This master thesis takes its point of departure in the conflicting worldviews of modernism and post-modernism. As traditional segmentation theory springs from the modernist worldview, this study aims to contribute to the understanding of the complexity regarding market segmentation for lifestyle brands in contemporary society, where the consumer is often claimed to be post-modern. The research was conducted in Malmö and Lund and involved 25 Converse users as respondents. The methods used in this thesis starts with observations as a sampling technique in order to locate the respondents. Short interviews and photo documentation followed.

The existence of social networks on the Internet is today seen as broad, and the number of users of the network is increasing. There seems to be many reasons to which people are using the social networks. Within the network, users can for various reasons create groups with different objectives. One of the reasons is that groups are created in order to influence a company. With a perceived feeling that companies handle the problem differently, we assume the source is the uncertainty about what the groups really are.

Our paper is a study about youth and their self-images. During our practical training period we found that the problems young people had always were connected with their self-image. We therefore wanted to find out what youth believe influence their self-image. The purpose of our study was to examine young people and their self-images in a perspective of the ecological systems model. Essential issues have been what self-images young people have, what they consider influence their self-image most, how they think they can resist influence from the environment and how they would like to be influenced by the environment if they could decide themselves.

Generally, the economic health of Swedish roundwood truck transport companies has not been good. Profitability is important for maintaining the stability in the transport business, which is a condition for long-term transport planning in the forestry sector. The scope of this study was to identify probable factors influencing the profitability of roundwood truck transport companies and quantify the influence of these factors on economic results. The study was carried out at a major roundwood truck transport organisation in mid-Sweden and was implemented in four steps. In the first step economic results from the haulage contractors were collected and a random sample was taken from accounted net margin for the account year 2005/2006. In the second step hauliers were interviewed to identify probable success factors. At the third step data for identified factors were gathered through a questionnaire.

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) has been claimed to be the single most reliable indicator of firm growth and has gained wide adoption among companies in a broad range of industries. This is despite a lack of rigorous scientific testing. The purpose of this study is to examine the predictive strength of the question "How likely are you to recommend [.] to your friends and colleagues " that the metric is based on: how well does it actually predict future consumer behavior Furthermore, the report aims to create a greater understanding of the factors that explain a person's word of mouth (WOM) intention and which behaviours cause that intention to change. A longitudinal study was conducted of 304 consumers' WOM intention regarding two non-carbonated drinks and their subsequent WOM and purchase behavior. The analyses show that the behaviors are captured by the metric to some extent.

Målet med detta examensarbete har varit att på bästa möjliga sätt finna ett truckdatorsystem som kan förbättra arbetssituationen och säkerheten i Movex på förrådet hos Pharmacia & Upjohn Consumer Healthcare i Helsingborg.Truckdatasystemets främsta egenskaper skall vara enkelhet, smidighet, lätt utbyggbarhet för framtida behov, samtidigt som det skall fungera med det nuvarande Movex systemet.Riktlinjerna som drogs upp för projektets genomförande:? Materialflödesanalys genomfördes och overheadmaterial skapades? Information inhämtades om tänkbara leverantörer på marknaden? Selektering av leverantörer mot upprättad kravspecifikation? Inhämtning av offerter och besök på referensanläggningar? Demonstration och uppkoppling mot Movex på Pharmacia? Prisförhandling, egenskapsbedömning - ordervinnande faktorer? Val av slutgiltig leverantör? ImplementeringsplanDet slutliga valet som truckdatorsystemleverantör föll på Teklogix. Fördelarna med deras system var bland annat följande:? kompakt, lättplacerad terminal? personalens favorit? stor potential att utveckla ett bra system med inläsning av streckkoder på ett rationellt sätt? kort svarstid mellan terminal och Movex? bakåtkompatibelt samtidigt som systemet har stora framtidsmöjligheter.

