This report summarizes a Bachelor Degree Project in Integrated Product Development,carried out during the spring semester in 2007 by three students at the Product Design Engineering programme at the University of Skövde. The project was performed as an assignment for KinBag ab, a sister subsidiary to Kinnegrip ab in Lidköping, who develop,manufacture and market the golf bag KinBag, a bag with an integrated wheel carriage system. The purpose of the project was to redesign the golf bag to attract a target group consisting of golfers aged between 20 and 40.The layout of the project was as follows: The project began with a feasibility study where different problems were identified with the basis of a market research which eventually was summarized in a dynamic specification of requirements. The feasibility study was followed by a generation of ideas which contained everything from sketches to simple mock-ups with an intensive amount of thoughtful brainwork and information gathering in between. This ledto the development of a number of design concepts, both on an overall level and on different parts of the golf bag.

In our globalized society massconsumption is widespread. However there is a trend showingthat people are starting to re-use clothes instead of buying newly produced garments. Reasonsfor buying secondhand clothing are many. During the 1950s people strived to look likeeveryone else but in the 1960s this changed. Subcultures grew stronger.

Purpose: To examine how video-game releases affect the share price, and if video-game reviews have any impact on the share price of gaming corporations. Method: A quantitative deductive research approach is applied with event study methodology used as basis. The investigated companies were the five largest gaming companies listed on the U.S. NASDAQ exchange. A total of 29 video-game launches and 85 reviews where examined.  Theory: The study is based on The Efficient Market Hypothesis, Agent Theory, Public Relations Theory, Nextopia and previous research.Results: The result contains 114 observations in five companies.

Despite the fast growing development of IP-telephony services, only a small number of people in Sweden use them. Of the total amount of fixed telephony subscriptions, maximally five percent are based on IP-technology. Through an exploratory study, the main purpose with this thesis is to identify factors that influence the use of IP-telephony on the consumer market, and the factors? internal relationships. The thesis also has two sub-purposes: firstly, chart the supply of IP-telephony services and secondly, discuss what IP-telephony services that are requested by today?s customers in the future.

Despite the fast growing development of IP-telephony services, only a small number of people in Sweden use them. Of the total amount of fixed telephony subscriptions, maximally five percent are based on IP-technology. Through an exploratory study, the main purpose with this thesis is to identify factors that influence the use of IP-telephony on the consumer market, and the factors? internal relationships. The thesis also has two sub-purposes: firstly, chart the supply of IP-telephony services and secondly, discuss what IP-telephony services that are requested by today?s customers in the future.

This essay deals with the individual collecting of four individuals with different backgrounds and lives. The essay investigates what, how and why people collect. It provides a stepping-stone in moving closer to understanding one, in human nature, deeply rooted phenomenon - collecting.The essay is based on a list of questions made by the Nordic Museum in Stockholm. It also includes in-depth examinations of four person?s passion of collecting, in which four individuals were interviewed: a pig collector, a collector of Mickey Mouse items, a multi-collector of objects from other cultures and one collector of items related to the artist Madonna.

The purpose of this thesis was to study Holmen?s possible future ownership, concerning their forestland in Sweden. We have compared the strategy of the present owning of forests with three different alternatives. These three alternatives are: 1) selling all the forestland, 2) establish a new company which owns the forest where Holmen is the major stockholder and finally 3) an alternative were the two northerly regions are sold. We used Holmen?s annual account from the year 2002 as a bare year and made a reconstruction of the annual account in the three different alternatives.

This essay is using theories about social norms, and wage determination to evaluate why there is a gender wage gap on the Swedish labour market. To identify the essence of the gender wage gap investigations on specific jobs where the genders are over-, under and equally represented has been made. Also a poll has been sent out to alumni business economics from School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg to evaluate their labor market from a gender wage gap perspective..

