In Economic Geography, there has been a strong interest of how different forms of proximity impacts businesses. In addition, there is also a strong interest in business agglomeration, as a result businesses cluster together through physical proximity, networks and knowledge. In the development sector, there is a strong interest on how to best support the creations and growth of small enterprises.This essay emphasises on the business cluster formations in Katutura, a suburb to Windhoek the capital city of Namibia. It oversees the impacts of different types of cluster formations and their effects on the businesses. In addition, this essay will identify the main clusters in Katutura and state what makes them unique from each other and what is a common cluster feature.

China is a unique market that differs from the Western market in many ways. Companies are not required to publicize financial reports, and furthermore a heavy focus on business relationship building can make it hard for companies to have high quality streams of data to get insights about their markets. For a consultant company to successfully enter the Chinese market and helping producing and technological global firms improving their insights on the Chinese market, the consultant company needs to understand which the important factors are and how those factors can help in creating value for their potential customers. To help the analyzing and consultant firm called Kairos Future, a qualitative case study was conducted on 16 different global companies with focus on industrial production. The case study was mainly conducted through face to face interviews with decision makers who had a broad understanding of their respective companies.

As the environmental awarenesshas increasedin recent decadessohas the society?s demand forenvironmentalresponsible companies(Ammenberg, 2004).One way for companies to take responsibility and work with environmental issues is to implement anenvironmental management system(EMS). EMSserves as a tool for companies to systematically work with environmental issues and develop the company's environmental efforts. ISO 14001 is theEMSaccording to whichthat the majority of companies today choose to get certified(Brorson & Almgren, 2007). The introduction and operation of the ISO 14001 requires significant financial and human resources and it can therefore be questioned whether the environmental managementsystem is adaptable forall companysizes.The purpose of this studyis to examine whether EMScan provide environmental and economic benefits for companies of all sizes and ifthe conditions to get certifiedaccordingto ISO 14001 is the same for large and smallcompanies.A literature study was made to collect information on company'simplementation of ISO 14001.

The purpose of our study is to examine the bloggers? influence on the brand?s image to see whether and if so in what way the blogging trend affects the brands. We also want to analyze how companies use bloggers in their marketing. This is a subject that has attracted our interest and that experience has not been touched in a higher extent. Our purpose has led us to the following research questions;Which relationships occur in collaborations between businesses and bloggers from a marketing perspective? In what way in terms of reciprocity can relations be described? To what extent can the credibility through blogs be affected in terms of how brands are presented in the blog? In this study we have used a qualitative method with an abductive nature to create a deeper understanding of our chosen subject.

The furniture retail industry in Sweden has gone trough large changes during the last decades. Today the industry is tough and in the maturity stage where few new companies enter, especially if they do not have a unique offer. The furniture companies have become larger and fewer, the changes have lead to difficulties for smaller and medium sized companies to grow and be profitable.Our purpose is to analyse, evaluate and compare three smaller companies in Stockholm with the intention to find what kind of marketing strategies they are using to survive on the Swedish market. First we interviewed the three companies to see what they do to survive on the market, then we asked 100 persons to fill in a questionnaire to see if they had the same opinion as the companies described.With help from theories we prepared questions which laid the foundation to the empirical part of the essay.The result from this study shows that the three companies differ from each other when it comes to using relationship marketing and placing the customer in the centre. All of them are aware of the importance of doing so, but because of different limits and possibilities they can not fully adjust everything to the customer.

The first version of the Swedish Code of Corporate Governance was published year 2004, by the code group, Kollegiet, after a mission from the Swedish government. The Code consists a collection of rules and standards about corporate governance and internal control, and the first version was intended to include incorporated limited companies on Stockholm?s alpha stocks, and also listed companies with a stock market value over three thousand million Swedish kronor. Now a few years have passed, and in July 2008 a new, revised version of the Code was implemented, now simplified and shorted, with the intention to include all joint-stock companies in Sweden. The Code contains rules about for example ownership, management commitments, annual stockholders meetings, and the accountant. This study intends to, with a qualitative research approach and an inductive reasoning, through studies of empirics in the subject, review whether the accountant?s profession has been influenced by the Code.

Agency theory describes the conflict of interest between the principal (stockholders) and the agent (CEO). Aligning the incentives of executives with those of the owners is the most direct way to mitigate the agency problem. If there is no meaningful link between CEO compensation and company performance, it is doubtful that the large sums of assets in public corporations are being managed efficiently. In theory the solution is simple reward the CEO when shareholders wealth increases. The purpose of this paper is to investigate if there is a relationship between company performance and CEO compensation among Swedish companies, in materials and information technology industry.

