Funding is essential for companies to function. All companies must relate to the funding issue, whether they are working with it in an active manner or not. Funding can be done in two ways, either through equity or debt and the ratio between these are called capital structure. Already in 1958 Modigliani and Miller concluded that a company?s capital structure does not change the value of the company, thus the company?s debt in relation to equity is irrelevant.

Sammandrag: Företag strävar kontinuerligt efter att bygga ett välkänt och framgångsrikt varumärke. De strävar efter att tillfredsställa konsumenters behov för att öka varumärkets värde, brand equity. Genom att försöka avgöra konsumenters inställning till ett visst varumärke och deras förhållning till ett utökat sortiment i en ny produktkategori syftar denna uppsats till att diskutera och utforska förändringen av varumärkets brand equity. Vid denna undersökning har H&Ms varumärke och deras nya sportkollektion använts som exempel. Teorin behandlar varumärkets värde, brand equity, utifrån ett konsumentperspektiv samt utvidgning av produktutbud hos varumärken.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine what the communication between bank and customer looks like. We have more specifically studied how the bank communicates with the customer when communicating different offers, how the customer wants the communication to take place, what communication problem looks like and how the customer wants the bank to design their offers. Our target group was bank customers with academic degree, with one to seven years of working experience. This study was conducted trough interviews with bank customers and representatives at the bank. On the basis of our studies we found that the communication between bank and customer works fairly well.

The web has a broad affect on the global economy and can among other things be used for web based information systems (WIS). These systems have grown from being used as a market platform to support all activities in the work of an organisation of today. To survive in a turbulent competitive environment, companies must start to cooperate with their customers instead of just collaborate with them. Can an IT-consultant company use a WIS as a tool for keeping in contact with existing customers to attain this cooperation? A WIS could strengthen the relation between customer and supplier and through that have a possibility to increase the customer use since it can facilitate business processes and imply that services can be offered in a new way.

The purpose of this paper has been to describe the project manager's experience of the customer relationship in customer order projects. A qualitative interview study has been conducted in which seven project managers were interviewed. A thematic analysis resulted in four overall themes. The results showed the importance of a clear, responsive and open communication as well as a large degree of customization to meet the customer the best way as possible. The experience was also characterized by a dynamic relationship and the importance of the customer's expectations.

The modern beauty market is concentrated with intense competition where cosmetic brands fight to stay on top. A popular method in order to gain sales and increase margins is to influence existing customers to buy more with the use of suggestive selling. The purpose of this paper, was to further examine the different effects of suggestive selling with the use of complementary versus non- complementary goods in the form of customer satisfaction, customer view of the service encounter, as well as success in sales. In addition, the influence of the customer's purchase amount on the tendency to buy an extra product in a suggestive selling situation was examined. The study was conducted through the use of a field experiment with the support of surveys in 'The Body Shop'.

Since the nineties the words customer, effectiveness and quality have become part of everyday school life. Municipalities? makes regular customer surveys to measure both independent schools as municipal schools ' quality. A common method for customer research and background studies is that parents and students are asked to respond to simple Web-based surveys. Customer satisfaction and/or customer dissatisfaction options are presented in tabular form, based on the percentage that expresses a particular position within a query.

For a company to survive it has to make a profit. To make a profit transactions are necessary and to achieve this a company can choose to focus on creating loyal customers. Loyal customers can contribute to secured revenues, increased market shares and reduced marketing costs. Research within customer loyalty has mainly focused on different types of loyalty and the impact it has on customers behavior. However, there is a lack of research concerning which factors that create loyal customers.

AbstractTitle: Cheap Monday ? A qualitative study of the consumers? opinions of the brand (Cheap Monday ? En kvalitativ studie av konsumenternas åsikter om märket)Number of pages: 38 (40 including enclosures)Author: Oskar NorlanderTutor: Göran SvenssonCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Autumn 2007University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: The purpose of this essay is to examine from the customers? perspective how the Swedish jeans-brand Cheap Monday in just three years time could become such a prominent brand on the Swedish market. An additional purpose is to examine whether there is some kind of brand community connected to the brand or not.Material/Method: The main method used in this essay has been qualitative interviews with ten consumers of the brand. The answers from these interviews has then been analysed using two different theories, Keller?s Customer Based Brand Equity and Muniz and O?Guinnn?s Brand Community.Main results: The main results of this essay is that Cheap Monday is a brand that has become successful due to people?s perception of who the users of the brand are.

