With this paper we intend to investigate what kind of benefits there are by adding commodity futures to a well-diversified portfolio. Since the last fifteen years the commodity speculation has grown tremendously, which partially can be explained by that commodities exposes the investor to certain factors other than an investment in equities. According to our calculations the commodity futures have outperformed stocks during our research period, which partially could be explained by the increasing demand of physical commodities in developing countries e.g. India & China (Akey, 2005). By constructing different portfolios consisting of equities and corporate bonds we could investigate whether our portfolios will benefit from commodity futures and how this will vary over different levels of risk.

Background: There is no guarantee that products should be equitable produced. Many products in today's trade is produced by minors, resulting in poor working environment, and gives the workers low payment. Fairtrade is the only label on the market that ensures that farmers receive fair payment for their products. Aim: The central aim with our work is to see what the future consumers, in other words students from Lund's university, Malmö College and The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Alnarp, think about products labeled with Fairtrade, and what they consider is value creation for food products. Students are often relatively young; they educate themselves and have new thoughts and valuations about how the world should be.

In the light of the criticism from the Swedish Consumers? Association towards the actions of modern fund managers on the Swedish Sustainable and Responsible Investment (SRI) market, discussions of change has increased. The reasons underlying a change and communication process are scarcely focused on. Thus, grounded on theories in the fields of Critical Management Studies (CSR), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), change and communication, this study analyses how a change of implementing revised SRI communication is carried out at Handelsbanken Asset Management, existing motives for the change in communication, and how key actors can affect the process. A participant observation and in-depth interviews were carried out enfolding a discussion that contributed with a critical analysis and discussion, concluding external motives to be dominant and that key actors of the change process are influential to a various extent.

The rise of social media has put a focus on the division of owned, paid and earned media, where earned media has recently been hyped at the expense of owned and paid media. Due to a novel area we examine the differences and effects of using owned and paid media, specifically for packaging versus newspapers. Owned and paid media showed no significant differences regarding credibility, persuasion and perceived commerciality, which restored owned media?s status, especially since owned media is more cost efficient. The effects of allowing ads for external brands on the owned medium were also studied.

The goals of this Bachelors? Thesis were to establish the production loss through the VTIS1 Pasteur at Arla Foods Linköping dairy and then suggest simple but effective solutions to minimize the losses for each production run. If the timeframe allowed it, some of the solutions would be implemented and tested in full production to determine their impact on economic and environmental savings.The very first step of this project was to establish the statistics over what losses there is in the production pipeline through VTIS1, from milk and powders in mixer tanks to finished and packed products in cold storage. Then, when knowing how much product was actually lost and where, those bottlenecks could be pinpointed and examined more closely. At this stage the focus was switched, from the otherwise complicated and broad manufacturing process, to the VTIS1-aggregate, since early data indicated there were quite substantial losses there.In conjunction with this project Arla Foods purchased an absorption photometer-measuring device (OPTEK AS16) that could be inserted straight into the product stream out of VTIS1, allowing real time measurements of its optical density.

The project this report is handling has been implemented on NBB, Nordisk Bilbelysning AB in Linköping. The company produces and develops lightning and searchlights for all types of vehicles. Lately NBB´s supplier of electronics, OSRAM, has developed a mercuryfree xenon lightsource. Mercury is one of the most hazardous environmental waste and to get rid of the mercury entirely in the lightsource is a big step that means alot for the environment.This lightsource will be placed in one of NBB´s worksearchlights called My, and will be sold as an alternative to mercurycontaining searchlights. NBB wants to put an environmental label on this product and they want to have essential information about the product that is needed for the production.

Purpose: The aim of this thesis is to examine how word of mouth and buzz marketing affects Uppsala´s businessstudents attitudes towards Red Bull. To solve this purpose we intend to answer some underlying questions.Theory: We have used relevant theories within word of mouth, buzz marketing and consumer behaviour. Our thesis will bring up the essential parts within these three different theories that we believe are relevant to our purpose.Method: In this thesis we have used both quantitative and qualitative methods such as interviews and questionnaires. The questionnaires will be handed out at Economicum at Uppsala University.Empirical study: This part is based on our questionnaires handed out to business students at Economicum, but also on our interviews made with employees working for Red Bull.Conclusion: Our empirical study has given us a clear picture of how Red Bull works and use marketing tools to promote their product. Through our questionnaires we have also found out what attitudes consumers has against the brand and the product.

