This study addresses the issue of mergers between consulting firms. Previous research has shown that there are specific factors that determine the outcome of a merger and that success is more likely if companies are more similar. The purpose of the study is therefore to define relevant factors and understand when resemblance matter and under what conditions disparity may cause problems. Furthermore, the aim of the study is to find a pattern of which factors are more important in a successful merger. The problem of the study is addressed through a qualitative research approach and is conducted on six different mergers.

Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to describe the social media usage of five European official national tourism organizations (NTO). The essay proceeds to discuss and evaluate the findings, whilst reflecting on the advantages of social media usage from the point of view of an official national tourism organization.Method: The authors used three different methods of research: one structured observation to study the national tourism organizations? everyday work in social media, one field stimulation to study if and how different NTO respond if a prospective visitor makes them a direct question via social media and finally an email interview to gain insight into NTO?s underlying strategies and policies about social media usage.Theoretical framework: The theories that have been used in this paper include the Uses and gratifications model, theories of one-way and multi-way communication, theories of social media and relationship marketing.Conclusion: By making use of social media the company releases some of its control to the customers as the latter can express their opinions freely in this type of media. One of the advantages of social media is that the platform favors dialogue and feedback. Social media can be used for traditional one-way communication, but works best as a supplement to the regular marketing activities, allowing the activities on social media platforms to focus on branding and building long-term customer relationships.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how four Swedish retail companies describe their information management in connection to ethical trade. My purpose is also to examine how this information management relates to organizational learning. My questions at issue are ? ?Which activities related to information management in connection to ethical trade is described by the companies?? and ?How can these activities and statements be related to organizational learning?? My method of investigation is to perform qualitative interviews with representatives from the retail companies and relate the results to theories on information management and organizational learning, mainly theories of double-loop- and single-loop learning. The information management literature address issues such as information needs, information sources and information seeking.

Along with the increasing trend of online advertising comes an increasing avoidance behaviour from the observers. The marketing communication now requires a valuable content, which leads to the creation of new online advertising forms; including content marketing, advertorials, online ads and the latest rising star - Native Advertising. The last-mentioned also constitutes the basis and object of study for this paper. The purpose of this study is to shed light into this relatively unexplored topic and concretize the true effects. There are many examples of how Native Advertising is framed and implemented, but little hard facts and real figures.

Purpose:Only 60 percent of the newly started companies survive their three first years. The purpose of this report is to obtain a deeper understanding regarding how newly started companies work with their positioning and if there are some kind of a relationship between positioning and the survival rate of newly started companies.Research questions:Do newly started companies know what position is? Do they incorporate positioning in their day to day marketing?Approach:We have used a hypothetical-deductive way of reasoning and a qualitative study to gather the information needed. We have through interviews asked our questions to six newly started companies in three different cities.Findings:In our essay, we reached the conclusion that newly started companies do not spend sufficient time or energy on positioning their products. The companies interviewed only market their product as a good product.

In recent years e-commerce has experienced a big increase in usage. Internet however, cannot offer the same level of personal contact as traditional shops can.E-commerce is characterized by impersonal and standardized web shops that do not stimulate any emotional connection between the customer and the company. Without this personal contact with the customer the possibilities for the company to stimulate loyalty decreases. Loyalty however, is as important in e-commerce as it is in traditional commerce. The authors of this paper chose the following problem for the study:What marketing strategies are fortunate for e-commerce companies to use to create loyal customers?To research this subject the authors saw it fit to combine qualitative and quantitative research methods.

The purpose of this essay has been to study the different discourses that are expressed in social welfare secretaries? assertions when they assess cases with elements of honour-related violence, intimidation and oppression. To do so I have used a discourse analysis theory and technique, based on three qualitative interviews with social welfare secretaries. The interviews were focused on vignettes, which were all fictitious cases with various elements of honour-related violence. One of the interviews was a focus groupinterview with four participants, while the other two interviews were individual.

