This qualitative study involves the implementation of Lean and Kaizen methods in a Swedish service industry. Lean philosophy is based on a method to achieve more with less. In practical terms this means that the use of an organization's resources is improved. The origin of Lean is the Toyota Production System. Now, Kaizen methods give managers and employees a better more efficient system to reach their goals within the organization or company.

Title: Communicate ? to provide an opportunity Authors: Ida Eriksson & Petra LindbergTutor: Johan Grinbergs, Mälardalen UniversityExaminer: Cecilia LindhSubject: Bachelor's essay, Business AdministrationKeywords: communication, internal communication, channels, communication models, communication theory, information, organizationPurposeThe idea of this study was to describe how ABB Sweden?s internal communication and information appeared in Västerås. The aim is also to see what tools and channels they use to communicate information internally and see how employees perceive them in Västerås.MethodWe have read literature in form of books and articles that discuss theories on the subject communication including internal communication, channels and tools. Interviews were conducted with employees of ABB and were to serve as the basis for our empirical work. A survey by the Communication Center was made in the spring 2010 and was also the basis for our empirical work.ConclusionsThe communication has been increasingly from one-to two-way communication. To get a functioning organization, it is required that the internal communication in the first place will work.

Purpose:The purpose of this study is to improve the knowledge regarding how entrepreneurial companies act and behave in relation to human capital, by studying their decision-making process for human capital investments. Furthermore this study shall enrich the understandings for how their way of handling human capital investments might change over time along with the development, growth and aging of the company.Methodology:For this case study the authors have chosen a qualitative approach. The authors have collected the empirical data by interviewing the CEO?s of six different entrepreneurial companies. To be able to process and analyze the empirical data the authors have used various theoretical frameworks and also previous studies.Theoretical framework:The theoretical framework brings up human capital and its importance, but also its role in the entrepreneurial company.

With the globalization, companies in the West chose to shift production to developing countries to cut down costs. This had a major impact when child labor and very poor working conditions in these factories were discovered and led many companies to take responsibility for their suppliers and the employees by adopting voluntary so-called Codes of Conduct.There is a subtle balance to enforce improvement of working conditions for employees at suppliers´ factories and to keep costs down. On the one hand, companies would like to conduct extensive audits at their suppliers to ensure code of conduct compliance and thus protect their legitimacy. On the other hand, audits are expensive so companies would like to minimize audits to keep costs down. Companies thus have to strike a delicate balance in relation to how many and what suppliers they choose to audit.

Allt fler människor söker efter upplevelser och upplevelsenäringen har kommit att bli en av de stora framtidsbranscherna. Tidigare har Boden varit en utpräglad militärstad men neddragningar inom det militära har gjort att Bodens kommun måste satsa på en ny industri för att stanna kvar på kartan. Den ekonomiska föreningen Boden Turism anser att upplevelseindustrin i Boden är en viktig del i framtiden. Har Bodens kommun logi- och aktivitetsaktörer idag en samverkan sinsemellan och med kommunala aktörer och kan detta stärka Bodens kommun att bli en stad som fokuserar på upplevelser i deras turismnäring. Då upplevelseindustrin är viktig för Bodens kommun framtid kan en strategi som fokuserar på upplevelser innebära positiva effekter för Bodens kommun.

Sammanfattning Titel: Lågkonjunktur ? En studie i vilka skillnader som finns för variationen i antal anställda inom IT- respektive industribranschen Författare: Emilio Nilsson, Oscar Kacprzak Handledare: Emil Numminen Institution: Blekinge Tekniska Högskola Kurs: Kandidatarbete i Företagsekonomi Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka och analysera för hur företagets ekonomiska data för den relativt unga IT-sektorn förklarar antal anställda gentemot hur företagets ekonomiska data förklarar nyckeltalet för en äldre mer erfaren bransch som industrisektorn. Metod: Vi har samlat ihop kvartalsrapporter från 1999 års första kvartal till 2009 års första kvartal för totalt 10 stycken företag som vi bedömt lämpliga för studien, 5 företag från IT-branschen samt 5 företag från industribranschen. Vi har därefter fört regressionsanalyser med antal anställda som Y-variabel och totala intäkter, aktienivå, rörelsekostnader samt rörelseresultat som X-variabler för att finna korrelationen däremellan. Slutsats: De framkomna resultaten från regressionsanalyserna pekar på att det finns skillnader branscherna emellan.

The purpose of thesis was to investigate and compare how two companies within pharmaceutical industry and nuclear power industry are currently working with quality development regarding continuous improvement and Lessons Learned in business processes. In addition, a simple comparison was made with the automotiveindustry.McNeil AB are improving their processes continuously and are according to the findings of this report performing well in their pursuit of world-class pharmaceutical production. They have a well functioning process regarding improvements proposed in weekly improvement meetings engaging all employees. However, during interviews it was made clear that the functionality of the process which administer improvement proposals generated in addition to, or beside the weekly improvement meetings, were inadequate. McNeil AB is proposed to administer this through an IT solution instead of by paper and e-mail, that simplifies the process of adding, implementing and follow up an improvement proposal.The nuclear power plant Ringhals AB recently made major improvements in their business processes as well as the plant itself.

