Even if the main purpose is to decide if the companies profitability and financial position is a determining factor for its growth, the purpose is to determine if there are any differences between big and small companies in there economical positions then they grow, in the selected industry. This thesis is mainly a quantitative study. The selected industry for the study is extraction of turf. The financial measurement that most clearly differ the growing companies from the not growing companies or the companies that didn?t change there amount of employees was the returns of the companies own capital. It was also the returns of the companies own capital there the main difference existed between the big and the small companies.

Background: Resources that are hard to put a value on and cannot be classified as assets in the balance sheet as well as the development towards the information society has led to an increasing need and use for voluntary information in the annual reports. The increase of voluntary information can foremost be seen in the field of human resources.Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe the development of voluntary information about human resources in the annual report of a number of Swedish quoted companies. The purpose is also to see if there is a difference in the development between manufacturing companies and service companies.Method: Six manufacturing companies and six service companies were chosen from the Stockholm exchange A-list. Using both a qualitative and quantitative research method the annual reports of the chosencompanies were studied for the years 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, and 2003. A model consisting of seven categories; health, diversity, recruitment, staff turnover and comfort, benefits and motivation, education and competence development, was developed to clarify were the development took place.Conclusions: After finishing the study one can tell that the amount of voluntary information about human resources in the annual report has increased even though the percentage share of the total annual report only has increased appreciably for manufacturing companies.

The purpose of the study was from the perspective of young people that has completed a stay at HVB-home. The respondents are between 15-21 years both boys and girls. The basic questions were: How do the respondents look upon this HVB-homes service process? How do the respondents look upon this HVB-homes service contents? How do the respondents look upon this HVB-homes service regarding available information and how the staff is available? What positive and negative experience do they have from their stay at the HVB-home? We also wish to get a picture of what is important to change to improve the quality on this HVB-home. To receive answers to those questions we formed a questionnaire.

Today there are many technical solutionsfor the e-commerce industry, incombination with a change in behavior ofthe end user. The consumer of todaydemands more availability andconvenience.This Master?s thesis has examined thecritical aspects of e-commercecompanies, as well as how they candevelop their e-commerce to create valuefor the end user. The aim has been toidentify the more and less importantfactors of the e-commerce business, andto investigate the extent to which thesefactors are used in the e-commerceindustry. To answer these questions, aninteractive, online questionnairecustomized for e-commerce companies wasdeveloped.

This paper intends to show how micro- and small businesses in the tourism and experience industry makes use of social media as a marketing tool. The study also shows the possibilities for businesses to market themselves to customers through social media. Small businesses usually don?t have the same conditions or the same marketing resources that larger companies have. For small businesses that lack marketing resources, social media is a great addition to marketing since the technology around social media is relatively simple.

Trade is the driving force for economic development. A greater equity in international trade can improve the livelihoods and the well being of producers in developing countries. The small-scale farmers have limited resources and have difficulties to get access to the international market. As a result of this, the Fair Trade movement has been developed and has now formed a trading partnership between the producer and the consumer. This study analyses if the Fair Trade movement can be a way for the workers in developing countries to achieve more justice in their production manner in the international trade of cut flowers and continue to be an important competitor of these products, but with better livelihood conditions. My method has been to do a comprehensive literature study of the Fair Trade movement, in which I describe the certification process, and the market of Fair Trade in Sweden.

The purpose of this thesis is to ascertain the main determinable factors of Swedish SMEs capital structure decisions and to investigate whether existing capital structure theories are applicable on Swedish SME financing. We have used panel data to run regressions of various capital structure determinants on three measures of capital structure; short- term debt, long-term debt and total debt. We found that growth opportunities, profitability and age are the most important capitalstructures determinants for our sample. Firm size shows a small explanatory result but the effective tax rate and the asset tangibility do not seem to explain the capital structure at all. Thematurity matching principle is considered significant..

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.

Purpose  The purpose of this paper is from a consumer perspective analysis whether or not blogs are affecting a customer?s purchase behaviour to a larger extent compared to traditional marketing methods through TV commercials. Additionally, within the scope of this try to identify the type of consumers that are more influenced to a purchase decision by blog contents compared to others.Methods Through a quantitative approach this study will examine the effectiveness of advertising in blogs. A survey was used in order to collect data where the respondents corresponded to the population in Sweden in the ages 15-79. Initially the size of the blog audience was estimated and thereafter it was examined how many of these that were affected towards a purchase decision by blogs.

The construction industry is always looking for ways to make the work more efficient aswell as minimize the waste of money in general. At the same time the industry is showing alow awareness of logistics which has to increase in order to improve the industry in thesekind of questions. Projects located in the inner city have high demands on the logistic andthe handling of material due to the so often limited space for storages of the material. Dueto this the purpose of this report is true a case, study and analyze what kind of factors thereis to take into consideration during the materials way from the supplier to the workstationin a project located in the inner city. The data for the report was collected with the help of acase study, and in three different ways.

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..

Vi fann att hushållen i Norrköping har nytta av flertalet tjänster som i framtiden kan komma att erbjudas via Stadsnet.com. Dock är det är svårt att ta betalt för tjänster som tidigare erbjudits gratis via Internet. Vi ser också att Stadsnet.com som nätverk ger kunden ett mervärde om det i framtiden fortsätter att växa, med både fler bredbandsanvändare och fler Service Providers. I undersökningen med Service Providers fann vi att de intervjuade företagen vill använda sig av portaler så som Stadsnet.com istället för att driva egna portaler..

The world's natural resources are constantly being reduced, which increases the pressure on companies to actively engage themselves in environmental activities. Meanwhile, stakeholders focus is being broadened and it is now important not only to supply a particular product or service but also show that they are actively pursuing an environmental agenda. Companies can use various tools to aid in environmental efforts, but also to demonstrate to the world that the company is actively engaged in environmental activities. One such tool is the environmental standard ISO14001 which provides the company with guidance and support on how the business must manage its environmental efforts. To show a business' progress in environmental performance, it is advantageous to use environmental performance indicators as they enable stakeholders to easily understand how the business works with environmental issues.Authors in the field explain that the environmental management system propagation is limited in service organizations.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the need of working instructions in Derome Träteknik ?s industrial house-building factories. Furthermore we wanted to determine an appropriate way for developing working instructions adapted to the conditions in a certain production environment. In the construction industry today prefabricated building elements are frequently used. With this come repetitive work tasks that need to be carefully planned.