The luxury market has steadily grown from the industrial revolution and onwards. Changes in society, trends and the increased living standards has enabled more people to consume luxury goods.The world is going through a major economic crisis at the moment. Studies shows that companies that have focused on added value rather than lowering prices has survived past financial crisis. It is also obvious that companies act very different during times of crisis. Adding to the problem is trends that point to a more careful consumption and environmental awareness.

Due to the globalization today the competition in the market has in- creased and it requires flexibility and produce according to customer demand. In order to reduce the cost of wages industrial companies are now considering moving the manufacturing to low-cost countries. To keep up with the competition in the market without moving the manu- facturing abroad, Lean Automation was developed. The concept of Lean Automation is to reduce the perceived complexity with automa- tion and make automation available for new users and in new applica- tions.Haldex Brake Products are situated in Sweden and want to maintain the manufacturing of the automatic brake adjusters in the country. It is a product well-known and highly exposed to the competition in the mar- ket.

This is a dissertation for a Bachelor Degree Project at the University of Skövde. The project is carried out in cooperation with the company Kinnarps AB.The objective of this project was to develop a new chair for café and lunch rooms, which should satisfy the markets expectations and demands and match Kinnarps AB?s assortment today. The project has contained everything from identification of user and customer needs and requirements to evaluation and building of a prototype.The result is a chair with a frame of tubular steel and there is nothing like it in Kinnarps AB?s assortment today.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate whether exhibitions and silent pedagogy can be used to develop more inspiring environments in the public library. Silent pedagogy is a term from the field of museum education describing the silent communication with visitors that takes place in exhibitions through introduction and orientation, layout and installation, as well as signage. In the 1980s, articles in a Swedish library magazine discussed the pedagogical importance of library exhibits and how they make the patrons aware of the library?s resources. This led us to museum education and a desire to investigate whether its theories were transferrable to the library context.

In this thesis I analyse civilizations in South America. I construct civilizationalnarratives through the method of emplotment, to build a historic continuity, whichI subsequently connect to the theoretical framework. The theory emphasise that,when confronted with globalization and free market capitalism, civilizationsembark on different strategies to challenge the power of transnational marketforces. I find that South America is a polarised continent, and is divergingconcerning the relationship towards the USA and free trade agreements. On thesame time the issues that concern the social movements are not being reproducedin a significant matter at state level.

A new project has developed at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Alnarp during the spring of 2006. The garden design students has, during the course Interior Garden Design designed and built an construction with a new range of plants for Swedish conservatories. The plants are mainly from the cool temperate areas, instead of the tropical which often are the most common in public spaces. This means, among other things, that the cost for warming is very low. The working process and the construction carried on as workshops in the conservatory at Trädgårdslaboratoriet in Alnarp. During a few weeks the hole construction is completed.

Improved profitability, a reasonable yearly income or the possibility to have employees are all incentives for expansion. A prerequisite for farm businesses to expand is for land to be made available, either to buy or to rent. In Sweden, 43 % of the total arable land is leasehold land, which implies that a functioning leasehold market is of great importance for the Swedish agriculture. Several factors can affect the supply of leasehold land, for instance the leasehold legislation and the Single Payment Scheme. The fact that the leasehold legislation is compulsory, in protection of the leaseholder, might keep land owners from leasing their land out.

This thesis focuses on youth unemployment in Finspång, often referred as an industrial community. The theoretical framework of the thesis is based on social constructionism and covers theoretical discourse analysis, intersectionality and social capital. The study is based on qualitative interviews with 7 unemployed individuals between the ages of 19-24 and an interview with an employee at the employment office in the community. The main subject in this thesis is the youngsters experience with unemployment, labour, the employment office, the impacts of social capital and the labour market in the community. The analysis focuses in how the respondents discuss their experienced problems with their unemployment.

The aim of this study is to examine new interpretations of homosexuality in Islam based on Scott Kugle?s book ?Homosexuality in Islam? and the documentary ?A Jihad for love? by Parvez Sharma. Through a theological perspective, a critical analysis is performed in order to find new interpretations and compare them with each other and with the Islamic legal tradition. Argumentative analysis is also used for both the book and the documentary for this essay.     Both Kugle and Sharma use new interpretations and arguments about love to find space for homosexuality in Islam. They use a Muslim language to have relevance with their discussions to Muslim readers and viewers.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine if POC manage to keep cohort interplay between their identity and image.Theoretical framework: This paper is led from theories in area about communicating identity and image. The theories that are relevant to this paper to see the interplay between identity and image is communication theory and brand theories based on associations. From these theories we have composed a model that shows the communication led from identity throughout image in company?s with many distribution channels. It shows what associations that build identity and image and also the complication and threat that the interplay is being exposed to.Methodology: We have chosen to do this examination as a case study.

AbstractPurpose:The purpose of the study is to describe the internationalization process of one firm when in a country culturally diverse from the firm?s original market.Methodology/approach:The study is a single case study which examines one firm?s internationalization process when entering the Chinese market. The approach has been an empiric interaction between empirical and theoretical data.Findings:The theory of the Uppsala model was applied to the case-company to test the model?s completeness. The authors found weaknesses and added three more aspects to the model.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate if a dynamic investment strategy on the Swedish asset market can accomplish better returns then a static investment strategy. The dynamic investment strategy is created by incorporating business cycle predictors and firm-level variables to predict future stock returns. The predictive regression is calculated wih 60 months of observation (1999 01-2005 12) and is then used to estimate future returns for 23 months in the period 2004 01 -2005 11. The structure of the regression, with linear functions of ? and ?, goes back to Shanken (1990) and Avramov and Chordia (2005) has had success with the variables chosen.

With the advent of a range of social networks, librarians all over the world have startedto ask themselves how this new technology can be used as a way to market theirlibraries. Today's information websites and search engines are difficult competitors forlibraries and information centers, and are forcing traditional information institutions tomarket themselves in new ways.Marketing theories have traditionally concerned themselves with money transactionsand marketing of specific services and/or products. Relationship marketing theories, onthe other hand, focus more on the relationship between the customer and the companythat produces the product or service. These two parties are seen as co-producers, andrelationship marketing theories tend to focus more on a win-win situation, than on thecompany gaining power of the customer. The relationship is the important thing, and thetheories concentrate to a great extent on how to nourish these relationships.This paper is a discussion about whether Facebook as a social network is a usable toolfor library marketing.

The aim of this paper is to examine the experience of two Swedish women who survived the tsunami catastrophe in Thailand 2004. Through their biographies, Sävstam and Ernsth-Ohlsson have revealed their experiences, before, during and after the tsunami catastrophe. Coping theory is used to explain how they cope with the consequences of the tsunami catastrophe, and how culture affects the coping process. Pargament´s (1997) theories in coping are used to examine this paper. Pargament argues that the coping process is influenced by the culture context of the individual.

Successful companies are built upon successful individuals. It is these individuals that will create, developand grow the companies and organizations of tomorrow. The primary aim of this paper is to highlight someof the key characteristics of extraordinary entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, as well as gain a deeper understandingof what motivates them, from a time and goal-oriented perspective. Despite the importance of theseindividuals and their massive impact on society's future, there is still a lot that hasn't been investigatedregarding their entrepreneurial drive, from an academic perspective. A comparison between two groups ofindividuals was made, with a total of twenty in-depth interviews.