Learning organizations and organizational development are interesting subjects that does not examine municipal organizations and private organizations an equal amount.  Furthermore, there exists little research on the effects of competence development for individuals in a leadership role within organizations. Because of this, we wanted to examine the impact of competence development in business modeling and how it affected local government activities. Competence development is used by organizations to develop their business and achieve a greater Competitive advantage, but does competence development for individuals in a leadership role lead to organizational development? This paper examines competence development in the form of a business modeling course via the Bitstreamproject and the effects that occur within three municipalities as a result of the competence development. By interviewing three participants and four coworkers within different municipalities and studied the data from the Bitstream project, we can not conclude that competence development within business modeling leads to organizational development, only that it exists a tendency for it.

Stjärnägg is a sales organization operating on the Swedish eggmarket, owned by nine Swedish packing companies. Those nine packing companies are not just owners of the sales organization, but at the same time competitors since they compete in the market when they do not sell the eggs through Stjärnägg.The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the sales organization from a supplier and owner perspective. To answer the purpose of this study, qualitative interviews have been conducted with the owners of the egg packers. This has been done in order to get as fair picture of the sales organization as possible. From the answers of the interviews, a compilation has been made to be able to give Stjärnägg concrete proposals of improvements in the organization.

Nowadays, the world around us is changing faster and faster, the globalization is increasing and harder competition puts extra pressure on companies to be more innovative than ever before. One of the fastest changing industries is the IT industry where the actors always have to be up to date to keep their Competitive advantage. The authors want to find out what makes some companies in this industry more innovative than others by examining what internal elements that are necessary for innovation. Much research has already been carried out within the field of innovation and especially about innovation management, although less research exists about smaller, non high tech service companies. Therefore the authors also tries to find out how applicable today?s theories are on this special field and thereby fill a smaller gap in today?s research.

The essay deals with the subject about branding and the communicative process that entails between businesses and consumers. The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of the opportunities and risks of brand building through sponsorship and Co-Branding. This descriptive analysis is made by highlighting the partnership between two strong brands in the Swedish market, Åbro & AIK, and how internal and external associations related to their impact on brand equity. The study has led to the conclusion that the sponsorship should be seen as synonymous with Co-branding, ie. a synergy between two or more brands.

Purpose: During the last years Real Options have been established in many areas of the day-to-day business. Recent literature also tries to address Supply Chain problems with option theory, since an efficient Supply Chain increasingly gains in importance as a significant Competitive advantage. This thesis tries to answer the question, if Real Options can mitigate the costs induced by the Bullwhip Effect as one of the major problems in Supply Chains. Methodology: The authors of the thesis used a deductive approach. Based on a theoretical model utilizing Real Option contracts and under the usage of a randomly created dataset the influence of the Bullwhip Effect on the company?s business and financial structure is examined and subsequently analyzed.

Lower energy use in buildings is a result of increasingly stringent energy requirements across Europe. When conventional district heating technology is used in areas with low energy consumption heatlosses do not fall even though the amount of energy delivered is reduced. This reduces income for thedistrict heating company. To maintain their economic viability the district heating companies? majorchallenge is to implement new solutions that minimize heat loss.

Exporten har en betydande roll i dagens samhälle och verklig påverkan på landsbygden och dess framtida möjligheter till överlevnad i ett urbaniserande och teknikfokuserat Sverige. Det är dock inte helt enkelt som enskilt, mindre företag att exportera sina produkter. Detta arbete syftar till att lyfta fram framgångsfaktorer hos livsmedelsföretag som redan är väletablerade på den internationella marknaden och som under en tid har bedrivit en framgångsrik exportverksamhet. Det är en kvalitativ studie och det empiriska materialet är baserat på tre semistrukturerade telefonintervjuer med livsmedelsföretag från Halland och Skåne. Begreppen resurs, nisch och ??Dynamic capabilities?? samt ramverket VRIO har varit viktiga vid analysen.

