Introduction and research question:  This study investigates the widely discussed notion ?Corporate Social Responsibility? and its practice in the tourism industry. In the contemporary society more companies are realizing the significance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its potential as a means of differentiation.  The author?s interest in this particular phenomenon was awakened after reading about the business case of Scandic Hotels. This is a company that nowadays is referred to as ?Scandinavia?s leading hotel chain?.

Multi-brand portfolios are characterized by comprising many brands in the same product category. Companies that have chosen to organize their products according to this strategy are facing both possibilities, such as expanding the accessible market size, and challenges such as how to organize the brands, their individual roles and their relation and position to the other brands in the category to maximize revenues. To address these aspects of multi-brand portfolios, I have investigated four product categories where multiple brands are represented at Mölnlycke Health Care, Unilever, Fagerhult and L?Oréal; how the multi-brand portfolios are organized, how the segmentation, positioning and product differentiation are done and what advantages and disadvantages that are associated with this strategy. My conclusions are that multi-brand portfolios can be organized in many different ways and to become successful, they have to be set in relation to the company?s whole brand architecture.

Background: Previous studies focused on customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. But no studies focused on the interaction between the financial advisor and their client. Therefore we have chosen to focus on this knowledge gap.Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to illustrate how the interaction between financial advisors and customers affect financial advisory in investment decision making.Method: The thesis philosophy was positivistic because patterns were found with help of a survey. Furthermore is the paper quantitative since the thesis is measurable and it try to explain the interaction between the financial advisors and the clients demographic characteristics and how it influence the financial advice Conclusion: The theories thin-slicing and similarity attraction paradigm may not apply to the interaction between financial advisor and client..

The purpose of this thesis was to illuminate how companies work with their brand identity and particularly how it is applied in their positioning. The empirical data has been collected through interviews with two companies in Sweden working with brand identity as a stated strategy. The study shows that companies discover, develop and build their brand identity based on their core identity and core values. The core value can be strengthened through customer satisfaction surveys. In order to develop the brand identity in companies, management has to be aware of their brand person- ality, as an essentiality for survival.

ProblemThe manufacturing industry is a mature industry where the profit margins are small and the competition is hard. This makes it hard for both manufacturers and resellers to gain market shares and reach reasonable profit margins only by selling products. Therefore Swecon who is reseller for Volvo Construction Equipment tries to find alternative methods and ways to increase their profit. An alternative source of income could be to develop the range of services that are connected to the ground products.PurposeThe purpose of the thesis is to examine how Swecon in southern Sweden can improve their offers of existing services connected to the ground product and investigate the demand of new such services.MethodThis study is based on a qualitative study of five of Swecons local offices and five of Swecons customers. The empirical framework is mostly based on personal interviews but in some cases information was retrieved by using phone interviews.

This study is made in cooperation with the insurance company, Skandia. Skandia is a part of Old Mutual group?s Nordic division and is one of Swedens largest insurance companies with a total of 1.9 million customers. The company offers traditional life assurance, unit-linked insurance, private healthcare insurance and banking services. Insurance companies such as Skandia operate in a highly competitive environment.

 In light of the resent surge in globalization, and the heightened competition that follows as a result of this, there has been an increase in the importance that is placed into understanding buyer behaviour. This increase has been seen since the realization that by building strong customer relationships it is much easier to reach these through the marketing communications that are put in effect. There are also a number of upsides to enlisting the customers at an early stage in product development, such as creating greater value and a stronger sense of involvement.Röhnisch is therefore trying to show a genuine interest in supplying the costumers needs as they adapt and evolve. In order to accomplish this strive towards gaining a deeper understanding into the thoughts and attitudes that precedes the buying behaviour they conduct regular surveys. To complement this, the purpose of this paper will be to determine the actual preferences and buying behaviour of the market segment that Röhnisch has chosen for themselves, and while doing so, keeping an emphasis on loyalty.

