Purpose: We will understand and explain Dell?s value gap through an extended intellectual capital theory. This will be done by deriving the value to the different parts of the intellectual capital value scheme. We will also use value scheme to describe the ongoing strategy shift. Methodology: The qualitative method and an abductive reasoning have been employed during the progress.

The vegetation?s impact on erosion control is widely explored, even though research? results are scattered where it suggests a both positive and negative relationship between roots and erosion tendency. Research has measured the roots? impact on erosion by many different methods, hence the aim of this study is to offer a clearance of what factors play an important role in the choice of appropriate species controlling river bank erosion. I have therefore studied 17 articles concerning vegetation and erosion control, which were found in different databases such as: Web of Knowledge, Biological Sciences, Academic Search Elite and Google Scholar.

In order for companies to be competitive they perform different types of development projects.  Due to globalization a greater focus is added on costs, not least on costs in development projects. Project controllers are involved in development projects in order to review the financial aspects. The authors have examined the role that project controllers hold in respect of two Swedish manufacturers, Volvo CE and Scania CV. The investigation has revolved around three main issues where the authors conducted interviews with controllers that do not work in development projects and project controllers in development projects. The goal of the interviews was to gain a greater understanding of the role of project controllers, how this role will differ from those that do not work in development projects and the difficulties faced by project controllers.

Today, branding is not a phenomenon but rather a prerequisite for a brand to be able to both survive and grow stronger. During the last couple of years, personal branding has come to be an established term, just like corporate branding. With the growth of the social media and the thousands of ways to interact with each other personal brands face great competition. It is more difficult than ever to maintain a strong brand, partly because of this. There are several growth options for brands.

This study is a qualitative content analysis which sets out to examine the representation of stereotypic masculine traits amongst the main characters in two films from The Swedish Institute of Film's (Svenska Filminstitutets) selection for ?School Cinema? (Skolbio). The study is operationalised through the use of a scheme, constructed by Lorraine Evans and Kimberly Davies for their study No sissy boys here, which maps stereotypical masculine and feminine traits and originates from Sandra Lipsitz Bems ?Sex Role Inventory?. The masculine traits in the scheme are: aggressive, competitive, argumentative, decisive, assertive, risk-taking, self-reliant and adventurous, and the feminine are: affectionate, emotionally expressive, impetuous, nurturing, panicky, passive, tender, and understanding.

The purpose of the study is to investigate how much interest media has shown selected topics in the corporate governance systems in Germany and Sweden. The four selected aspects are: ownership structure, employee representation on the boards, disclosure of board members? compensation and female directors on the boards. The reasons for and consequences of the similarities and differences will also be discussed. The German and Swedish corporate governance systems construct the key basis of the study, emphasised on the four chosen aspects.

The frequency of innovative procurement is currently very low in Sweden. Innovative procurement is to procure unknown solutions to a defined problem or need for which it sometimes has not yet been established on the market.  Current Swedish procurement legislation does not prevent innovation procurement, however, it limits official authorities to actively work with innovative companies to develop new solutions. Furthermore, some conflicts arise between the Swedish procurement legislation and the basic principles concerning public procurement developed under EU law, which must be considered in all procurements. Additionally, there is not a specific procurement procedure designed for innovative solutions in the current legislation.On the 15th of January 2014 three new directives on procurement rules were adopted with the general objective to simplify the procurement process and to make the whole system more flexible. A new procurement procedure has also arisen called innovation partnership.

 We have chosen to write our thesis within a transport company. The work was carried out at DHL activities in Uppsala. DHL is one of the leading transport companies worldwide. Our interest lies in more efficient and advanced transportation and terminals, as globalization and new trends require effective solutions.The aim of our work is to explain the need for information technology applications in road haulage and associated terminal operations. Furthermore, we analyses terminal and applied information technology.

