Many researchers emphasize the increasing strategic importance of supply chain management, but there is still a lack of concrete guidance for managers faced with strategic decisions in supply chain. Within decision-making theories, the rational decision-making model is the most commonly used. This because of its suitable foundation, enabling a structure to the complex decision process. The rational decision-making model is today not developed to include the aspects of strategic decision-making made in supply chain. The purpose of this research is to adjust a structured rational decision-making model, making it applicable for strategic decision-making in supply chain.

This thesis investigates the effect of profit growth and profitability on market capitalization amongst Nordic companies during the turbulent period 1997-2005. Our results suggest that profitability have a significant impact on market capitalization for six of the nine years studied, whereas profit growth does not seem to affect market capitalization. Consequently, our results imply that the effect of other factors on share price performance may be greater than previously suggested. These findings are only partly in line with theories on corporate valuation which suggest that market capitalizations are to a great extent driven by both profit growth and capital returns, regardless of whether the stock market is particularly unstable..

Intense competition and pressure from various market participants is prevalent in today?s modern and technologically developed society. It is important to keep a high standard of service and customer care to be able to keep your position on the market. The focus of the paper is to study how a store manager can influence their employees to perform better on the job, in terms of service to customers and increased sales. The aim is to analyze the different tools store managers use to motivate their employees with the goal of improving service to the customer and to increase sales.

Denna studie jämför hur Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) och Fama-French trefaktorsmodell förklarar och förutspår avkastning på en global aktiemarknad. CAPM utgår ifrån att investerarna förväntar sig en riskfri ränta adderat marknadspremien multiplicerat med företagens exponering mot marknaden. Fama-Frenchs är en utvidgning av CAPM modellen, där företagens storlek och book-to-market-värde läggs till som förklarande variabler för avkastning. Genom regressionsmodeller och prediktioner för portföljer indelade i storlek och book-to-market jämförs modellerna. Fama-French tycks vara genomgående bättre på att förklara och förutspå avkastning under perioden 1990m07-2013m02 för samtliga portföljer, förutom portföljen för stora företag med medelhögt book-to-market värde.

The company Betsson opened its first physical gambling shop in Sweden in May 2008, thereby defying the Swedish government?s legal gambling monopoly. The legal case that has resulted due to the violation of the Swedish gambling law has attracted immense attention from mass media, thus generating vast amounts of publicity for the company. This paper aims to evaluate and describe the company?s decision to open the store, as well as to examine the relationship between market driving practices and market driven practices.

Objective: The objective of this thesis is to investigate how Scania has attained success to establish on the Indian market and to inquire into the establishment process of Scania and their entrance in the Indian market. The thesis describes different factors such as the product, mode of entry, time of entry and choice of market that play a role when a company establishes and invest in a foreign market.Method: This thesis is limited to the process of establishing Scania on the Indian truck market. A qualitative approach has being utilized in this study, consisting of interviews withStaffan Sjöström, development manager at the R&D department, Koen Knoops, vice president at Financial Services and Henrik Fagrenius, former managing director for Scania in India. Data collection from various journals and articles have been conducted for the presentation of the number of sold newly registered trucks in comparison to the number of sold newly registered trucks in India by Volvo, Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland during 2010, 2011, 2012 and the first three quarters of 2013.Theory: With a starting-point in empirism, we have used a theoretical frame of reference to describe Scania´s establishment process. Scania makes use of an internationalization strategy, namely Market Selection, Time of Entry and Entry mode and the network model, which describes the process of establishing on a foreign market as a business association with various players on the market.

Scania?s discount rate - the return requirement of investments - refers to Scania?s WACC or weighted average cost of capital. The capital markets return requirement on equity and the credit market interest cost of borrowing is weighted to become the single discount rate, the WACC. The purpose of this study is to investigate which asset pricing model of APT and CAPM Scania should use in their WACC calculations. The company now uses a group WACC of 11 percent which is used in all company levels.