Problem formulation: This paper will examine how the capital structure of firms affects their market valuation by applying the Modigliani-Miller theory on Swedish listed companies in a boom and a recession. The study will examine whether it is possible to draw any conclusions as to whether companies with high debt to equity ratios are valued lower in a recession, in comparison to companies with low debt to equity ratios.Purpose: To empirically test the Modigliani-Miller theory of capital structure in a boom and a recession in order to see if the companies? market value is affected differently depending on whether they have a high or a low debt to equity ratios.Methodology: The essay has a deductive and a quantitative methodological approach. Data analysis was done through a correlation analysis, a regression analysis and a hypothesis testing.Theory: The Modigliani-Miller theory of capital structure with taxes states that companies with a high debt to equity ratios has a higher value. One of the risks with a high level of debt could be that during a financial downturn companies have more difficulty realizing capital and are thus more likely to go bankrupt.Conclusions: The study shows results that are contrary to the Modigliani-Miller's theory; all the correlation analyses between debt to equity ratios and market value are negative.

Since the nineties the words customer, effectiveness and quality have become part of everyday school life. Municipalities? makes regular customer surveys to measure both independent schools as municipal schools ' quality. A common method for customer research and background studies is that parents and students are asked to respond to simple Web-based surveys. Customer satisfaction and/or customer dissatisfaction options are presented in tabular form, based on the percentage that expresses a particular position within a query.

This thesis studies private equity firms' implementation of management control systems in their portfolio companies and whether the systems are affected by cross-national differences. A comparative case study examines five different private equity firms to derive if there are any differences between the private equity firms' management control systems in the United States, Europe and China. The empirical observations are categorized according to the framework developed by Merchant (1985) and further developed by Merchant and Van der Stede (2003). Theory on the effect of multinationality on management control systems, also developed by Merchant and Van der Stede (2003), are used to explain possible findings. The applied theory includes the cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede (1984) and Hofstede and Bond (1988).

Title: The implementation of valuation of tangible and financial assets to fair value ? and its effects on the creditor protectionCourse: Bachelor theses in business accounting, 10 Swedish creditsAuthor: Sam EspelandAdvisor: Ogi ChunKey words: IAS 16, 39, 40, fair value, creditor protection, equityPurpose: The purpose with the essay is to examine how the implementation of the IAS standards that regard valuation to fair value, effects the equity and how the effects on equity affects the creditor protection.Methodology: The essay is using both a quantitative and a qualitative approach in which the quantitative part constitutes of data collection from annual reports and the qualitative part constitutes of interviews.Theoretical perspective: The theory gives a thorough understanding in how the IAS standards are designed, furthermore the procedure at liquidation and lack of capital is being treated, moreover some relevant terms and concepts are being treated.Empirical foundation: This chapter is divided into two parts, in one part the results from the quantitative approach is being presented in diagram form, and in the other part the interviews are being presented.Conclusions: The implementation will give a higher equity for most real estate companies, but likely also for example the mining industry. The creditor protection will likely be worsened among the industries that experience an increase in equity since their activities may proceed for a longer time before they have to be liquidated..

Customer satisfaction is a key aspect for many corporations, among them Exacta Distributionscenter. To raise their customer satisfaction, we have researched ways to raise customer satisfaction through the implementation of an error-handling system and recommendations on how the organization should function in the future. This paper describes how these recommendations and the application has been developed, through help in existing theories. This results in a customer portal with the main purpose to provide help in handling orders with errors, and several routines recommended to Exacta Distributionscenter. .

Title: Culture?s Affect on the Determinants of Customer Satisfaction in Retailing: The Case of a European Retailer in the U.S. and China Date of the Seminar: 29th of May 2007 Course: BUS 809 Master thesis in International Marketing Authors: Lisa Bustamante Chesley Norman Charlotte Valind Advisors: Johan Anselmsson Cecilia Cassinger Keywords: International Retailing, Determinants of Customer Satisfaction, Culture, United States, China Thesis purpose: Our study aims to identify the determinants of customer satisfaction of two national cultures in a global retail setting, in order to clarify what role culture has, if any, in customers? satisfaction with an international retailer. Further, this will uncover if a Western perspective of determinants of satisfaction is a universal means of capturing what satisfies customers across cultures in a retail setting.