During the last few decades a new kind of business operation have developed and this hasforced organisations to adapt themselves to a new competitive environment characterized byincreased customer demands as well as a larger amount of competitors. Therefore companieshave had a shift in their strategies from focusing on sales numbers to focusing on thecustomer. To build lasting customer relationships, in order to create customer loyalty, havebecome an important part of the organisational strategy and the collection of consumer datais essential in achieving this loyalty. Customer relationship management systems assistorganisations in managing information about individual customers as well as managing allaspects of customer contact, with the purpose of increasing customer loyalty towards thecompany. The collection of consumer data also enables for companies to design personalizedoffers to individual customers in the form of direct marketing.

The global market is becoming increasingly integrated and to keep up with growing competition and to achieve even greater success, companies expand to foreign markets. Previous studies have shown that the concept of psychic distance has an important impact on international performance regarding small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). The aim of our study is to provide the reader with a deeper understanding of how psychic distance influences export performance regarding Swedish SMEs. Through a single case study of a Swedish SME, we chose to research three different markets in three different continents. Our findings show that psychic distance influences export performance through export marketing strategy and active learning.

It is increasingly important for cities to attract visitors, potential new residents and businesses. Jönköping is one of the cities working with place marketing, a strategy that intends to mediate a positive image of the city, in order to accomplish just that.People often have a need to preserve the memory of a trip into something tangible. Anyone visiting Jönköping encounters a souvenir choice, much like the one in many other cities. Linked to the idea of positive place marketing, our work aims to investigate how we as product developers can create a product that en¬hances the image of Jönköping based on the thought that all residents are con¬sig¬nors. Accordingly, we develop three different products from the residents' own image of the city.Our research questions are:Based on the photographs, what image of Jönköping do the ambassadors mediate of their own city?As designers, what in Jönköping's history versus the image of Jönköping today, can we seize in order to give products for visitors a sense of authenticity?As designers, how can we use knowledge of place branding in the development of souvenirs?We performed interviews within three different aspects: history, souvenirs and place branding, all focused on the city of Jönköping.

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.

Syftet med vår uppsats är att utvärdera hur enskilda butiksägare, som ingår i en större kedja, ser på fördelar samt nackdelar att ingå i en större koncern. Syftet är också att utröna hur butiksägarna definierar en lojal kund samt hur de arbetar för att strategiskt skapa kundlojalitet. Vår studie grundar sig på intervjuer med två enskilda butiksägare som ingår i samma koncern. I studien framgick det att butiksägarna genom användandet av kundkort erhåller kundlojalitet som ett bra verktyg för att kunna förbättra och stärka den totala ekonomin i företaget. Det krävs dock att man inser betydelsen av att engagera sig för att skapa en bättre balans mellan kundernas attityd och kundernas beteende.

In many of the world's countries, there is a national organization responsible for marketingthat country as a tourist destination. Through their offices, these organizations work towardsthe creation of effective strategies and a deeper understanding of local markets. Usingqualitative methods such as interviews, observations, and thematic analysis, we managed toinvestigate how the Czech and the German national tourist offices operate, and whatstrategies they are implementing to increase the volume of tourism. The study focused on theanalysis and comparison of the organizations' goals and communication channels.The results show that the investigated tourist boards operate in a similar manner with smalldifferences concerning choice of strategies and communication channels. These discrepanciescan be partly explained by differences in the organization's ownership forms and theconsequences that follow that fact.

Abstract Over the years the consciousness of risk has grown. It?s hard to influence risks, therefore there are guidelines stating that significant risk must be included in the annual report. This paper is a case study; the purpose was to examine how four Swedish listed companies chose to disclose their internal and external risks. Risk is initially described in general sense and then it figures to what constitutes an economic risk.Through a case study of four Swedish listed companies? annual reports we have, through qualitative methods found how the companies chose to disclosure their risks.

The aim of this thesis is to examine how secondary teachers in the subject of history are using the textbook in their teaching. Four questions are being dealt with in this thesis. What importance is being placed on the use of history textbooks by the secondary teachers? What priorities do the secondary teachers have? How do they deal with student interests? And what is the importance of the secondary teachers? work experience? I have interviewed four secondary teachers with different work experience to complete this thesis. A Dictaphone has been used in all the interviews. Research has shown that textbooks now have a central role in teaching and the lack of alternative materials and reduction of teaching hours has made it difficult to replace. The main conclusions of the thesis are that the history textbook has a dual role depending on the teacher you ask, and that the history book is used differently by the teachers.

