Academic research indicates that critical publicity can have a detrimental effect on brand attitudes. The negative effects have been showed to be buffered by cognitive bias elicited by strong favourable attitudes, commitment, brand certainty and brand identification. It has been proposed that the influence of such bias in a news reporting context should be studied, something that also is interesting from a brand perspective. The study therefore investigated whether a well-publicised scandal in one period can lead to increased critical publicity in the coming periods. A case study of Swedish grocery chain ICA was conducted.

The study focuses on the use of poetry in language teaching in the lower grades in the Swedish school. Poetry has a reputation of being an art form with such specific rules and structures that children and teachers think that it is something that they do not have the ability to work with.  The purpose of this study is to get an understanding of how poetry is used in educating children. My research is based on the following questions. To which extent is poetry being used in schools and how is it being used?Can you as a teacher see any effects on childrens language development by using poetry?As a part of my study I have met with and interviewed four different people, who in one way or another is involved in teaching children. Two working teachers in the lower grades, one pedagogical resource and one artist that work with teachers in reaching different goals through the help of aesthetic processes.

The objective of this thesis is to examine the capital structure of Swedish small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Accounting data from Swedish game developers, combined with the result from a survey, is used to examine their financial conditions and capital structure decisions. We find that non-debt tax shield, firm size, growth opportunities and age are, to various extents, the determinants of capital structure in the game industry, while effective tax rate and asset structure have marginal effects. Our study also implicates that most of the existing capital structure theories can explain SMEs leverage decisions to some extent; however, some adaptation is needed to fit these theories into the SME context. Additionally, we find the existence of a financial gap in the game industry which might need efforts from both demand side and supply side to eliminate..

Background: A majority of strategic alliances do not create value for the participants. One of the main reasons for the high failure rate is an inadequate process for partner selection. If the correct partner is not selected, it can have serious effects on the management of the partnership. This is a serious problem since failed alliances usually are very expensive for the involved companies. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate which theoretical factors are important when selecting a partner for a strategic alliance.

The aim of my thesis was to do a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of an average thread tap that is manufactured by Dormer Tools AB, and to create a practical model that the company can use in order to study other thread taps from an environmental perspective.The method of LCA is used to investigate the environmental effects of a product during its life cycle. This is a gate-to-grave analysis with focus on steel and thread tap manufacturing, coating procedure, use, waste management and transports. Three common coating types were compared separately. Steel manufacturing answers for the highest energy and raw material consumption under the life cycle of the thread tap. Its emissions contribute to global warming, acidification and eutrophication above others.

The aim of the present study is to describe the experiences of high school students as regards the effects of their activities, in and out of lessons, being published on the web. In addition, a further purpose is to acquire knowledge about whether a website could be used as means of increasing the students level of attention, and focus, to their activities in school; and, furthermore, how such a website should be designed to correspond with the students requests.The implemented methods are interviews with students, school administrators and teachers. A survey was conducted covering the student?s personal experiences and opinions. Furthermore, an interface test of the website was performed.

It is mandatory for the countries in the European Union with company audit, still the countries can separately choose to exclude smaller companies from this rule. Most companies in the EU use this exception, Sweden is one of the few countries that does not. The Swedish government has recently announced that an inquiry will be made to examine the effect of an abolishment of the statutory audit for smaller companies.This study examines in what extent car selling companies use revised material when they give costumers credit and the consequences of an abolishment of the statutory audit for these companies. The conclusion of the study is that car selling companies feel secure knowing that their costumers have been audited. Most companies interviewed, buy credit information from external sources.The persons interviewed have a hard time knowing the outcome of the abolishment of the statutory auditing.

