The purpose of the essay has been to clarify why and how small companies, whose major resource is knowledge, establish strategic alliances and which opportunities it brings. We have increased our understanding for the concept of strategic alliances through empirical search and through well-known scientist work. The method, which has been used in the essay, is principally qualitative interviews and gathering secondary data from articles from well-known authors. Our study has given that we have found that entering strategic alliances can make growth and by that way create competitive advantages for the company in question. We also found that there are risks with strategic alliances and the company can protect themselves by legal actions.

The profit a company makes is dependant of its employees which means that their competence is important for the company to perform well. The middle manager has a central position in the organization and is expected to take on different roles. This probably puts a lot of demands on the middle managers and their competence. We want to contribute with a comprehension of how learning, competence and needs for competence can look at a middle management level. Furthermore we also want to find out what kind of strategy for competence development the middle managers want the company to use so their competence development can be facilitated.

Internet has opened a whole new world when it comes to marketing. Because of this companies can reach out to a broader consumer audience. The idea to write this essay came to mind, when we were asked to design the website of a new registered company named Artoteket. The company?s purpose is to hire out and market art on the Internet to bigger companies such as banks, law firms and industrial company?s etc.

Study objects: JM, Folkhem and ABB.Purpose: The purpose with this study are to examine how the supplier relations are in the construction branch and compare that result with how the supplier relations are for ABB a production company.Theoretical: The theoretical chapter illustrates important and relevant parts of supplier relations, purchasing and supplier strategies to give good overview. The theoretical review will combine information from different fields to consent with the research problem.Method: A case study has been made on three different companies, one of the companies was active in the production industry the other two were active in the construction industry. Data was mainly collected through semi structured interviews on each of the three companies.Conclusions: The size of the company decided which point of view the company had on purchasing, traditional or modern view. All three companies had a centralized purchasing organization but the construction firms were more decentralized than the production company. The reason was that the construction firms were dependent with more flexibility when every construction project is unique..

Background: The valuation of growing crops is problematic partly due to weather conditions. 2011 showed that of all cultivated crops 42% were autumn sown which makes up a significant proportion of the total arable land in Sweden. This presented an opportunity to investigate more closely the methods and options used in the inventory valuation of biological assets. Problem: What options are there in the valuation of own-produced inventory specifically in the form of growing crops? Objective: This study's aim is to create an increased understanding of an agricultural company's options for inventory valuation of biological assets. In the survey of the options this study has found two main categories: rule-and principle-based accounting. Methods: A qualitative study with an abductive approach.

This essay is about how the company management should prepare to avoid BOHICA syndrome to develop from a reorganisation. BOHICA syndrome is a cynical attitude, acquired by recurrent disappointments from, for example reorganisations. If the company management is attentive and identifies and addresses such disappointments, BOHICA syndrome can prohibit the possibilities in future to work efficiently and profitably in the company. BOHICA syndrome are thus by extension a threat to the company?s survival.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the functions of the public library for parents of infants and how they see the ideal library. The research questions are: How do parents of infants use the library and what are their experience of it? What opinions and wishes do parents of infants have regarding the library? How can library services be developed to better match the needs of the parents of infants? The theoretical approach is based on Marianne Andersson and Dorte Skot-Hansen?s model of the public library?s functions and the model of classification by Ellen-Merete Duvold and Gunnar Sæbø. To answer my research questions I have carried out three focus-group interviews with parents of infants. The study revealed that the public library functions as a cultural centre, a social centre, a knowledge centre and, to a certain extent, an information centre for the parents.