The main purpose of this master thesis is to identify the issues concerning the transformation process of a product oriented company into a service oriented company, and how these issues can be overcome. We will exemplify this by developing a dewatering pump rental concept for ABS, and identify the drivers and barriers for ABS when implementing the service oriented rental concept in Sweden and Poland. This master thesis is based on the systems perspective. The reason for this is the required holistic perspective, where the system has to be regarded from different points of departure in order to be understood. The theoretical studies include services and change management.

All inclusive travel has become a popular way to travel abroad. When tourists pay for everything in advance their need for contact with the local people will be reduced. The consequences of this can be dissatisfaction from the local people as they are left out and do not share the financial benefits created by tourism. During the purchasing cycle of an all inclusive travel, it is possible that the tour operator can influence a sustainable development.The aim of this paper is to compare how a large and a small tour operator in their purchase of all inclusive holidays interacts with local players to create sustainable development, thereby creating a surplus value to the customer. The hypothesis is that the amount of knowledge and application of this knowledge regarding sustainable development differs in the purchase process between large and small tour operators.This paper was carried out as a case study.

We have left the industrial society, and instead, we live in a post-industrial knowledge and information society. It is often said that industrial production has disappeared or that it has changed greatly. This means that fewer are employed in the manufacturing sector while the service sector is increasing, resulting in that the boundaries between production and administration decreases. The production goes from mass production to more flexible and specialized solutions. This puts greater demands on the logistics chain that continually need to work to meet customer requirements.

The overriding purpose of this graduate thesis is to evaluate if municipalities and county councils can deviate from the legislation of public procurement during procurement of customer choice agreements within the health and social care area. The intention of this Quasi-market is to provide the users with competition in terms of quality rather then the general principal rule of economic value.My conclusion results in a legal situation without rules of general procedure. So far the authorities make their own regulation in the field of customer choice agreements. The problem lies within the authorization of new contractors and their right to make an appeal against resolutions made by the authorities social care divisions.One solution is to legislate within the present law of public procurement. Another way to solve the problem is to create a lex specialis apart from the present public procurement regulation..

In this essay the author has studied teachers work with order and measure in the classroom. The empirical survey method has been collected through interviews of focus groups from three different schools located in three different municipalities consisting nine participating teachers in total. The aim with the study is to understand the complexity of creating order in the classrooms by the existing means of control and finding an answer to teachers reasoning around the two articles ?We need to inform how the situation are in school when it is at its worst? and ?Stop defaming school?.The analysis is structured by my questions at issue which are;How does the teachers' work with the means of control which exists in the curriculum to maintain the order in the classroom; how does the teachers concure to the concept of order in relation to the media and the political statements that exists regarding the order issues at school; are there any alternative measures and methods to maintain the order in the classroom.The result shows a unanimous view about what order is among the teachers. Order is a necessity for the pupils to have a good studying climate.

Bakgrund: Pecking order-teorin är en av de viktigaste teorierna som används inom kapitalstruktur. Men vilken giltighet teorin har i det praktiska för företaget, är väldigt olika beroende på olika faktorer. En av dessa faktorer är företagets storlek. Tidigare forskning tyder på att pecking order förmågan varierar mellan företag av olika storlek. Vissa studier har kommit fram till att pecking order beteendet är mer giltigt hos små företag.

In media the debate about discipline and order in school is widely heard. A politician, some teacher or a representative from the teacher´s union, most often speaks these words. The interest for these issues seems to be persistent.This study is primarily about the expression ?discipline and order?. The aim is to find out how the expression ?discipline and order? is used in the investigated material.

The survey Distanshandeln idag 2005, made by the Swedish postal service, tells us that web shops started to pop up in the 1990´s and began competing with the catalogue sells in the end of the decade. Ten years ago, it was said that the web shops would take over the distance trade market. Today we know that did not happen. Internet shopping accounted for 4, 2 % of all distance shopping in Sweden last year. Our inquiry is guided by the observation that the catalogue is still in use and moreover, it seems to have changed very little from when we were kids.