Background: Mass customization has been identified as a competitive business strategy by both companies and academics because of its ability to incorporate the voice of the customer into companies? products and services. Although mass customization may sound appealing, the strategic concept is still developing and firms adopting this business strategy face several challenges. Production concerns are of high relevance since mass customization implies a high level of customer involvement in the product design. Since the areas are closely linked it is reasonable to ask how a mass customization strategy affects production concerns.

Hotell ser i dagens samhälle i regel likadana ut och konkurrerar om samma utbud och kunder. Det är således betydelsefullt att i dagens konkurrensinriktade samhälle skilja sig från andra företag som verkar i samma bransch. Nya tjänster hjälper företag att attrahera nya kunder och samtidigt behålla redan befintliga vilket har gjort tjänsteutveckling till en viktig konkurrensfaktor. Det är således viktigt för hotell att känna till vad kunderna efterfrågar för att kartlägga potentiell tjänsteutveckling. Avsaknad av konkret forskning på ämnet kan leda till att ledningen för ett hotell genomför förändringar utan att se till kundernas egentliga behov, vilket kan medföra ett stort risktagande och stora ekonomiska kostnader.

AbstractThe real estate sector is today responsible for 40 per cent of the total amount of energy consumption within the members of the EU. All over the world there are collaborations within research and projects to find ways of reducing the amount of energy consumed by the real estate sector. In Sweden, a directive from the European Union has posed demands on authorities as well as on the private sector to reduce the amount of energy consumed by new building constructions. Together with the directive from the EU there are also new requirements and demands from Boverket for the real estate sector.  These requirements mostly concern the energy consumption of kilowatt-hour per square metre and that the consumed energy also should be renewable.  The aim of this study is to explain what kind of value municipalities experience in using certifications and environmental investments for new and existing buildings. Within the chapter theory, essential areas are described such as; environmental certification systems, economical viability, proceeds connected to building green, difficulties with building green, the performance of green buildings when affected by the behaviour of tenants and customer value.  The following chapter describes the methodology with which we have conducted this study.

Aim of the thesis: The aim of this thesis is to describe and gain a deeper understanding of how companies use communication as a tool to overcome the gap between the company and the consumer. The aim is also to clarify some of the factors contributing to this gap.Method:  This thesis has been made from a qualitative approach with quantitative influences. The qualitative primary data collection was gathered through six in-depth interviews with companies in Gothenburg either selling organic and fair-trade produced clothes or marketing towards sustainable consumption. The quantitative part consists of a consumer questionnaire given to 100 women in the inner city of Gothenburg.  Frame of references: Related researches within the field of the subject are presented in the beginning of this chapter. Further theories presented are the consumer?s awareness and the consumer´s responsiveness to CSR.

AbstractComing to new job is not that easy, sometimes the feeling of insecurity appears. Working for recruitment agencies includes constant changes of colleagues and places of work and at the same time one has two different managers. Who does the individual turn to when problems occur and who do the employed see as his/her manager? Why do people search for work in recruitment agencies? How does it feel not having a fixed place of work or colleagues and how do the aspects of this affect the employed psychosocial work environment? This is a few questions asked when we tried to find answers on the employed feelings about his/hers psychosocial work environment in a recruitment agency. The purpose of this study was to find a deeper understanding on employees working in a recruitment agency experiences their psychosocial work environment on the basis of social support, demands and control.

Some theorist, like George Ritzer and Max Weber, claim that everything has its optimal process and that all companies therefore will strive towards standardization. Researchers like Paco Underhill and Pine & Gilmore on the other hand, claim that an increasingly global competition forces businesses to focus more on consumer demands, experiences and differentiation. This thesis challenges these statements with empirical data by looking at shopping malls and their strategies as well as consumer preferences. It arrives at the conclusion that output is primarily driven by customer demand, and that consumers value a certain part of predictability..

The report is part of the university´engineer program within Industrial Organization and Economics with specialization in Logistics and Managment at Jönköping´s university.Skoghall´s mill underlies a large supply chain, which means there should be a lot of areas in need of small improvement measures. This report illustrates a small part of one of these areas and is focused on the loading distribution services in the terminal Vänern.At the moment there´s a very unequal load of the load carriers SECU box and Container at the terminal. Skoghall´s mill has the desire to equalize the high and low load levels of the 2 loading carriers named previously. One of the options to solve the problem is to set a limit of how much the carriers can load per week or per day. The mill also wants it to be investigated if the proposition would influence the customers in any way and if both the company and its customers could handle a lower level of delivery services in case the proposition was to be applied.The goal to be achieved with this thesis is to provide balance to the unequall loading of the 2 load carriers, SECU and Container, and investigate whether or not the Skoghall´s mill´s customers, could manage the lower degree of delivery service that the proposition would imply.For this goal to be achieved, random sample investigations were taken from orders of a customer that is provided with SECU load carriers and the same was made with a Container´s customer.