Studien är utförd på Hammarplast Consumer AB med syftet att skapa djupare förståelse i hur producerande verksamheter arbetar med sina ständiga förbättringar och hur de kan på ett strukturerat sätt utföra förbättringar i den dagliga styrningen för att nå konkurrenskraftig och hållbar utveckling.För att detta skulle uppnås dokumenterades företagets vision och utmaning, som sedan bröts ned till ett detaljrikt måltillstånd med hjälp av att nuläget analyserades i den valda processen. Därefter gjordes små, snabba steg och korrigeringar mot måltillståndet, vilket genomfördes med planering, genomföring, reflektering och uppföljning. Det gav förbättringar som var värdehöjande för företaget och som resulterade i ett steg närmare visionen. Det strukturerade tillvägagångssättet, kata, bidrog till att medarbetarna blev engagerade och involverade.I de avslutande kapitlen fördes en diskussion om hur företaget kan på ett strukturerat sätt utföra deras ständiga förbättringar i den dagliga styrningen som kommer att föra dem emot en konkurrenskraftig och hållbar utveckling..

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.

Uppsatsen innehåller en studie av hur etiska regler, vilka framför allt återfinns inom advokatyrket, påverkar konkurrensen och de konflikter som uppstår mellan de svenska och europeiska konkurrensreglerna och dessa etiska regler. Mer specfikt identifieras vilka konkurrenshämmande effekter dessa regler medför, och vilka alternativ som finns för att kombinera etiska regler och konkurrensregler på ett sådant sätt att minsta möjliga skada uppstår för konsumenterna av advokattjänster. Resultatet av uppsatsen är att vissa etiska regler bör elimineras eller modifieras, eftersom de påverkar marknaden på ett negativt sätt utan att medföra motsvarande vinster annorstädes. The essay contains a studie on how ethical rules, here represented by the rules for the law profession, influence the competition. Furthermore are the conflicts that appear between the ethical rules and the Swedish and European competition rules identified and analysed.

There are many researching studies to be found that describes how media relates to men and women differently. Even if it?s a newspaper research or a magazine research they all display the same information. That there are differences in the way that women and men are described or portrayed in articles and pictures. Most of these gender studies are made on a basis of magazines that are mainly intended to men or to women.

Thesis purpose: The main purpose of this study is to empirically verify the applicability of Kozinets´ model on an interest, activity or lifestyle based online community, in order to develop an adaptive segmentation approach for segmenting online communities. Methodology: This research is deductive by nature, cross-sectional by design and undertakes a quantitative approach using self-completion questionnaire as a part of a web survey to collect the empirical data needed. Theoretical perspective: The main theories guiding our work and supporting the findings of this study include: market segmentation (descriptive and behavioural) and communities (consumer communities and online communities). Empirical data: A web survey with self-completion questionnaire used to gather empirical data from members of interest, activity or lifestyle based online communities. Conclusions: This study took the specific characteristics of online communities into more consideration than previous research and literature has done and also recognized that an adaptive segmentation approach is needed, depending on the communities of study.

Sustainable beef and milk consumption. The consumption of beef and dairy products in Sweden is high. A lot of greenhouse gases are emitted from the production of these products. The production of beef in Sweden has decreased but the import has increased. The number of dairy cows has decreased while beef-production with suckler-cows has increased in Sweden.

Shopping for groceries often means that, as consumers, we travel to the grocery store ourselves, by ear, bike or on foot. At the store we pick out the groceries that we want, go the register and pay for them. During the last couple of years consumers in Sweden have been given the opportunity to let someone else select and transport the groceries to their home instead, so called home shopping. As this report is being written, the possibility to buy groceries this way is somewhat limited, but many forecasters believe that in the near future it will increase immensely. Because of the large volumes of groceries that are being transported, there is great transport work being done in the supply chain.

This bachelor thesis argues for consumers' views on origin labeling effect and their willingness to pay for goods with this kind of label. The purpose of this study is to analyze the factors that influence and to measure willingness to pay for a national origin labeled product previously only competeing with a less expensive conventional product, when a further regional product is introduced in the purchasing decisions of consumers. This is achieved by testing whether Simonson's (1989) theory of the compromise effect is applicable to increase consumers' willingness to pay for eco-labeled food products. The factors affecting the willingness to pay; trust in eco- label, opinions about the products of their own nation and the surrounding region. Furthermore presents theory about what underlying the consumer consumption choices.In order to achieve credible results 240 respondents have participated in a questionnaire survey.

Many companies choose to market their products and brands with help from celebrities. This is not a new phenomenon, though, this strategy is something that we consumers start to get used to and the risk that the consumer unconsciously unselects the message grows. A recently much-disputed theory is the use of incongruent marketing. This means that companies uses a marketing message with the objective to not match the consumer?s expectations.