This report describes the bachelor degree project called ?A case study in strategic product design in collaboration with Elfa? carried out by Mathieu Gustafsson and Pär Rickberg,students at Carl Malmsten Furniture Studies.We had the opportunity to do our degree project in collaboration with ELFA after a previous school project where we made suggestions for new products. Initially the brief was to develop new products for the company which was based on previous proposals.Reasoning led us in to design strategies and how to use such a strategy to develop newproducts for ELFA. During our first superficial analysis of ELFA and its current products, we found that we wanted to recast the framework of identity and context in which the product would be created. According to the researches made by SVID (The Swedish Industrial Design Foundation),companies that continually are working with design strategies strengthens the brand, its competitiveness and become more innovative.

AbstractDate              2009-06-07Level             Master thesis in Information Technology and Business Administration, 15 hp, EIK024Authors        Anna Karlsson, akn05009@student.mdh.se                      Lena-Maria Lindström, llm05002@student.mdh.seTutor            Peter EkmanTitle              IT Governance with an IT investment focusKeywords     IT Governance, IT investments, IT decisions Problem       To control and manage IT and IT functions in the organization has been a big challenge for many businesses for a long time. In order to make the management of IT more efficient IT Governance is needed. If the organization is going to be successful IT Governance is necessary and this type of governance enables a more effective use of IT that supports the business and its operations. The problem questions for this thesis are: How is the company?s IT Governance built up? How are decisions regarding the company?s IT investments taken? How is the connection between the company?s IT investments and the company?s IT Governance?Purpose        The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze how a company?s IT Governance is built up and how the company uses IT Governance to reach the desired results from the IT investments.Method        The thesis is a qualitative study.

Aim of the thesis: The aim of this thesis is to describe and gain a deeper understanding of how companies use communication as a tool to overcome the gap between the company and the consumer. The aim is also to clarify some of the factors contributing to this gap.Method:  This thesis has been made from a qualitative approach with quantitative influences. The qualitative primary data collection was gathered through six in-depth interviews with companies in Gothenburg either selling organic and fair-trade produced clothes or marketing towards sustainable consumption. The quantitative part consists of a consumer questionnaire given to 100 women in the inner city of Gothenburg.  Frame of references: Related researches within the field of the subject are presented in the beginning of this chapter. Further theories presented are the consumer?s awareness and the consumer´s responsiveness to CSR.

In studies of serum, in the early 1930s, from patients with pneumonia, a factor was found. It could agglutinate certain pneumococcal species. This factor, which later became known as C-reactive protein (CRP), increased sharply during the early and middle stages of the disease. CRP was identified as an acute phase protein and found especially in bacterial infections. CRP is synthesized in the liver by stimulation of interleukin 6 (IL-6), which is produced by the monocytes, and consists of five non-covalently bound subunits.The aim of this study was to compare two different analytical instruments (Vitros 5.1 FS Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics and QuikRead CRP Orion Diagnostica) for CRP analysis.

Every year the Swedish government invests capital in different projects. In recent years the Swedish government has chosen to invest in design. The reason for this is that the government wants industry to use design as a competitive source. Two organizations, Svensk Form and Stiftelsen Svensk Indistridesign, have been assigned to improve industry and society?s under¬standing of design.

This Projects goal was to develop a manual, which was to be used as help for a fishing company in the making of an SMS (Safety Management System). The manual was going to follow the guidelines presented by the IMO (International Maritime Organisation) and the Swedish Transport Agency. The projects client was a smaller fishing company that was about to build a fishing vessel.The work has been carried out as a project, it was finished within the schedule and the client was most satisfied with the result. The client has used the manual in the making of the Safety Booklet (SMS) and they are now certified according to the rules of the Swedish Transport Agency..

With this essay we want to describe the transformation process that the real estate owner has to go through to sell the current rented flats to tenant. We also want to provide an understanding how the valuation is performed in the transformation process and highlight the issues that affects the price in the valuations. In the essay we would like to see if the valuation and the transformation process differ in a public real estate company compared to a private real estate company. Based on this we have asked us the following question to answer: -Is there any differences in how real estate?s are valued in the transformation process between public real estate companies and private real estate companies? We have used a qualitative approach to keep our main question.

