The purpose of this master?s thesis is to contribute to the development of business relationships between a supplier and its customers. The research area and research problem was further developed into three research questions. The research questions concerns the following subjects: the substance of business relationships and dimensions within relationships management that can be used in order to contribute to the development of a company?s business relationships.

More often consumers demand instant dry soup that can be prepared with a water temperature below 100o C, which is currently not possible, because the dry soup becomes too thin when using water with a lower temperature. In this study, various kinds of starch studies were made to optimize the starch used in the existing product to make it more viscous at both high and low temperatures. The result was that one of the two starches present in the existing product was retained by change in quantity as it contributed to important flavor parameters. The second was removed and replaced with a starch that made the product more viscous at lower temperatures. To find out if the new product differed from the existing product a viscosity measurement and a sensory paired preference test were made.

The purpose of this study is to investigate and describe what factors are most important to students when choosing training center, and how these factors affect the choice of each training center. We investigated this by performing a qualitative research and a quantitative survey of students at Karlstad University that trains at Friskis & Svettis and Sats in Karlstad. The results show that there are a number of important factors in the total customer experience that affects a student's choice of training center and that they also differ between a premium center and basic center. Our conclusion is that when a total customer experience concept consists of a core, core experience and peripheral experiences well linked into each other competitive advantages is created, resulting in more satisfied and loyal customers. .

Den aktuella studien syftade till att öka förståelsen för den betydande roll känslor har i servicemöten. En experimentell design användes där deltagare randomiserades till en av två scenariobeskrivningar, där en variabel var manipulerad. Två olika ansiktsuttryck, ett leende eller ett neutralt, användes som stimuli för att undersöka dess inverkan på kunderna. Resultaten visade att en leende servicearbetare påverkade kundernas känslor positivt, samt ökade både nöjdheten och reciprociteten jämfört med en servicearbetare med neutralt ansiktsuttryck. Dessutom utvärderade kunderna den leende servicearbetarens personliga egenskaper mer positivt jämfört med servicearbetaren med neutralt ansiktsuttryck.

Lots of choices are to be made by a company who enters a new market with a new businessidea. Common questions that show up when a company is making it´s businessplan are how to target the market and how to use marketing as a tool to reach a specific customer or segment. It is difficult to know wether to target the market in different ways and what processes that can be used in the choice how to select the most potential and profitable customer. Another important question is how a company can positioning themself in a way so the customer will get a positive understanding of the company and what different positive abilities to mention in a possible businessproposal. This study is made on a small company in Sweden called AYEN Technology.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) ämnar hjälpa företag att förstå kunders beteenden för att möjliggöra förvärvandet av nya kunder, underhålla befintliga relationer samt skapa lojalitet. Förståelsen för hur företag bör hantera kundrelationer har fått stor uppmärksamhet under de senaste åren vilket har utmynnat i relationsmarknadsföring på one-to-one nivå. ICA är det enda företaget inom den svenska dagligvaruhandeln som erbjuder sina kunder skräddarsydda, individuellt anpassade erbjudanden. Denna uppsats syftar således till att undersöka hur ICA använder CRM i ett försök att skapa mer lönsamma kundrelationer genom one-to-one marknadsföring. Studien genomfördes huvudsakligen genom intervjuer med två nyckelpersoner inom CRM på ICA.

The aim of this essay is to investigate how patrons, librarians and indexers use subject headings to describe and index fiction literature. We wanted to know if the groups concentrated on different levels in the text from a semiotic viewpoint, where words either can describe the manifest/connotative meaning or the latent/denotative. To investigate this we had four fiction indexers, four librarians working with fiction for adults and eight library users read and index four short stories. After that we did interviews asking them about how they were thinking when describing the texts, how they use subject headings, about their opinions on indexing and, in the interviews with the librarians and indexers, about their usual work assignments. The subject headings they listed were analysed according to the level they described.

Subjektivt välbefinnande är en del av den positiva psykologin och utgår ifrån människors subjektiva bedömning av hur nöjda de är med sitt liv. Forskning inom området har visat att god livskvalitet har betydelse för högre grad subjektivt välbefinnande och andra studier relaterar till betydelsen av bra självkänsla. Studien undersökte hur gymnasieelevers kön, självkänsla och livskvalitet står i relation till subjektiva välbefinnandet. 92 elever deltog, varav 44 var män. Enkäten bestod av The PANAS scale, Satisfaction With Life Scale, The Self-esteem scale och Life Satisfaction Questionnaire.

