Abstract The growth of supra-national organizations, such as the European Union, has been a recent trend in today?s global environment, which has challenged traditional marketing concepts and product cues. One such cue that is significantly challenged is the 'origin cue'. An origin cue is conceived to be a socially constructed notion that consumers use to discern where goods come from and to accordingly evaluate products with. The origin cue is often predominantly materialized in the public sphere by a 'made in' labelling scheme.

In this essay we have approached the problem with retailer brands that copy marketing leaders to get consumers attention in the storeshelf. We have sought to explore how much a designed package would change the consumers opinion of a brand and if this effect is different depending on if the brand is a retailer brand or a market leader. Also we sought to find if this effect would be greater with a salient color on the package. We made a quantitative study and with regression analysis we found that a designed package did have effect on the consumers opinion of the brand, and that the design with the salient color made the biggest effect..

This paper describes the Swedish reconnaissance squads in the engineer battalions, their equipment, tasks and organization. An analysis is made to compare the present weapons and fire power of the reconnaissance squad with an extended weapon alternative. The analysis focuses on the abilities effect, protection and movement in different situations typical of a reconnaissance squad.The facts that are presented in this paper are mostly founded on the new field manual FältarbR Dyktjänst 2007, which regulates much of the reconnaissance activities. The aim of this paper is the making of a contribution in the developing progress of the new field manual and the reconnaissance squads in Swedish engineer battalions.The result of the analysis shows that the extended weapon alternative would be an asset..

This thesis gives an introduction to securitization in general and the tranching of collateralized debt obligations in particular. It does this by using a firm-value model to simulate the underlying portfolio via monte-carlo simulations.The simulations in turn give a loss-distribution from which the various tranchings of the CDO?s are derived. To get an understanding of the influence of different variables involved in the tranching the simulations are repeated several times where the portfolio variables are changed to generate different tranchings. This to give a understanding of the influence different variables have on the tranching and consequently risks involved in CDO?s in particular but also general risks and problems of securitizations..

This master thesis was a continuation of a previous study in the diesel exhaust characterization, which is part of the academical work embedded in the EMIR-1 project. The main objective of this thesis work was to finish the installation and make the proper modifications of the particulate mass measuring system located in one of the engine test cells at KTH, in order to be able to measure the mass of the particles from the exhaust of diesel engines.This experiment requires a diluted flow sample from the exhaust that should be sent to the device that makes possible the measurement of particle mass, called TEOM. In the first stage of this project, the objective was to study and make the proper modifications in the existing KTH diluter because there were several problems to obtain a constant dilution ratio from it during tests.This modifications were made and it resulted in a great improvement in the maximum inlet and outlet flow that this diluter can handle. Therefore another modification is proposed for controlling the inlet exhaust flow so it will be possible to regulate the dilution ratio and make it constant along a wide range of engine loads and speeds.The second and most important stage was to make particulate mass measurements possible by analyzing the frequency signal from the TEOM device. The idea was to obtain the frequency of oscillation from the tapered element in the TEOM, and therefore with the proper correlations, be able to predict the particulate mass concentration in the exhaust flow from the engine.An electrical problem in the TEOM circuit was detected and corrected, so the signal that carries the frequency from the TEOM can be analyzed properly.

The agricultural sector is characterized by larger crop farms and more extensive livestockproduction. The efficiency improvement is partly a result from a stronger competition in theglobal market. The agricultural products need to be produced at a lower cost than competitorsin order to survive as a farmer. The solution is larger firms that benefit from economies ofscale. This brings large investments that create a greater need for leverage and closer relationto the credit agency.

DefinitionerInitial public offering (IPO)Den första försäljningen av ett företags aktier på den publika marknaden.AvnoteringHändelsen då ett börsbolags aktie tas bort från marknaden.Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX)Ett omfattande och för ämnet väl undersökt amerikanskt regelverk.Private Equity (PE)Aktiekapital som inte är börsnoterat, investerare som investerar direkt i privata bolag eller köper ut publika bolag från börsen.International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS)Internationella regler som styr rapporteringen av olika typer av transaktioner och händelser.Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A)Förvärv och sammanslagningar av bolag.Definitioner hämtade från http://www.nasdaq.com/investing/glossary/.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how a valuation of a company preceding an acquisition can be affected by the fact that a strong brand is attached to the target company. Techniques to value a company and theories of brands are well developed, but the link between them is partially missing even though the needs to value brands have increased. A case study of five Swedish acquisitions is conducted to identify possible complicating and simplifying factors and how these are handled in the context of a valuation of an acquired company with a strong brand. Important findings are that a decreased volatility of future earnings can lead to more accurate prognoses and valuations due to the existence of a strong brand. A strong brand can, on the other hand, also make the valuation of the target company more difficult due to the fact that it is a subjective asset which increases the overall risk of the company.

