During the last 15 years the Swedish media market has developed a great deal, thanks to the rise of new media. Literature, articles and investigations have contributed to producing the chapter of background of this essay. How the local newspaper and its organization has changed over time is being accounted in this essay. From the newspaper being the only product on the market to now having a spread out product portfolio. By doing the qualitative interview with research representatives of six local newspapers the aimis to answer the following questions: Who were your competitors 15 years ago? Who are your competitiors today? In what way has the increased competition changed your way of working at the division of advertisement and how do you consider the the increase of mediachannels having affected the customer? How do you see the future? The main results show that all six representatives agree on the fact that the competition has increased during the last 15 years.

The purpose of this essay is to review Mundekulla, which is a small, relatively newly established Swedish company operating in the field of conferences. Today they are serving ecological and environmental friendly food to their customers and we choose to investigate if this is a successful concept by asking the customer?s opinions. Our task is to analyze and understand how this company can develop a stronger concept regarding their conference area. This essay will also focus on trends and how the ever changing world can affect Mundekulla in the future.

The essay discusses the effects that changes to the office plan have on organizational culture. Information about actual change as well as expected change in organizational culture was gathered before the empirical research was initiated. The empirical research was carried out at the Customer Logistics department at Ericsson through: an interview with a manager in charge of the relocation and design of the office, a manager for the specified department and also five employees of this department. The empirical studies show that there was a significant change in organizational culture and that results were not always as expected. There was a loss in symbolic actions, which needed to be compensated for, a perceived reduction in spontaneous communication, and a mixed response of perceived change in social interaction.

In order to become even more competitive, a partnering with other niche players is essential in achieving a competitive advantage and it enables opportunities for reintermediation. From an intermediate perspective, there are great possibilities for those who become content coordinators to enter the market. By becoming a bundler of services and products, the content coordinators will become the actors that will capture the most profit in the value web. The value creating drivers that have been identified in the business landscape of intermediates concern owning the content or owning the customer relationship. We find the possibilities of an intermediate actor, such as a content coordinator to achieve competitive advantage through strategic fit is subject to the context and the ability of creating more innovative and co-creative distribution systems.

Purpose: The purpose with our study is to accomplish a quantitative research of all municipalities in Sweden and see why they apply Balanced Scorecard. The study will also investigate the spread of Balanced Scorecard, even the benefits and how they use it. Method: In our study we have chosen a quantitative research. The study has been accomplished with a questionnaire survey which we sent to all of the Swedish municipalities. We have also done a literature study to get more knowledge about relevant theories. Finally we have compiled the questionnaire in Netigate and Excel, and analysed the result from the questionnaire. Results: Balanced Scorecard is well-known in the Swedish municipalities and 36 percent of the municipalities use this scorecard in whole or in parts of the organisation.

Quality Assurance in Service Procurement --- Total Quality and Total Quality Management refer to popular management philosophies in organizations these days. The purchasing department has an important part in the strive for organizational quality as several studies show corporate spend is significant and increasing. In this master thesis I study the actions companies take to ensure quality in service procurement. I argue that managing quality when sourcing services is particularly tricky, because of the special characteristics that belong to services. The purpose of the study is to examine whether different actions are taken to ensure the quality of different kinds of services.

The postindustrial market increasingly demands service infused products to add more value to the customer in order to be competitive. Much research regarding digitalized services indicates that companies have to be innovative in order to compete on the market. However, companies within different industries face different challenges with digital service development. This study has been conducted because there are little known about the opportunities and the challenges different industries faces with a globalized market. Our research question is what the challenges are and what opportunities does strategic digital service development entails for companies.

AbstractA general store is a grocery store that is located in the countryside. In today's modern society, it is difficult for general stores to compete with the supermarkets and discounters in terms of price and supply. The purpose of this thesis is to create an understanding of both the rural merchants and its customers? perspective on a well-­?functioning general store. We have conducted a case study of three general stores where we interviewed the merchants about how they do to please their customers? needs and identify key elements of a well-­?functioning general store.

