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.

For a long period of time there has been an extensive documentation of how things are presumed not to be at our workplace. However there is little knowledge on how it is supposed to be, what makes us feel good and what makes us retain our well-being. The aim of this study was to survey the attitudes towards factors of well-being at the workplace among personnel at four institutions at Kristianstad University. The work method used in this study is quantitative and a questionnaire survey was carried out to produce an overall picture. The majority considered praise from manager and the opportunity of development discussions of great importance.

This is a study where the purpose was to investigate whether preschool teachers have a positive or negative attitude to outdoor education. Their view of outdoors education is also treated. The methods used were questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The survey was sent to all preschool teachers in three municipalities and on a social network. The interviews were conducted at a preschool, which had a form of outdoor profile.

The purpose of the study is to show the conditions there are by working with aesthetic expressions in pre-school and how these activities are implemented. Questions that we are going to discuss are: What are the conditions for working with aesthetics in pre-school? How is the work implemented when it comes to aesthetic expressions? Our ambition has been to study what conditions it takes to use aesthetic expressions in a way that is meaningful for the children and also show the conditions and alternative methods that are present in different schools. We have used a web survey to reach a result in the study. This web survey includes questions about the different aesthetic activities and has given us the answers to the questions above. The result shows that there are different ways of working and different views at aesthetic expressions.

As a consumer, you can use cards for payment more or less everywhere you go, however, it is not certain that the card can be used for all purchases. When a customer pays with card there arises a card transaction fee charged to the merchant. This is a big problem for businesses where transactions with small amounts are a large portion of sales. An observation at the beginning of this study showed that seemingly similar merchants have chosen to solve this problem in different ways. Some merchant?s refuses card purchases below a certain amount, while others accept card with any purchase.

Background: The background explains different financial crises and the effect those crises had on the Swedish acquits regarding variable compensation. The resent discussion regarding variable compensation and the main problems with bonuses is also explained. Our theories for this essay is mainly based on the new directions from Finansinspektionen FFFS 2009:6,7 and stakeholder theory. Other theories used are agency theory, stewardship theory and economic man.Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to analyze the new directions for variable compensation and to investigate if these new directions can lead to a more long-term thinking for managers in banks. Method: We used semi-structured interviews with open questions for our survey.

This master thesis was made to describe how sales organisations are constructed in Sweden within an industry with almost every sales situation as a new task selling, and where almost every selling is over one million Skr. One of these industries is the homebuilding industry with companies that manufacturers prefabricated houses and semi-fixed manufactured homes in Sweden. The pre-studies where made by using the Internet, intervjues and theory studies to construct a conceptual framework. The sales organisation was conceptualized to be able to measure: salesman, sales leader, improved skills, communication, reported information, compensation and company targets. This conceptualisation and operationalisation lead to a survey that captured organisations within the homebuilding industry in Sweden.

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.

This thesis focuses on interaction in netbased education. The purpose being to increase awareness about what promotes interaction in netbased education through understanding and categorizing the students? opinions . My method is qualitative with a phenomenographic approach. I have conducted a netbased survey with 21 respondents who have completed a netbased course. Further I have followed up and chatted with 7 of the respondents in the survey.

Algal bloom is a naturally occurring phenomenon and occurs in all waters around the world but in recent years, algal bloom in the Baltic Sea has become more massive and more widely spread. When an algal bloom negative effects on the seawater quality, it may have an impact on tourism in the Baltic Sea. The aim of this thesis is to study, through a survey based on a production function approach, whether an environmental change as algal blooms, influenced the Gotland tourist accommodation industry and their "production of attractive overnight? in the summer of 2005. The results show that algal blooms did not have a great impact on companies ?production of attractive accommodations".

This study intends to elucidate which view customers has about Sony Ericsson as a trademark compared with it?s biggest competitors and how the company can expand and create added value around its products. The aim with this essay is to study and to analyze Sony Ericsson?s creation of value and to increase understanding about strategy development. We have chosen to do this study on the basis of customer perspectives.We have used existing theories that treat matters: added value, marketingmix and trademark image.

People live longer. There is a growing need to increase the knowledge of aging and of the need among the elderly for medical care in the near future. As a step towards meeting this need, a survey among the elderly in Skåne is made by the division of Geriatric Medicine in Malmö University Hospital. This survey is called Gott åldrande i Skåne, GÅS. A frequent decease among the elderly is Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI).

The purpose of this study is to examine how textile companies are using "green arguments" in their marketing strategy and how these arguments affect the competitiveness on the market for each of the six companies.The survey that was conducted is based on qualitative interviews with managers responsible for environmental issues in the field of marketing. The purpose of the survey was to examine how companies are using ?green arguments" in order to create competitive advantages. We have chosen to limit the study to the textile industry with the study being carried out in six different companies. The two main theories that make up most of the theoretical framework are Porters five forces and the marketing mix.The survey showed that companies today are using green arguments in their marketing strategy to gain competitive advantages, but only to a certain extent.

This survey's main purpose is to highlight how the two Swedish newspapers Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter writes and describes four different school shootings. We wanted to find out if there is a general pattern of how school shootings are reported by the media. Two of the shootings occured in USA, Columbine and Virginia Tech, and two in Finland, Kauhajoki and Jokela. The analysis aims at three areas: the whole event, the perpetrator and the victim. We have used a qualitative content analysis with a semiotic model to examine the articles in the survey. The theories in the study is based upon views on social constructionism, media logic, stereotypization, representation, morale panic/media panic and media events.

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.