Within the interconnected global markets of today; people, products, and information travel at a pace never met before. In light of the global retail markets recent integration, consumers are opened up to new products and are beginning to develop a vetted interest in the heritage of those products. Within literature this process has been coined "Country of origin" COO, and its impacts on consumer attitudes, product value- assessment, and overall behaviors has been one of the most emphasized areas of "international business" studies, during the last three decades. Numerous studies have shown a correlation between positive or advantageous associations to a Country of origin, and the actual products representing and coming out of that country. It is by this synergetic process that so-called positive COO-effects are brought forth.The goal of this thesis stems directly from the still unexplored potential for Swedish firms to differentiate their products and brands on new international markets, through a strategic and coherent communication of relevant Swedish COO-effects.

Sweden is a multi cultural country, where almost twenty percent of the population come from another cultural background. This study examines to what extent people with a foreign origin appear in two local, Swedish newspapers, Barometern and Östra Småland, and what role they are given. Do they appear as foreigners or immigrants or do they figure as any Swede, irrespective of their origin background?We have made a review by studying pictures of people with a foreign origin, based on name and appearance. During the time period, March 1st ? April 30 th 2010, there were 2206 articles with pictures of people where 189 of them did show people with a foreign origin.

The civil war in Sierra Leone was a very complicated conflict, both in its origin as well as in its realization. Many actors, along with the diamond trade, played vital parts in making the war carry on for a decade. In this paper I will try to clarify the relations between the actors and the diamonds, first and foremost the part the diamonds played in the conflicts start and continuation. I will also show what has happened in the country and in the diamond industry after the wars conclusion. What I find is that diamonds did not play the only part in the origin of the conflict but that the poor economic state the country was in had its part.

Syftet med denna uppsats var att identifiera hur Filippa K arbetar med sitt svenska ursprung för att skapa konkurrenskraft på internationella marknader samt hur Filippa K:s huvudkontor styr företagets internationella verksamheters arbete med att särskilja varumärket från konkurrenter. Litteraturgenomgången berörde vad forskning tidigare sagt om varumärkes värde och varumärkesidentitet, ?Country of origin? samt styrning av ett internationellt företag. Studien realiserades genom en kvalitativ forskningsmetod i form av en fallstudie och insamlingen av material skedde med hjälp av fyra intervjuer med respondenter representerande för olika position och geografiska placering inom företaget. Studien visade att COO används av Filippa K eftersom det differentierar varumärket och skapar konkurrenskraft.

The most recent couple of years the boundaries of the world have been erased and we have come to live in a more global environment. It has been even more evident since the European Union has got a more prominent role in the society. It appears as obvious for most of us that we live in a changeable time and that a new, global perspective has been developed. Companies have to focus on the effect globalization and differences in culture have, to be competitive in the market today. Because of that business managers more often can come to work in other countries than their Country of origin, it becomes interesting whether these managers adapt their management style or if they continue to work the same way as they did in their native country.This thesis aims to investigate if business managers with a foreign background bring along their national culture when managing a company in Sweden.

AbstractBackground: Countries can be seen as brands (nation brands) with brand values that transmitto the country?s products. Country-of-origin (COO), the brands nationality, links the productto an associative network of cultural shared national stereotypes. Through associating thebrand with a country or a region, the credibility of the brand can increase and strengthen thebrand. Therefore COO is used in marketing to position a brand.Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine how luxury fashion brands communicatetheir national identity through analyzing their advertising.

This bachelor thesis argues for consumers' views on origin labeling effect and their willingness to pay for goods with this kind of label. The purpose of this study is to analyze the factors that influence and to measure willingness to pay for a national origin labeled product previously only competeing with a less expensive conventional product, when a further regional product is introduced in the purchasing decisions of consumers. This is achieved by testing whether Simonson's (1989) theory of the compromise effect is applicable to increase consumers' willingness to pay for eco-labeled food products. The factors affecting the willingness to pay; trust in eco- label, opinions about the products of their own nation and the surrounding region. Furthermore presents theory about what underlying the consumer consumption choices.In order to achieve credible results 240 respondents have participated in a questionnaire survey.

Aim: Nation Branding has become an important phenomenon during the last couple of years. The concept talks about how to promote a product by using the features of a nation to gain profit. Among the years many countries has established a strong Nation Brand abroad. In the long run many companies have chosen to use these benefits in an efficient way by promoting their own country brand, especially in their internationalization process. The aim of this study is to see what factors that influence companies in the Swedish food industry while using the fact that they are Swedish when they enter foreign markets. Method: Data was collected through interviews with export managers and sales managers at 6 Swedish companies exporting products within the food industry.