Today, companies can take advantage of mass intelligence by making use out ofcrowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing is a business model that uses the power of the collective bythe offer of a problem by means of competitions in various social media. The benefit ofcrowdsourcing is that the company gets more creative and creative solutions to the sameproblem, which would not have been possible if the company solved the problem internally.The larger mass gains an insight into the company, which in return also releases power tothe company's development. The study aims to examine the way in which citizens can beattracted to participate in the development of public transport using crowdsourcing. The studyis based on both qualitative and quantitative approach since the study has a qualitative pilotstudy.

The purpose of this study is to create an understanding for marketing directors? viewabout how event marketing effect the company?s brand equity in four separatebusinesses. Our question formulation the study aims to answer is:How does event marketing effect the brand equity in international companies?We have chosen to perform a qualitative study with a semi structured research interviewto find out how event marketing as a marketing method, can be applied from theperspective of a marketing director in relation to our theoretical reference frame.To create structure and increase the understanding of our thesis, we will describe thebasics in brand and sponsorship theory, which will fall in to the marketing method ofevent marketing. Further we will describe the brand equity model that we will latermodify for our purpose.

Svenska Lantchips is a Swedish SME sized snack manufacturer. Being a small, medium sized, family-owned business with branches throughout the world, they make an interesting company for a case study. The case study I have conducted focuses on the internationalisation process of this family owned company ? how they, despite their size, find ways to keep up an unique business structure, designed for internationalisation.The aim of this essay is to compare Svenska Lantchips? internationalisation process with traditional internationalisation theories and see if these are compatible with this company. The theories used are The Uppsala Model, The Network Model, and The Born Global Theory, with The Born Global Theory representing the younger generation of models.After undertaking an in-depth interview with Michael Hansen, business developer at Svenska Lantchips, I collated a substantial amount of material, which I have used as the basis of this essay.

The companies of today compete about the consumers? attention. In a society where the speed is increasing and the trends are constantly changing the marketing of today will soon be obsolete. This is something that is clearer in the fashion business where the consumers always are looking for news at lower costs. It?s no longer an economical question to be able to wear the latest fashion trends, the availability of cheap fashion clothes is constantly increasing.

This paper aims to determine what is decisive for localisation of production units when a company engages in offshoring. By performing a case study on Electrolux and comparing the results with theoretical literature we discuss the implications for manufacturing companies in general. To facilitate a structured analysis we have developed a model dividing the localisation decision into five perspectives and four geographical levels. We have found that the determinants of localisation vary depending on the geographical level of the decision process. Since all geographical levels are interconnected, the analysis needed for a decision on all levels simultaneously is very comprehensive.

The purpose of the essay is to examine how issues concerning gender equality are perceived and to show what areas are defined as problematic in different discourses. It also raises the question of who is defined as responsible for dealing with issues concerning gender equality in these different contexts. Theories used are the gender system and intersectionality. The study builds on a mapping of a company that is active nationally and internationally, with emphasis on the problems that can arise when these two social contexts meet, with a special focus on cathegories such as gender and ?Swedishness?.

Abstract The development towards an international accounting standard implies that Swedish groups of companies that are not quoted on the stock exchange can use a parent company perspective or an entity perspective while making their group accounting. The purpose of this study is to describe and explain the motives behind the groups of companies choice of perspective and to show how these motives agrees with the effect it has on the profit and loss account and on the balance sheet.The study includes four fictitious groups of companies based on real groups of companies. Every group of companies includes 1-3 subsidiary companies, where at least one is owned by the parent company with 51-70 %. Some assumptions were made before the consolidation.Relevant key numbers have been calculated according to both perspectives and then compared. A total of three semi structured interviews have been carried out two with representatives for the real groups of companies and one with a chartered accountant.

Today?s companies offer their products and services through multiple distribution channels in an increasing extent, in order to reach bigger markets and more customers. Multiple channels result in an increased risk for channel conflict.This essay is an exploratory and descriptive study with the purpose to explore some companies? channel conflicts on the basis of sales commission and price differences. A case study has been made at two different companies and the empirical material has been collected with qualitative interviews.We found more channel conflicts in the company that uses sales commissions than in the company that doesn?t.