Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to give a contribution to the studies of what strategies those are of importance for challengers in consumer technological markets aiming for the market leader position. To be able to investigate this phenomenon we have chosen to study Microsoft?s second position in the video game console industry. In addition, we want to illuminate Microsoft?s competitive advantages, how Microsoft can take advantage from Sony?s setbacks and what strategies those are of importance for Microsoft in the battle of becoming the market leader.

There is a new beverage container on the market, a bottle made out of pure aluminum as a replacement for the traditional container made out of glass. This new container has the potential to reduce both cost and pollution during transportation, the lighter and stronger construction has every advantage compared to the old one in glass. The new container has every possibility to make it on the market. Some of the biggest brands within the soft drink market already use these bottles in countries without any recycling demands like: Coca-Cola, Heineken and Pepsi. The only thing stopping these brands from the Swedish market is the lack of a functional return system, there is only one company that uses the bottle in Sweden today and they take care of their own used bottles.

Title: Migration and Labor Market Integration ? the German Reunification Since the German reunification former East Germany has been struggling with rising unemployment numbers and extensive emigration. The East German Länder are still well behind the West German and even though Germany unquestionably is united politically the old border divides the economy ? and the labor market ? in two. This thesis aims to describe the reunification process of the East German and the West German labor markets, and in particular the role of migration in this process.

Is it possible to conduct a joint organizational change despite different circumstances and different starting points, and still talk about the same organizational change? Can all the work that leads to more efficient operations fall into the same category? How can such concept gain legitimacy? The result shows that by talking about a concept, in this case, Lean, as something that leads to a better and more efficient organization, without for that matter have to set a defined content of the concept you still can present the process as one concept. Tough the concept will be practically blank. But there is still a rhetorical value in the concept of Lean. The organization institutionalizes the concept and obtains in this way legitimacy from its surroundings.

Organizational culture is subject of a great debate nowadays and there is especially three schools which affairs its nature of reality; modernism, symbolism and postmodernism. This thesis is built upon a case study about the organization Idé & KunskapsCentrum, which experience various cultural issues. Observations made during visits in the organization environment forms the ground on which discussions about different perspectives are made regarding organizational culture.The thesis describes and investigates the subject of organizational culture and its relationship to human behavior in organizations. Furthermore, I discuss and analyze organizational culture from the three different perspectives, in order to present a critical view on the subject for the reader.The thesis is based upon a case study about the organization Idé & KunskapsCentrum. A qualitative research method has been conducted with data collected especially from an ethnographic study, but also via semi-structured interviews.

The purpose of this study is to identify a successful way of expanding a business on a global market, focusing on innovation products. An analysis was also made to see how internationalization theories are useful in businesses with innovation products. Four companies have been interviewed where two of them have innovation products (Proline AB and Q-Med AB) and the others are widely successful in exporting to a global market (Safegate Group and Weda Poolcleaners AB). Furthermore four interviews have been made with support organizations that have great experience in helping companies in this area (Svenska Uppfinnareföreningen, Almi Företagspartner AB, Exportrådet and The Swedish-American Chambers of Commerce).One of the results that can be identified is the diverse view and will to expand the business. The inventor often has a born global strategy in mind whereas the helping organizations rather expand step by step and only to one country at a time.

In today?s competitive market, design is an important element for the companies. They must succeed with delivering an increased value and an experience for the consumer to be able to survive. The Swedish company?s have become better in the design area, the higher standards the consumer?s demands forces the company to invest more in design.

This essay examines whether feminist theory can give a plausible answer to the question: does female and male students have different attitudes towards the labour market and towards wages? Further more, I examine if factors such as class and ethnicity affect student's attitudes. These questions are investigated through a quantitative study of students at four educations on two different universities in Sweden. Two of the educations have a high degree of female students, and the other two represent educations with at high degree of male students.The main conclusion is based on the quantitative research results. Female and male student's attitudes are similar in some cases.

When contemplating entering an alliance the rationale behind the decision should differ depending on the size of the companies involved as well as on other important factors. The important factors influencing the decision are related to the resource pooling potential of the alliance, the power structure along with the business network the companies are a part of. The analysis has shown proof of a need for cooperation if one wish to succeed in the telecommunication industry and it has also determined which resources that are deemed to be most important to get in touch with, for our study object, to facilitate its access to the market. Those resources are defined as a direct channel to the customer, funds/capital and the access to relevant business networks. To get in touch with these lacking resources, three alternative approaches has been proposed; all of them involving a strategic alliance decision.

Companies and organizations recognize the importance of collaboration to develop responsibility and ability of change in the workplace. The concept of collaboration was a relatively new idea in business in the late 1980s. In a Nordic context, collaboration is a traditional approach that companies use successfully for competition, survival and development. Collaborative organizational efforts cover management of committed people who can help companies achieve flexibility, customer loyalty, innovation and economic success on a challenging and competitive market. Many theorists believe that collaboration is the key to integrating technology, financial competence and innovation.

Over the last decade, the private insurance market has undergone a stable growth in turnover and growing demand for insurance products in all Member States of the European Union. Therefore, the creation of a single market in insurance will enable consumers to have access to wider choice of insurance products, and insurance companies to gain access to markets in various Member States and compete effectively. The EU legal framework for the insurance industry embraces the Treaty freedoms of services, establishment and capital, the EC Directives and the ECJ case-law. The present thesis identifies numerous factors that hinder the Community insurance market integration and offers possible remedies. The summary of the market obstacles is all-inclusive and reflects the responses to the questionnaires and the Commission surveys.

The market of fruit and vegetables develops continuously to become tougher and more complex. The fast development makes it difficult to keep up with all the changes. This is the case for apples and tomatoes. The purpose of this work is to explain what the trade routes are like for Swedish imports as well as the Swedish production of tomatoes and apples, both in the present and the past times. There is also an ambition to create comprehension of the trade routes.

When it comes to the priority of a project proposal, a variety of factors is affecting theoutcome. In the municipal sector, factors of non- economic nature appears to be particularlyimportant when the organization is not intended to be profit-making.This study's research question is What problems can occur around an energy-efficiencyproject proposal in a municipal organization? The purpose of this study is to gainunderstanding of what possible problems an energy efficiency project proposal mayencounter, in the municipal implementation process as well as the problems of a changingownership can bring.To conduct this study, the method was qualitative in nature. We have cooperated withVarberg Energi AB and Varberg kommun, which has stood as respondents for the empiricalbasis of the study. In this study, we have conducted four personal interviews.In this study, we have found that there may be several problematic factors associated with anenergy-efficiency project proposal in a municipal organization.

This thesis concerns how the power quality in the grid is affected by the connection of wind power plants. As things are at present, Fortum Distribution AB has a number of wind turbines and wind parks connected to the own grid. As the pressure on building and connecting additional wind power is increasing, so is also the interest of how the already existing wind power generation affects the power quality in the nearby distribution grids. The study is performed by direction of Fortum Distribution AB and is limited to the 10 kV/40 kV-grid in Bohuslän, Sweden. The methods for calculation of power quality are compared to the results of a number of measurements.

This report addresses the management innovation and how shared leadership is a form of it. The report is a compilation of what shared leadership means and how two municipal organizations works with shared leadership. The two minicipal organizations are Strängnäs and Vällingby. One municipality (Strängnäs) is meanwhile this report produced during insertion of shared leadership. The other (Vällingby) has about two years experience of working with this form of leadership.