Background: The design industry is relatively immature in Sweden but large on the international market, where companies have used services from industrial design firms for a long time. Companies incresignly realise that design is an efficient mean to gain competitive advantages on the market. Several design companies fancy growth and to receive a wider market share to expand on the international market. One of them is Design Communicaton who has made a couple of acquisitions, to receive wider comptences and to cover different segments. That has lead to an increased brand portfolio with different subbrands, which can be complicated to handle efficiently in the internal and external communication.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) refers to adjusting corporate goals so that they are not only based on maximizing corporate profits, but include ethical standards on socially desirable behavior (Boatright, 2008). Even though many companies have integrated CSR into their business operations, there are still many issues that are difficult to tackle. Especially Multinational Corporations (MNCs) in the global business environment face many challenging situations due to the fact that they often have linkages to countries where the local government is either unwilling or unable to take care of its responsibilities. MNCs often find themselves with increased responsibilities when they start solving some of the issues that earlier have been the sole responsibility of states. A specific case situation discussed in this paper is related to ?conflict minerals?.

Title: Globalization ? Meeting a new market Author: Anna Nubäck Supervisor: Anders Nilsson Institution: School of Management, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola Course: Master in business administration, 15 credits (FED006) Purpose: The purpose of this essay is partly to create an understanding of the decision to establish a branch in Japan and especially to look at if and how the Swedish company in this study has adjusted its corporate culture to suit the Japanese market. Method: Data is collected thru a number of semi constructed interviews. A first telephone interview was followed by an interview made face to face that was also followed up by interviews performed over telephone. E-mails have been used to clear and correct collected data.

In the recent years auditing scandals all around the world, deficient internal control has attracted a lot of attention. This has contributed to further requirements on insight and internal control. Those scandals have seriously damaged the auditor?s profession and contributed to a reduced trust among the public. Therefore an extensive work to recover and stringed the trust was started all around the world.

This thesis engages the topic of test methods for wood adhesives. Two test methods were evaluated, EN 302-1, a European standard, and ASTM D905, an American standard. The total amount of specimens manufactured and tested was more than 500. The adhesive bonds were tested in shear with an increasing load on the specimen until failure.The adhesives used were epoxy-resin, phenol-resorcinol-formaldehyde and a 2-K polyurethane. The test programme included five different types of intentional errors per method, in order to investigate the sensitivity of the test methods.

Uppsatsens syfte är att med utgångspunkt i den teoretiska referensramen och en deskriptiv fallstudie av tre företag få ökad förståelse för hur kommunikations- och marknadsföringsverktyget storytelling används i svenska företag. Syftet är även att identifiera vilka effekter verktyget kan ge och studera hur storytelling kan påverka företagskulturen. En kvalitativ forskningsansats med abduktivt angreppssätt har använts där tre fallföretag, SCA Packaging, IKEA och SAS samt konsulten Matts Heijbel intervjuats inom ämnet. De tre fallföretagen arbetar aktivt med intern storytelling.Teoriavsnittet inleds med en beskrivning av intern marknadsförings betydelse, därefter redogörs för verktygets storytelling som ett internt marknadsföringsverktyg. Teorikapitlet berör hur storytelling fungerar som kulturbärare då uppsatsens syfte är att studera denna aspekt.Studien visar att storytelling kan användas i många olika syften och på olika sätt.

We are surrounded by things. They have their own personalities. Some evokes our emotions. We want to own them. We develop strong relationships to each other.

I den här uppsatsen har en fallstudie genomförts i syfte att ta reda på hur ett företag iservicehandeln med hjälp av utvalda marknadsföringsstrategier kan påverka konsumenter tillatt välja ett mer hälsosamt alternativ vid inköp av livsmedel, samt om detta är något somefterfrågas av kunderna själva. De teorier som ligger till grund för arbetet är teorier omföretags frivilliga samhällsansvar, även kallad Corporate Social Responsibility, butikenspåverkan på ett köp samt kunders köpbeteende och impulsköp. Syftets företagsperspektiv harundersökts genom två intervjuer med en franchisetagare hos Reitan Convenience Sweden ABoch genom en intervju med verkställande direktör för branschorganisationen SvenskServicehandel & Fast Food. Data från kundperspektivet har samlats in genom enkäter ochintervjuer med ett urval av butikens kunder. För att skapa en helhetsbild av de bådaperspektiven har även en observationsstudie genomförts.