Organisationer har olika strategier för särskiljning och konkurrenskraft där kultur, arv och tradition tillämpas på olika sätt för att profilera sig både mot kunder och medarbetare. Företag vilka bygger och anspelar på lokal tradition återfinns inom de flesta sektorer, dock har få studier gjorts på medarbetarens upplevelse av tradition inom en organisation. Kunskapsluckan i traditionens betydelse för medarbetare inom samtida organisationer är således av vikt att studera. Vi vill genom denna undersökning förstå hur medarbetaren upplever en eventuell anspelning på lokal tradition inom en organisation. Undersökningen av sambandet mellan lokal tradition och medarbetaren ska bidra till ökad insikt om huruvida lokal tradition har aktualitet och betydelse för en organisationsmedlem.

Studien handlar om en destination i den svenska fjällvärlden som består av två närbelägna orter. Aktörerna är flera och av olika storlekar, destinationsmarknads-föringen har därigenom flera utmaningar att hantera och beakta då värderingar och intressen är åtskilda. De två orterna är olika till karaktären och medan den ena orten utvecklas gör den andra orten inte det lika starkt. Orterna tillsammans sänder ut en rad olika budskap genom olika marknadsföringsinsatser som sammantaget inger en diffus bild av destinationen och de olika avsändarna.En destination som inte gemensamt samarbetar och koordinerar sina marknadsföringsinsatser sänder ut en diffus bild till både besökare och investerare. En destination som består av flera aktörer är i stort behov av såväl samarbete som konkurrens ? på ett positivt och inte destruktivt sätt.

Abstract Over the years the consciousness of risk has grown. It?s hard to influence risks, therefore there are guidelines stating that significant risk must be included in the annual report. This paper is a case study; the purpose was to examine how four Swedish listed companies chose to disclose their internal and external risks. Risk is initially described in general sense and then it figures to what constitutes an economic risk.Through a case study of four Swedish listed companies? annual reports we have, through qualitative methods found how the companies chose to disclosure their risks.

The long-term external financing of a corporation is satisfied through the bond market where issues of index-linked bonds, which are discussed in this thesis, is one alternative. (Finnerty&Emery 2001) An index- linked bond is a debt instrument where the investor is guaranteed the principal and premium amount in real terms. As the bonds cash flows are indexed to the inflation this implies that the issuer of an index-linked bond assumes an inflation risk. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe and examine corporate motives for choosing index-linked bonds as way of financing their business. Realization: Primary data was collected through interviews with corporate issuers of non-swapped index-linked bonds.

AbstractTitle:                           What is the interaction between information providers and decision makers like? A case study on management accounting in Swedbank.Course:                              Master?s thesis in Business economics, 15 ECTS.Date:                                                        2009-06-01Authors:                            Daoud Ghorbandi and George TekmenSupervisor:                        Paula LiukkonenLanguage:                         SwedishPurpose:        The purpose of the paper is to study the relationship between information providers and decision makers regarding the quality of information for economic decision-making in companies.Method:                     The authors use the qualitative method approach. The essay's primary data consists of data collected through interviews, while the literature that the authors have made use of for the interpretation and analysis of the paper form the essay?s secondary data.Theory:                      It includes a main theory and four other theories supporting the paper. The main theory is the agent theory, while theories on information quality, the theory of outsourcing of management accounting, theories of calculation methods and regulations on management accounting is to support the analysis and conclusions made in the paper.Empirical base:          Interview Responses forming the essay?s primary data is presented in its entirety in this chapter.Conclusions:              The authors conclude that there are no major problems or obstacles in terms of internal management accounting in Swedbank, at least not in the departments such as the HR and the GF.

Today many industrial companies invest a lot of resources on research and development to resist the tough competition on the global market. This leads to a high risk game when the companies start many development projects, with uncertain outcome where some of the projects have to be terminated prematurely. The main purpose with this study is to identify factors, both internal and external, that influence the decision to terminate projects prematurely in Swedish development projects. Factors mentioned in the literature will be compared with case studies on three Swedish industrial companies to demonstrate the most important ones when taking such decisions. First a literature study was made to identify basic terms, a general project model and factors affecting the decision.

Background: The competition is getting harder between the universities. To reach the high school students and discover which means of contact they prefer and how they perceive student recruitment are important issues in order to succeed in marketing strategies.Purpose: The purpose with our report is to investigate, analyze and compare the student recruitment in three universities and investigate how the high school students want to be contacted. Then we compare to see if they think alike.Method: We have done a qualitative study and chosen to use focus group interviews for the high school students and interviews for the universities to collect our empirical data. We have compared the empirical data and analyzed it with communication processes and marketing communication as theoretical grounds.Result: All of the universities work approximately the same way with their student recruitment. They put a large effort in the Internet and social networks as well as the personal contact.