The BSC is widely used mangement tool that is turning the vision and strategy into operational goals. However, after analyzing the criticism received the BSC, it seems af its internal focus, rigidity, static-ism and mechanical mindset limits the company's ability to create a strategy that takes important external factros into account..

AbstractTitle: External communication channels of Prime Care How they where thought to be, how they work and how costumers apprehend them.Number of pages: 50 (64 Including enclosures)Author: Sophie DicksenTutor: Peder Hård af SegerstadCourse: Media- and Communication Studies DPeriod: Spring 2007University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: The focus of this paper lies on the external communication channels of Prime Care and the aim is to study the following aspects: How do the channels work? How are they apprehended by customers of the company? What are Prime Cares own thoughts behind the channels? How does Prime Cares self-image correspond to the way that customers apprehend the company?Material/Method: Twenty interviews has been done with different customers of Prime Care in order to see how the company and its communication flow is apprehended. A consultant manager of Prime Care has also been asked about purposes behind the companies external communication channels in order to enable a comparison between Prime Cares image and profile. Prime Cares website, one of their mail sendouts, their salescalls, salesvisits and their exhibition participation have been studied on the basis of relevant litterature. Maletzkes model of mass communication was used as a general view of communication flow.Main results: All communication channels included in this study have different ways of function even though they all have the same main purpose, videlicet to promote the company, to inform about its activities and to recruit new customers and consultants.

The aim of this study is two folded. We wish to investigate if there is a value premium from hedging jet fuel exposure for American and European airlines. We also seek to answer if airlines can affect their probability to default by using Risk Management. During the period 2003 ? 2006 there existed a value premium for airlines that hedged their expected future consumption of jet fuel.

Mobile telecom and the Internet are converging, which opens new possibilities for market actors to create business through the mobile handset. At the same time market experts are predicting that mobile operator?s existing dominance in the telecom market will in the future decline as new technology such as VoIP and services will erode the operator?s traditional revenue model. This implies that mobile operators will need to rethink their dominant business logic to create new value for their customers. Mobile operators are aiming to expand their existing revenue model through advertising in the mobile handset and are searching to create new business models that evolve advertising sales.

Corporations meet complex challenges as they operate on a global market. Global multidimensional problems are referred to wicked problems and which cannot be solved only managed. In this case, of certified palm oil, palm oil production can be seen as a wicked problem due to deforestation of rainforest, land grabbing and social conflicts. There are also conflicts regarding the value and interest of palm oil. This thesis investigates the Swedish transformation for certified palm oil and how actors in the Swedish food market address this transformation to have certified palm oil in their production. The aim of this thesis is to explain enabling factors to address the governance gap of ethical sourcing in the food industry.

The EU has for a long time had a special relationship with its former colonies in Africa Caribbean and the Pacific, called the ACP?countries. This relationship is about to change radically with the new partnership agreement signed in June 2000 in Cotonou. This essay aims to study the EU ?ACP Partnership Agreement from the perspectives of two different theories: The liberalist, free-trade policy theory and the nationalist/regionalist, protectionist theory.

The purpose of this bachelor-thesis is to investigate the possible effects of lease accounting on the estimation of bankruptcy. This is done by estimating the risk via prediction models based on accounting ratios for a sample of 43 listed firms in Sweden. Estimation is conducted twice for each firm, once base on unadjusted data as it is presented in the annual report of 2012, and one with data adjusted for operational leases (that is data is treated as if all leases present were to have been reported as financial leases). In the next step it is tested weather the predictive ability of the models is affected by this adjustment or not. For this purpose translation of bankruptcy risk into synthetic credit ratings via interest coverage ratios is done.

In today?s society climate change has grown to one of the largest global issues. To reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, large changes of the energy system are required. An increasingly popular solution is investments in local production of renewable energy resources like wind, solar or geothermal power. The following report examines the possibility for implementing a solar power plant on the new hospital Nya Karolinska Solna. Two different technologies for extraction of solar energy has been studied, solar thermal collectors  to meet the need of heating and solar cells to satisfy the need for electricity linked to operating the hospital building.

