The purpose of this study is to describe how expatriates at Handelsbanken in France, Hong Kong, China, Russia and Singapore have adapted to the host culture. To illustrate how well they acculturated following seven factors have been chosen: Time, previous international experience, cultural distance, language, work environment, spouse acculturation and met expectations. The study was conducted through interviews with six expatriates and surveys answered by nine expatriates. Our study shows that the expatriates have experienced different lengths for cultural adaptation. The majority of the respondents indicated that it took up to six months before they adapted culturally.

The purpose of this Bachelor?s thesis is to describe and analyze the implementation of Facebook in a public library. A case study consisting of qualitative interviews and studies of documents containing goals for the library has been conducted at a public library going through the process of implementing Facebook in their operations. The theoretical framework for this study consists of Everett M. Rogers?s stages of the innovation-decision process and his characteristics of innovations as perceived by individuals.

Due to a constantly increasing competitive pressure it is of great importance to constantly strive for improvements in order to gain competitive advantages. Lean Production is a concept that has been introduced with the aim to minimize waste and increase profitability. The purpose of this report is therefore to investigate how to perform effective planning according to the principles of Lean Production, in companys with customer exclusive products, through a case study at Sandvik Mining and Construction (SMC), and to investigate how SMC kan improve their planning of drifting rods at the production unit in Sandviken.The study started by creating a theoretical framework, to describe the subject planning and planning based on Lean Production. This frame work constituted the base for the case study which took place at Sandvik Mining and Construction, and also for the model and planning tool that has been introduced.The result of the study is partly a general model with factors that contribute to a more effective planning. These factors has beed identifed as SMED, which focuses on reducing set up times and in the end to facilitate the planning.

On a highly competitive market, quality is an important aspect to take into account, both in terms of goods and services. The Swedish timber market is very competitive and to achieve long-term success focus on the customer, in this case private forest owners, is a prerequisite. SCA Skog AB Jämtlands forest management administration is dependent on the acquisition of timber from private forest owners to fulfil their mission to the supply of SCA's paper and sawmills in Sweden with raw material. To be able to develop the cooperation with private forest owners, the administration investigates their quality management by measuring the customer satisfaction index (CSI). The purpose of the study was to identify a practical and systematic method to handle deviations and suggestions for improvements to achieve a higher customer satisfaction.

The furniture retail industry in Sweden has gone trough large changes during the last decades. Today the industry is tough and in the maturity stage where few new companies enter, especially if they do not have a unique offer. The furniture companies have become larger and fewer, the changes have lead to difficulties for smaller and medium sized companies to grow and be profitable.Our purpose is to analyse, evaluate and compare three smaller companies in Stockholm with the intention to find what kind of marketing strategies they are using to survive on the Swedish market. First we interviewed the three companies to see what they do to survive on the market, then we asked 100 persons to fill in a questionnaire to see if they had the same opinion as the companies described.With help from theories we prepared questions which laid the foundation to the empirical part of the essay.The result from this study shows that the three companies differ from each other when it comes to using relationship marketing and placing the customer in the centre. All of them are aware of the importance of doing so, but because of different limits and possibilities they can not fully adjust everything to the customer.

The aim with this literature review is to describe the ensilage process in a bunker silo. The process from harvest and chopping to filling and unloading the silo is explained. The sealing of the bunker silo plays an important role for the final quality of the silage. This review covers some of the techniques used. There are many silage additives on the market, some of them are presented including how they act in the ensilage process.

This report describes the work of developing a specification of requirements for Waste Heat Recovery Units. The main part of the paper describes how the work with the specification of requirements has been performed. One specific question to be answered is:What are the customer?s demands in case of properties for the Waste Heat Recovery Units and how is that information collected as an order documentation to suit the business area Oil & Gas?The report begins with a description of the assignment and continues with the aim and background. A theoretical part describes the different areas and methods that have been important during the process.

