 university creditsAuthors:Nils Johansson and Hannes ThomasfolkSupervisor:Sarah PhilipsonDate:20140108Keywords:Sustainability reporting, value relevance, stakeholder theory, signaling theory.Purpose:The purpose of this paper is to study how different professional groups in the Swedish financial market in 2013 use sustainability reporting and explore how professional groups look at the future development of sustainability reporting.Limitations:The study focuses only on organizations that are members of SWESIF.Method:In this study we chose a multiple case study design, inspired by well grounded theory. The study's empirical data was obtained through ten semi-structured interviews with analysts, consultants and fund managers.Results and conclusions:It was revealed by the study that companies producing a sustainability report demonstrates transparency and are perceived as a company that is aware of risk, both economic risks as well as external risks. The study also shows that among the study's respondents, there is a strong belief that sustainable business in the long term is a good investment. The study also indicates that this is no concrete evidence of an association between the use of sustainability reporting and either increased or decreased profitability.

The aim of our study is to explore which norms that exists in the home care service, who is sending those norms, how are they maintained and how do they affect the interactions between staff and manager? We want to deep en our knowledge about home care service as an organization and increase our understanding for the psychosocial work environment and also the importance of leadership. We mean to read the organizational culture that exists which allows us to deal with the values that influence the behavior in the organization.The study is based on a qualitative method. The data consists of two focus group interviews, one with managers from the home care service - organization and one with staff from the same organization. T he interview with the managers consisted of five participants and the corresponding figure for the second interview with the staff was eight participants.The theoretical viewpoints have been communication - theory, organizational theory and Foucault´s th eory of power.Our result indicate that norms are something that unconsciously controls us and that we have learned that there are consequences when you step out of what is normative for the group.

The purpose with this inquiry was to investigate why women do not advance to higher positions of leadership in a bank. I have interviewed five female employees in the company. The theoretical starting points I have used in this study are such as organization theory and leadership. There are four conceptions that obstructs women to develop for higher positions of leadership. There are conceptions that men ought to have better social network with other men than women.

Samarbetet mellan IASB och FASB med att ta fram en enhetlig redovisningsstandard för företagsförvärv har pågått några år. Den andra fasen av samarbetet har resulterat i förslaget Business Combinations fas II. I denna undersökning tas fasta på de mest omdiskuterade förändringarna som förslaget medför jämfört med nuvarande IFRS 3 Business Combinations. Studien belyser förändringarnas påverkan på balans- och resultatrapporten och huruvida de finansiella rapporterna kommer att ge bättre information till intressenterna tack vare förslaget. En av de mest diskuterade förändringarna i förslaget är tillämpningen av full goodwillredovisning, som blir resultatet av att ett striktare enhetsperspektiv anläggs.

Turismen organiseras av offentlig sektor, privata aktörer eller dessa två i samverkan och kan avgränsas på olika sätt, geografiskt eller politiskt. Denna studie syftar till att undersöka och jämföra destinationer i Sverige på lokal och regional nivå för att se hur de är organiserade, med fokus på hur offentliga och privata aktörer arbetar för destinationens utveckling. Genom kvalitativa intervjuer med privata och offentliga aktörer på destinationerna Bohuslän och Stockholms skärgård har vi genomfört en komparativ studie. Studien diskuterar olika former av turismorganisationer och visar att Bohuslän och Stockholms skärgård liknar varandra i hur de är organiserade på lokal och regional nivå och att det på båda destinationerna finns samarbeten mellan offentliga och privata aktörer för att utveckla destinationerna..

According to science internal communication is a complicated, yet very important, issue of organizations today. An organization with a successful internal communication shows better results both economically and in terms of coworker satisfaction. The two main theories on communication are sensemaking and transmission. After a century with a transmissionary point of view, researchers stress the importance of sensemaking internal communication.Main question of this thesis is ?Which of the two main theories is the most useful when anchoring important messages in large organizations??According to the results of this study, conducted by interviews, neither one is more useful than the other.

Introduction:Corporate limits becoming more diffuse due to the globalization taking place and requirements for analytical strategies are becoming more fundamental parts of organizations. Business Intelligence systems are hot and not without reason, today's world is spinning faster and with a flow of information that is constantly increasing Business Intelligence promises to introduce a support that will render a better decision-making, something that everyone wants.Problem Discussion:The local government business has today demands from the Swedish School-inspection to analyze and create adequate target images to the school and students meet curriculum goals and guidelines. Therefore, local government activities has increasingly begun to implement Business Intelligence tools, with the purpose to facilitate strategic and operational decisions were the result plays an increasing role in today's society.Purpose:This study evaluates how the analysis tool Qlikview fulfills the function of monitoring and controlling the improved student achievement in public schools.Method:The evaluation has been conducted qualitative interviews with staffs that have leadership positions in each municipality and management and possess a deep knowledge of the analysis tool and its processes.Conclusion:The evaluation has shown positive effects on the monitoring and control of student performance through better control of school operations..