Problem   Are there any abnormal changes in the parent company's share price at the news of a spin?off.ObjectiveThe main purpose of the study is to investigate how the news of a spin-off affects the parent company's share price. In other words if the news of the Spin-off gives an abnormal return on the Stockholm Stock Exchange during the specific period of 1998?2008. In addressing this, the paper will also investigate the following sub sections: are there any differences in the abnormal returns in various sectors and what the reasons to perform a spin?off in the Swedish market are.MethodAn event study in which market data is used to measure specific events? impact on the value of the company and on the effects on the stock market.

Term: Spring term 2007Study objects: Reitan Servicehandel AB, Vi-butikerna, ICA Sverige ABPurpose: The purpose of this study is to analyse how procurement is used as a strategy to achieve better competitive strength, within the retail food industry.Theoretical: The theoretical chapter illustrates different procurement organisations, multiple and single sourcing, brand equity, consumer behaviour and involvement, Efficient Consumer Response including supply chain and category management and finally Demand Chain Management.Method: For the case studies, three food retail companies have been interviewed: Reitan Servicehandel AB, Vi-butikerna and ICA AB. To illustrate how consumer behaviour influences retail food market, several secondary consumer research studies have been analysed.Conclusions: The results indicate that the procurement organisation can achieve a better competitive strength by a centralised organisation, which make it possible to improve conditions of terms when ordering higher purchase volumes. The sourcing strategies can improve a company?s power within the supply chain. All companies within the study had a very good knowledge about consumer behaviour.

This qualitative study involves the implementation of Lean and Kaizen methods in a Swedish service industry. Lean philosophy is based on a method to achieve more with less. In practical terms this means that the use of an organization's resources is improved. The origin of Lean is the Toyota Production System. Now, Kaizen methods give managers and employees a better more efficient system to reach their goals within the organization or company.

Every tenth year a financial crisis tend to interfere with an economy. Price bubbles with an accompanying market plunge are therefore not a new phenomenon. Such market disruptions have been causing problems for centuries, as history has a tendency to repeat itself. The intention with this study is to learn more about the bubble phenomenon and increase the knowledge in this area in order to, if possible, prevent such a thing from happening again. The purpose of the essay is to identify factors that significantly affected the development of the so called IT-bubble in Sweden and Finland during the years of 1995-2000.

The Swedish parliament has decided that Sweden should increase its usage of renewable fuel sources to a level of 50% of the total energy consumption in Sweden by the year 2020. One way to reach that goal may be to increase the usage of stumps as a bio-fuel. In Sweden stump harvesting is possible on about 5-10% of the total harvested area and thus contribute with 1,3 - 2,6 TWh per year. An increase stump harvest doesn't come without its drawbacks for the environment. When harvesting stumps a tracked excavator is used to pry the stumps from the ground and then cut the stumps into smaller pieces.

This Master Thesis covers the concept of Green Cars. The background to the research area is the high and rapidly growing number of cars, which together with other factors ad to the pollution of the environment. Under the Kyoto agreement the signing members agreed to lower the emissions of green house gases, further on the EU has a 3-pillar strategy on carbon dioxide and cars. Included in the EU strategy is a voluntary commitment from the car industry to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from new cars. The easiest way of lowering the emissions is by using alternative fuels and engines.

Recent years there has been discussed how the critical situation in the housing market threatens the Stockholm region's growth. The thesis objective is to examine whether there is a scientific link between the lack of housing supply and growth. The thesis also intends to identify solutions for increased housing construction, for instance by examining the conditions for a greater regional perspective and influence on the region's housing supply. The thesis empirical study is based on semi-structured interviews with representatives from the Government, municipalities and the housing industry.In Sweden, research on the relationship between housing shortages and growth has not been conducted to that extent it can be said to exist scientific evidence regarding the growth threat. However, in Britain and the U.S, empirical studies show that a lack of housing supply has hindered growth through negative impact on countries' gross domestic product.

The Internet has developed into a marketplace for national and international companies. With relatively small means, a company can reach out to millions of people on a daily basis by placing itself on the Internet. With this report, we wish to suggest how e-businesses can change its strategy to adapt to the new market. Focus is on the Swedish Internet market where Swedes, resident in Sweden, trades with Swedish e-companies active within the Swedish borders. To be able to make suggestions, we will first paint a picture of the Swedish e-commerce market from statistics collected from public sources.

