A challenge faced by marketers is to make their products stand out in today's cluttered marketplace. Recently, a new approach to attract attention has been observed - brands communicating their products by making fun of other brands. This way of parodying a competitor, or even an unrelated brand, is a risky but potentially effective way to increase attention. Brand parodies walk a fine line between being humorous and clever, or coming off as offensive. Furthermore, parodying another trademark poses legal considerations.

This paper seeks to investigate whether there is a positive relationship between bonus as a part of total executive compensation and lower accounting quality among Swedish companies. In this study, accounting quality is defined as the degree by which a company's earnings are subject to earnings management. To detect earnings management accrual-based modified Jones model is applied to companies listed on the Large-, Mid- and Small-Cap lists on the Stockholm stock exchange during 2011. We find a statistically significant positive relationship between bonus as a part of total executive compensation and lower accounting quality. Thus, in line with prior research, our results suggest that managers, interested in maximizing their bonus, will select income increasing accruals to manage earnings upwards.

The project ?Investment proposal for grinding station for service work of screw feeders? has been performed during the spring semester 2014 for the course Bachelor?s thesis for degree of  Bachelor of science in machine engineering at Karlstad?s University. The project has been performed in cooperation with Fiber Workshop which is a service department in the company Valmet AB. Valmet AB is a company that develops and manufacture soft paper tissue machines. The screw feeder is a part that is used to feed, and squeeze out the water out of woodchips.

The purpose of this research was to examine the current field of management in non-profit organizations, mainly focusing on managerial approaches, but also the impact of organizational size on the shaping of governance. Non-profits are widely discussed in contemporary research, particularly due to the increasing external pressure on voluntary organization to professionalize the way they work in line with standards in the private sector. Due to this our thesis aims to investigate whether professional, bureaucratic approaches are useful when governing a non-profit organization, or if social structures are enough to ensure goal congruence and efficiency. To conduct this research qualitative interviews were carried out and a case- study was made, using the Swedish Karate Federation as object of study. Results show that formal and more professional structures are useable to achieve efficiency and prevent inertia within the organization.

This is an essay concerning the density of the city. An increasing amount of today?s cities have a shortage of space available for the erection of new buildings and settlements, especially in areas close to the city-centre. New buildings and settlements are therefore often found in the outskirts of the city, resulting in long distances between work and living for many people. These long distances are a waste of limited resources and are inconsistent with the vision of the sustainable city.The challenge for the future is to insert new buildings and settlements in the existing city-structure and in this way reduce the distances between different city-functions.The density of the city can be increased in two different ways; by inserting new buildings between existing ones or by extension existing buildings, for example by an additional floor.

The aim of this study is to examine the collection One Thousand and One Nights (also: The Arabian Nights) from a european perspective, by comparing different european translations. The study focuses on three translations into Swedish from different periods of time and how the tales have changed in the translation process - depending on the prevailing line of approach and Western perceptions of Eastern standards. The thesis of the study is that Eastern culture, from a Western perspective, has been seen as exotic and different but not as a high literary culture and that this view has affected the translations into european languages. The study shows, among other things, that Western culture is many times considered normative in the translations and that the translators often give their own voices a prominent role, also that common Western notions of the East affects the translations.The word ?orientalism? is used frequently in the study and it refers primarily to the image of the Orient as it is described in Edward Saids' book Orientalism: as a Western construction whose main purpose is to strengthen its own conception of the Orient and thereby strengthen the Western identity as better than the Orient.

Deliberative democracy theory holds that democracy is about active partaking on formal and informal arenas in the public sphere where fairly equal citizens can obtain knowledge, discuss, evaluate and affect the political agenda before decisions are made.In line with the deliberative vision of online deliberation social media such as Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Twingly offer such formal and informal arenas where people can obtain knowledge and interact with other people, and politicians.The Swedish EU-Presidency was the first EU-presidency to make use of social media and it was the first time the Swedish Government Offices used other social media than email and chat features.This thesis will examine the Swedish EU-Presidency?s ambitions of using social media as well as the actual use of social media on the Swedish EU-Presidency website in the light of deliberative democracy theory.The aim of this thesis is, through a case study, to analyze the Swedish EU-Presidency?s use of social media in the light of deliberative democracy theory..

The purpose of this essay is to analyse and evaluate human relations within organisations in purpose to achieve higher productivity. Both research objects gained interest in this essay due to how their own result should be effected and their own values but the writers also detected a little curiosity on how the competition handled these questions. The essay have progressed in the following steps: first the authors have tried to find a problem definition and a scientific ground to work from. After that an extensive literature study were done to be followed by an mapping of apparition on the human relations on Scania motorverkstads logistics department and Volvo Logistics by interviews of the people in charge in these organisations. To see whether there was a unanimous line of thoughts between the management and the employees the authors made questionnaires to the different department.

