Most of the clothes sold in Europe today are produced in developing countries where the production costs are lower. The exploitation of the developing countries has led to that the inferior working conditions in these countries have attracted attention from media and NGOs. Globalisation makes company activities more transparent and the absence of transnational laws calls for alternative regulations. Many companies in Europe has since mid 1990s developed codes of conduct to satisfy the demands of external and internal stakeholders. EU also brought Corporate Social Responsibility to it?s agenda in the beginning of the 2000s and subsequently signals of approaching laws were given.

AbstractThis study is about describing the pre- internationalization phase and to studycompanies that are in this phase. We are trying to capture characteristics of decisionmakersin the pre- internationalization phase, to then compare the theoretical materialwith empirical material from case companies. Then in the final stages of the thesis, wewant to account for if we managed to answer our research questions. In the method, wegive a description of the approach selected in conjunction with the study. The study isqualitative and we used both primary and secondary data, with a deductive approach.The theory chapter will consider the most relevant theories that are related to the topic,which is internationalization, pre-internationalization, international entrepreneurship,and the psychology behind personalities, attitudes, and how these can affect theorganization's strategic decisions.

The absence of female directors on Swedish corporate boards is currently a hot topic for both politicians and business leaders all over the world. This thesis aims to discuss reasons for the scarcity of women on boards in Swedish publicly listed companies as well as what actions are taken to alter the composition of these boards. A rigorous selection of gender theories have been used together with data collected from in-depth interviews with mainly board members and nomination committees. Extensive analysis has led to findings that historical perceptions of differences between men and women linger as of today, which prevents women to reach top executive levels as well as board positions. The increasing use of headhunters has encouraged companies to look beyond male-dominated networks in an attempt to widen the range of potential board nominees.

As the globalization of companies increases day by day, the need for a clear and comprehensible legislation to overcome the problems with transfer pricing transactions increases as well. Incorrect pricing in transfer pricing situations between companies with close economic ties to each other makes countries risk parts of their taxation income.Swedish legislation uses the internationally accepted arm?s length principle to regulate the transfer pricing transactions. Through the correction rule, the rule is upheld that the pricing between two companies with close economic ties to each other must apply to the same conditions as it would have been if it was between two companies without close economic ties to each other.To ensure that enough material is provided to base the assumption whether or not the correction rule has been followed or not, Swedish legislation provides a number of paragraphs to regulate the matter. The legislation is spread all over and is hard to interpret.

The purpose with this article is to give examples how to remain and in a long run develop a higher interest in maintenance activities and knowledge. First reason is the changed age-distribution with more number of older employees among maintenance personnel staff and second reason is demand for education due the increasing demand in environmental responsibility.In spite of there is a lot of knowledge of maintenance in national organizations of interests it will not be used in a sufficient extent in many companies. This knowledge is an important base to use to re-built the missing or loosed skills in companies. The national organization UTEK is involved in European projects to validate knowledge of maintenance. Lost of or bad maintenance activities will always affect on the environment.Establish a network between companies is a good way to exchange information in their common business areas.

Background: The reasons why this study is conducted is because of the latest recession in the global economy. The current recession has made a lot of companies more aware of its cost, and in order to fit the new harsher economic climate the companies has to be more cost efficient. In order to do so many companies choose to reduce their amount of employees. When this happens in a recession, most of the layoffs are an effect of reactive causes, such as lower incoming orders, and fewer customers. This leads to a problem for the companies that don?t know how these kinds of layoffs will affect the value of the company?s stock.

A sequence of actions in the world have influenced the information science, one of these actions is the lateral movement in how companies use their IT-systems. IT-systems today, in comparison to before, are used by companies to improve their relationship with their customers. Every year a big amount of money is spent on developing and improving IT-systems. That is why it is important to develop and create IT-systems that are clear, and which encourage, enable and simplify a user?s action.

