In a time of economic turmoil and financial crisis profitability matters rise higher and higher on company agendas. Many companies are pressured to find profitability to avoid layoffs or even bankruptcy. Profitability essentially depends on the margin on the product or service sold and the costs associated with selling these products or services and hence these areas are of vital importance if companies are to improve profitability. Previous research has focused, for the most part, on product profitability while customer profitability has received less attention. This study is based on a case study of a Swedish publishing house and aims to investigate how the company?s Cost-to-Serve varies between its distribution channels.

Shopping malls have been growing in numbers during the last few decades. As an effect, consumers are increasingly placing a greater amount of their purchases under one roof. The problem is that stores within these malls have to fight for the consumers' attention in competition with all the other stores. Thus, making consumers noticing their store is critical for success. Creating attention through floor advertising could be a potential way of doing so.

This report is written in cooperation with Eskilstuna municipality public administration for urban planning. The reports purpose is to look into how other public authorities carry out public purchase of consultants and entrepreneurs in the urban planning area. The goal is to come up with suggestions of how Eskilstuna municipality public administration for urban planning can improve its purchasing process in this field in order to minimize the risk where a consultant or entrepreneur files an appeal against the decision of awarding a contract to another rival. The appeal can be filed to the county administrative court.The public administration for urban planning can do its purchases through the model of "lowest price" or "economically most favorable" for them. When using "economically most favorable", the department can value a number of soft parameters by giving them points and the offer which gets most points can be rewarded the right to sign a contract.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine what part and importance electronic games play in the life of girls, how the girls use electronic games and what the girls think and say about their use of electronic games. We also intend to examine what girls have to say about electronic games at the public library. Our attempt is to illuminate and bring knowledge to those who work within the library with the selection, purchase and conveyance of electronic games. Method used in the survey is focusgroup-interviews with girls in the age between 12-14 years in three different schools. The findings are related to four different perspectives, theory of child development, from a gender perspective, theories of understanding how young people use computer games and theories to understand the purpose of public libraries.

The difference between the public sector and the private sector in Sweden was once very small. These sectors have been united as well for the people, the organizations as for the finances. During the 1960´s and 1970´s the public sector in Sweden was expanding and after the 1980´s the people started talking more about an expanding private sector instead. The year of 2007 Hökarängen Hemtjänst Ekonomisk Förening submitted a tender to Äldreförvaltningen about a purchase of the home- help service in Hökarängen and they accept there tender.Exposing public organization for competition can be a good way to make sure that most value for the money is created and that it generates the most cost- effective organizations. The motivation factor is used to describewhat makes people perform more than what is expected of them.The purpose of this study is to describe and explain similarities and differences in working- motivation between those how are members of Hökarängen Hemtjänst Ekonomisk Förening and those how are not.

To purchase a house or an apartment is often one of the major personal financial commitments for a person. In 2005, 84% of the homeowners sold their homes using a estate agency. During 2006 several new opportunities appeared on the market, giving the homeowners more of a choice in what way to sell their homes. Media describes the alternatives in general ?as the agents on the Internet?.

This master?s thesis investigates in which ways students seek out and access their textbooks and how they use their university?s library in this process. Data is collected through interviews from six students several semesters into their studies at the University of Stockholm. For the interviews two students each were selected from the fields of law, economics and humanities. The empirical findings were analyzed using T.D Wilson?s model of information behavior (1997).

Sweden is dependent on secure sea transport. Shorter disruption of imports of fuel and crude oil can be managed with an emergency stock, but a prolonged halt in imports creates problems. For industry, the vulnerability is greater. Fragmented production chains in combination with expenditure reductions in inventory causes a dependency on proper transport of intermediate goods in the manufacturing industry. A lengthy disruption thus involves disruption of production for both domestic consumption and for export goods containing imported parts.In order to secure shipping routes with a limited number of vessels, Mine Counter Measures (MCM) capacity is required, and according to the Armed Forces, developed with new sensors and autonomous vehicles.

The point of departure for this thesis was an article written by Christer Hermansson (2008). He thinks that librarians, following the development of Library 2.0 and the change of public libraries, have strayed away from what he believes should be the focus of the library: Literature. The aim of this thesis is to study how librarians in six Swedish libraries perceive their occupational roles. How does the increased user control, which is seen as part of Library 2.0, affect the tasks of libraries and librarians? The material used in this study was acquired using a qualitative interview technique in which six librarians working in public libraries with experience of IT, mediation and purchase of literature partook.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine how the build-up of customer relations can be characterized at the end of the industrial selling process and how companies engage their cross-functional selling teams into this relationship building effort. Through a case study of Omega, a multinational company engaged in the selling of products of an industrial character, it was revealed that the build-up and maintaining of the customer relationship is of acute importance, as it presents the company with a window of opportunities. Through its relationship with the customer the company can be able to sell other products, which are related to the original purchase made by the customer. For the company?s competitors the established relationship might also serve as a barrier when attempting to enter the market or increase market share.

In hydropower plants it is necessary to always have local power supply. Therefore, the plants are equipped with batteries as stationary back up power. Vattenfall Vattenkraft is using lead acid batteries but has been investigating alternatives to replace them. The aim of this study is to investigate the potential of using Li-ion technology as back up power.The study showed that Li-ion batteries have many qualities. The Li-ion technology will decrease the space and maintenance demand.

This study intends to explain the problem with the implementation of new Swedish accounting rules called K2. The rules are simplifications of the general accounting rules and the purpose is to make it easier for small companies to account. Despite this, few small companies have adopted the rules. This study seeks to explain the weak response to the K2-rules using institutional theory.The research objects of this study are Burger King, McDonald?s and two audits and accountants.

This Masters thesis concerns feature film services in Swedish public libraries. We have investigated the opinion of eight librarians concerning values and criteria for selection as regards film. The theory chosen comes from varied disciplines, for example sociology, adapted to our subject. The most important theories are Antonio Gramscis idea of hegemony, Herbert J. Gans concept of taste cultures and Carl Gustav Johannsens discussion about quality.

This report has a purpose to identify the payment methods available for e-commerce, tosee if they fulfill certain requirements. By investigating thirty of the most popular webshops, a few primary services have been found and revised. Security requirements fore-payment systems include authentication, non-repudiation, integrity and confidentiality.Other requirements considered to be important are usability, flexibility, affordability,reliability, availability, speed of transaction and interoperability. Advantages and disadvantageshave been identified to see if the services fulfill the requirements. Also surveysof consumer payment habits have been investigated to identify the factors of decisive importanceto the usage of payment services.

ABSTRACTErik Ageberg: Who's that girl? ? Skivbolagskultur och dess påverkan på Robyn. Uppsala Universitet: Institutionen för Musikvetenskap. C-uppsats, 2006.Robyn has been one of the most successful Swedish pop stars during the last decade. She has during these ten last years gone from being a young star to being the owner of her own record label, Konichiwa Records.