Titel Lojalitet ? Är det möjligt att bibehålla vid en outsourcing? Författare Joacim Carlsson och Fredrik Thanche Handledare Marie Aurell Institution Managementhögskolan vid Blekinge tekniska högskola Kurs Kandidatuppsats i företagsekonomi, 10p Syfte Vi avser i vår uppsats att undersöka vad som påverkar lojaliteten vid en outsourcingprocess. Utifrån hur företagets agerande påverkar personalen avser vi också att ge förslag på vad man ska tänka på som outsourcande företag och hur man kan arbeta med att bibehålla lojalitet vid en outsourcing. Metod Undersökningen har ett kvalitativt upplägg. Vi har undersökt två företag som outsourcat någon del av företaget för två till tre år sedan.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how gender equality can be used in the workplace, its possible effects, and what collaboration can contribute to the subject of gender equality. A combination of legal sociological and legal dogmatic methodology has been used to examine the EU and Swedish law, how equality should be approached and what previous studies have concluded. An interview has been conducted to provide a clearer picture of how gender equality appears in practice, in the modern workplace. An equality plan should be conducted every three years and applies to employers who are responsible for more than 25 employees. The manual should include a description of the measures considered necessary in the workplace in order to promote gender equality. How an equality plan should be developed is not specifically outlined in the current law, and thus this is left up to the employer to determine.

Thesis purpose: This thesis will through a case study of a recently rebranded bank ?Jyske Bank?, seek to research deeper within the field of service sector rebranding. The internal communication used in connection to the rebranding, will be analyzed in order to investigate what initiatives Jyske Bank?s organizational leaders launched to implement the rebranding and furthermore whether the initiatives have worked. The research questions are: - What are the critical initiatives behind the re-branding process, and have these initiatives been successful?- Furthermore, to determine the success: To what extend does the intended image, created by the organizational leaders of Jyske bank, in relation to the rebranding, correlate with the identity held by the organizational members? Methodology: This thesis employs a mix of quantitative questionnaires and qualitative semi structured interviews.Theoretical perspectives: Corporate rebranding framework (Daly & Moloney, 2004) and a conceptualization of the employee branding process (Miles & Mangold, 2005)Empirical data: The empirical data was collected from in depth interviews with management and questionnaires from employees.

The scarcity of qualified forest machine operators as well as the increased competition for competent machine operators among others from the mining industry in Norrland, were the reasons to investigate what attracts and what deters active and potential forest machine operators to the occupation. An interview study was conducted among four groups with four persons in each group. The groups were students in year 1 and 3 respectively at a forestry school at upper secondary school level as well as employees of a forest company and employees of contractors. The majority of all respondents were of the opinion that their interests in machines had been important for the choice of occupation. But for the active machine operators both the interest in the forest and their interest for machines have had importance for choosing this occupation.

With the globalization, companies in the West chose to shift production to developing countries to cut down costs. This had a major impact when child labor and very poor working conditions in these factories were discovered and led many companies to take responsibility for their suppliers and the employees by adopting voluntary so-called Codes of Conduct.There is a subtle balance to enforce improvement of working conditions for employees at suppliers´ factories and to keep costs down. On the one hand, companies would like to conduct extensive audits at their suppliers to ensure code of conduct compliance and thus protect their legitimacy. On the other hand, audits are expensive so companies would like to minimize audits to keep costs down. Companies thus have to strike a delicate balance in relation to how many and what suppliers they choose to audit.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the implications and challenges of intercultural communication. An in-depth study was performed of the perspectives from people who work within an international organization. How they experience cultural differences and how they handle them, in particular when it comes to communication. Also, their perceptions of communicative competence were explored. The study was carried out at Svalorna India Bangladesh, at the Swedish office in Lund.

AbstractIn this study, then collaboration agreement impact of the work on 11 and 19 § § MBL are studied. The employer and collective agreements bearing employee union are often involved in collaborative agreements to facilitate cooperation between them. Issues addressed to collaboration areoften questions related to employee participation. The purpose of this study is to investigate two local employers and related collective bearing employee unionsview of the cooperation agreement related to the MBL. The purpose leads to these questions:?How can co-operation agreements affect 11 and 19 § § MBL??What are theadvantages and disadvantages cooperation agreementscan lead to, regardingemployer disclosure and negotiation duty?To try to sort out these issues are interviews conducted to create a greater understanding of the work of the Cooperation Agreement between organizations and how it affects them.Results of the study suggest that collaboration agreement leads to simplifications in the work of the employer's information and bargaining duty.

Aktiv dödshjälp är bara tillåtet på fem platser världen över och debatten om dess vara eller icke vara går i vågor. I Sverige är dödshjälp olagligt, dock är palliativ sedering (nedsöv-ning för symptomlindring) tillåtet även om det leder till att livet förkortas.Denna studie syftar till att undersöka den process som ligger bakom skapandet av män-niskors inställning till dödshjälp. Tidigare forskning inom området har inriktat sig på statis-tiskt paradigm, vilket begränsar forskningsområden och resultat samt även debatten kring ämnet. I uppsatsen har forskningen delats in i fyra kategorier, för- och emot forskning, kom-parativ forskning, övrig jämförande forskning samt övrig forskning.Fem intervjuer genomfördes med analytisk induktion som urvalsgrund med syfte att varje intervjuperson skulle slå hål på den tidigares uttalanden. Analysen genomfördes med hjälp av grundad teori.