A couple of hundred years ago half of the earth?s surface was covered by forest. Today, only half remains and every year an area the size of Nepal is disappearing. Deforestation, together with the burning of fossil fuels, is also one of the reasons for the increasing greenhouse effect. Another relatively unknown problem for the world?s forests is the trade with illegally harvested timber.

Abstract Title: A conjoint analysis of packaging attributes. How can the attributes of a product?s packaging best look like to attract the consumer? Authors: Linda Granberg & Helena Niklasson Supervisor: Jan Svanberg Department: School of Management, Blekinge Institute of Technology Course: Bachelor?s thesis in Business Administration, 15 credits Purpose: The purpose is to find out how visual and technical attributes on product packaging affects the consumers tendency to want to buy the product. Method: Conjoint analysis and a quantitative survey. Results: When developing a package for a food product we?ve reached the conclusion that it is most important to have clear product information on it. The consumer wants it to be simple and easy to use, the people under time pressure seeks product with new technology which can save them time..

The consumer often chooses the store depending on the quality of the fruit and vegetable department. A study has proven that about half of the purchases in this department are impulsive. This gives the store a good possibility to influence the consumer?s behaviour in the fruit and vegetables department. Compared to other products, like pasta or rice, there are few brands represented in the f & v-department.

We investigate the effects of various types of word-of-mouth (WOM) messages on consumer bahavior. The message is varied along two dimensions where one is valence and the other is whether or not it contains an explicit call for certain behavior or attitude change. We use an experiment in the form of a web-based survey. Five different scenarios were designed to represent neutral, positive, and negative WOM. The latter two came in two different versions - one with a recommendation and one without.

This thesis examines effects that occur when consumers are placed in a negative category by the sender in an internet marketing context. The effects studied are attitude towards the ad, attitude towards the media, sense of being monitored and sense of being categorized. The authors argue that consumers will become increasingly aware of the fundamentals of internet marketing and how advertisements online are being directed towards them. Consumers will thus, to a larger extent than today, analyze advertisements and how they have been individually categorized by the sender. This will affect the way advertisements are perceived.

This thesis of 15 hp has been implemented at Halmstad University, incollaboration with Saab Dynamics in Linköping. Saab Dynamics is a companyoperating in the defence industry where competition is tough. This necessitatesnew ways to increase efficiency in the company, which is the basis for this thesis.Saab Dynamics wants to introduce simulation driven design. Since SaabDynamics engineers have little experience of simulation, required a usermethodology with clear guidelines. Due to lack of time, they chose to assign thetask to students, which resulted in this thesis.The aim of the thesis is to develop a methodology in mechanical design, wherethe designer uses the FE analysis early in the design process to develop thestructures' mechanical properties.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the relationship between space and consumer interaction at WEEKDAY, a contemporary fashion retail store in Malmö, Sweden. The thesis is based on a qualitative case-study and has a social constructionist approach. In order to understand the interaction taking place between consumer and environment we conducted observations guided by Kenneth Burke?s Pentad.The retail servicescape at WEEKDAY is conceived as a metaphorical stage where drama unfolds, analysing and defining the retail space using Kenneth Burke?s pentad of dramatism. We concentrate on the use of two terms of Burke?s pentad, the scene and the act, almost exclusively as we investigate how the scene stimulates the act.

Small scale internal consumer tests provide a company with a cheap way to get valuable information regarding their products advantages and flaws. Therefore the demand for possibilities to do this kind of test has increased. This report is part of a new sensory project at Unilever. It presents a method for sensory comparison of the company?s own products with the corresponding competitor products.

Introduction: A general guideline was introduced on October first 2010 regarding a mortgage cap, limiting the degree of leverage of housing as collateral. Through the new guidelines the marked conditions concerning consumers? choice of mortgage has changed. The consumers are limited in the sense that they can?t only use mortgage when purchasing a house.

A debate on environmental issues and food safety has been ongoing in Sweden and it is suggested that consumers' are seeking local produce instead of global and exotic foods. Moreover, studies show that the consumers? positive attitude towards local produce does not reflect their actions. The purpose with this thesis is to contribute to a better understanding of the dissonance between the consumer?s attitudes and actual behaviour towards local produce.

The main purpose is to illuminate how a company links certain values to its brand in an effort to achieve a competitive position. We have done this by studying the government owned company Svenska Spel and its entrance on the netpokermarket. With Corporate Social Responsibility as a guidance for the company they wanted to offer Swedish gamblers an alternative to the, often morally dubious, international actors. Our thesis has taken an internal (corporate) as well as an external (consumer) perspective on the result of this strive. Our conclusions are that although Svenska Spel is successfully integrating social responsibility into their netpokerbusiness, they are facing a difficulty in making the consumer fully appreciate it.

Publicity is argued to have relatively great impact on attitudes and behaviours of consumer. Especially great is the influence of negative information. At the same time it is likely for brands to be subject to negative publicity. Since companies are investing gigantic sums into buidling strong and positive associations around their brands it is of great economic interest to have a better understanding how negative publicity influence brand equity and what factors might moderate this effect. This thesis focuses on brand strength as a moderating factor of negative publicity.

Publicity is argued to have relatively great impact on attitudes and behaviours of consumer. Especially great is the influence of negative information. At the same time it is likely for brands to be subject to negative publicity. Since companies are investing gigantic sums into buidling strong and positive associations around their brands it is of great economic interest to have a better understanding how negative publicity influence brand equity and what factors might moderate this effect. This thesis focuses on brand strength as a moderating factor of negative publicity.

The study is based on a human science perspective in which we are interested in the school as a workplace for adults and work with personnel issues. The aim is to contribute with new knowledge about what conditions an employee considers important to carry out their work, and employees' experiences of working in large personnel groups.We have made a case study in a Swedish local primary school for students in lower ages, with between 60-70 employees. We conducted nine semi- structured interviews with a hand-picked selection of employees from different occupational groups in the school. The study is empirical data -driven qualitative with abductive approach. To analyze the collected datamaterial, we have used the empirical data -driven thematic analysis.From the results of the study some aspects appear clearly; employees need to be seen by his/her boss, importance of employee autonomy and employee experience of stress.

Abstract CORDIC (Coordinate Rotation Digital Computer) is an iterative algorithm for the calculation of a two-dimensional vector in circular, linear or hyperbolic coordinate systems. This paper presents a survey of known CORDIC algorithms and architectures for the rotation and vectoring mode in the circular cordinate system. In addition an implementation of the differential CORDIC algorithm in VHDL has been done. The implementation is designed to keep the fast timing and throughput characteristic known for on-line redundant arithmetic..