Background: Ambiguity and confusion of ideas within the area of social responsibility have led to that companies not really know how to work with these types of questions. One way for companies to deal with their social responsibility is to affiliate to an initiative that exists and through this show their standpoint. One of these is Globalt Ansvar, a Swedish governmental initiative that is based on Global Compact?s principles and the guidelines of OECD. What does it mean for the companies when showing their point of view? Is this a way to gain legitimacy?Purpose: The purpose with the thesis is to judge if organisations? work with Corporate Social Responsibility gains more legitimacy by affiliating to Globalt Ansvar.Research method: A survey made through telephone interviews with representatives from all of the fifteen Swedish companies which today are affiliated to Globalt Ansvar.Conclusions: In order to give the affiliated companies more legitimacy, Globalt Ansvar has to be a legitimate initiative.

In this study, we have considered the impact the organization`s implementation of its vision of the psychosocial work enviroment has been for the relations between the employees. We have primarily relied on a hermeneutic approach to understand our empirical data, and when we have interpreted and made a socialpsycological analysis on our collected empirical data. We have used Smith´s Institutional Ethnography, Sheff`s Social bonds and Asplund`s theory of Social responsivity. To collect the empirical data we have combined quantitative and qualtitative methods and a textanalysis at a visiondocument in the aim of capture both the depht and the breadth of our chosen fields of study. The results we have found shows that the psycosocial work environment within the organization can be seen as interplay between individual and enviroment and between individuals as well and that this interaction is influenced by the organizational culture that is created by the organization`s political vision.

Corporate governance intensified due to the corporate scandals in the USA which led to a new law the so called Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).In 2005 the "Svensk kod för bolagsstyrning" (The Code) was introduced. The main purpose of The Code is to strengthen the confidence in Swedish companies quoted on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. The Code focuses on the working process of boards. The rules set by The Code places higher demands on the board.  Among many other duties the board has to establish long term operational goals and strategy.

Background: The environment and the design of auditing regulation can vary significantly between countries, which can affect the form, content and quality of the audit report. The purpose of the International Standards on Auditing, ISA, is to facilitate the work for auditors on an international basis. Sweden today follows the RS 600 which is based on ISA 600, which contains standards for when an auditor use work performed by other auditor. In October 2007, came a revised and redrafted version of ISA 600 that will be enforced in Sweden in the audit of the financial year beginning on 1 January 2011. To what degree the new requirements will affect the group audit is clearly dependent on how the reporting, evaluation and instructions between the group auditor and other auditor has been carried out previously.Aim: The aim with this paper is to explain the reporting between the group auditor and other auditor in an international corporate group.

Since July 2005 the major companies listed on the Swedish stock exchanges are required to apply the Swedish Code of Corporate Governance. The code states that companies shall have a nomination committee responsible for nominating new board candidates and seek to obtain gender equality in the Board of Directors. This paper examines the trend of board as well as nomination committee composition among Sweden's 60 largest publicly traded companies between 2005 and 2008. Our overall finding is that neither the board nor the nomination committee composition has changed to a notable extent during the period and that the share of newly appointed female board members has actually decreased. However, the trends vary between different sectors.

Problemformulering: Hur kan företag använda varumärken som värdeskapare? Vi använder oss av Skanska och Skanska Nya Hem som exempel för att tydliggöra detta. Kan Skanska Nya Hem använda sig av varumärket Skanska på ett sådant sätt att det skapar ett mervärde? Finns det några eventuella nackdelar med att använda namnet Skanska för Skanska Nya Hems sida? Syfte:Vårt syfte är att genom teoretiska och empiriska studier utreda varumärket Skanska som värdeskapare utifrån Skanska Nya Hems perspektiv. Vårt syfte är även att pröva och utveckla teoribildningen.

A?r 2007 uppma?rksammades de oegentligheter som fo?rekom i produktionen av de varor som landstingen ko?pte in till den svenska sjukva?rden vilket medfo?rde att landstingen startade ett samarbete runt socialt ansvar i upphandling. Da? CSR fra?mst kopplas ihop med fo?retag i privat sektor, avser denna kvalitativa studie underso?ka hur CSR som ide? har tagits emot i offentlig sektor och hur den har gjorts om fo?r att passa i sin nya kontext. Det empiriska materialet har samlats in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer och har sedan analyserats med skandinavisk nyinstitutionell o?versa?ttningsteori samt teorin om inramning.