Business across the Internet has increased in recent years and most companies that are selling trips have increased their sales online. Many companies that are selling trips strive for customers to receive and experience a personal service online. The meeting between the client and a webpage service system on the Internet should work. Service encounters are an essential part of the contact between customer and company and play a big part in how the first impression is perceived by the customer. To understand how a service encounter works, meeting face to face, companies need to understand how customers perceive that meeting.

Background: Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, MiFID, was implemented in Swedish law in 2007 and aimed to increase competition of the securities market in order to achieve efficiency and lower transaction costs and to enhance investor protection. Another aim was to increase confidence in the market. After the implementation of MiFID some doubts had been highlighted regarding its intentional effects. This evoked the authors? interest to examine the directive?s effects and its impact on investors? trust.Aim: To examine how various participants in the Swedish securities market experienced changes since the implementation of MiFID in 2007, and its impact on the securities market and minor investors' trust.Method: The study applied a qualitative method with a deductive approach to describe, interpret and understand the problem area.

As a result of increased energy prices more and more energy-efficient homes are coveted. An energy-efficient alternative is passive houses, which is characterized by an extremely well insulated building envelope that recovers the heat without the use of radiators or under floor heating. But a passive house requires a higher investment cost than a conventional building project, since it will require more construction materials, training of construction workers, greater land area, and long construction period. But the lower operating cost expects to pay back the higher cost of investment. We therefore question how profitable a passive house is in relation to houses built according to modern conventional building techniques.The aim of our study is to investigate the viability of passive houses compared to convent­ional houses.

A clean and affordable energy source for cooking is deficient in developing countries. People rely on fuels that contribute to environmental, social and health problems.Biogas is an alternative energy source and an increased investment in small-scale biogas production can in several developing countries be found. Several projects have started to use the technology in developing countries because of the benefits with biogas. Some cases in the establishment of biogas plants have succeeded and some have not. The study is a literature review supplemented by two field studies.

Abstract: The purpose of this thesis is to study the importance of having a website for traditional service companies as well as the factors that might influence its importance. This is done by answering three research questions that all contribute to the answer of the main purpose. A qualitative study has been performed including eight interviews with respondents from eight different service companies presenting four different types of businesses. The empirical findings of the study are analyzed with the help of the theoretical frame of references in order to identify the most interesting conclusions. The results of the thesis state that the main purpose of the website among the studied companies is to rationalize and save costs.

Today there are a number of different financing options but few of them are suitable for start-up companies. Business angels are in that case an exception and a suitable investor in these companies. Business angels are individuals who invest in young companies and differ from other financiers in the sense that the collaboration with the company is closer. Business angels are although few in numbers while the young companies often tend to be in most need of funding and has the greatest potential to grow.The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the cooperation between entrepreneurs and business angels and to identify which effects the financial gap have on these financial associations.Business angels and entrepreneurs collaboration are hard to interpret and therefore demanded a deeper examination. We thus used a qualitative method consisting of six different interviews in three different cases.The study shows that established collaborations between entrepreneurs and business angel?s seem to be affected by the financial gap to a great extent, which has been expressed in negative consequences.

Companies today are expected to communicate their responsibility to the world around them. Society?s expectations differ and stakeholders are demanding that companies act responsibly on matters related to climate, work environment and human rights. The purpose of sustainability reports is that companies should measure, present and take responsibility in relation to their internal and external stakeholders. It is intended that a reasonable picture of the company's sustainability performance should be communicated, containing both positive and negative effects.Companies efforts with sustainability issues is industry-dependent and industries with significant environmental problems perform the most advanced environmental statement.

Having a functioning internal communication is necessary for the survival and existence of every company. Traditional communication channels are for example meetings, noteboards and personnel newspapers. During the last ten years we have witnessed an explosion of new channels, who are based on information technology. IT is a natural part in new IT-companies, like Framfab and Icon Medialab, but what role does IT have in a large, manufacturing company with a long history? The purpose with this thesis is to investigate how IT has influenced the internal communication in a company.