This essay examines how three big Swedish newspapers depicts e-sports and computer gaming and how the depiction change during 2000-2013. The study will also examine whether e-sports is being portrayed as competitive sport. The purpose is to investigate which attitudes that can be identified towards computer gaming and its culture in major newspapers such as Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet and how these attitudes eventually changed over time. The sources that will be used in both the quantitative and qualitative analysis are based on web articles, mainly because the paper editions does not provide much, if any, information about computer gaming and e-sports and also because of the convenience of being able to quickly find articles to study. Results indicate that computer gaming is being depicted in a clear negative fashion during 2000-2006, and that the depiction of e-sports is somewhat positive but not as glorifying as for the years 2007-2013. During this period, there is a apparent tendency of e-sports being introduced to readers who are unfamiliar with the gaming culture. As for the attitudes towards computer gaming, the depiction is still somewhat negative, mainly because the debate about computer games and violence was revived because of several acts of violence in shape of school massacres and mass murder.

The competition in the milk industry has increased during the last couple of years. This is a result of the trade barrier that dissolved when Sweden entered the European Union. The membership signifies an increased internationalization for the dairies, which has also increased the existence of low price chains in the Swedish food market. The increased share of private brands has strengthened the competitive situation for the manufacturer- owned brands. Three of Sweden?s seven largest dairies have now decided to launch a low price milk to cope with the competitive situation.

The attention on environmental issues has never been as huge as today. The climate is changing and more and more evidence suggest that the cause behind climate changes is an increase of carbondioxide into the atmosphere. The increase in turn is considerd to be an act of human activity. Therefore some companies have decided to become climate neutral and implement information technology in their business in order to reduce their emissions. This thesis has three aimes: to calculate a small company´s carbondioxide emissions, study whether or not information technology could help to reduce these emissions and furthermore find out why some companies decided to become climate neutral and describe the concept climate neutral.

The purpose of this thesis was to study the importance of virtual communities for independent record companies. It also aims to examine how these companies use virtual communities in their marketing activities and how to gain Competitive advantages by working with virtual communities. A case study based on interviews was conducted with managers from two independent record companies, Music Is My Girlfriend Recordings and B&B Records. Our study has shown that virtual communities are important for independent record companies as tools for finding and addressing the right target market. Useful information about the members of these communities can easily be gathered with the use of the various search options that are available.

The purpose of this thesis is to study and determine how working in cross functional teams can generate value in an effort to facilitate innovation. An inductive scientific perspective is chosen as the research approach. A single case is investigated with the theoretical framework based on Resource Based View, Intellectual Capital, Innovation theory and theories concerning Cross Functional Teams. The empirical material has been collected through primary data; surveys, interviews and secondary data; literature, websites and further complementary data. The practice of using Cross Functional Teams will enhance organizational learning, knowledge transfer, increase communication and innovation, which in turn will increase the speed and performance of the new product development process.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine and analyse which effects a service strategy has on the control system of an organisation. The thesis takes a service perspective, and it is assumed that a service strategy gains Competitive advantage and that the goal of the service strategy is to increase the customers? satisfaction level. A qualitative in-depth case study was performed on a Swedish beauty company. The organisation?s vertical structure was examined, from central to local level.

Introduction     Knowledge has come to be an increasingly important factor for both individuals in the labor market and companies in competition. When a person leaves an organization the knowledge often follows, and a knowledge gap is created. When knowledge is shared within an organization, the individual?s knowledge is available for all members of the organization. Knowledge can thus be converted from human capital to structural capital.

Purpose:The purpose of this thesis is: to determine key success factors for an organisation?s internal process of internalising future trends forecasting. Methodology:A qualitative approach has been chosen by examining three different companies (Electrolux, H&M and, Sony Ericsson) through interviews and other data. The empirical material have been analysed by using valid theory as a platform from where the analysis can be performed. This has created a conceptual analysis that enables the use of the conclusions in other similar companies.