Background: Increasing globalization has changed the business environment and also resulted in increased awareness of the consumers and demand for higher standards of social responsibility. The companies brand strategies has gain in importance in order to strengthen their brands. A part of a company's CSR, CRM, cause-related marketing, which is a relatively new marketing strategy and created when companies choose to partner with charities and market it. Garment/clothing industry has as many others come to be shaped by the effects of globalization, but has also endured heavy criticism over the years. This criticism is largely because of the outside world's reaction to the exploitation of developing countries.

In today's society, the internet is an important part of everyday life. Over recent years the number of electronic services has increased markedly. Communities such as Facebook, consume more of people's time than 5-10 years ago. How can public authorities benefit from these communities or are the municipalities not ready for this? The municipalities determine how their resources should be allocated based on the municipality's needs.

AbstractTitle: Crowdsourcing ? What motivates students to participate? Level: Bachelor thesis, 15 credits. Authors: Sara O?ra?s & Tomas PetterssonSupervisor: Martin AmsteusDate: June 2013 Introduction: More and more companies realize the importance of using external resources to generate the best possible developmental outcomes for their particular business. The probability that all the smart people work for your company is not very big, therefore it is wise to use the public and take advantage knowledge, ideas and expertise of the public. Crowdsourcing is when a group of people is challenged to solve a problem for a company or to generate solutions and innovative ideas in exchange for compensation. A key issue is the question of what motivates individuals to participate in crowdsourcing.

The theoretical focus in this master is information retrieval (IR), and especially the part of IR that includes interactivity. This research is by some researchers called IIR. Our principal aim was to examine if search engines on the WWW are taking advantage of research results from IIR research. A way to do this is to look at the application of special features, in this case query expansion (QE) and relevance feedback (RF). Both these methods aim for a better matching of documents and the searchers information need.

This thesis has treated a three-axis robot which task is to serve a larger test machine tomove the modules to be tested, from the storage to the test site. The robot is composed ofthree linear actuators; two standard components of ball screw type and a custom-builtactuator of trapezoidal type. The work has mainly focused on the custom-built device to seeif it could be replaced with a standard component. Part of the work has been to look into thepicking tool and to see if there are any possibilities to improve its function.The report presents two different proposals which I decided to call Robot 1 and Robot 2 andthey aim to address the problems arising in the purpose-built linear unit and the X-axislinearity problems. Robot 1 focuses on eliminating the problems that arise around therobot's X-axis, with such simple means as possible and without making excessive materialchanges.

Background: Today, the trademark is the heart of the company and the management of brandimage and identity require certain attention and care. In an increasingly tough business climatewhere the brand today has a central and important role, it is understandable that the companieswant to take maximum advantage of it. In the company the brand is a great resource with analready known identity and established values that can help new products to enter the market. Toextend the brand is a popular growth strategy but it is important to do it properly in order not tofail. J Lindeberg and Peak Performance are two Swedish fashion companies which both havemade brand extensions.

The Swedish market for vehicle inspection is re-regulated since June 2010. More than four years after the re-regulation there are eight companies in the market. Two of these companies are a result of the former monopolist's owners divided the business among themselves. The remaining six companies have entered the market through acquisitions or by building up their business from scratch, these are known as new entrants in the study. The competition has developed slowly and the former monopolist still has the highest market share.

AbstractThis thesis is the final part of the Innovation and Design Engineering Programme (180 ECTS credits)at the Faculty of Health, Nature and Engineering Science at Karlstad University. The extent of thisthesis is 22.5 ECTS credits and has been performed independently by Hannes Jernberg during thespring of 2013. Metso Paper Karlstad AB is the task maker of this project, and Arvid Johansson is thecompany Representative. Metso Paper Karlstad AB is one of the world leading developer andmanufacturer of tissue paper machines.In the current situation, the company has developed and patented a power management systembased on a Cross Flow Turbine. The current construction is limited to a paper width of 2.9 meters.The company wants to take advantage of all the opportunities provided by the patents, to develop aturbine solution paper machine with a paper width that is wider than 5.5 meters, and give the abilityto manufacture paper for lower energy consumption which is an important part of the production asit is very energy intensive.Problems arise with the increasing length of the turbine, ultimately resulting in that the deflectionbecomes too big and that the momentums, due to the increased torque the turbine blades breaks.By applying the design process, this work has resulted in a number of potential solutions to theproblem.