The purpose of this thesis was to get a deeper understanding of why and how companies work with background music in event marketing and also how it can affect on companies image. In our research a case study was conducted and based on interviews with four respondents who all have experience working with background music throughout their careers. The study has shown that background music can be a very effective promotion tool in event marketing when it's used in the right way. Furthermore this study has shown that companies consciously use background music to enhance the experience and emotional affect the attendant through choice of music and the music can affect companies' image. Event marketing combined with background music is an effective tool for companies to generate positive associations to image and to reach their target group when right music is correctly conducted..

This essay is a study of the market strategies and situations in the telephone business. Our problem was to examine the telecom companies´ strategies to stay competitive and cope with the new VoIP technology. We chose to do a qualitative study and four telephone interviews were made with Swedish and Dutch companies. We investigated three different categories of companies in the market; industry leaders, cable companies and broadband companies to get a broad view of the market. The theory chapter is based on different strategies that companies have to or can apply to get ahead, stay or survive in a hypercompetition.

The purpose of this essay is to find an answer to whether the methodology used by the Naturskolan conduces to learning and also if the Naturskolan, as a method of its own, leads to an increased interest in natural science for the pupils participating in the classes at the Naturskolan.The method which has been used to reach the results of the study is a quantitative opinion poll. The results reached through the study has been compared to previous research in the subject. Deeper studies were made to examine however the interest of the pupils was influenced by their visit at the Naturskolan.The results of the study show an increase of interest in natural science after visiting the Naturskolan. It also shows that the teachers? interest in natural science and outdoor pedagogy has increased by the visit at the Naturskolan.Through this study we came to the conclusion that the Naturskolan is a good method to learning..

This thesis is about catastrophe tourism and the sustainability of the tourism in an environmental perspective. The purpose is to see if there is any interest for that kind of tourism and to see if the people who have an interest or curiosity of it thinks about the environment when they are traveling. A quantitative survey was made on the internet and people on Facebook, Resedagboken.se and Reseforum.se had the chance to answer it. There is an interest of catastrophe tourism and a few have been to catastrophe sites or would like to visit. The conclusion of the thesis is that there is a possibility of a sustainable catastrophe tourism because most of those who answered that they had or wanted to visit a catastrophe site also thought about the environment and cleaning up after themselves..

In the Western world the interest in science in schools is steadily declining. Focusing on interest is important to encourage students to lifelong learning which is a written purpose of the Swedish curriculum. This literature study examines if biology education outside in nature could be a part of the solution for this problem and the question of issue is how can education outdoor enhance students? interest for biology and what other aspects does this effect simultaneously? The method of block search was selected for addressing this question, utilizing the ERIC and ERC databases. The results show that situational interest increased with outside education due to aspects such as: novelty, hands-on, knowledge acquisition and social interaction.

Background: It is today common for companies to provide some sort of incentive for CEO's and senior management positions to motivate, retain and benefit employees within a company. This is in order to drive the goals of the CEO and management in the direction that is desired by the owner. Currently, the Swedish centre-right government has forbidden the use of such variable pay within state-owned companies. There are two different attitudes to variable pay, one that is in favour and one that rejects it. However most people agree on the fact that a well-functioning incentive scheme can be of great strategic importance for a company.Approach: has variable pay to CEO's had any effect on the company's profitability.Aim: the aim of the study is to compare companies who use variable pay to CEO's with companies that do not in relation to their profitability in terms of profit margins, yearly performance, returns on total capital and returns on equity.Method: the study uses a quantitative approach.

In recent decades, project based work form has taken a dominant role of work for many companies. Developments in the field have progressed rapidly and research has contributed to more efficient working practices. This study describes the elements that a project manager should keep in mind when he leads a project without actually being physically present, complex factors occurred and the basic approach to encounter them. The aim of this report is to examine factors that arise in the context of coordination at a distance and how companies, in their daily work, surpass these obstacles. The study does not include cultural differences, time zone differences and language differences, all very common in project management at distance.

Background: Inter-organisational ways of working have become more and more common during the last decades. In order to attain efficiency and productivity, such inter-organisational relationships need to be governed and controlled. However, studies have shown that inadequate control is one of the main reasons for why inter-organisational relationships fail. One of the means that can be used for governing and controlling a business is management control. The use of management control in inter-organisational contexts is a quite unexplored area of research at the present time, which might seem somewhat surprising considering the fact that inadequate control is a common explanation for why inter-organisational relationships fail.