The purpose of this report is to develop a visual identity and a brand book for the company Yakobs Ram & Reklam (Yakobs Frame and Advertising). To answer the question of how a brand book should be designed for a company that manage several businesses within one brand a qualitative approach including a case study has been conducted.This qualitative method included research on brand building, logotypes, colour, design and typography and interviews with the company Yakobs Ram & Reklam and three representatives from the advertising agencies Anfang and Jerhammar & Co.In order to develop a brand manual for a company with several businesses, the study revealed that there should be a main logo where the secondary logos, consisting of the various components of the company, are linked by colour coding. In addition, the study has shown that the key elements to include in a brand book are the use of the logo, colour, typography, visual style and profile products including brochures and business cards. These findings form the basis of the brand manual and are the result of this work. As the amount of previously known facts regarding the construction of a brand book are scarce, the choice of method has been crucial and the data generated can be generalized and applied to new similar cases.

Free2Move AB is developing products for the market within wireless communicationand identification, among those active RFID-tags. The company had an idea aboutproviding one of their active RFID tags with a GPS receiver and transmit positions viaan existing RFID protocol. Desire from the company was also the possibility to logpositions and measure temperature. The finished prototype should also be able to beactivated by movement. The company had proposal about components that were to beused in the project.

The company Betsson opened its first physical gambling shop in Sweden in May 2008, thereby defying the Swedish government?s legal gambling monopoly. The legal case that has resulted due to the violation of the Swedish gambling law has attracted immense attention from mass media, thus generating vast amounts of publicity for the company. This paper aims to evaluate and describe the company?s decision to open the store, as well as to examine the relationship between market driving practices and market driven practices.

The work presented in this report is written at IEIs department on Linköping Institute of Technology. The report aims to increase the assembly efficiency at Wigells AB. The report shall be used as a guide for the implementation of changes at other workstations in the company. Together with Träcentrum in Nässjö, Wigells AB has identified the needs of this study and contacted IEI at Linköping Institute of Technology.In order to implement an efficient assembly line at the company, studies on lean production have been made. This theory has been studied and together with our own views and findings at the company we have analyzed the assembly area.Wigells is a small company that manufactures wood furniture.

The purpose of the thesis is to map the meaning of ?international competence? in Swedish company boards of directors. The study is divided in a qualitative part and a quantitative part. The qualitative study consists of a discourse analysis where variation in interpretative repertoires are identified to enhance the understanding of the nature of reasoning related to the meaning and importance of the issue at stake. The discourse analysis is conducted on an empirical material from 27 interviews with decision makers in recruitment processes to Swedish company boards of directors.

Aim: The aim of this study was to analyse how corporations can learn from past issues and corporate crises and to see how they use this knowledge in the management of subsequent issues and corporate crises. Furthermore, the influence of media on the possible intensification of the issue or corporate crisis, but also its impact on the company?s usage of knowledge management, was to be analysed.Method: The study was carried out through a case study method, in the hope of being able to analyze how a company makes use of knowledge management in the communication that occurs during issues and corporate crises. A semi-structured interview was conducted, with the head of public relations of the chosen company as a respondent. The purpose of the interview was to analyze the underlying factors behind a specific way of communicating.

This report was made for the company HordaGruppen AB to investigate how information security was handled. This report fits in the Master program of Internet Technology at School of Engineering in Jönköping University in Sweden.The question at issue was how you protect your information against different threats. One question was how to make an information security policy and which guidelines you can follow in the Swedish Standard, SS-ISO/IEC 17799:2000.Another question was to investigate the information sources at the company and which threats there are against it.The work begins with a presentation about information security for the chief of information and the chief of quality in the company. The next thing was to do a survey of as thing are at present with a tool from Länsteknikcentrum called ?Infosäkpulsen?.

As collaboration between companies move beyond the single transaction into more long-term relationships the consequences of a company's control system become more complex. The aim of this paper is to provide an understanding of how intra- and inter-organizational control and work practices interact through examining how a company's intra-organizational control influences its customer relationships. The empirical research is performed through a qualitative case study where interviews have been conducted with management and sales staff within the case company as well as with one of the customers. The empirical findings have been analyzed using frameworks and theories regarding management control and customer relationships. The study reveals that the intra-organizational control of the case company affects its relationships with customers in a number of ways.