The purpose of this thesis was to study the importance of virtual communities for independent record companies. It also aims to examine how these companies use virtual communities in their marketing activities and how to gain competitive advantages by working with virtual communities. A case study based on interviews was conducted with managers from two independent record companies, Music Is My Girlfriend Recordings and B&B Records. Our study has shown that virtual communities are important for independent record companies as tools for finding and addressing the right target market. Useful information about the members of these communities can easily be gathered with the use of the various search options that are available.

The primary purpose of this thesis is to investigate the operation of membership criteria, which are applied against countries that wish to join the European Union (EU). More specifically, the importance of some criteria in comparison to others is considered. To answer this proposal, three questions are posed: What are the EU membership criteria? Are some criteria more important than other criteria? Does the EU treat candidate countries differently in applying the membership criteria? Three countries are used in this analysis, each country representing one recent enlargement round: Poland (2004), Romania (2007), and current candidate country Turkey. Both official documents, such as EU treaties, and unofficial documents such as statements from EU leaders are used to analyze the application of membership criteria.

Mathematics is a central topic in today's education debate, including discussion of its educational quality and various teaching methods. Today basically two different teaching methods are used; one is the textbook based method, with the book in focus and the other one the laboratory method by which teaching is performed through practical applications. The purpose of this study was to examine four primary school teachers' view of these two teaching methods by means of four relevant inquiries. By interviewing the four teachers, advantages and disadvantages were highlighted and the purpose was achieved. In order to support the analysis, two theories applied; the socio-cultural perspective and the cognitive perspective.

As the number of people owning a smartphone rapidly increases so too does the opportunity for various researchers to exploit this technology. The possibility to recruit people to participate in research studies improves and with it the chance to get more diversified target groups in terms of age, socio-economic status, geographical location, etc.In this essay, I argue that the opportunities smartphones offer in terms of collecting research material is vastly underestimated in several areas, bearing in mind the advantages they present. In order to support my argument, I shall present a case study carried out in the research area of happiness ? an area where the use of smartphones has provided significant opportunities for research.In order to gather the advantages and disadvantages of this method of study from the participants? perspective, I have followed a happiness research study which is a collaboration between Umeå University and The University of Stockholm. I have interviewed the participants of this study in order to assess the advantages and opportunities that smartphones offer in research programs.Overall, the participants? opinion of this research method was generally positive and it was considered to be quite easy to participate in the study and respond to the questions asked.

The primary purpose of this thesis is to investigate the operation of membership criteria, which are applied against countries that wish to join the European Union (EU). More specifically, the importance of some criteria in comparison to others is considered. To answer this proposal, three questions are posed: What are the EU membership criteria? Are some criteria more important than other criteria? Does the EU treat candidate countries differently in applying the membership criteria? Three countries are used in this analysis, each country representing one recent enlargement round: Poland (2004), Romania (2007), and current candidate country Turkey. Both official documents, such as EU treaties, and unofficial documents such as statements from EU leaders are used to analyze the application of membership criteria.

The purpose of this essay is to shed some light upon the children who grew up in Sweden after their parents fled the war in former Yugoslavia. Did the parents spread their own opinions about the other ethnicities which they fought against in the war to the children, even though they live in a new country? And if so, was it an act of patriotism for the country they once lived in and who was to blame for the war? Did the children who grew up in Sweden share the same attitudes as their parents? To find out about this we used interviews with four people, all with heritage from former Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Croatia. What we found out was that the thoughts from the parents partially were passed down to their children, even though the children thought that they had formed their own opinions. In this case the thoughts didn?t relate to any kind of patriotism or who to blame for the war, they rather believed that they shouldn?t blame the other ethnic groups for the war.

The aim of this study is to examine how European companies? stock price is affected by an announcement about foreign direct investment in one of the BRIC countries. Another aim for the study is to examine if the market reacts differently to the three modes of entry methods in a given BRIC country and to examine if the market reacts differently to different European countries. The study also set out to answer if there were any effects of the three modes of entry that was visible a short time after the announcement. To answer and examine this, the authors used the event study approach. The study was conducted with a sample of 47 companies from France, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Germany.

This essay has the ambition to examine and compare Croatia?s and Bosnia and Herzegovina?s development towards a consolidated democracy. By applying Linz & Stepen?s theory on how to consolidate a democracy and put focus on political society, behavioral patterns, attitude and constitutional structure the purpose is to find similarities and differences between Bosnia and Croatia within this field.The focus of this study is to compare two similar countries that have developed in very different ways. By applying the theory and a comparative method the purpose is to examine why two so similar countries with so much in common have developed in so different ways?In order to better answer the question there are two part questions and these are:What difficulties, concerning consolidation of democracy, have Croatia and Bosnia faced since the democratic transition in the beginning of the 1990s?What similarities and differences in the area of democratic consolidation (with focus on political society, behavioral patterns, attitude and constitutional structure) are there between the two countries?As the analysis shows, the main reason why these two countries differ so much is that Bosnia is a divided country with different nationalities and each nationality only wants to realize its own interest and does not care about what is best for the country as an entity.