This thesis seeks to explain the effect of private equity ownership on the amount of invest- ments made in a company. We use three capital expenditure based key ratios to determine if there is a tendency for private equity owned firms to invest more or less than comparable companies. Our dataset involve 27 Swedish buyout companies that were sold by a private equity fund between 2001 and 2009. Each buyout is assigned a peer group of two firms in similar size and in the same industry. Firstly, we compare the key ratios to determine potential differences in the level of investment.

ABORT ?n GO is a design project within the crossing boundaries of Critical Design and IndustrialDesign.The contemporary discourse on abortion is problematic, and infected by double norms. Thesenorms may cause feelings of guilt and shame in women who have an abortion. The abortion rightis built upon conflicting standpoints; one is that women have right to have an abortion, withoutbeing questioned. Second is the notion that abortion is something that should be avoided, implyingthat you?ve done something wrong if you have had an abortion.With this project and physical product I want to explore and discuss the contemporary discourseon abortion in Sweden.

The environmental debate is more intensive than ever before and the demands on companies increase. There are a number of methods to make it easier for the companies to fulfil the demands. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) end ecodesign are some of the methods that can be used. Syntronic AB has the possibility to reduce the products´ environmental impact in the design phase. Therefore it is important for the company to make it possible to visualize the negative environmental impacts a product can cause in an easy way. It is also important to visualize for there clients if any improvement is possible. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a simplified model.

The purpose of this thesis was to describe what factors influence consumers? choice when buying probiotic products. Functional Foods have been predicted a bright future on the food market but so far the concept have not been embraced by the consumers. The reasons for this are many and not clearly understood. Positive health effects are what set a functional food product apart from traditional food stuffs of the same type.

This report summarizes a Bachelor Degree Project in Integrated Product Development, carried out during the fall 2007 till spring 2008 by three students at the Product Design Engineering Program at the University of Skövde. The project was performed in cooperation with Lundbergs Möbler AB in Tibro. Lundbergs wants to start selling furniture to the public eldercare. The purpose of this project was to adjust one of their chairs. The project layout was to first make a preliminary investigation where the market, competitors? assortment and the purchasing process are studied.

Background and research problem: The former highly inflationary property market is currently undergoing a stagnation process. Investors have been used to annual growth figures in double digits,but now this is no longer considered to be a realistic outlook for future years. According to a report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Urban Land Institute, published by Avanza Wealth Management,the three most attractive markets for property investment in Europe are London, Paris and Stockholm. Because of this the authors have focused their investigation on two companies in the London andStockholm. The authors will additionally use an international bank, an estate agent and a consultancy firm for further information, with regards to the property market and risks associated with these typesof investment in particular.

The project has been performed in collaboration with Thule Sweden AB, a global leader in developing safe, simple and elegant solutions for the transportation of various types of equipment. The company has developed a new T-track which is telescopically, they stand mount system to connect the roof box to the roof rack does not fit into this. Therefore, the company considered that it was necessary to have a new product that meets the requirements of the new roof rack. They wanted a new, smarter solution would be developed. The bulk of this essay has been to find a new concept to connect the roof box to the roof racks. The result is a saxkonstruktion that slides down the roof rack T-profile and protected out of a puck-like housing. The product is small, simple and elegant solution.

The price of Swedish forest properties has gone up by 77 percent during the past five years. Amongst private forest managers the high price level signals optimism and confidence for the future. Many forest owners manage large capital in the forest and a planned economy is to a larger extent demanded to achieve a positive economic result. Forest is long-term and to maximize a single year without planning for the years to come results in less optimization of the parameters available to achieve a favourable economic result. This case study investigates the investment of two forest properties situated in Götaland. The management of the forest has been planned for both properties during a period of ten years.