BACKGROUND: Today?s societal changes, including high rate of change and increasing information flows, are increasing the demand on the individual mental capacity. It becomes increasingly difficult to analytically process all the different dilemmas and everyday decisions as individuals have a limited mental capacity available to make these decisions. Thus, it has been suggested that ego-depleted relies more heavily on intuition, which is less burdensome, when making decision. However little is known about to what extent intuitive decisions differ from analytic.

Title: The mortgage limitation and its impact on the mortgage marketLevel: Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business AdministrationAuthor: Mattias Arnkvist and Magnus Vitasp PerssonSupervisor: Lars SteinerDate: 2011 ? MayAim: We have conducted this report to find out what effect the mortgage limitation has had on the mortgage market since its introduction in autumn 2010. The mortgage limitation has both before and after the introduction been a topic of discussion as it affects many and above all makes it diffucult for certain customer groups.Method: This report was written by a qualitative method. The report uses qualitative and quantitative data. The quantitative data we have in the report are printed literature in books, articles and journals as well as data taken from Internet.

In today?s computerized society more and more companies choose to utilize new applications that can ease the way of handling the information. For many of us is imperative that the process as efficient as possible if one takes in consideration the size of savings that this new application can bring.The developer of the evaluated system is SYSteam AB Huskvarna and they are the ones that gave us this assignment. The application that we evaluate is SCM (Secure Connection Manager). It is already used today by big companies such as Telia and Ericsson to search for errors in telephone servers placed all over the country.

Background: The consumers of today have the possibility to choose from a wide range of products and services. Consequently, the ability to differentiate the products is essential for the brand owners. If a brand owner does not manage to differentiate its product, it can be difficult to make the consumers realise the benefits of the product and convince them to buy it. One way to differentiate the product is to create a distinguished brand identity. However, it is not enough to create a strong brand identity, the brand owner must also be capable of communicating the brand identity successfully.

Issues regarding the environment are commonly discussed in the media. The most common problem that is discussed is how to decrease the emissions of greenhouse gases by human beings. The municipality of Kristianstad has chosen to work with a project named ?Biogas Kristianstad? which purposes are to use all of the produced biogas as motor fuel and to speed up the introduction of biogas on the local market. This is in an effort to decrease the effects on the environment in the municipality of Kristianstad.

AbstractVäxjö University, School of Social SciencesBachelor thesisTitle: Varför en rädsla för alternativmedicin? En studie om hur EU?s kosttillskottsdirektiv har implementerats i Sverige.Author: Annica BlomstrandSupervisor: Anne Haglund-MorrisseyThe aim of this study is to investigate the process of legislation and implementation of the directive of the European Union on the food supplements, focused on member state of Sweden.There are two questions in this study: What was the process of legislation in the period when the Directive on the food supplements became established? and How does the implementation of EU?s decision on the food supplements works in reality? In order to answer these questions, two different methods were used. One was qualitative analysis of the available text and the other one case-study (qualitative including interviews)The conclusion is that the implementation has not been successful. The process of legislation has followed its traditional way, which in its turn did not leave so much space to the thorough implementation of the Directive. Unfortunately, this is a process that overlooks citizens and countries with different premises, affected by the decision.Keywords: EU, kostillskottdirektivet, lagstiftningsprocessen, implementering, organisationsteori, fallstudie.

The purpose of this thesis project was to study how different companies are working with LastTime Buy and through that study propose improved ways of working with this for Scania CVAB. The project aimed at studying the work processes from three different perspectives:decision models, quality aspects and liability aspects between companies.To study this, qualitative interviews with one or several representatives from differentcompanies that are affected by or involved in Last Time Buy were used. Representatives wereselected partly from Original Equipment Manufacturers, suppliers, component manufacturersand companies offering third part solutions for Last Time Buy. The companies also reflecteddifferent industries. The interviews aimed to create an understanding for the methods used atthe different companies but also the ways of thinking and the knowledge behind the choice ofthese working methods.The analysis shows that the Original Equipment Manufacturers used very similar decisionmodels for Last Time Buy, but that external factors or the company strategy made them reachdifferent results.

When a decision is to be made on what long term strategic forest management plan to use, consideration must often be taken to multiple objectives. Such decisions are very complex and a promising approach to handle them is by Multiple Criteria Decision Analyses (MCDA). The study is based on the problem that the MCDA that have been implemented into forest management planning have only had capacity to compare and evaluate a limited number of management plans; which means that there is a risk the most suitable plan is missed. The aim with this study was to test the applicability of combining the MCDA tools: the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for including consideration to multi-objectives into strategic forest management planning. The study was based on the process of creating and selecting a management plan, using Heureka PlanWise, suitable for all the major objectives found in the forest holdings of a municipality in northern Sweden.