After a workshop in Kuopio held in June 2006, Interbull decided to go forward with the development of a system for beef international genetic evaluation and a three year project called Interbeef was launched in June 2007. The participating countries are so far limited to Europe and the only trait evaluated at present is adjusted weaning weight (weight at 200 days). The results from a first international genetic evaluation have been shared with the countries but are not yet official. The evaluation is based on data from purebred Charolais and Limousin. To achieve good estimates of proofs in an international context it is important that methods for data validation and model selection are implemented.

In this essay the authors are trying to level the success in the IT-company Apple?s market communication. The problem investigated is if the company?s profile, the picture they are trying to implement onto the market, is the same as the market consider the image of the company to be. The problem is studied in a method which combines both a qualitative and a quantitative survey.

AbstractThe use of temporary agency workers has increased significantly during the last decades. Due to considerable differences in the legal status and working conditions of temporary agency workers within the EU, the directive 2008/104/EC on temporary agency work was adopted in 2008. The current directive has a two folded purpose, first and foremost to improve the employment and working conditions for temporary agency workers, by establishing the principle of equal treatment. The second purpose is to create greater acceptance for the temporary work agencies, and also to review and remove any unjustified restrictions or prohibitions against them.There are several different models for labour market regulation represented within the EU. The Swedish and Nordic model has through history relied heavily on regulation via collective agreements, entered into by the social partners, with a minimal amount of state interference and regulation.For Sweden there is a potential problem in the implementation of the directive on temporary agency work, since it follows from case law by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

Background: As Porter?s diamond (1990) suggested, the business environment highly influences firms? strategies. Today, most of the companies have to decide their strategy depending from a worldwide business environment. Yet, strategy researches and the growing importance of marketing for business success also show that customer dimension must be taken into consideration. On some markets and in certain industries, the offer is much higher than the demand and then, companies need to attract customers.

In 1999 the Swedish Parliament decided about 15 environmental goals aimed to be achieved in time for the next generation. For example physical social planning must be based on programs and strategies how cultural-historical values has been attended, so called programs of cultural heritage. By law the Swedish municipalities are responsible for reaching these goals by creating program of cultural heritage. But only a few of the municipalities have these programs, meaning that many municipalities need to create programs of cultural heritage in the next five years.The aim of this report is to present a model of analysis on programs of cultural heritage in municipalities for preservation and development of cultural environments. By testing the model on the municipalities of Osby and Tomelilla methods on how to create a new program of cultural heritage or how to complete existing documents are formulated.One of the conclusions is that one document, program of cultural heritage, functions as landscape analysis, model of cultural valuation and strategy of developing cultural values.

This thesis project focuses on the need for better tools for analyzing competition for forest fuels in Sweden, in particular how policy measures may influence the market and involved actors in different regions of Sweden. Raw materials from the forest have for long constituted important inputs in the Swedish forest industry. Today some of these raw materials are increasingly used as inputs also in bioenergy production, largely driven by bioenergy promoting policies, and there are signs of increased competition for forest fuels which may have various and uncertain effects on the industries in question. The thesis project explores the possibilities to adapt previously used forest sector equilibrium models into a new model suitable for analysis of Swedish forest fuel markets, called the Swedish Forest Sector Trade Model (SFSTM). The approach takes into account regional differences in supply and demand for 23 types of products produced and/or used by eight types of producers, plus consumers, in five different regions (four Swedish and one international).

This bachelor?s degree thesis was conducted in mechanical engineering at Halmstad University during spring semester 2010 in close collaboration with the company Gremo AB, located in Ätran, Sweden. Gremo AB produces, developes and sales forest machines in both Sweden and on the international market.Gremo AB belongs to one of the market leaders in forest industry, especially with their forwarder. In order to become a market leader even with their harvester, the company decided to change the harvester to have a swivel and a leveling driver cabin.The aim with this bachelor?s degree thesis was to develop a design concept for the harvester driver cabin, which Gremo AB can apply on the new harvester.

This thesis treats the subject of a complete steady state and dynamic model of the VSC-HVDC covering both the AC and DC system-side of the converter. The topology of the model is recreated after the scheduled transmission line in the south of Sweden, called SydVa?stla?nken. The topology covers both a simple two terminal connection as well as a multi-terminal one. This model is to be implemented in the power system simulation program ARISTO.