The last decade has created an increasing pressure on companies to decrease their impact on the environment and to increase their effectiveness of recycling the company?s resources, especially for the steel industry. Companies have also started to realize the economic aspects of an effective internal reverse logistics. In the past the value of an effective internal reverse logistic was something that companies tend to underestimate and there are few academic studies done in this area. The purpose of this essay has been to identify key factors to create an effective in plant storage, transport, sorting and handling of returned steel. From these factors a generalized model for creating an effective return steel flow will be developed.

This paper aims to determine what is decisive for localisation of production units when a company engages in offshoring. By performing a case study on Electrolux and comparing the results with theoretical literature we discuss the implications for manufacturing companies in general. To facilitate a structured analysis we have developed a model dividing the localisation decision into five perspectives and four geographical levels. We have found that the determinants of localisation vary depending on the geographical level of the decision process. Since all geographical levels are interconnected, the analysis needed for a decision on all levels simultaneously is very comprehensive.

Media has the power to influences society. Some call them the third power of a state. Through amongst others, the agenda setting theory and the framing theory, this report seeks to understand how media describes the swine influenza and how it uses its power to influence people to vaccinate. As this report will show, there is no doubt that media has had an impact on the Swedish population of which 60 per cent followed through with the vaccination. Media used an information discourse and attempted to present its articles in an impartial manner and used governmental authorities and experts to support its arguments.

The purpose of this study is to understand encounter by individual depictions of meetingsperceived by social workers and clients in social services. Thus, we want to understand moreabout how clients and social workers as actors encounter each other in meetings in the socialservices. The study also aims to understand how the two actors affect each other in this typeof interaction and whether there are other influencing factors. We conducted a qualitativestudy by interviewing informants with semi-structured interview questions. The informantswere comprised of three social workers and eight clients.

Human capital is professional service firms' most valuable resource and its quality is closely linked to the quality of its services. The purpose of this study is to investigate how professional service firms appraise their employees. A comparative study between an architecture firm and a management consulting firm is conducted with the aim to identify and explain similarities and differences in performance appraisal. Two qualitative case studies are performed and interviews as well as documents are used to explore the area. The thesis builds on a critical perspective and it has an explorative approach.

Background: Long-term stress can lead to reduced health among nurses which can result in impaired quality of care. Stress in nurses' work needs to be studied in order to prevent stress and impaired quality of care. Aim: The aim of this study was to describe nurses' experience of occupational stress and factors that contribute to occupational stress. Method: The method used was a literature review. Results: The analysis resulted in five themes which describe nurses' experiences of occupational stress and factors that contribute to occupational stress.

The purpose of this study is to examine young peoples' perception of their media criticial competence in relation to digital news. The study is based on quantitative research interviews with young people (15-17 years) and qualitative interviews with people in the same age group as well as teachers and international media professionals.This study's theoretical point of departure is McQuail´s observation that peoples' values and views to a great extent are influenced by the media. Another source of theoretical inspiration was Haberman's ideas about how a diversity of views and arguments increase the citizens' ability to reflect critically on social developments - maybe even more so than in societies with  independent media and "neutral" news.The study shows that the young generation of web based news consumers assumes that it is very important to be an aware and critical consumer but also that they do not feel sufficiently equipped with the right tools required to understand the long-term impact and effect of the media reporting online. Young people basically seemed to acquire their knowledge about media by doing and learning on their own. Surprisingly, according to the young people that were interviewed for this project, the schools seemed to play a secondary role in the development of their media critical capacity.

In order to produce grain in an economically rational manner numerous decisions have to be made. One of these decisions is what tillage system to use. The cost of the tillage system is a large part of the total cost in grain production. Different tillage systems result in different distribution of fixed costs, operating costs and timeliness costs. The price of the produced grain and cost of inputs also affect the best way to produce grain.

Previous research shows that small workplaces more often discriminate immigrants during the process of hiring new employees than larger workplaces, and usually explains this result by referring to structural factors. At the same time, previous research also shows that self-employees tend to have different personality traits than other people. Could it be the case that the higher discrimination among small workplaces can be explained at an individual level? I examined the hypothesis through OLS-regressions using a survey called Employment, Material Resources, and Political Preferences. The results showed that people working at small workplaces tend to have more negative attitudes towards immigrants than people working at larger workplaces.

This bachelor thesis is an exploratory investigation about the phenomenon 'Gamification', which by some definitions is about implementing game elements into non-game contexts. For example exercise services as Runkeeper and Nike Plus who both are available on android and iOS platforms. This study is mainly about the potential value of gamified systems and services for companies and its users and how such a system or service is developed. The thesis also discusses the development aspect of gamified systems in order to give the reader a more ?in depth? understanding about the phenomenon.

The number of sawmills in Sweden has decreased dramatically since the 1980s and the trend looks set to continue. The sawmills that are left instead becomes larger and are situated farther apart. In northern Sweden, they are concentrated along the coastline.In our study, we compared conditions for running a sawmill in inland areas and coastal areas and looked at what factors have the greatest impact on the profitability of the sawmill in northern Sweden.We chose to compare different locals conditions for a sawmill that only sawn pine timber and had an annual raw material requirements of 300 000 m3ub per year. By analyzing the kNN-data from the Swedish National Forest Inventory we have taken out the size of the timber volume at each site and its catchment. We have also looked at possible competitors in the areas that may affect the purchase price of the commodity.

Throughout this thesis three main factors have been identified that can be out of significance for transfer pricing in multinational companies if the proposal for Home State Taxation is adopted. These factors are rules for calculation of the tax base, rules for dividing costs over periods and the tax rate. The formula for sharing profits will also become a factor that can have an impact on the European companies'incentives for transfer pricing interacting with above-mentioned factors. The effects of transfer pricing aiming at reducing the total amount of the taxation burden for a group of companies will be strongly reduced in the future if the proposal is adopted. Incentives for transfer pricing will loose importance, though not disappear altogether.

Background: Associated with the change in the regulations in 2009 concerning how goodwill should be handled in the acquisitions, brand valuation is increasingly recognized. Goodwill will now be identified and the brand will therefore be separated to be individually evaluated. The valuation has a problem with a number of factors that will influence the choice of method, to obtain a reliable value Aim: The purpose of this study is to examine the method used for brand valuation associated with the acquisition situations. In addition, it aims to gain a better understanding of brand valuation and its problems.Method: The study has a qualitative basis, where three key people of brand valuation have been interviewed. These work as valuation specialists at various accounting firms, this to get answers that could be compared.

The aim of my thesis was to examine if educators need to be critical of what they read to the children from a gender perspective. I examined how picture books depict gender and if the books enhances or breaks perception of gender roles. I also examined educator?s perception of gender and if they think picture books can affect children?s perceptions of gender, but also what educators think about gender equality through picture books. The study is based on analysis of five picture books and interview with five educators.The results of analyzes showed that picture books are stereotyped and enhances perceptions of gender roles.

Human Resource Management (HRM) has an increasingly strategic role in today?s organizations as the supply of managers is an integral part of the strategic work. In order to retain competence and knowledge, firms are usually designed so that the employees can develop their careers within the firm. Company X is a company in the financial sector and is an example of such firm. However, at Company X: Department Y, very few employees apply for the management positions when they are announced.