The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and identify a selected number of key factors in successfully implementing open innovation. More precisely, it looks at how value is maximized using open innovation practices. The scientific approach taken is based largely on the network perspective, which puts relations to other companies in focus. An extended view of the resource based view (RBV), different from the traditional one by taking also external resources into account, is in addition central to understanding the use of external resources to create internal value. The two main research questions strive to look at how the company locates relevant partners and what the relations that are established with these partners should look like to get the most of open innovation.

There are two groups of haulage contractors in roundwood transport , those who are contracted direct by the transport buyer and those who are connected to a freight company which in its turn is contracted by the transport buyer. Today the roundwood haulage is dominated by contractors with one to two lorries. The effort of coordinating transportation for a transport buyer is dependent on how many communication contacts that must be managed (how many individual haulage contractors the transport buyer has to work with). A structural change in the sector that leads to a decrease in the number of haulage contractors but an increase in the capacity of each contractor, makes it possible for a transport buyer to coordinate transports with fewer communication contacts. The reason why a company reaches a certain size can be explained by the number of contracts it makes and manages.

AbstractThis is a thesis done in cooperation with the firm Somas and University of Karlstad. The project is an independent final examination part of the program in Innovation and DesignEngineering comprising 22.5 points, and performed by Mia Myrén Zreloff during spring term 2012. In parallel and collaboration, Fredrik Kjellin performs a similar job for the same company and with the same extent, but for the Program in Mechanical Engineering.The client and supervisor at the company have been Magnus Jansson and Anders Josefsson. At Karlstad University has technical supervisor been Hans Johansson, and in the design- and development process it was Monica Jakobsson. Examiner has been Fredrik Thuvander, professor in the Faculty of Technology and Science at Karlstad University.The mission has been to make a basis work for the company's own development and make a computational model to calculate, visualize and implement materials and other solutions in the manufacture of the company's ball valves.The project has undergone three major phases that included thorough study of the company, production, the problem and product.

AbstractDespite that e-business nowadays is established scepsis against it amongst consumers exists. We, as consumers, suppose that this skepticism is caused by bad communication from the e-business companies. This has lead to our suggestion that some con-sumers refrain from e-business because of bad communication or deficient trust.Our purpose with this paper was to investigate factors of communication between companies and consumers within e-business (B2C) from the consumers? point of view. We thereby have drawn conclusions regarding consumers? choice of e-business company.

The purpose of this paper is to present a possible understanding of why the company Tekola is segregated according to sex. In accordance to this purpose, an understanding of how the segregation affects the employees in relation to power, values and possibilities is discussed. The theoretical understanding is that the organization of men and women within Tekola is done in close connection to creation of the meaning of gender in Tekola. This, in turn, affects and is affected by the recruitment to and within the company. Through the study of statistics from a survey, five interviews with employees and former employees and Tekolas? equality plan, we are able to see the possible existence of a glass ceiling, and a culture of homosociality, which affects the possibilities of women to enter the company and also to gain full entrance to power-positions in a negative way.

Sustainability reports are drawn up for the company's stakeholders and declare the company?s corporate social responsibility. Consumers are one of the companies' most important stakeholders for food companies. This study is aimed to describe how consumers perceive sustainability reporting in the food industry and if the application level of the GRI framework has an impact on how consumers perceive sustainability reports. Consumer perception is described in the GRI principles and the basis is the ICA and Coop's sustainability reports, which are two of Sweden's largest food company.

This report brings up the question - ?Is BIM profitable when planning a single-family home??.The methodology for finding the answer to this question is firstly to state the definitions of BIMand the company that is projecting by using the BIM-model. The answer is then obtained byanalyses of the factors of profitability with respect to: time, opportunity of revision, problemvisualization, preference adjustments and energy. A BIM-model has been made simultaneously asthe writing has proceeded to get a perception of how a BIM-model really matters for the analysis.The analysis shows that the answer for the question depends on further factors. The factors thatare mostly discussed are the company?s intentions and the complexity of the house.