Title: The Relationship between Internationalization and Firm Performance Seminar date: 5 June, 2008 Course: Masters thesis in Business Administration, Programme for Managing People, Knowledge and Change, 15 University Credit Points (15 ECTS). Authors: Cheng Hsun Chiang and Márton Pap Advisor: Dan Kärreman Key words: Internationalization, Performance, Multinationality, Degree of Internationalization (DOI), Country of origin Purpose: To illuminate various crucial aspects of internationalization by systematically contrasting the different models of the multinationality-performance relationship and searching for underlying reasons. Methodology: Meta-analysis on previous theoretical and empirical research. Our emphasis in this paper has been put on the qualitative aspects of the previous research unlike many other conventional meta-analyses that focus on the comparison of the empirical data. Theoretical perspectives: Five main models have been developed by earlier studies to describe the relationship between internationalization and performance: positive linear, no or ambiguous relation, inverted U-shaped, standard U-shaped and S-shaped curve.

The upper secondary school 2011 (Gy 2011) was a reform which created large changes in the Swedish educational system. One of the major changes was the requirement of certification for sport schools. Schools in Sweden have historically used sports in their marketing, this opportunity was impaired by the reform. This thesis aims to investigate how brands are applied on webpages of sport schools that are certified in football and/or cross-country skiing. Content analysis was used as method of data collection.

Focus of this study was on the underlying values behind consumers buying motives at the point of purchase of meat products in Sweden. Meat consumption in Sweden has increased and in 2012, almost 50% of all meat consumed was imported (SJV, 2013). This is the case despite of the fact that consumers frequently state the importance of Swedish Country of origin on the meat products they purchase (www, LRF, 2, 2006). A rising public awareness about health, environmental issues, animal welfare and food safety coupled to meat consumption and meat production is scrutinized both from media and consumers. Due to rising concerns of production-methods of meat, consumers wants to make informed purchasing decisions of the meat they purchase (BEUC, 2013).

Abstract Cucumber is the second most frequently consumed vegetable after tomatoes, 33 % are eating cucumber every day. The purpose of this work is to examine if there is any product development of cucumber in Sweden, and if so in what way. A questionnaire was used with a number of questions regarding quality, origin, supply and the way cucumbers were used, and the person was also asked to choose between the normal large cucumber and the minicucumbers. This was answered by totally 100 persons in two different stores, ICA Maxi in Löddeköpinge and a discount store with a large supply of fruit and vegetables and where a large share of customers are immigrants, Özen All Frukt in Malmö. The results from questionnaire show that in some of the issues the results vary a lot between the two stores.

Syfte: Syftet med studien är att öka kunskapen inom företags framhävandeav sitt ursprungsland vid internationalisering. Studien syftar till att !nna vilkafaktorer som spelar in när ett företag väljer att framhäva sitt ursprung som deli en marknadsstrategi vid internationalisering.Problem: - Hur ser den övergripande internationaliseringsprocessen ut bland svenskaföretag?- Vilka faktorer spelar in när ett företag utformar sin marknadsstrategi vidinternationalisering?- Hur arbetar svenska företag med att framhävs sitt ursprungsland?Teori: I Litteraturöversikten presenteras internationaliseringsteorier, modell övermakromiljön, marknadsmixen, Country of origin och produktanpassning.Studie: Studien är kvalitativ och baserad på intervjuer med nio fallföretag.Resultat: Svenska företag går mot en allt snabbare internationalisering. I utformandetav en marknadsstrategi är den viktigaste variabeln marknadskunskap. Att framhäva ett företags ursprungsland kan vara till fördel beroende på bransch ochmarknad som företaget ska in på.

Flertalet modeföretag använder sig idag av SMS-reklam, en reklamform som enligt studier uppfattas som positiv så länge som den är tillåtelsebaserad. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka om och i så fall vilka skillnader som finns vad det gäller attityden till SMS-reklam och det efterföljande köpbeteendet mellan de som anser sig ha accepterat avtalen kring SMS-reklam och de som ej anser sig ha gett sin tillåtelse. För att uppfylla syftet fick 219 studerande vid Stockholms universitet besvara ett frågeformulär gällande deras attityd till SMS-reklam och deras efterföljande köpbeteende. Resultaten visade, i likhet med tidigare forskning, att de studenter som var medvetna om att ha gett sin tillåtelse till att motta SMS-reklam både hade en mer positiv attityd till SMS-reklam och ett mer positivt köpbeteende till följd av SMS:et. De studenter som inte var medvetna om att de gett sin tillåtelse hade en mer negativ attityd till SMS-reklam och hade ett mer negativt köpbeteende till följd av SMS:et.

Does the country people live in affect the probability of them experiencing happiness? Can a country variable in an ordinal regression model be affected when microeconomic and macroeconomic factors are added to the model? The possible outcomes are either that the country variable affects less when the additional predictors are added to the model, or that they stay the same. The micro data is collected from the European Social Survey database, the macro data is collected from the World Bank. The country variable becomes less substantial when additional variables are added to the model. The variable with the most influence over expected happiness apart from the country variable is whether the individual often socializes with friends or not.