Aim: The purpose of this study is to examine and analyze how insurance companies work to create value and confidence in their brands and then compare whether consumers perceive brands as companies seek.Method: The study is a gap analysis of both qualitative and quantitative in nature containing both interviews with insurance companies and a survey carried out on consumers. The study has been developed by analytical induction.Data: Consists of interviews with representatives from the insurance companies and survey responses from 99 consumers.Conclusion: From the study it can be concluded that the insurance industry is unique in its kind as a difficulty and complexity is obviously applicable to convey an overall impression to the consumer, which in turn will produce a brand value to the company. Creating a high brand value through good marketing where it maintained a good congruence between firms striving and consumer perception, is according to the scientists complicated because the lack of perceived quality affects the the big picture..

The fashion industry is a line of business which is characterised by tough competition. Often the consumer target groups exposed to advertisements identify them as attempts by the fashion industry to persuade them. When this happens, the consumer disregards the information due to selective attention. Faced with these conditions, companies need to find new, creative ways to market their product lines. This essay is about Public Relations, in particular Public Relations that appear in editorial spaces.

The purpose of this thesis is to increase the understanding about consumer buying behaviour when purchasing books online. In order to acquire data for the study we used a questionnaire that 75 students where asked to respond. The respondents were students at the University of Technology in Luleå. Our findings suggest that the following factors are the most commonly cited reasons for deciding to complete the purchase: trust, perceived risk, price, convenience, design of the website and experience. The following factors are the most commonly cited rea-sons for deciding not to complete the purchase: trust, perceived risk, price and the design of the website.

The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of how venture capitalists can use their network in order to reduce information asymmetries between themselves and the venture management team. A qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews, consisting of open questions, have been used to receive gradate information in order to reach our explorative purpose. Our theoretical framework consists of relevant studies made on the dynamics of networks and the problems that can arise in the complex relationship between a principal and an agent. We have been interviewing two venture capital firms and therepresentatives from two business angel networks. We also made an additional interview with an influential financial actor in order to try to verify our conclusions Our conclusions are that an extensive network can be used by venture capitalists in order to; verify ventures? technologies, complement the competences in the venture management team, and arrange co-investments, resulting in reduced information asymmetries between themselves and the venture management team.

This thesis describes and examines a new line of business, CleanTech. CleanTech comprises a wide range of different types of companies and is not yet well defined. In this thesis only the Swedish market is considered, and a variety of players on the market are included to give the most extensive picture of the current situation. Recent research shows that a gap has arisen between governmental financing and private equity-investments in CleanTech-companies. This gap occurs mainly in companies in expansive phases and causes problems both for the companies and for the line of business as a whole. To investigate this gap the Swedish CleanTech-business is described in terms of earlier and existing financing, age and size of the companies and their turnover and profit.

In today's society, consumers get in touch with hundreds of advertising messages a day from companies. It is up to the consumer to choose the messages they want to listen to and ignore the ones they want. Today, there is an advertising saturation and this has implications for both producers and consumer. Companies must be innovative and come with fresh ideas to get us consumers to pay attention to their particular message.  It is through the marketing that companies have an opportunity to spread their message.

Research on the power of customer involvement, and in particular recommendation is very resourceful. Many studies have mapped the reasons for why customers are willing to recommend, however they often ignore potential differences among brands and how that may affect these reasons. This study is built on a quantitative survey investigating how consumers interact with brands, depending on category affiliation. The categories used were Bhat and Reddy's symbolic and functional, consisting of three brands respectively where each brand represented a different product type.The evolvement of social media has also transformed the platform of recommendation from physical to virtual and changed the way people connect. Thus, taking the investigation further, potential differences between symbolic and functional brands was tested in different social media platforms.

For the last 50 years the amount of available consumer goods has exploded in number, due to improvements in production and technology. The problem is that the overall sales of many categories are stagnant and retailers are unwilling to grant the categories more shelf space. Therefore many categories are crowded with products and hard for consumers to navigate in. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of an assortment reduction on several variables relating to assortment perceptions, customer satisfaction and store choice. The study was carried out as an experiment with 127 participants.