I ett samhälle där det råder allt större konkurrens mellan företag och produkter, och då kunderna blir allt mer krävande, har Cause Related Marketing (CRM) blivit något av en unik win-win strategi. CRM innebär att ett företag tillsammans med en välgörenhetsorganisation skapar ett samarbete för att marknadsföra och sälja en produkt för välgörande ändamål och därmed nå ömsesidig vinst.Syftet med uppsatsen är att se vilka effekter CRM kan ha i jämförelse med traditionell marknadsföring. Vi har valt att undersöka varför företag väljer att engagera sig i välgörenhet och om man kan använda ett sådant samarbete som ett marknadsföringsverktyg.Den metod vi använt för studien är en kvalitativ metod. Till vår hjälp har vi använt oss av tidigare forskning inom ämnet samt genomfört intervjuer med företag som varit relevanta för studien. Företagen som medverkar är verksamma inom detaljhandel eller dagligvaruhandel och samtliga har valt att engagera sig i Rosa Bandet.Slutsatser som dragits genom studien är att CRM är en strategi som alla företag inom detaljhandel och dagligvaruhandel kan använda sig av.

In Sweden prostitution is by many considered to be a social problem that primarily affects women. To counteract prostitution is a political priority and as a result the purchase of sexual services is prohibited by law. Since the law that prohibits the purchase of sexual services entered into force it has been continuously debated and widely disputed. The aim of this thesis is to compare the image of prostitution found in the travaux préparatoires of the law with four sex workers? view of the phenomenon.

The need to attract and retain individuals who add value to the organization constitutes an increasing challenge facing human resource professionals. In this context it is essential to establish stronger links between the individuals and the organization they work for. The aim of this study is to explore and discuss the role of ethical core values such as trust, respect, fairness, and honesty as a critical antecedent to employee commitment. From the perspective of employees, a comparative case study is conducted in two organizations with two different reasons to exist - a profit organization and a non-profit organization. The study concludes that organizations should have a high focus on people's core values when they recruit new employees as well as for educating and training their existing employees and managers.

Aquatic organisms are usually not exposed to single substances but rather to mixtures of toxicants in streams located in agricultural areas. The transport of pesticides used in the agricultural area in Sweden is monitored with continuous environmental supervision every year. During 2002-2008 an average of 10 pesticides were found in each sample and 40% of the samples contained substances with concentrations higher than the Water Quality Standards. Chemical risk management is normally based on single-test evaluations. A problem when assessing mixture toxicities is that the constituents and concentrations of pollutants in the environment vary greatly.

 This paper evaluates the effect of exchange rate risk on the sum of bilateral trade. To distinguish the effect between different types of countries, two groups are defined: advanced and developing economies. Economic theory on exchange rate risk and trade proposes ambiguous effects of increased volatility. However, the ex ante hypothesis is that developing economies are more sensitive to volatility. Contrarily to the hypothesis, the empirical results suggest that advanced economies would benefit up to twice as much from a removal of exchange rate risk.

This thesis examines the possible beneficial effects of a temporary cooperation between a national brand and a private brand. The main hypothesis suggests that if a national brand wants to make a category extension to a remote product category, it should be able to decrease its risk by affiliating itself with a private brand. The national brand should through such a brand alliance be able to borrow some of the flexible characteristics that a private brand possesses to increase its associations with the new category. The survey consisted of 800 questionnaires with different cooperations between a private brand (ICA) and two national brands (Tropicana and Bravo). These were handed out to students in the universities of Stockholm.

This is a paper about the effects from smoldering fire on lithic objects from an archaeological view. The introduction gives the background to this paper, a short orientation to forest wildfires and why the work is limited to: flint, quartz, quartzite and slate. Material and methods describes the stone materials and the setup that was used in the temperature logged tests with three replications for each type of material. The fuel in the burnings was peat on a bottom of sand. Flint showed a more drastic effect from heat compared with the other materials. Slate seems to have greater tendencies to change to darker colour and luster at lower temperatures than the other materials.

The purpose of this paper is to increase knowledge and understanding of how an identity is constructed on the internet and if it is different from the everyday identity. To analyze this, I have studied the theories of how identity is constructed in everyday life and then applied this on the empirical data that I have collected. In this study, I have chosen to pursue a qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews to gather the empirical data. In the study, six informants participated and all of them has an active social life both on and off the internet. The results that I have found in this study shows that an identity online is constructed in a similar way as it does in real life, however, some limitations that exist in everyday life do not exist online.