Management consulting firms are an important part of the knowledge economy and they capitalize on the analytical ability and knowledge of their employees. Much research have been made on large consulting firms and their management of knowledge, but little is known about how small consultancies manage their knowledge. Even less is known about the management of knowledge in small consultancies specialized in change management. These firms rely solely on senior consultants and focus on the human aspect of organizational development. This thesis aims to show how these firms manage their knowledge and also provide an understanding of why.

Sweden is a world leader in listed private equity and ranked fifth in the world in market capitalization. The sector is attracting increasing interest from the investment community. However, the private equity industry in Sweden has historically poor reputation and is criticized for creating value through high leverage, multiple riding and severe cuts. This study analyzes value creation drivers in buyouts from the perspective of the private equity firm using a dataset of 15 realized buyouts by private equity firms listed on NASDAQ OMX Nordic Stockholm. The methodology used separates the value contribution of leverage on the private equity firm's return from internal operational improvements and external variations in transaction multiples.

The following report comprises my bachelor´s thesis in Industrial design, 30 hp. It is executed in collaboration with Bonum senior housing, who has been the client and assignment- maker of this project.The goal was to design a bench for their entrances, which could represent not only the needs of the target group but also Bonum as a trademark. The work is done with great care for both human kind and the environment, with sustainability as beacon.The design process has been followed.Initially, you will find the definition of a bench for entrances, the framework including inclusive as well as sustainable design, a function- and market analysis followed by the inspiration part of the project. Getting to know the target group and their specific needs has been essential for this work.Investigations about what senior house living and senior products are and what the target group thinks and feels, has been done. As a result, two ?personas? has been developed.With the help of a purposely chosen group of people, surveys and ergonomic studies has been executed, as well as prototype-testing.The fact-finding has formed the stable and unavoidable foundation of this project, which later on gets more creative and idea based.

The aim of this paper is to examine if the two latest Peace Plans in the Palestine-Israeli con-flict observes the sources of the conflict and presents measures in the purpose of solving them. The point of departure is William Azar?s theory of protracted social conflict (PSC). According to Azar, the internal sources of a PSC lies in three clusters of variables: the com-munal content of a society, the deprivation of human needs as an underlying source of PSC, and the role of the state in the deprivation or satisfaction of human needs. The study is de-signed as a multiple-case study where the units of analysis are the Roadmap to Peace and the Geneva Initiative.

There are countless methods for companies to use as marketing tools and one method that has become more and more popular is sponsoring. Reasons for companies to use sponsoring as a marketing tool is to be exposed and associated in connection with the sponsored item. Companies also use sponsorship to create relationships with the company's target audience. The use of Internet and Internet marketing has also increased during the last years and this paper examines the combination of these two areas, sponsorship and Internet marketing. A survey that examines the websites owned by companies who also are sponsors, answers the following problem:How do companies communicate their sponsorship on their own homepages?The purpose of this study is to describe how companies use their homepage to communicate their sponsorship.

Nowadays, the world around us is changing faster and faster, the globalization is increasing and harder competition puts extra pressure on companies to be more innovative than ever before. One of the fastest changing industries is the IT industry where the actors always have to be up to date to keep their competitive advantage. The authors want to find out what makes some companies in this industry more innovative than others by examining what internal elements that are necessary for innovation. Much research has already been carried out within the field of innovation and especially about innovation management, although less research exists about smaller, non high tech service companies. Therefore the authors also tries to find out how applicable today?s theories are on this special field and thereby fill a smaller gap in today?s research.

The tourism industry is growing and with its growth competition between destinations rises. In competition, cooperation and collaboration between tourism operators seem beneficial when creating an attractive and dynamic tourist destination.The purpose of this study is to describe and discuss the significance and influence of tourist related networks at a tourist destination, and therefore this study aims to examine the question: What significance do the tourist related networks have at a tourist destination?This study focuses on seven networks on Gotland that are tourism related, and the representatives of the networks were interviewed in order to get their view on the network and its significance to the destination. The study shows that networks have an important role in creating a unified tourist product of the destination, and in reaching out to the potential visitors through joint destination marketing. The study also shows that the tourism related networks helps to improve the reception of the tourist at a destination and to secure the quality of the tourist destination and its tourist products..