As changes occur more frequently in IT- and software development, it is important for the companies to meet the demands and needs of its customer. The companies have to be able to adapt themselves continuously in order till fulfill its customers changing needs in an effective way, which results in big changes of the companies? structures. The more traditional way of working is often replaced with more alternative approaches as a response to the reputable deficiencies of its predecessors. As an effect of the rapid change and development some companies now see big potential in switching to more Agile and flexible methods and some companies have no choice but to change their way of working.

Mobil teknologi integreras idag i allt högre grad med centrala stödsystem. Studien har undersökt vilka möjligheter som finns för fältservicetekniker att arbeta direkt i stödsystem, Service Management System (SMS), m.h.a. nya tekniker. Hur kan en bra mobil arbetsplats utformas? En enkätundersökning har utförts där 14 personer som arbetar som fältservicetekniker eller som servicechefer har deltagit.

An industry in distress was the breeding ground for a noted pricing strategy, labeled name-your-price. The industry was the music industry and the pricing strategy bears reminiscence of how medieval buskers earned their living during the dark ages; by letting the customers decide how much the good was worth, embodied by a thrown coin into a hat or similar collector. Translated into the contemporary corporate environment of today, where technical innovations provides access to the intellectual property for free, a few mighty economic actors have once again turned to the strategy were it all started; letting the customer set the price. The hat has been replaced by a box for your credit card number and the live music by a MP3 file, but the similarity is striking. The business model have been applied in other industries as well with various levels of success, thus the purpose of this thesis is to set up a framework for where the name-your-price strategy is applicable.

Studiens syfte är att undersöka meningsskapande som ett socialpsykologiskt fenomen. Mer specifiktförsöker studien förstå vad som motiverar kundtjänstarbetarna på ett callcenter i västsverige, till attfortsätta arbeta med ett arbete som är lågavlönat, hårt reglerat och monotont.I studien kommer läsaren att få ta del av empiri baserad på tio livsvärldsintervjuer, därkundtjänstarbetare berättar om sina upplevelser av att arbeta i ett callcenter. Empirin visar attmajoriteten av kundtjänstarbetarna upplever sitt arbete ogynnsamt, då kundtjänstarbetarna sällan fårutvecklas eller självförverkligas inom arbetet. Flera kundtjänstarbetare finner heller inget tydligtsyfte med att göra sina arbetsuppgifter. Istället arbetar flera kundtjänstarbetarna för att få enekonomisk tillgång.

It has been demonstrated in this study how people working in frontline jobs in service organizations are exercising ?micro power?. The use of ?micro power? is defined as ?to in ones professional role, without objectively defensible reasons, impose sanctions on a customer?. The interviewees are explaining their use of ?micro power? with mood, working conditions, and customers? behavior.

This master thesis is about designing and dimensioning a boat for transport of caravan, car, trailer or ATV. Buoyancy and stability are important properties as the pontoonboat should also be able to serve as a workboat. Many of the vessels on the market today that is being used for similar purpose are stable enough, but their hull is often similar with barges and thus too slow. This work has been to construct a boat that has good stability but also has a hull that enables it to move faster, is more maneuverable and having a more attracting design than today?s barges.

As today, companies are facing an increasing competition; markets are expanding while customers are getting more informed and fastidious toward companies and their products. For this reason it is crucial for enterprises to create loyal customers, or at best hyper loyal customers. With today's prerequisite this creation is difficult and it is therefore of highly interest to examine possible and alternative ways for enterprises to attain this type of hyper loyal customer. In this thesis we have examine hyper loyal football supporters with the aim to identify mechanisms that create and characterize this type of loyalty. By means of a survey and a focus group we were able to identify six loyalty mechanisms; the ability to influence, vicarious achievement, self-esteem, group affiliation, family and social relations.