This paper aims to provide a description of how knowledge can occur in Apoteket AB, anorganization that is operating on the Swedish pharmacy market. The purpose of this paper isalso to describe how the organizational learning occurs in the organization, and how theoutcome of this learning can be stored in the organizational memory. This subject is ofinterest since Apoteket AB experience changes in their external environment in that they nolonger have monopoly to sell pharmaceuticals on the Swedish pharmacy market. Earlierresearch claims that organizations need to develop new knowledge in order to take action, andthis development needs to be supported by the management within the organization.The collection of primary data was done by two qualitative interviews with employees withinthe organization of Apoteket AB.Our conclusions are that knowledge can occur in many forms, such as tacit and explicitknowledge. The vast majority of the knowledge within the organization is the information thatcan be found in the electronic database Aponet within Apoteket AB, and that is useful for theemployees in their daily work, and therefore is known as explicit knowledge.

The aim of this study has been to examine how a few members of the Finnish and non- Scandinavian Romani subgroups experience their own, and their groups, situation on the Housing- and Labour Market. We´ve studied our respondents? experiences of discrimination, which difficulties they think there are, what strategies can be used to deal with these difficulties and also their own ideas on how to improve the situation for the Romani people in the Swedish society. This has been done by six individual structured interviews which have been analyzed with concepts from Symbolic Interactionism, including Goffman?s Dramaturgical Role Theory, definition of Stigma and Kelly?s theory of Personal Constructions.

This qualitative case study, made with four companies, looks closer at how more effective information management, with the help of IT-systems, affect companies market communication and relations to customers and suppliers. Customer Relationship Management perspective is used and Enterprise Resource Planning-systems are the ground for new technology change. The main conclusions are that new technology affects the outcome of companies? relationships towards their customers and suppliers and that the processes and activities between the involved parties are more closely linked. Also involving your suppliers and external actors makes the information handling more effective and companies that do so most likely have a competitive advantage..

Vi bedriver en branschspecifik undersökning av svenska styrelsers sammansättning, i fråga om åldersstruktur och styrelsemedlemmars övriga åtaganden, som syftar till att vinna ytterligare kunskap och insikter kring dessa faktorers möjliga inverkan på företagens framgång. Vi finner i våra resultat tydliga skillnader emellan de tre undersökta branscherna i fråga om styrelsemedlemmars medelålder och grad av övriga styrelseåtaganden och dessa faktorers påverkan på börsvärde respektive Market-to-Book-kvot. I flera fall finner vi emellertid tendenser och signifikanta värden vilka pekar på att det i vissa branscher kan vara fördelaktigt att föryngra styrelser. Vi finner även samband mellan styrelsemedlemmars grad av övriga åtaganden och främst företags Market-to-Book-kvoter. Här är dock tendensen tydlig att företag i en del branscher kan gynnas av att dess styrelsemedlemmar besitter flertalet övriga styrelseuppdrag, medan det för företag i andra branscher omvänt kan vara så att multipla styrelseuppdrag snarare är missgynnsamt i fråga om företagens framgång..

In companies today, it is becoming more and more common for employees to work in a project based environment, as a result many companies have developed their own project models. Companies with a well developed product culture are striving to improve their existing models, and businesses relatively new in the marketplace are aiming to reach a high level of maturity as well as reach high levels of efficiency in the shortest time possible. As the number of mature and efficient companies with well developed project model increase, so does the level of competition in the market. Since a well developed project model often leads to a more efficient and accurate way of carrying out the project, which in turn leads to shorter delivery time towards the client. This is crucial as time is one of the most valuable parameters of competition in today?s business environment.

Background ? The last 20 years healthcare has been facing increased demands on efficiency and increased customer satisfaction. This despite reduced resources and increasing demand. These demands are presents in all departments within healthcare organisations, including medical laboratories that currently receive an ever-increasing number of remittances. Laboratory flows are quickly becoming overloaded with samples and related materials.

Multi-branch companies are facing many challenges in order to become successful. Competitive advantages can be gained through a unified strong brand, standardised products and economies of scale. This normally calls for centralisation. On the contrary is decentralisation, which is said to improve work motivation and local market orientation, which are also competitive advantages. The focus of this thesis is to study how local branch managers want their companies to be structured in accordance with this dilemma.