Term: Spring term 2007Study objects: Reitan Servicehandel AB, Vi-butikerna, ICA Sverige ABPurpose: The purpose of this study is to analyse how procurement is used as a strategy to achieve better competitive strength, within the retail food industry.Theoretical: The theoretical chapter illustrates different procurement organisations, multiple and single sourcing, brand equity, consumer behaviour and involvement, Efficient Consumer Response including supply chain and category management and finally Demand Chain Management.Method: For the case studies, three food retail companies have been interviewed: Reitan Servicehandel AB, Vi-butikerna and ICA AB. To illustrate how consumer behaviour influences retail food market, several secondary consumer research studies have been analysed.Conclusions: The results indicate that the procurement organisation can achieve a better competitive strength by a centralised organisation, which make it possible to improve conditions of terms when ordering higher purchase volumes. The sourcing strategies can improve a company?s power within the supply chain. All companies within the study had a very good knowledge about consumer behaviour.

Background: With an increased global market, where companies seek capital abroad, the demand for a more uniform accounting standard has been raised. This uniform accounting standard is not yet available, differences between accounting standards still exists. Several Swedish companies seek risk capital in the USA and some are part of a concern that is listed on the American stock exchange. This means that the Securities and Exchange Commission requires the companies to do a reconciliation to US GAAP on those items that are considered material. This can be an extensive work for the companies if the knowledge about the differences between Swedish GAAP and US GAAP does not exist.

Several studies show that the clinical reality in psychiatric care does not correspond to the demand of consumer participation from a variety of policy documents that has been produced recently. Studies also show that there is a lot to do in improving, patients with sever mental illness, becoming more involved in their own care. The nurse has a central role in this work. The Norwegian nursing theorist Jan-Ka?re Hummelvolls holistic, existentialistic model for psychiatric nursing were used as theoretical ground.The aim of this study was to examine how nurses in psychiatric outpatient units, caring for patients with psychotic disorders, experiences consumer participation.Qualitative phenomenological method was used.

The business world has been through an extreme transformation over the past decades, which have forced companies to look at themselves from a new point of view. Consumers have a complete new set of ways to gather information and are more motivated than ever to make sustainable consumption choices. This change of attitudes among consumers has made companies focus on other things than price versus quality. A whole new concept has been brought up to questioning: environmentalism. Consumers demand more organically produced products.

Local participation in nature conservation has gained more attention over the last decades due to international conventions as well as local and national initiatives. This development can be seen as a reaction to a more expert oriented nature conservation characterized by centralized control and strict preservation of so called "original" nature. The overall objective of this thesis is to contribute to research on new forms of conservation where democracy and local participation is included. The case study focuses on the process of producing a pre-study for a suggested national park in southern Jämtland in the Swedish mountain region, and aims to investigate to what extent local participation was included. The pre-study was led by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) and the County Administrative Board (CAB) in Jämtland.

The subject of this Master?s thesis is the process of change in a public library context, the implementation of the Stockholm City Library?s homepage Biblioteket.se. The aim is to examine the factors that influence this particular change and how they affect the process and extent of change in practice. The study designed as a qualitative case study is based primarily on document analysis, and supplemented by an interview. DiMaggio?s and Powell?s three mechanisms of change; coercive, mimetic and normative isomorphism, is applied.

Idag är det inte många textilföretag som har möjlighet att ha strumpproduktion i ett land som Sverige på grund av lönsamhetsskäl. Det är billigare att producera i låglöneländer i Europa eller Asien, men det tär istället på våra naturresurser och vår miljö att transportera produkter fram och tillbaka. På grund av de höjda lönerna i Kina och valutakursen för euron som höjts drastiskt i Europa har Sverige dock kommit till ett läge då det blir ekonomiskt lönsamt att flytta tillbaka en del av produktionen till Sverige. Dessutom ökar trenden med ekologiska och närproducerade varor, vilket ökar efterfrågan på svensktillverkade produkter. Studien syftar till att ge privatpersoner och företag ett underlag till att undersöka sina möjligheter för produktion av strumpor på den svenska marknaden.Utvecklingen av strumpproduktionen i Sverige pågår hela tiden och företagen uppdaterar sina maskinparker och utbildar sina anställda, vilket leder till en utveckling av marknaden.