This essay describes a single case self-study of a music composer in order to track the compositional process in real time. In the study the subject and the researcher are the same person. The study builds on previous empirical studies that have used methodological approaches such as analysis of computer-based digital data collection, verbal protocol and video observations. It deals with issues of the compositional process related to for example time consumption, number of artistic decisions, the different roles and skills of a music composer, and methods of research in the musical composition process. During three shifts the researcher worked as a music composer dealing with the issue of converting an audio sketch of a composition into a representative finished audio product.

How does IT-consultants reason in their consulting process regarding the development of a clients IT-based internal recruitment system? The purpose with this paper is to investigate how an IT-consultant is reasoning in a consulting process and investigate whether consultants are using established models and methods in their work. We have chosen to work with a qualitative examination to attain our purpose. In our work gathering the empirical facts we have been working with a case study, an observation and a simulation exercise. The combination of these has made it possible to carry out the paper and produce the most correct data possible. Conclusion: We state that IT-consultants do not use any theory-based methods, they use process methods created by themselves and their company.

Producing a building is a long and complex process. It consists of several parts, from the feasibility study and design stage onto the construction and finally the management of the building. The design process is a critical part of the process where construction plans are made. The quality of the plans affect the production phase in great extent and faulty plans can pose a risk for extra costs for all parts in the process. The cost of producing dwellings has increased the last years and the detail design process is one of many phases where improvements can mean cost savings within the whole building process.This report aims to point at parts within the detail design process which could be more efficient, regarding communication, follow-up and time planning, and to give suggestions for improvements.

???Information Technology is an essential part of the society today, not least in large ???organisations dealing with sensitive information. An example of such an organisation is the Swedish Armed Forces which indeed is in the need of ways to ensure information security in their Information Technology systems. The means which is used is an authorisation and accreditation process.All Information Technology systems go through a life cycle which includes realisation, usage, development and liquidation. In the Swedish Armed Forces the lifecycle is an authorisation process.

The development of technology and the mechanization in the Swedish forestry has during the last 60 years resulted in depopulation of the country side and due to that the amount of distance forest owners has increased. Therefore the forest companies need to make some adjustments in order to keep the distance forest owners as customers and to attract new ones. The purpose of this essay was to examine and analyze the distance forest owners satisfaction with Södras service offering and quality of service and further develop some proposals for action. A web-based survey was sent out to 634 distance forests owners in Stockholm, Sweden, all members of Södra. 269 respondents participated in the survey and of them, 27 did also participate in a follow-up telephone interview.

Every plan and program decided on by an authority or municipality, where the environmental impact can be considerable, must be environmentally assessed according to Environmental Code, the Planning and Building Act (PBA) and the Regulation on Environmental Impact Assessment.The purpose of this study is to examine the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for The Region Development Plan for the Stockholm Region, RUFS 2010. The plan was approved by at that time the Regional Planning Office (Regionplanekontoret), which procured the process by consultants. RUFS 2010 includes two merged plans ie. a regional Development Plan (RUP) and the Regional Spatial Plan for Stockholm. It was necessary to establish an environmental assessment of RUP, but not for the regional plan.

The purpose of this thesis is to discuss how a Swedish public library approaches their costumers. I will show how a library interacts with their costumers compared to a business, which has a different economic work frame, a building materials supplier. My aim is to pinpoint differences and explore new methods for the library in order to improve their service.The theoretical frame of the thesis is based on Richard Norman's notion the Moment of truth. The moment of truth is the moment when a business has to convince their customer that they offer both the product, proficiency and service that the customer needs. Service encounters at two organizations have been observed and their differences and similarities compared.

In this composition, a study of consignment inventory on basis of the factors which are important for implementation and application of consignment inventory are made. Logistics chain from subcontractor to end customer is becoming more complex when the volume of items constantly increases to satisfy the needs of the market. From that perspective, companies had large inventories but today it is a lot of different solutions to streamline inventory management. One way that recently becomes increasingly common is to let the subcontractor fill up the customers stock using different approaches such as VMI (Vendor Managed Inventory). A further step in the evolution can be to make use of consignment inventory where the vendor owns the stock of the customer.