Tourism is a growing industry that brings in a lot of money each year, range ofactivities increases and people travel more than ever before. More and more chooseto move from rural areas to larger towns, at the same time when people are travellingthey want to visit quieter places that can offer outdoor experiences in the nature. Thisis something that tourism businesses located in rural areas have a great advantage of.But when the range is large, it becomes important for firms to communicate with themarket, to make the tourists choose to visit them.The purpose of this study is to investigate which media channels and target groupsthat tourism businesses use and how they reflect on the importance of communicatewith the market. To find this out, interviews have been conducted with tree differententrepreneur, all located in Jämtland. The theory?s that has been used is strategiccommunication, public relations, market communication, media channels, socialmedia and target groups.The result shows that all companies think that thecommunication with the market is an important part in the work with the company.The communication gets the business a chance to be seen and it becomes more easilyto create relationships with the stakeholders.

Cause-Related Marketing (CRM) is not a completely new phenomenon, yet an idea whose time has truly come. To have commercial organizations cooperate with charity organizations for mutual profit is a "win-win-win" situation. The company gets added value to its brand, the charity organization gets to collect more money that it otherwise wouldn't and the customer gains a feeling that he or she has contributed to the society.The purpose of this thesis is to study how a company, in practice, works with CRM marketing. How do they choose which charity organization to work with,what type of product is most appropriate to market with CRM and how is the CRM campaign designed? A theoretical model is then formed to answer these questions, after a thorough research of relevant theory on the subject.

The competition policy in the EU should guarantee that the competition is not distorted in the way that would prevent or create difficulties for the free mobility of goods and services between Member states. It is prohibited for companies to abuse their dominant position according to Article 82, if it affects trade. The essence of Article 82 is control of market power. The perfect competition results when supply and demand appoint the price and quantity of a product. Firms are encouraged to compete then it results in efficiency, quality products and lower prices.

Background: In recent research literature, some researchers mean that companies in fast changing markets have to act proactively while others find that companies have to adapt to conditions and to react. This makes it interesting to study how software companies act strategically and also to study to what extent a flexible organisation is required by companies who proact and by those who react. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is the study how different types of software companies act strategically and what this requires of the company in terms of flexibility. Delimitation: The study treats only Swedish software companies with more than ten employees. Proceed of the Study: Representatives from four case companies as well as a consultant have been interviewed.

ALMI Business Partner operating in the years 2008-2010 a project called Vivan which is about innovations made by staff in the health care profession. The project Vivian is to bring new products to the market by establishing new companies. We have looked at why health care professionals to a lesser extent than other professionals choose to start businesses. Another question raised is why it is mostly men who have chosen to start their own business in the female-dominated health profession. Traditionally, men have as an advantage over women in the corporate market in Sweden.

PurposeThe purpose of this thesis is to investigate the market of pedagogic consulting and how the customers look upon these kinds of services and what the consultants think about the market. The following five questions were investigated:What is the situation of the market of pedagogic consulting?-          What needs and what demands are there of pedagogical consulting services? -          What are the economic possibilities for schools and municipalities to buy professional development and consulting services?What do schools and municipalities think about their needs and what do they think about buying professional development from consultants?-          How are the professional development offerings of the consultants recieved by schools and municipalities and is there a difference between the private and public sector of education? -          What impact could professional development have on schools?In what way is the marketing for pedagogic consulting done?Method In this study I have chosen to have a qualitative approach with an abductive perpective. I made these choices to get closer to what I wanted to investigate. Through the abductive methodology it was possible to go between theory and empirics.

The market offers more and more products that are claimed to have medicallypositive effects (like increased blood perfusion etc.) due to their magneticproperties. The objective of this study was to investigate if blankets containingpermanent (static) magnets have a greater impact on cutaneous blood circulationthan ordinary blankets without magnets. Eight standard bred horses were used in across-over study. The cutaneous temperature was presumed to reflect blood flowin the skin and therefore thermography and local thermistors were used to indicatechanges in circulation. Baseline values were registered before the blanket wasapplied.