There is no commonly accepted definition of a business method. It ought to consist of a method or a process of doing business. Business methods constitutes a broad category of patents, it is hard to tell exactly what can be interpreted in to the term. Most of the world's legal systems have made an exception from patentability for business methods. In the USA the exception was abolished in a case 1998.

This paper aims to investigate abnormal returns for rivals to bidder targets in connection with the announcement of the bid. The study is based on 38 bids placed between September 2006 - January 2011 and 137 rival firms listed on Nasdaq OMX Nordic. We measure cumulative abnormal returns, CAR, for rival firms through an event study. We find that rival firms earn significant positive CAR in connection with the announcement of the bid. This is in line with the two-sided signaling effect presented by Akhigbe et al.

Background: Today small business firms represent a considerable part of swedish economy, and the number of small firms has steadily increased the last ten years in relation to the total employment. The fact that there are firms willing to grow, it ought to be interesting observing their motives of growth, and what kind of strategies that can be identifiable in these firms. Purpose: To examine the motives of growth in small business firms, and to study which growth strategies the firms use when expanding their business. Realization: The study is accomplished through telephone interviews with six small business firms in the province of Jönköping. The firms contain between 10-49 employees.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder resulting from exposure to a traumatic event. The purpose of this study was to examine the exposure to Potentially Traumatic Events (PTE) and the prevalence of PTSD among students at the University of Lund. Sexdifferences among these variables were also examined. Using surveys as research method, 380 students from five different faculties participated. The results indicated that these students have been more exposed to PTE than the general Swedish population.

Bakgrund: Prostatacancer är den vanligaste formen av cancer bland män i Sverige. Att få en cancerdiagnos innebär stress för både patienten och dess partner.Syfte: Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka grad av stressreaktioner i form av undvikande beteende och pa?trängande tankar hos patienter med prostatacancer och deras partner. Ytterligare ett syfte var att kvalitetssäkra mätinstrumentets formulering och svarsalternativ.Metod: Arbetet var en kvantitativ tvärsnittsstudie. Datainsamlingen gjordes med hjälp av enkät ?Impact of Event Scale? (IES) samt en enkät utformad enligt ?The Question and Answer Model? (QAM) för att kvalitetssäkra IES.

Background: The debate about environment, labor conditions and aid to developing countries has the last years been a much discussed subject The pressure on the companies to live up to their responsibility is beginning to be noticed in the market.Purpose: To find out if a retail company investing in Corporate Social Responsibility thereby direct can effect it?s stock value. Using interviews to investigate if and how stock analysts and corporate finance professionals valuate a company?s CSR initiatives.Theoretical perspective: The description of CSR is leading to the main theory, The Brand Value Change, and the Market Hypothesis. Additionally a theory of the Consumer Buying Process and CAPM-model about financial risks is presented.Method: An event study of 30 companies to investigate if there is any change in their stock values and interviews with three professionals from the financial sector to find out about their attitude to CSR.

During the past year it has been made possible to buy back a company?s outstanding stock. This is done in order to change the capital structure towards a situation with less equity. A change in capital structure means a change in the cost of capital for a company and by that a change in the value for the stockholder. This Master Thesis studies the relation between capital structure and business risk.

The notion of firms interacting with technology is not new; these types of systems were already in place in the mid eighties. E-business users worked with connections between their inbound logistics and procurement systems, and suppliers? order-entry systems. When these connections were described for the first time the vertical links between two, or more, value chains in a value system received more attention in firm strategy. The design of the linkages in the value system was said to be a product of the need for coordination and relative bargaining power.

 Background and aim: Media development and digitalization has expanded the PR industry's working area. More participants are on the media market and it is becoming more and more difficult to define what PR really is and what the PR agencies/departments really do. Is PR marketing, information, event marketing or maybe propaganda? We believe that the complexity to define the term PR can lead to a loss of critical approach to the business, especially among young people. Has the PR industry managed to eliminate their negative image among students in upper secondary school and what do they associate with PR today? The aim of this essay is to examine what a selection of students associate with the term PR and if they are critical to the PR industry or not.Method/Material: The method is a quantitative survey.

Att besvara - vilka faktorer kan göra ett e-handelsföretag framgångsrikt? Metod: Kvalitativ enkätundersökning med öppna svar. Undersökningen visade att framgångsfaktorerna finns i ett sammanhang. De faktorer som vi ser som kritiska i ett e-handelsföretag är logistik, speciell produkt, bra ledning, kundkontakt och en viss del av teknisk utveckling.

Affärsresandet och mässor har funnits i alla tider, den första världsutställningen genomfördes redan år 1851. MICE-industrin (Meetings, incentive, conference och exhibition) utbreder sig allt mer över hela världen. Detta har resulterat i utvecklingen av allt fler anläggningar och diverse resurser. En oro har på senare tid uppkommit gällande om expansionen kommer att skapa en mättnad av marknaden. Vilka resurser krävs egentligen för att en destination ska vara intressant för MICE-evenemang? Denna studie avser att undersöka detta genom kvalitativa intervjuer med verksamma eventföretag inom MICE-industrin för att sedan sätta det empiriska materialet mot tidigare framforskad information kring detta.

We want to identify the gap that consists of the expectations we have of Brazilian / Swedish culture with the self-image of these individuals included in the culture of question. This gap, we believe, creates a problem for business across borders. The reader is therefore made aware of the issues that affect our expectations and our self-image, and how this can be used to explain cultural differences..

Computers together with Internet have been growing enormously, during the last decade and the area of information technology has been growing in the same speed. As long as the surrounding environment evolves, the business models must within the IT-area, keep the same pace. So, how do business corporations handle this change to attract customers? How do the dominant business models look like? In many cases, they are apparently much the same. But what differences can we see and what areas can be improved? We have showed that the IT area isn?t just one, it consist of several segments.

The main objective of this thesis is to study the brand manager?s role within a global business to business (B2B) company. In order to meet the main objective we have chosen to study and analyse one global B2B company, Alfa Laval AB, Alfa Laval DK, Alfa Laval PL and its co-partners such as an advertising agency. We have also studied three global business to customer (B2C) companies, Mars, Unilever and Nestlé, to get a picture of brand managers? role and responsibilities within the B2C environment which is already quite far ahead in the development of the brand management thinking..

Question:"Does the market possess perfect information as the efficient market hypothesis says?""Is there any significant relationship between the abnormal stock return on the ex ? day and the dividend?" Purpose: The purpose of this study is to enlighten and find understanding about stock return versus dividend on the ex ? day and try to figure out if abnormal returns occur on the portfolio during dividends.Methodology:The study was based in a quantitative nature and was derived with an event study and a hypothesis testing. The authors investigated the thirty most traded shares on the Stockholm stock exchange during a period of five years (2005 ? 2009). They were analyzed during a total of nine days; the estimation window was set to sixty days.