Den svenska modebranschen är en hårt konkurrensutsatt bransch och för mindre modeföretagi tillväxtfas är ett starkt varumärke och image en viktig del i att särskilja sig och sinaprodukter från mängden. I ett mindre modeföretag kan varumärkesfrågor lätt komma attbortprioriteras med främsta motivet att budgeten inte ger utrymme för den typen av satsningarsamt att kompetensen inom företaget ofta brister på just dessa punkter. Som alternativ har denexterna varumärkesprocessen presenterats som ett mer realistiskt alternativ för det mindremodeföretaget då det går ut på att låta sitt kringliggande externa nätverk i större utsträckningstyra och påverka varumärket. Detta branschnätverk kan bestå av allt från media, regering ochintresseorganisationer till mer närliggande aktörer som återförsäljare, PR-byrå ochleverantörer.Syftet med uppsatsen är att, utifrån ett varumärkesperspektiv, beskriva vilket inflytandeexterna branschaktörer har på ett mindre modeföretags tillväxt. För att exemplifiera problemethar en enkel fallstudie på det svenska modeföretaget Stylein genomförts, som med sinpositionering i det svenska medelprissegmentet och tillväxtfas befinner sig inom ramen förden problematik som beskrivs.

Investors? use borrowing as a way to profit from leverage advantages in their portfolios.When investors borrow with their securities as safety for the loan and the value of thesecurities decrease the investor can get a portfolio with more credit than what is covered bythe value of the securities and risk huge losses. To what extent an investor is allowed toborrow with his portfolio as safety depends on the bank or broker and varies between theproviders. By studying available material and in addition to that making an empirical study Iattempt to find out the reason for the varying degrees of leverage possibilities between thebrokers and how the degree of maximum borrowing on the securities are decided. Thefindings show that decision of leverage degree on a security is made after first making aquantitative analysis of the stocks volatility and liquidity and thereafter make a qualitativeanalysis of the company.

Bakgrund och problem: Dagens företag består allt mer av immateriella tillgångar då samhället vi lever i har blivit allt mer högteknologiskt och kunskapsintensivt. När småföretag vill expandera vänder de sig vanligtvis till banker för att ansöka om krediter. Det finns dock en stor kritik mot hur banker hanterar utlåning till småföretag. Överlag är det väldigt svårt för småföretag att bli beviljade krediter hos banker, speciellt för de småföretag som har en hög andel immateriella tillgångar. Vissa forskare menar även att det finns skillnader i hur immateriella tillgångar bedöms vid kreditbeslut.

To make wave power more competitive on the market Uppsala University leads projects that examine how to accomplish better efficiency in the production. One of these projects is described in this report and examines whether it is possible to make the production of dovetails more efficient by using an industry robot of type ABB IRB6000 S3 M91. This project is using an already presented working method, from a previous project, which involves that the robot picks up the dovetail and moves against fixed cutting machines where the dovetail will be drilled, threaded and milled. Drilling and threading are the sub operations that will be examined in this project where experiments are made with the presented working method and with equipment from Uppsala University.Experiments show whether it is possible to drill the holes in the dovetail within specifications by using the specific robot and the presented working method. The threading operation is examined theoretically if it is possible to accomplish by using the same working method.

Åmotfors Bruk AB (ÅBAB) has today an inefficient production of steam for the manufacturing of paper. Unpredictable energy prices and modernisation of the current equipment has been the underlying factors to invest in a thermal power plant, mainly driven by garbage. This facility will not only use the steam for paper production, it will also generate electricity through a steam turbine. Today, when a fault on the supplying line occurs which leads to disconnection of the external grid, all the support of electricity to Åmotfors Bruk (ÅB) will disappear. This will lead to major interruptions in the paper production, which will cause severe economical losses.

This paper studies the option market?s implied dividend as a predictor of future equity market returns. We introduce this variable in the simple total return framework and discuss some complications of using it as a proxy for the expected dividend. We construct some regressions using the price-dividend ratio and the implied dividend growth, and test them on six years worth of data on the EURO STOXX 50-index. The main result is that implied dividend growth exhibits some forecastability over two-year horizons, but that the dataset is too short to draw any definitive conclusions about long-horizon forecastability.

Purpose: Our purpose is to achieve a higher understanding of which factors University of Uppsala is using to attract and keep their existing workers.Theory: We have worked with Barrow & Mosley's the employer brand mix, this modelexplains 12 important factors that exists within the employer branding process. External reputation, internal communication, the board, values and corporate social responsibility, internalmeasuring systems, service support, work environment, rewards and acknowledgements, learningand development, performance estimation, team management and recruitment and introduction.Method: To achieve an understanding of our subject we have chosen to work with a qualitativemethod. This type of method is more considerate of the interviewed person?s way of seeingthings and also accounts for how the person answers. To answer our problem statement we haveconducted a case study on University of Uppsala where we used semi structured interviewsbecause we wanted to limit the risk of leading questions.Empirical findings: University of Uppsala were used as material for our empirical discussionContext: The main reasons that workers is attracted to and are staying at the university dependson the external status they achieve when working there, this combined with that the workers getsto be a part of the university's brand.