Lean production is the name given to Toyota?s Production System (TPS) by the west. The continuous improvements of their operations through Lean has made Toyota into the largest car manufacturer in the world. This, in turn, has led to several studies regarding both Toyota and their system as to find ways to apply Lean in other organizations. Even so, over 90 percent of all Companies fail to implement Lean.

This paper analyzes the auditor choices for a sample of 300 predominantly small Swedish firms, all located in Umeå. Our hypothesis was based on the complexity of a firm, the need of external financing, leverage, and the need of extra consultance from the auditfirm. Our definition of auditor quality is based on prior studies, and is frequently used by authors in this area. The assumption is based on that the auditor quality increases with the size of the auditfirm and the degree of the auditor. The auditor quality is therefor depending on the choice between an auditor from the group ?Big 5? or not, and the choice of an auditor with an higher degree.

Introduction: There was a reduction in Sweden of the share capital in 2010, in which the share capital was reduced from 100 000 SEK to 50 000 SEK. The reason behind the reduction of the share capital was to enable more people to start limited liability Companies in Sweden. Meanwhile in Europe, they questioned the function of the share capital, and as a result of this discussion a number of European countries have abolished the requirement for the share capital in limited liability Companies.Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate what meaning the share capital has to entrepreneurs based on their own businesses, and to see what function the share capital have for the creditors.Problem: What are the meaning of the share capital for today´s entrepreneurs and its creditors?Methodology: The study is based on a qualitative research method in which a cross-sectional study was done with four small limited liability Companies and four creditors.Conclusions: The share capital functions and meaning has lost its intended meaning as creditor protection and the help to facilitate the raising of capital. The share capitals intention has to some extent been eroded.

Smartphones have become more common as business tools within the workplace. With its many features and great flexibility, the smartphone has stormed the business world and become an alternative or complement to the laptop. As these mobile units' popularity has increased, the interest of businesses to invest in this new technology has increased, but has security kept up with the technology developments?This study aims to conduct a study to see if the Companies in the IT industry have the same safety awareness for smart phones to laptops.The study shows that Companies have greater safety awareness and higher safety requirements for laptops than smartphones. Meanwhile, both end-users and management are well aware of the risks and threats that the smartphone is facing..

This paper was written at the Baltic Business School in Kalmar. The purpose was to analyze and determine the importance of packaged holidays within the tourism and travel sector and how value can be created for the customer. This have been done with a focus on the chosen parts; customer needs and how packaging can create value, how Companies can work to give the customer increased value through packaging, last but not least how Companies segment the market and if there are specific segments that prefer packaging. We have applied the qualitative method through conducting four face-to-face interviews and one phoneinterview. The purpose of this paper is not to generalize, but to show patterns in the chosen subject.

The work aims to clarify what nautical officers onboard in today's merchant can do to help reduce bunker consumption during the voyage? The question we have asked ourselves during the autumn term in 2008 much was said about the premium bunker prices, and how the future could affect our daily lives as nautical officer. We felt here that the school had relatively little knowledge of the subject and therefore felt that it would be interesting to identify how it really looks like onboard the ships today. To collect information we contacted 7 Swedish Companies that operate with different types of vessels, in order to get a broad picture of the whole industry. For shipping Companies we asked questions about how actively they were working on the issue and what methods they used.

Denna studie undersöker bemanningsanställdas integration inom lagerverksamhet. Tyngdpunkten ligger på att öka kunskapen kring vilka faktorer som påverkar hur bemanningsanställda integreras i tjänsteköpande företag samt fördjupa förståelsen för vilka möjligheter dessa företag har att öka integrationen på ett kostnadseffektivt sätt. Studien närmar sig problemområdet genom att undersöka hur bemanningsanställda inom lagersektorn upplever de faktorer som påverkat integrationen samt deras åsikter om dessa faktorer. Studiens teoretiska referensram baseras på teorier kring organisering, HRM samt sociala och legala begränsningar. Det empiriska materialet baseras på kvalitativa intervjuer.

Title: Register now and stay in touch ? a study about the relationship between CRM-system and business performance.Purpose: The purpose with the study is to identify if there is a positive relationship between CRM-system and business performance in Swedish multinational Companies in the industrial sector.Audience: This essay is addressed to the Swedish multinational Companies in the industrial sector.Methodology/ Approach / Design: We have applied a qualitative method, with a deductive approach. Through an in-depth interview with the case company Benzlers AB, which provided the empirical basis, supplemented with the CSI-values.Conclusion: The study has presented evidence, that there is a positive relationship between CRM-system and business performance which has been confirmed by the positive increase in the CSI-value after the implementation of the CRM-system.Originality/ Value/ Contribution to knowledge The study contributes with its own results that fill in the knowledge gap about the subject in Sweden. The study finds that the CRM-system effectives the interaction with the customer and thereby business performance increase, with the CSI-value as unit. This therefore increases the value and importance of investigation of Swedish multinational Companies, whose purpose is to satisfy the customer and at the same time, increase the business performance.Future research: For future research we suggest publishers to base the empirical basis through additional in-depth interviews with added case Companies. In order to confirm the relationship between its validity in the industry, and also indentify what happens between inputs and outputs, which leads to increased business performance.Keywords: Customer Relation Management (CRM), CRM-system, customer satisfaction, business performance, Customer-Satisfied-Index.Thesis type: Business economy 61-91, Bachelor essay, Marketing (15 credits), spring 2010th..