One fundamental principle in Swedish contract law is that passive acceptance does not constitute a binding acceptance of an offer. Still, business owners use the consumers unknowing of this, and form offers saying passivity will lead to a binding agreement. Business owners are thus trying to ?negatively bind? the consumer to agreements. There are rules prohibiting this kind of actions in the Swedish marketing law (MFL).In order to find out what constitutes this forbidden kind of agreement-entering according to the Swedish Market Court, an analysis of seven cases settled between 2002-2009 and concerning consumers in these situations, is made.

Management consulting firms are an important part of the knowledge economy and they capitalize on the analytical ability and knowledge of their employees. Much research have been made on large consulting firms and their management of knowledge, but little is known about how small consultancies manage their knowledge. Even less is known about the management of knowledge in small consultancies specialized in change management. These firms rely solely on senior consultants and focus on the human aspect of organizational development. This thesis aims to show how these firms manage their knowledge and also provide an understanding of why.

Saab Bofors Dynamics AB is looking for ways to let the employees work wireless in the future. The security in Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) has not been considered very reliable, but new standards and protocols have been developed to enhance the security in WLAN. Since most wireless components soon will have built in support for wireless communication, it is important to have a model to deal with secure wireless communication ready. This is necessary because it is important to protect the company?s information related systems, ensure contingency in the daily work and maintaining the trust of the market and the authorities.

The aim of this paper was to discover the functions and workings of personal networks and their advantages for self-employed sound designers and producers whose focus was upon the moving image (film, advertising, tv, etc). Investigations on how entrepreneurs develop their networks were made, as well as inquiries on how these networks are used for generating work. Another important aspect perused was whether or not the networks are dependent on specific geographical locations in order to function. A case study and comparative analysis was undertaken, based upon three qualitative interviews with entrepreneurs whose operations shared several similar characteristics. The results pointed out the importance of constantly making new contacts, and maintaining and managing current ones.

An organization must manage its resource consumption and material flows in order to satisfy the demand of its products as efficiently as possible. Managing of the aforementioned requires a balance between the organizations resources (such as the capability of distribution and production) and the market demand. According to Gardner (1990), an estimation of future demand is a necessity for maintaining the balance. An instrument that is used frequently to estimate future demand is demand forecasting. The demand forecasting practice has been thoroughly studied and a plethora of academic contributions exist on the topic.

SammanfattningAnalysen undersöker meningserbjudandet gällande konsumentfrågor i tre läroböcker inom hem- och konsumentkunskap, med utgångspunkt i kursplan 2000 (Skolverket, 2000a). Först definierades och avgränsades konsumentfrågorna med hjälp av konsumtionsprocessen (Bjurström, 2004, McGregor, 2011a). Det andra steget i analysen var att kategorisera det befintliga konsumentinnehållet utifrån tre undervisningsstrategier: fakta-, normerande- och pluralistisk undervisningsstrategi (Skolverket, 2002, Kronlid & Öhman, 2010). Som ett tredje steg genomfördes en analys även av kursplan 2000, med hjälp av de tre undervisningsstrategierna. Detta tredje steg utgick ifrån antagandet att läroböckernas legitimitet och relevans styrs av kursplanen (Sellander, 1988, Lundgren, 1989, Englund, 2011).

SammanfattningAnalysen undersöker meningserbjudandet gällande konsumentfrågor i tre läroböcker inom hem- och konsumentkunskap, med utgångspunkt i kursplan 2000 (Skolverket, 2000a). Först definierades och avgränsades konsumentfrågorna med hjälp av konsumtionsprocessen (Bjurström, 2004, McGregor, 2011a). Det andra steget i analysen var att kategorisera det befintliga konsumentinnehållet utifrån tre undervisningsstrategier: fakta-, normerande- och pluralistisk undervisningsstrategi (Skolverket, 2002, Kronlid & Öhman, 2010). Som ett tredje steg genomfördes en analys även av kursplan 2000, med hjälp av de tre undervisningsstrategierna. Detta tredje steg utgick ifrån antagandet att läroböckernas legitimitet och relevans styrs av kursplanen (Sellander, 1988, Lundgren, 1989, Englund, 2011).