Swedens membership in the European Union have resulted in an internationalcharacterized labour market. The construction sector is the area who employs mostposted workers among the 7400 employees who monthly enters the market. It?s alsothe sector where a big part of the work-related deaths occurs. The purpose of this studyis therefore to contribute to a greater understanding of the regulation regarding postedworkers, their work environment and the consequences of it.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to give a contribution to the studies of what strategies those are of importance for challengers in consumer technological markets aiming for the market leader position. To be able to investigate this phenomenon we have chosen to study Microsoft?s second position in the video game console industry. In addition, we want to illuminate Microsoft?s competitive advantages, how Microsoft can take advantage from Sony?s setbacks and what strategies those are of importance for Microsoft in the battle of becoming the market leader.

A wish for a higher standard of living has driven the rate of consumption in Sweden. Mainfocus in business is on a higher growth and profitability where some companies use a lowprice strategy to win competitive advantage. The positive consumption pattern spiral is oftendiscussed in media, while criticism is limited and often refers to the environment. In order toreduce our ecological footprint we should consume more sustainably. More and morecompanies implement CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) in their business strategy tobecome more sustainable.

Partnering is a new and exciting way of cooperation in the Swedish construction industry. In countries like Denmark and the United Kingdom the concept has been developed during a number of years while the Swedish construction industry has been more reluctant.Partnering is seen by many as the solution to the problems that often occur in design and build contracts. Many others believe that it is a way for the big entrepreneurs to gain unfair advantage. Never the less the concept is fast getting more and more appreciation, especially in the region of Karlstad where many new buildings are built that way.We have focused on the new development of Carlstad Conference Center (CCC) which is currently built with a partnering concept. The main method that have been used in this thesis are interviews with personnel on different positions in the project.

Today it is mainly small and medium sized companies that choose to outsource parts of their ITdepartment in order to increase and become great. It is becoming increasingly common forcompanies to take the help of competent suppliers so that they then can focus on their own corebusiness. These companies are taking advantage of modern methods to support systemdevelopment by outsourcing to other countries such as India. Choosing to outsource to othercountries poses new challenges for companies when they meet both cultural and organizationaldifferences. It requires a lot of time and planning and clear communication in order to developand reach the goal.

Background and problem discussion: Sustainability reporting has recently risen in importance and a rising number of companies choose to issue voluntary stand-alone sustainability reports. Their non-regulated nature increases the opportunity for management to angle the information in these disclosures to their own advantage. Lately the focus has shifted from examining what kind of information is provided in environmental disclosures, to analyzing how the information is presented.Purpose: The purpose is to examine if managers in the energy sector use optimistic tone when issuing sustainability reports. The aim is to find out if the tone applied in environmental disclosures is in congruence with either the environmental or economic performance or if an excessively positive tone is being used to mislead readers.Limitations: This study is limited to information found in environmental disclosures from private companies in the energy sector, issued in 2012 or 2013. Environmental performance is defined as the amount of CO2e emissions and economic performance refers to annual company revenues.Methodology: The quantification of optimistic tone is conducted using a content analysis, relying on a pre-specified wordlist and a pilot study.

A growing need to strengthen ones position on the market, even as a city in competition with other cities, has resulted in an increasing number of municipalities developing brand platforms. When the city of Umeå developed their platform, they identified decision makers and investors as one of four important target groups.The aim of this study is to explore the portrayed image of the city of Umeå in two Swedish trade journals which addresses the specific target group decition makers and investors in both public and private sector. The aim is also to compare the image of Umeå in the two papers, to the ambition of the municipality, expressed in the brand platform.In order to make the observations as firmly established as possible, the method of the study is a combination of a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative text analysis. The study draws on the theories of Eli Avraham and Philip Kotler, concerning how to improve city images and how to market a specific city among others. The study shows that the city of Umeå in large extent is portrayed in accordance to the ambition which the municipality expressed in the brand platform.Umeå is displayed as an expanding city.