The purpose of this investigation is mainly to study if pupils have enough knowledge concerning the water cycle and the life of the plants?, and what kinds of household word they have, to discuss pollution within these areas. I also studied how the pupils? knowledge are holding up against what the course-plans says, since it have come to light by other investigations that knowledge are insufficient within the nature-oriented (No) subject in school.The survey has carried out on 28 pupils in a 5th grade, with help of a questionnaire survey. Their teacher has been interviewed and I have studied their local course-plans and also the pupils? schoolbooks in No.The result of the questionnaire survey indicates that the pupils had insufficient knowledge within the areas of plants? life and pollution, something their teacher had a presentiment about.The conclusion is that they need to go out more often in the nature and see how the plants and the environment are affected by different factors.

As a part of Göteborg Energi?s work towards a smarter electric grid, the company has chosen to investigate the possibilities of automation in their middle voltage grid. In Europe, there are example cases where these technologies already are installed which many articles on the CIRED conference 2011 proved. Netcontrol Oy in Finland has, together with Tekla, created an automated SCADA system that Vattenfall in Finland today uses. The grid mainly consists of 10 kV open loop fed city grid and this automation is mainly designed for this type of grid.

Recent years have been very turbulent for most private equity firms. Especially the financial meltdown in global economy has affected the industry, but also the public pressure has made private equity houses change their control strategies towards more conventional methods used in public companies. This thesis aims to put light on the control methods used in listed private equity houses which use a buyout strategy. The paper describes how the control methods change over the different phases the asset experience and how different value generating strategies use altered control methods. Using Merchant's (2003) framework for management control systems and Berg and Gottschalg's (2004) research on value generating strategies in buyouts the thesis shows that action controls as designing instructions for the board and a business plan, together with goal alignment is the commonly used control strategy directly after the acquisition.

AbstractThis degree project focuses on the questions how teachers´ within the four socially oriented subjects? history, geography, religion and social science use the textbook, and their attitudes towards textbooks. The method used in this project was interviews with teachers. Previous research shows that teachers use the textbook to a great extent. Studies also show that teachers? way of educating depends upon their individual educational attitudes.

The purpose of this study is to highlight some aspects of the increased usage of tablets in preschool environments by answering the questions: what does the tablet become in the preschool environment, how much freedom does the children have over its usage.To answer these questions a series of observations were made at two different preschools. The observations were then complemented by interviews with teachers at the same preschools.This qualitative study focuses on some of the didactic questions regarding the tablets, based on a theoretical framework that is within the design-oriented perspective; which addresses the children's? autonomy, the institutional framework and affordance.Our conclusion is that the tablet?s introduction in the preschool has helped the teachers in numerous parts of their documentation, but we can also see that the children's opportunities to make choices regarding the tablet are more limited than with any other resource on the preschool. In our results we also see that when the children get access to the tablet they receive a learning experience, which among other things, strengthens their language skills and their social interaction with each other..

The aim of this study is to examine the roles of the children?s librarian in a reading aloud context. To reach understanding in this subject, we have conducted interviews with four Swedish librarians working in public libraries whom are involved with reading aloud practices. Previous research shows that the reasons for reading aloud in libraries are diverse and plentiful. Such reasons can be to spread cultural experiences, help children develop their language skills and promote the library to the public.

Value stream mapping is a tool that is frequently used by many different companies. It is a great tool used to achieve the work that follows the theories of lean production. The tool is used, however, only frequent on the factory floor and the method is also designed based on this type of use.An interest of applying the method on administrative parts of the company has occurred lately. Administrative parts of the company refers to the part that does all the planning such as purchasing, receiving orders, customer contact, contact with factory floor and other work that is made around the actual manufacturing. But the knowledge about applying value stream mapping on the planning part of the company is lacking because the method is relatively new.In this work, a comparison is made between the introduction of value stream analysis on production and planning.

Syftet med den här processorienterade studien var att undersöka hur texttypen påverkar översättningsprocessen, och närmare bestämt om olika texttyper aktualiserar olika fokus i de kognitiva processerna. Fyra deltagare fick därför översätta två olika källtexter, en operativ och en informativ. Materialet samlades in med hjälp av Think-Aloud (TA). Studien visar att de båda texterna huvudsakligen gav upphov till liknande fokus. Texttypen verkar således inte ha haft någon märkbar påverkan på översättningsprocessen i det aktuella fallet.