Since the 2006 election, the debate surrounding the Swedish labour market policy has intensified. There has been a discussion about a need for change towards a more flexible labour market. An example of this is on the other side of the strait, in neighbouring Denmark. Their flexicurity model, ?the golden triangle?, is characterized by a flexible labour market, generous unemployment benefits and active labour market policies.

The special relationship between Israel and the US has been subject to questioning, and good many theories have tried to explain why it is so strong. The most common explanation is rooted in the school of realism, where strategy and national interest decide who one's ally is. This essay aspires to examine another possible reason for allianceformation; identity. Several books, which make for the theoretical backbone of this study, have been written on the subject of sharing beliefs, identifying with others and the consequences of this. The question being asked is whether Israel and the US actually share beliefs and, if so, which ones.

Growth of small businesses is vital to the Swedish economy, and many entrepreneurs want their enterprises to grow. However, the business climate of today is more changing than ever, and attributes becoming increasingly important for companies in order to deal with this are flexibility, speed, and adaptability: characteristics normally attributed to small enterprises. As a larger organization often is associated with more rigidity as a consequence of a higher degree of formalization, entrepreneurs are hesitant to seize growth opportunities, as they fear it will have negative impact on the aforementioned competitive advantages their enterprise possesses as a small business. This simple case study of a growing small enterprise investigates the effects of organizational growth on a small business' organizational structure and through its above mentioned advantages. The study finds that avoiding formalization while growing damages the competitiveness of the firm, and concludes that a degree of formalization is a necessity to maintain the flexibility, speed and adaptability in a growing small business..

AbstractProblem-based learning (PBL) was from the beginning developed in medical school, but is today used in education in other programmes as well. Investigations about PBL have been conducted in different disciplines and there is also metastudies. In this paper, a metastudy of 8 bachelor degree papers have been conducted. The questions answered were: which methods were used to investigate PBL in primary, lower secondary and upper secondary school,which advantages were found in working according to the PBL method, which disadvantages were found in working according to the PBL method and did teachers and students views about advantages and disadvantages about PBL as a method differ and if they did, how? The results showed that mostly qualitative methods were used to investigate the PBL as a method, mostly abilities of social qualities and independence were trained in working according to PBL, a disadvantage was that working according to the PBL method was considered more resourse consuming than traditional teaching methods and teachers and students views about PBL did not differ considerably.

The purpose of this report is to analyze the advantages of using programme software to monitor masshauling instead of using the conventional method. A comparsion between different programs will also be conducted in an attempt to determine the most affordable. This report is written for NCC Construction AB to help them choose a software most fitting for future projects.The report is based upon literature such as information taken from the developers website, existing reports with similar context, interviews with sellers of the software and interviews with people working in the building sector.The result of this report shows that there are several advantages with investing in a software that helps the management of a project and that it is something that should be taken under consideration instead of the existing method. Topcon is a clear favorite following the inquiries comparisons as done, when they deliver a complete system and not only a supplement to the current approach. Scanlaser are just in the beginning of its development, and is so far only out with an early version of the software, while Topcon has been brought further in development and therefore has more features in the program.

The purpose of the thesis is to compare Sweden's and Great Britain's total costs for their systems regulating producer responsibility for waste packages. Producer resonsibility is a strategy implying that producers are responsible for their waste also after its use. Sweden and Great Britain introduced different systems systems after an EU directive was adopted in 1994 (94/62/EC), and they have resulted in entirely different recycling levels in the two countries. In the Swedish system, responsibility has been delegated to the industry who are responsible for reaching the determined goals. The economic instrument used is a fee, set and managed by the industry. The British system is more centrilised, and the economic instrument used to finance recycling of waste is a system based on transferable permits. The thesis compares the four different alternatives: delegated and centralised methods, and fees and transferable permits analytically.

Lao People?s Democratic Republic (PDR) is a country where the majority of the population works within the sector agriculture in one way or another. The number of goats are increasing and the animals can be an important income source for families. However, during the dry season, lack of feed is a great problem for the farmers. Fodder trees have shown great potential as dry season feeding, due to that the trees often hold green and fresh leaves a long time into the season, compared to grass that dry out quickly.