Background: Our daily lives and personal interactions are increasingly featuring social media and social networks in particular. Topics regarding social media, its impact on society at large ? both on corporate as well as individual behavior ? has been the focus of many research papers. Personal use of social networks are regularly being mapped out by researchers aiming at clarifying concepts such as engagement, trust and interactivity, and mapped by Companies seeking to maximize return on investment concerning their marketing efforts. The aim of our study is (i) to map how Companies and/or organizations operating on the Swedish market use their company?s pages on the social media as a way of communicating with their followers and audience, as well as (ii) identifying whether ?Real-Time Marketing?, in our own definition, is used or not.Methods: The research methods used included both quantitative and qualitative content analysis.

The use of bio energy in Sweden has increased during the last few years and with every passing year, bio energy produces 3-4 TWh´s more energy than the previous year. The increase in the use of bio energy makes it an interesting prospect for forest Companies to produce bio energy from the forest. Sveaskog has a fairly extensive bio energy programme, mainly in southern and middle Sweden. Their activity regarding bio energy in northern Sweden has been very restrictive or even non-existent. Because of this, during the winter of 2003-2004, Sveaskog initiated a number of degree projects with the purpose of looking at the use of bio energy in northern Sweden.

Women and men's equal, or unequal treatment has long been a topic of conversation and the workplace is a place where the topic has been and continues to be in question. This study examines the jargon and culture within student-run Companies in Gothenburg from a gender equality perspective, focusing on female and male perceptions. The study poses the research question: What does the culture and jargon look like in student-run Companies in Gothenburg from a gender equality perspective? The choice of method for the study has been qualitative semi-structured interviews, which has been performed on current and former employees from several student-run Companies in Gothenburg. The results show, on average, that the jargon and culture are perceived as relatively equal, but that there can be considerable variation across different areas.

Introduction:By insight in the company and by monitoring the management, the board has an important function in creating trust in governance of the company. Furthermore, the board reduces the asymmetry of information between the owners and the management, which also is the function of the auditor, by auditing how the board governs the company and the accounting. In case the board does not effectively monitor the management, the auditor has to extend its monitoring, which increases the owners agency costs through the audit fee. The board composition can affect how effectively the board practices the monitoringProblem: How is the audit fee affected by the board composition?Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explain how the board composition affects the audit fee.Method: The study uses a quantitative method, where the data was collected from the annual reports of 112 limited Companies listed on the NASDAQ OMX Large and Mid Cap lists on January 2, 2012.

Organizations over the world increasingly start to realize the possibilities of the use of a social intranet, also known as Enterprise 2.0. The social intranets can be used to collaborate and communicate with colleagues in the workplace. Both Cook (2008) and Coope (Barnett, 2011) say that Enterprise 2.0 is about to fundamentally change the way organizations communicate. But do Companies know how these tools can be used?The study emanates from three questions:How can social intranets be used in business?How can internal communication and collaboration get easier through the use of a social intranet?What are the possible risks with the use of social intranets?In this study we have in a qualitative manner been interviewing two Companies that currently use social intranets in their daily activities ? Securitas and Skåneme-jerier.

Purpose: The purpose of the investigation is to give an insight to hot the EU legal environment in the field of vertical relationships influences the competitiveness of the 2nd tier of the automobile industry. Conclusion:It follows that European legislation has succeedded in raising the competitiveness by breaking down the powers of the predominantly more powerful Companies that the 2nd tier players do business with and by giving Companies sufficient leeway to act. The comment must be made here that serious problems due to a power misbalance might still exist yet are not uncovered. In the course of my research I have found a lack of issues in my subject field. These problems however would have a more structural and economical cause, dealing with these problems would fall outside the boundaries of the competence of European competition legislation.

Communication can be heard in many different ways and it is important for all businesses, especially in B2B. The construction and maintenance of a brand plays just like the communication a very important part. These parts also have a lot to common and affect each other in a large extent. One problem that may occur in many Companies is the failure to grow and gain a larger share of the market even if they in various ways are trying. Expander is one of those Companies and in this research report we studied communication and brand building, focusing on brand management, relationships and integrated marketing. Here we drew the conclusion that all these areas are important for a company, especially in the Business-to-Business marketing in different ways.