In urban planning and design today interventions tend to take place in already existing areas and inevitably effect also surrounding areas. The many parties involved in any change leads to a demand for a shared language around these areas. This thesis aim to, through understanding and communicating a site, Stora Södergatan in Lund Sweden, inspire to a novel way of looking at an urban site preceding design- or planning interventions. Based on a theoretical framework where site is considered as a relational construct, material as well as immaterial, a framework for site thinking is constructed. Further, with theory of representation, the communication of the site is emphasized and accounted for as part of the framework.

In Sweden, there an increasing need for transport and this leads directly to fuel demand of the transport sector is expected to increase. Both politicians and industry believes that renewable fuels are a realistic and significant method to reduce the transport sector's environmental impact. This study aims to document the Swedish haulage contractor?s attitude to biodiesel. Also to document the strengths and weaknesses of biodiesel, based on opinions from the ultimate consumers.

The problems around and the planning of wood flow is some of the most complex issues in the forest-sector. The experience and overview of the single employees is crucial for the possibility of correct tactical and economical decision-making. The increasing demand of savings and shorter reaction-times with greater flexibility in the wood-supply-chain, makes solutions and aids for improved effectiveness in the work and processes according to wood-flow urgent. Holmen Skog is starting to develop a new forest-road-management-system. The system will facilitate the work according to construction, improvements and updating the standard of roads.

There is an increasing demand for information literacy, which is mirrored in curriculum throughout the whole educational system. This, in turn, has brought forward a growing need for librarians who can teach. But do librarians possess pedagogical competence, and if they do, how is this ability used in everyday library practice? The aim of this study is to investigate librarians' conceptions of the pedagogical role, as it is expressed in their didactic interaction with the users. The research questions focus on librarians' experiences of teaching information seeking and use and their activities in this respect.

The Swedish energy companies have several different systems for data collection of the energy consumption of their clients. Often computerized remote meter readers are put in practice in order to register the energy consumption of large companies. The majority of household clients, however, are read off by the assistance of manual methods. Household power consumption is read off once a year. As a result, these clients are not debited for their actual consumption; their invoices during the year are the result of estimations.

New Zealand is currently the third largest global producer of kiwifruit and thus plays an important role in the international market. Exports of kiwifruit are also of significant horticultural value for New Zealand and in 2007 the kiwifruit industry accounted for export values of NZ$790 million. The global kiwifruit market has experienced substantial changes in recent years and is likely to change significantly in the near future due to developments in production sources, adjustments to trade policy settings and shifts in consumer preferences. The New Zealand kiwifruit industry needs to consider what the impacts of these changes might be so that future strategies can be constructed effectively. Little quantitative modelling has been done in New Zealand to consider the impacts of changes to the global kiwifruit industry. The major contribution of this research was the development and calibration of a kiwifruit industry-specific partial equilibrium trade model. The model was then used to examine the impacts on New Zealand producers of these trade-related changes in the global kiwifruit market.

There are two species of voles that cause damage in Swedish fruit production: the water vole (Arvicola terrestris) and the field vole (Microtus agrestis). Both species make the most damage during the winter season. The water vole makes subterranean burrows and cause serious damage by gnawing on the tree roots. The field vole seldom makes burrows and gnaws the bark at the base of the tree trunk. In recent years there have been several reports about increasing vole damage.

Bostadsbristen för studenter, särskilt i större städer, har under en längre tid varit ett frekvent diskuterat ämne i Sverige. Stockholm har ett brett och starkt utbud av högre utbildning och regionen expanderar kontinuerligt. Regionen har idag cirka 80,000 studenter som slåss om färre än 13 000 studentbostäder. Detta medför en risk att studenter väljer bort Stockholm som studentstad.Denna studie syftar till att undersöka möjligheterna för studentbostadsmarknaden att utvecklas. Med ett kvalitativt tillvägagångsätt via intervjuer med fastighetsutvecklare och lärosäten identifierades fem problemområden som ligger till grund för detta examensarbete.