Picker robots are often mounted close to each other above a conveyor belt. To be able topack robots even closer, it is desirable to reduce the footprint of the robot?s base. One way toachieve this is to skew the arms of the robot which makes it possible to move them closer toeach other.This Master Thesis has been carried out at ABB Corporate Research. The purpose is toevaluate the benefits and drawbacks for the idea of making today?s Picker robot morecompact by skewing the arms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the correlation between hotels, their brands and the frontline staff within the industry. A competitive, international environment characterizes today´s hotel industry where brands are one of the strongest sources for a successful position amongst competitors. In the brand delivery, the front line staff is of utmost importance since they in many ways incorporate the brand values and the projected identity of the hotel. Hotels can use a variety of ways to communicate the brands identity to the front line staff in order to create the desired brand behavior, some more effective than others. At the same time the Swedish hotel industry, as many other, is characterized by a high percentage of staff turnovers.

This essay is how companies are using Facebook to appear. The two companies in this study, Fritz Olsson AB Kalix and Promentum AB shows how Like, share and comment-contest communicates via Facebook. The purpose of this essay is to examine how Facebook users attitude and perception is to Like, share and comment- contest.The thesis was conducted in two parts, first a qualitative interview with the two companies that stand as examples in the paper and a quantitative online survey. The online survey was sent out to the 256 Media and Communication students at Umea? University, who read or has read the program from 2010 to 2016, via Facebook.

Purpose: The aim of this study is to test four different hypotheses from the aspect of the title of this paper. H 1 Consumers trust the pharmacy employees? advice and suggestions for their purchase decisions more than the brand awareness they have received through the companies marketing communication H 2 Consumers are enough affected of a company?s marketing communication to choose their brand even if the pharmacy employees recommend other brands. H 3 Building brand equity through pharmacies can only be successful if the company has built up a trust for their brand among the pharmacy employees. H 4 Without building brand equity the marketing communication strategy for Ferrosan cannot increase their brand value and create loyalty. Methodology: The research method that was chosen is a detective argumentation that starts from theories and explain different parameters regarding the subject I am concentration on. It is a case study where the companies branding strategy towards pharmacies in Sweden is analyzed bys a mix of semi-structured interviews, documentation analysis and a quantitative research . Theoretical framework: The theoretical model that has been prepared gives me the possibility to analyze different parameters regarding branding that are important when building a brand in an new market.

Moment Marketing är ett litet företag som arbetar med webbutveckling. För dem är det viktigt med versionshantering och de använder ett fåtal program som underlättar detta arbete. Idag saknar de dock möjligheten att kontrollera olika versioner av databaser. Tillsammans med Moment Marketing och de program som redan används av dem skapas i detta projekt ytterligare applikationer med mål att lösa detta problem. Först görs en undersökning över programmen Subversion, TortoiseSVN, Trac och MySQL för att se de möjligheter som finns att använda dem till att uppnå målet.

Launching and marketing a health food product is associated with larger problems than a launch of a traditional food product. There are several sales channels that can be used for a health food product, for example the product can be sold as a traditional food product, natural health food product or as a prescription drug. A smaller company can however experience problems while launching its product as a prescription drug because of the large costs associated with this particular sales channel. There is often no other alternative than to launch the product as a traditional food product, this can however create other problems because of the existing regulations on what can and cannot be mentioned in the marketing of a health food product. The limited amount of information about the product that can be enclosed together with it makes it hard for a company to differentiate and position it on the market.

Branding is becoming increasingly important to companies within the B2B-sector and they put a lot of effort and capital to develop and strengthen their brands. One way of working with brands is through ingredient branding. An ingredient brand is an alliance between two brands where the ingredient brand is applied on a host brand and works as an ingredient on the product. The purpose of ingredient branding is to create competiveness, differentiation and to create quality associations. Ingredient brands can be divided into emotional and functional categories.

What role should science play in democracy? Political scientists often assume that it is possible to demarcate between ?instrumental? and ?moral? knowledge, and argue that citizens and/or politicians should use their moral knowledge to agree upon political goals and then apply the instrumental knowledge of scientists to achieve them. This straightforward view is challenged by writers in science studies, who identify three major problems in the use of science in democracy: uncertainty, risk and hidden values. They suggest that these problems could be solved through citizen participation.In this essay I perform an analysis of the internal logic of their suggestion. Is it likely that citizen participation enhances the democratic decision making process so as to reduce the problems? The internal analysis shows that it is rational to advocate citizen participation by reasons of legitimacy.