Title: First line management, administration and New Public Management Level: Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration, 15hp.Author: Patrik Jansson & Victor HolmlundSupervisor: Pär Vilhelmson, Kristina Mickelsson & Elena AhmadiDate: 2015 - May Aim: The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of how first line management in public organizations is effected by New Public Management related reforms and how they handle related administrative tasks.  Method: The study is based on a deductive and qualitative methodology. We conducted 10 semi-structured interviews with first line managers in Swedish public healthcare organizations. A result is reached by a thematically constructed analysis were citations are presented and analyzed. Result & Conclusions: The study shows through the model that has been used that first line managers are highly affected by administrative tasks that can be linked to New Public Management. The participant managers see these related tasks as important for the organizations and natural in their profession. Contribution of the thesis: The study contributes with an increased understanding of the managing of first line managers and how it is affected by New Public Management related administration through a perspective that is lacking in previous research. The new perspective gives a nuanced view of the manager?s role as administrators and gives rise to suggestions of future research. Key words:  New Public Management, Administration, First Line Managers, Healthcare..

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to better understanding of the importance of social support for physically active individuals' experiences of training residence following an injury.The physical activity's impact on public health is well known. Increased physical activity also increases the risk of suffering an injury related to physical activity. The importance of social support for those individuals who suffer an injury related to physical activity is where increased knowledge is needed.Four interviews to were conducted using a thematic interview guide with the following themes: The experience of the training break, two sides of social support, several ways of dealing with the experience, the design of the support, Varied support providers relationship changes. The most important property of the individual who gave support was an experience similar to that of the injured individuals underwent. That, combined with the close relationship with the individual who gave support was seen as crucial to the experience of the social support role for the injured individual.The Conclusion was that social support is important for the experience of a break from exercise due to an injury related to physical activity..

This is a qualitative study about Art transformation and commodification in the digital age. The study applies a rhetoric analysis with the aim to understand how art sellers, gallery owners and entrepreneurs take part in this transformation process through their websites? presentation texts ?about us?. The analysis is related to communication theories but it is also inspired by other theories such as Gramsci?s hegemony theory and Bourdieu?s cultural critical theory.

Due to the harsh competition among Swedish food retailers, in-store marketing is a crucial component in the stores marketing strategy. In an attempt to differentiate among its competitors, COOP Sweden has begun to use concave store shelves. Although the food retailing industry is one of the most studied, no research has been conducted on the concave store shelves. The objective of this study is to describe how these shelves effect the customer perception of the assortment, their experience of the store environment and their buying behavior. An S-O-R framework is used as an overall basis in order to outline the effects investigated in this paper.

The evolution of the media landscape and the introduction of social media have increased thenumber of communication channels tremendously during the last decade. These new channels have also made an impact on the information control, which has shifted focus from organisations to consumers. In order to communicate one coherent image in the numerous existing channels, organisations need to create strategies that take this into account and makes sure the same messages are communicated through all channels. One way to do this is to use integrated marketing communication (IMC). Since the social media is a relatively new phenomenon, there is no clear way of how to include social media into an IMC strategy.

During the last decades, brand equity has been a priority topic for both practitioners and academics. In accordance with the structural changes in the economic settings caused by the so-called "new economy", corporations being confronted with a shift on perceived business value structure from tangible assets to intangibles. On the other hand firms increasingly are adopting more responsible behaviour towards their societies. In this context, one critical question is to understand how corporate conduct may affect brand equity. The purpose of this study was to find how brand equity (BE) measurement methods embrace corporate responsibility (CR), based on a literature review.

This essay is based on a mission from Anna Schibli, Director of Tourism at Solliden Palace. The thesis aims to investigate the image that Solliden Palace has, and the picture that local and regional tourist offices have of the Sollidens Castle brand and what position Solliden include in these markets. A total of six in-depth interviews with tourist offices, at local and regional level, has been carried out and an initial in-depth interview with Anna Schibli of Solliden Palace. The responses of the respondents have since been interpreted and processed based on an inductive approach, in order to interpret the image that Solliden Palace has. Scientific papers have been studied and analyzed in order to generate an explanation and understanding of the research area.

The purpose with this project has been to investigate how a company`s marketing and product development can adapt to a specific target group..