This report describes the development of a system for controlling documents. The report starts with a problem description which the company wants an intranet-based solution for. The report then continues to describe the development phase for the different parts of the system which results in a complete system. The company that wanted this system is called Orbit One and is located in Ronneby, Sweden. They have had a problem with old documents circulating in different versions and in different binders. Now thanks to their new system they can access their documents easy and on demand through their intranet..

Background: The growth of the venture capital industry has given birth to new relations between investors and entrepreneurial firms. Venture capital firms are by definition investors serving as an active partner which implies a deeper relation between investors and entrepreneurs than has been the case previously. This new situation leads to a number of questions. Do venture capitalists really act as active partners with a long term interest in the venture? Do they add any value besides capital? How important is their influence in the portfolio company's decision making process? Purpose: The purpose of this study is to give a deeper understanding of the relation between venture capital firms and IT companies in the start-up phase.

In this paper, a small business network with around 30 users is analyzed with respect to security, performance and usability. Based on this analysis, two suggestions on how to solve the problems listed are given. The first suggestion focus on keeping a low budget, while the other tries to deal with the problems more thoroughly. One advantage of the first suggestion is, in addition to not straining the company's budget more than nessecary, it does not involve too great changes in the way the network is used and administered. On the other hand, the smaller budget leads to certain compromises, and there is a risk that similar problems occur again if, for example, the company would grow.

It is important that companies knows how to handle a complaint when they receive one from a customer. This information could the company take care of and use when they develop new services. Furthermore a good complain handling leads to satisfied and loyal customers which increases the revenue for the company. We have examined how SAS handle their internal information process and if this process affects the information and in that case how. The study is performed with a qualitative method, based on deep interviews.

Introduction: Bokföringsnämnden started the K-project in 2004. The purpose was to collect rules and standards for different categories of companies in a complete set of regulations. Small businesses were given the option to choose between K3 which is the main regulatory and K2 which is a simplified regulatory framework. One specific difference between the regulations is that companies may not capitalize development costs if the company applies K2, this may causes problems for the companies that can give rise to such costs.Purpose: The purpose is to explain the problems that companies have identified in the choice of regulatory frameworks and the implications that may follow the specific rule in K2 on the company's activities and financial report.Frame of reference: K3 contains definitions and requirements that must be met so development costs can be capitalized in a company. Information presented in the financial statements should be relevant to the reader.

 This study was conducted in autumn 2008 on the Company AB, which is currently in a growth phase. The company manufactures hydraulic systems for the heavy vehicle industry and has annual sales of approximately 250 MSEK with 165 employees.The rapid growth and unchanged planning is the starting point for this report. It all began in 2005 when the company received an unusually large order. During this period, the first priority was to satisfy customers and all other focus was disregarded. This has primarily resulted in a messy production and long throughput times.

These days most companies conduct some form of work for the external environment, quality and safety. In connection with this work, some companies have chosen to get management systems certified by any applicable standard for one or more of the fields while other companies have chosen other ways that are not associated with certification.In light of the fact that the individual systems are becoming unmanageable an increasing number of these companies are faced with the decision whether to integrate and coordinate these different systems or not. In order to study the possibilities of a company?s system coordination an assessment of elements particularly interesting for the company was performed. The key elements and focuses in the evaluation were staff access to information, experiences from other companies and environmental work status for some of the organization's companies.

This report is about helping Q-Med AB in Uppsala to start its implementation of uncertainty of measurements analyses in their manufacturing department. Prior to this, the company relied solely on personal experience or did not take this uncertainty into consideration at all during different kind of measurements, which means that some of the processes that the company previously believed were within specified acceptance limits, will actually fail when considering these sources of uncertainties.Q-Med AB needed some sort of instruction to help the company, in a systematic way, to investigate different types of disorders that are affecting all kinds of measurements. This instruction includes a short summary about measurements and uncertainty of measurements in general and a detailed procedure about how these uncertainties are going to be handled in their daily work.The goal was to be able to use this instruction to systematically locate, eliminate (when possible) and analyze all kinds of disorders when measuring. Q-Med is using a lot of different types of instruments when measuring different types of quantities, including temperature, mass, pressure and density. This instruction will hereafter be used for every instrument, regardless of quantity and type of instrument.The instruction is tested through 4 different kinds of measurements, for mass, temperature and humidity.