Syftet med denna studie är att identifiera styrkor och svagheter i byggandet av varumärket Asea Brown Boveri, ABB i Storvik. Det ska vidare påvisa om varumärket bör ompositioneras i kundernas sinne, och i så fall hur denna ompositionering skulle kunna åstadkommas. Studien baseras på litteraturstudier samt intervjuer med sju externa kunder och två interna medarbetare på ABB. Resultaten visar på tydliga brister i varumärket inom projektarbeten medan de inom ramen för service och reparationer har en relativt stark position på marknaden. En ompositionering av varumärket är därför nödvändig, vilket kan åstadkommas bland annat via utökade resurser och åtgärder inom marknadsföringen..

Purpose: The study examines the risk a rising from the acquisition of shares, and its relation to the expected return. We would like to see how a high-risk portfolio is related to a low-risk portfolio. Although studying the portfolios annual performance.Theory: The theories that have been used in the study are, Capital asset pricing model, CAPM and portfolio theory.Method: The study is based on a quantitative method, the time interval is from 2008 to 2010.The annual reports, historical stock prices for companies and the index are used to perform calculations based on the essay theories.Conclusion: The beta value has positive liner correlation with the expected return. When there are bad times in the world, the companies are negatively affected regardless of industry. The Portfolios developed in the same direction during the time period..

Active ownership is widely regarded as positive for the development and performance of businesses. In this paper, we investigate the impact of ownership concentration and owner identity on return on equity (ROE) in Swedish companies between 1986 and 2008, and show that active ownership might suffer from opposing effects. We find evidence, albeit weak, that ownership concentration has a positive effect on profitability, but that it levels off at high levels of ownership shares. Furthermore, we propose that family ownership has a negative effect on profitability. Our results are dependent of choice of statistical method, but show nonetheless a need to reevaluate what seems to be a universally positive view of active ownership..

The general consensus is that the gap between the Swedish variable mortgage rate and the repo rate has increased over the last years. Although the Riksbank in recent times has cut its base rate, many banks have chosen either to leave the interest rate on variable mortgages unchanged, or they did reduce it but by less points than the reduction in the repo rate. The linear relationship between the repo rate and the variable mortgage rate has changed over the last decade and the mortgage margins these days are relatively high. This can somewhat be explained by the new rules introduced in the bank sector requiring banks to increase liquidity and equity. Since mortgage loans play an important role in banks? lending business it is of interest to gain knowledge in whether a repo rate reduction latterly has generated a limited affect on the banks lending rates..

Purpose: The study examines the risk a rising from the acquisition of shares, and its relation to the expected return. We would like to see how a high-risk portfolio is related to a low-risk portfolio. Although studying the portfolios annual performance.Theory: The theories that have been used in the study are, Capital asset pricing model, CAPM and portfolio theory.Method: The study is based on a quantitative method, the time interval is from 2008 to 2010.The annual reports, historical stock prices for companies and the index are used to perform calculations based on the essay theories.Conclusion: The beta value has positive liner correlation with the expected return. When there are bad times in the world, the companies are negatively affected regardless of industry. The Portfolios developed in the same direction during the time period..

Olika teorier kring varumärkeshantering och varumärkesbyggande ställs mot empiri och sekundärdata från tre fallföretag som bytt eller ska byta namn. Empirin är insamlad via kvalitativa intervjuer under våren 2006. Fokus ligger på huvudfallet, E.ON, och hur deras namnbyte gått till och vad det fått för konsekvenser på företagets varumärkeshantering. Resultatet diskuteras utifrån överförbarhet och förslag till fortsatt forskning. Det innebär i korthet att ett namnbyte påverkar flera aspekter av ett företags varumärkeshantering bl a såtillvida att arbetet med att skapa varumärkeskännedom initialt intensifieras.

AbstractAuthors:Stefan Harrå and Magnus BjörkAdvisor: Markku PenttinenTitle: Accounting Consequences of the change in pension accounting Background to problem: When the revised IAS 19 comes into force January 1, 2013, it means that two of the three accounting principles for defined benefit pension plans are disappearing, including the corridor method. The corridor method has made it possible for companies to defer its actuarial gains and losses. Now that the corridor approach abolished then the unrecognized actuarial gains and losses immediately be covered by equity, which involves very large amounts of some companies. Why the amounts have grown so big is much because of the discount rate. The discount rate is a controversial parameter, and there is disagreement on how it should be fixed.Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine the accounting implications this will have for the company applied the corridor method, and if there is some parameters in the actuarial assumption that is more important than others.Methodology: The thesis has mainly been based on a qualitative research through qualitative interviews with a small sample that is affected by this change.