The aim of this thesis is to identify some of the obstacles to trade, that occurs on the common market, and to analyse the errors that still occurs in the national authorities application of the principle of mutual recognition. Is the principle of mutual recognition sufficient for the creation of a common market, or is there a need for additional measures to cope with the obstacles to trade that still exists on the common market? The problems related to the incorrect procedures of the national authorities and the fact that undertakings prefer to bring their products in to line with the rules of every single member state must be solved, if the principle of mutual recognition is to become trustworthy. On some areas, harmonisation ought to be chosen above the principle of mutual recognition, but in other cases an increased administrative collaboration, mandatory training for the national authorities or information campaigns intended mainly for undertakings could be the answer. The possibility to help undertakings to sue member states for damages should also be investigated.

Bakgrunden till detta arbete är att man inom Autoliv (Vårgårda) tillverkar reservdelar dels när en bilmodell fortfarande går i serieproduktion, men också upp till 15 år efter det att bilmodellen gått ur serieproduktion. Utifrån en nulägesanalys konstaterades att problemen kunde delas in i två områden, vid övergången från serietillverkning till reservdelstillverkning (EOP) och vid tillverkning av reservdelar. Problemen upplevdes främst vara hur mycket reservdelar som kommer att efterfrågas de kommande åren (d.v.s. behov av komponenter och kapacitet i produktionsutrustning, behov av lagerplatser m.m.). Samt i vissa fall problem med kompetens när gamla artiklar åter skall produceras.

This thesis has been carried out in cooperation with Burseryds Bruk AB.Burseryds Bruk is a company that manufactures steel strapping. The thesis isabout developing a concept of protection that should be used to protect theoperators from the rotating parts of the machinery lines. The aim of the projectwas to improve work safety for operators working at the machines by producing aconcept for a protective device. The project's first part was based on ergonomic data collection methods tounderstand the operations performed on the machine and the hazard occurringduring the process. The methods used to collect data were, interviews,observations and questionnaires with the operators of the company. This was thenused to make the ergonomic analyzes hierarchical task analysis and link analysis. The data collected from the company's operators was used create 10 conceptswhich were then evaluated.

This paper examines how Hinduism and Buddhism are portrayed in three textbooks for an upper secondary school course in religion and is limited to a selection of books published in 2009. Based on a qualitative content analysis, the paper examines the extent to which there is an intentional division, that is to say a line between ?them and us? in the ways in which the religions are described, and to what extent the description of these religions in the textbooks are Eurocentric. The study focuses on whether or not there is a ?them and us? perspective in the different books and if so, the ways in which this approach is evident.The result of this study shows that traces of a ?them and us? perspective can be found in all three books.

The aim of this study is to examine the collection One Thousand and One Nights (also: The Arabian Nights) from a european perspective, by comparing different european translations. The study focuses on three translations into Swedish from different periods of time and how the tales have changed in the translation process - depending on the prevailing line of approach and Western perceptions of Eastern standards. The thesis of the study is that Eastern culture, from a Western perspective, has been seen as exotic and different but not as a high literary culture and that this view has affected the translations into european languages. The study shows, among other things, that Western culture is many times considered normative in the translations and that the translators often give their own voices a prominent role, also that common Western notions of the East affects the translations.The word ?orientalism? is used frequently in the study and it refers primarily to the image of the Orient as it is described in Edward Saids' book Orientalism: as a Western construction whose main purpose is to strengthen its own conception of the Orient and thereby strengthen the Western identity as better than the Orient.

The aim of this study is to examine the collection One Thousand and One Nights (also: The Arabian Nights) from a european perspective, by comparing different european translations. The study focuses on three translations into Swedish from different periods of time and how the tales have changed in the translation process - depending on the prevailing line of approach and Western perceptions of Eastern standards. The thesis of the study is that Eastern culture, from a Western perspective, has been seen as exotic and different but not as a high literary culture and that this view has affected the translations into european languages. The study shows, among other things, that Western culture is many times considered normative in the translations and that the translators often give their own voices a prominent role, also that common Western notions of the East affects the translations.The word ?orientalism? is used frequently in the study and it refers primarily to the image of the Orient as it is described in Edward Saids' book Orientalism: as a Western construction whose main purpose is to strengthen its own conception of the Orient and thereby strengthen the Western identity as better than the Orient.

A too large public sector impedes the economic development of Sweden and more privatization could increase the efficiency, quality and diversity of the services offered. It is therefore important that firms operating in traditionally public sectors are given the opportunity to grow. We have through a case study examined two mid-size firms that offer services to, and compete with, the public sector. This thesis aims to describe the growth strategies these firms are using and if competing with the public sector implies any differences in possibilities or barriers when it comes to the firms? growth.