Northeast Stockholm is a region developing fast. There is already a great need for new transport solutions for the people commuting to the city, since long queues slow down car traffic and the local railway, Roslagsbanan, needs to be upgraded to attract more travelers. The competitive advantage of rail?traffic over the car when it comes to greenhouse gases and air pollutants is another reason to develop Roslagsbanan.This report investigates the differences between car and train to create a basis for a proposed expansion of Roslagsbanan. Once the proposal is presented, costs, emissions reductions and public benefits are analyzed.

The energy sector of modern time is currently faced with several challenges. These are both production oriented and environmental oriented in nature. The energy of the future is intended to support an increasing demand while at the same time reduce its environmental affection. This stresses a development towards production methods of renewable energy. Among the existing methods, biogas is presented as an attractive alternative.

The information market is constantly changing. With new and improved information technology more people get access to more information faster. However, the number of people educated to handle information also increases. Business intelligence has for a long time been a well-known tool for companies to be competitive. Because of the increased access to information the competition between companies has intensified and more people have become aware of the advantages of business intelligence and how it can help them compete.

This thesis describes possibilities for Metso Paper to lower their costs of spray pipes for their pulp wash press TRPE, with maintained good functionality and quality.Information that can be used by competitors has been censored in this version of the essay.To find solutions, alternative suppliers have been contacted and asked to quote. There has also been a new spray pipe designed. The manufacturing costs of the new design have been calculated.The thesis also contains a concept generation of an alternative product to the spray pipes in installations where a high pressure washer is used.To be able to ask other manufacturers of spray pipes to quote, a demand specification based on the currently used spray pipe was made. This was then sent to two alternative suppliers.An investigation of earlier used spray pipes, and the currently used, shows that the nozzles are a big part of the total costs of the spray pipes. To attempt to reduce the nozzles high cost an concept generation was made to find the best solution for a new design.There was a request that it should be possible to change the internal brushes in the spray pipe without cutting and welding.

This thesis describes possibilities for Metso Paper to lower their costs of spray pipes for their pulp wash press TRPE, with maintained good functionality and quality.Information that can be used by competitors has been censored in this version of the essay.To find solutions, alternative suppliers have been contacted and asked to quote. There has also been a new spray pipe designed. The manufacturing costs of the new design have been calculated.The thesis also contains a concept generation of an alternative product to the spray pipes in installations where a high pressure washer is used.To be able to ask other manufacturers of spray pipes to quote, a demand specification based on the currently used spray pipe was made. This was then sent to two alternative suppliers.An investigation of earlier used spray pipes, and the currently used, shows that the nozzles are a big part of the total costs of the spray pipes. To attempt to reduce the nozzles high cost an concept generation was made to find the best solution for a new design.There was a request that it should be possible to change the internal brushes in the spray pipe without cutting and welding.

The aim of this study was to study how Swedish youth national football players handle stressful events in sports. A longitudinal questionnaire diary was constructed from a revised version of Nicholls and Polmans (2007) design with the intention of recording in-sport and psychosocial stress, choice of coping strategy and coping effectiveness. The participants were 59 Swedish youth national football players born 1992 observed during a four day national training camp held by the Swedish Football Association. Data were drawn from a quantifying analyzing method. The main result showed that the most common stressors reported were, physical injury or pain, experiencing teammates or opponents to perform better and feeling generally insecure during training camp.

As a result of global competition, companies within the automotive industry are required to improve their production systems to achieve sustainable and competitive production. To attain operational excellence, companies have adopted concepts like lean and World Class Manufacturing (WCM).In order to deliver, companies need to increase the availability and reliability of production equipment. This demands focus on both operational and strategic maintenance, and efficient equipment acquisition and management. The main objective of this thesis is to identify processes and success factors that are necessary for improved maintenance performance. By conducting a case study and by performing a literature review, the following has been studied: 1) how companies within the automotive industry work with maintenance and maintenance strategies, 2) implementation of maintenance strategies, and 3) new acquisition and spare parts management for maintenance. The results show that basic maintenance concepts and related terms are well defined in the literature.