The purpose of this thesis has been to explore the topic of business simulation from a theoretical foundation in social constructivism and theories concerning leadership as the management of meaning. The most important findings are that business simulation can be used for strategical leadership by management to create a common vision in the organisation members, which affects their perception of the business and the decisions and actions they make, which in turn can lead to a more efficient organisation that becomes better at meeting set goals. This can be viewed in different ways from different theoretical viewpoints: as inducing targeted changes in mental models to create changes in decision making and actions; as a secondary socialization process where the vision of management is externalized as a business simulation that is in turn internalized by the organisation members that participate in the business simulation, or as a way to frame and define the reality of the organisational members which creates a shared reference point against which a feeling of organisation and direction can emerge. In the future, business simulations may become increasingly used by organizations to create a common vision or to communicate a new decision to the organization members..

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether abnormal stock returns could be identified as a result of a layoff announcement during weak economy.Method: An event study methodology.Theory: Efficient market hypothesis, signal theory.Empirical results: Quantitative data from observations of stock prices in thirty two companies listed on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm, in the period 2008 -2012.Conclusion: The results indicate that the market reaction was negative because there were negative abnormal returns on the Stockholm Stock Exchange during the period 2008-2012 in connection with the layoff announcements. The market reaction was milder when staff reductions were carried out as a result of a restructuring and stronger when staff reductions were carried out as part of a cost reduction program.The layoff announcements elicited different market reactions depending on the company's industry affiliation. The most negative reaction was in the Healthcare industry. Negative abnormal returns were lower in industries Industrials, Consumer Services and Consumer Goods. There were no abnormal returns for shares of companies in the industry Financials.

The average length of life is increasing in the western world, hence the older population is growing. A common health problem among the elderly is malnutrition. Malnutrition causes decreased body strength and is associated with an amplified risk of infections, depression, fractures and increased mortality. The health care system is therefore faced with the challenge to prevent malnutrition among the growing population of elderly. This could be done by providing nutritious foods developed to meet the specific needs of elderly. The overall objective of this project was to test a healthy energy dense drink based on oats targeted for the elderly consumers as a strategy to prevent malnutrition among elderly.

Denna uppsats lyfter ut Graham Allisons tre teorier från boken Essence of decision och applicerar dessa på U 137-krisen. Krisen inträffade 1981 då en sovjetisk ubåt gick på grund utanför Karlskrona. Var och en av de tre teorierna är ursprungligen gjorda för att förklara beslutsfattandet under Kubakrisen utifrån olika perspektiv. Uppsatsen prövar de tre teorierna på U 137-krisen och utser den teori som bäst förklarar utrikespolitiskt agerande under krisen. Huvuddelen av uppsatsen beskriver de tre teorierna Rational actor model, Organizational Behavior samt Governmental Politics och applicerar dessa på U 137-krisen.

Previous research has, by studying large listed firms, identified cost reductions and knowledge transference as the primary reasons for outsourcing.  Previous research has also indicated that Business Process Outsourcing is likely to increase in popularity and experience high annual growth going forward. This study aims to explore why mid-sized and large firms decide to in Jämtlands län, fully or partly, outsource their finance/accounting activities. Theories regarding transaction cost economics and resource based view composes the foundation of this study and the information used has been gathered through the use of semi-structured interviews.  The results shows, like the chosen theories and previous research indicates, that the outsourcing decision is primary based on expected cost reductions.

This essay studies how advertisements in various anti-smoking campaigns can influence and persuade by using anti-logos as counter-arguments to the tobacco industry's logos. In contrast to tobacco advertising arguments such as freedom (logos), pleasure (pathos) and trademark (ethos) the anti-smoking campaigns create anti-logos arguments with various connotations such as repulsive pictures and sexual implications to influence groups of people not to start smoking or to quit smoking.Advertisement of tobacco does not exist nowadays due to legal restrictions in the western world; however several decades of myths created in the consumer consciousness still exist. Thus one can speak of a tobacco advertising ideology that exists and the various anti-smoking campaigns trying to change that ideology.The purpose of anti-smoking campaigns is to conduct a kategoria of myth that tobacco advertisement has created over the years. Anti smoking organizations do this by creating a new ideology to affect consumer?s attitude toward smoking and the tobacco myth with an anti-myth.

This Master Thesis has its basis in a political decision made by Centerpartiet. The primary goal of the decision was to construct a new government agency, with the power to decide over all areas concerning social insurance. To be able to do this safely, by a merge of two different agencies, the thesis looks at different earlier merges for signs. First of all two agencies, Swedish Tax-agency and Swedish Prison and Probation Service, are studied because they are considered succeful in their earlier merges. Two main signs are that it took a long while and that the organisations worked with similar things before the merge.