Uppsatsens syfte är att förklara Yield Management. Detta gör författarna genom att kvalitativt studera och analysera arbetsgången på två hotell. Det ena hotellet har en uttalad Yield Management strategi emedan det andra hotellet har en Customer Relationship Management strategi. Det sistnämnda hotellet fyller funktionen som referensobjekt till Yield Management. Customer Relationship Management valdes som en referensram eftersom denna teori är vanligt förekommande inom hotellbranschen.

This thesis researches the value creation process in Internet based subscription services in accordance with service dominant logic. The aim of the paper is to identify the characteristics of these services and to envisage the future of Internet based subscription services. The authors have utilized a qualitative method in their research which consists of personal interviews as well as a focus group. The main theoretical subjects that are discussed are value creation, customer participation and service dominant logic. The paper analyses the empirical findings by matching them with the theoretical framework.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka om det fanns skillnader i uppfattning av feedback (positiv, negativ och kvalité) beroende på om den kom från chef, medarbetare, vårdtagare eller anhörig inom äldreomsorgen. Ett ytterligare syfte var att undersöka vilken feedbackkälla som bäst predicerar generell arbetstillfredsställelse. Studien genomfördes på sju äldreboenden där 87 anställda deltog. De mätinstrument som användes i studien var FES-skalan som mätte de olika aspekterna av feedback, samt Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) som mätte arbetstillfredsställelse. Resultatet visade att källan chef predicerade generell arbetstillfredsställelse bäst av de fyra källorna, samt att det var aspekten kvalité som bidrog mest i modellen.

Människor bedöms ibland enbart utifrån sitt kön och denna studie syftade till att undersöka dessa könsstereotypa värderingar. Deltagarna, 172 högskolestudenter (129 kvinnor, 43 män) i Sverige, fick på Schein Descriptive Index skatta antingen sig själva, kvinnor eller män i allmänhet på 92 egenskaper. Detta för att utreda om kvinnor och män bedömdes olika av andra och/eller sig själva, om bedömningen av könen stämde överens med kvinnors respektive mäns självskattningar samt om den egna könstillhörigheten påverkade skattningarna. Resultatet visade att kvinnor och män skattades som mer olika jämfört med vad självskattningarna visade samt att deltagarna var mer ense om kvinnors egenskaper än om mäns egenskaper. Vissa resultat stämde överens med tidigare forskningsresultat och andra inte, vilket ger motivation för utökade studier.Key words: gender-stereotypes, stereotypes, in-group, out-group, Schein Descriptive Index..

Purpose: This study aims to examine the price transmission among ADRs (American Depositary Receipts) and their underlying shares, US market index and Hong Kong market index. We will attempt to capture how a shock in the home market is transmitted to the foreign (and vice versa). In addition we will attempt to assess the relative weight of each variable in the system generating unexpected variations of its own and other variables and at what speed the shocks are absorbed.Methodology: ADF unit root test, Johansen?s co-integration test, Granger causality test, VECM, impulse response, variance decomposition Empirical foundation: Five Chinese ADRs listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Each ADR represents a specific industry.

When patrolling grocery stores, customers engage in a purchase situation where they face great amounts of information, whereof price is one. This paper intends to shed light on the price information search behavior that customer's exhibit before choosing their products in grocery stores. In order to do so two studies have been conducted, one quantitative and one qualitative, to assemble the data needed to provide statistically significant results. The objective of the quantitative study is to gather data on customer's external price information search, and it is based on the most recent eye-tracking technology. The second qualitative study is complementary and based on interviews with randomly chosen customers that have responded to several questions regarding their price information search, shopping knowledge and experiences.

The purpose with this study has been, based on different public and private procurement conditions, to measure if there are any significant differences in the business relations between public- and private institutional kitchens. Furthermore, to observe what important influencing factors there are to maintain and develop a relationship between a producer and customer. The result of the analysis shows that there are important factors that influences on the trust in the relationship between a producer and customer. These factors are product- and service exchange, communication, strategic purchase and social exchange. In this examination we have showed that there are differences in the relationship between public- and private customers.