White- and blue collar workers traditionally belong to different unions and, therefore, are covered by different collective agreements. Collective agreements for different employee categories create internal divisions, which mean that white collar workers are not obliged to do work that falls under a blue collar agreement and reversed. Historically the difference between white- and blue collar work has been fairly sharp and so has the difference between collective agreements. Due to the continuous development of technology white- and blue collar work within production has become less clear. This has resulted in an increasing amount of disagreements regarding what collective agreement should apply and whether the employee is obliged to perform different work tasks.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine whether hedge funds generate higher risk-adjusted returns than traditional managed funds in Sweden.Methodology: This study was based on quantitative data about the funds historical returns. The funds historical returns were taken from the database Morningstar and the risk-free rate from the Swedish central bank. Random samples of 36 funds have been divided into three portfolios in the form of a hedge fund portfolio, stock portfolio and mix fund portfolio.Result & Conclusion: The study concluded that the stock portfolio has shown the highest average yield for the study period where all portfolios below market index. Hedge fund portfolio has achieved the highest risk-adjusted return calculated by the portfolios Sharpe Ratio. Of all hedge strategies, arbitrage had the highest average return and risk-adjusted returns..

Objective To study if the Swedish venture capitalists consider business plans in their screening process, and in such case, what aspects they evaluate in order to develop a targeted template for Swedish entrepreneurs. A secondary objective is to describe what other factors Swedish venture capitalists evaluate as a part of their assessment. Methodology The method, which has been used in order to test the objective, has been carried out through extensive literature and article studies, interviews, and distribution of a short and comprehensive questionnaire to a multiplicity of venture capitalists throughout Sweden. Conclusion Generally, the findings of this thesis suggest that a business plan should include elements such as a summary of important elements, a thorough market analysis, financial information, exit strategy, and the risks associated with the project. The empirical material also reveals that venture capitalists also evaluate factors such as ownership influence, the entrepreneur?s industry knowledge, product knowledge and the personal chemistry in their evaluation process.

Title: Process description of round timber transports ? a case study at Tra?frakt Go?taland ABAuthors: Karl ? Johan Tern, Christian Johansson and Andreas IvarssonTutor: Anders JerrelingExaminer: Fredrik KarlssonBackground: Today the profitability of forest haulers is unsatisfactory. Negotiations on prices are more about the relative strength of the negotiation parties rather than a discussion about actual costs. Adding extensive changes in the forest haulers cost structure has led to insufficient knowledge of whether the negotiated prices really correspond to their costs.Methodology: We decided to carry out a case study at Tra?frakt Go?taland AB, a special interest organisation whose members represent the majority of forest haulers in Go?taland.Purpose: To describe the processes and underlying activities of round timber transports.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to investigate how public library users consider the knowledge of the librarians and to examine what the users expect from the librarians. To begin with, we contemplate our own view of the librarians, their knowledge and what help we expect at the library. Realising that we do not expect particularly much from librarians, although we have studied to become librarians for two years, we assume that the regular library user does not expect much either. This assumption resulted in our decision to investigate this particular question.

Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is a further development of the Six Sigma draft to carry through preventing quality measures in developing and designing of new products and processes. With increasing demands on enterprises development processes to be more safety and faster the need of DFSS arise as a product, process and service development concept in the organisations. Design for Six Sigma aims to improve and structure the development process of an organisation and consider the application of the innovation problem solving. The concept aims to leave the structure of the traditional Six Sigma concept and instead, from an innovative perspective, search for new solutions to existing problems. The concept constitute of a toolbox with a lot of quality tools that are divided into phases in a development model.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis was to gain a deeper understanding of and examine how library blogs are realized at public libraries together with the views among librarians regarding the realization of library blogs.The questions we wanted to answer were: ? How is the library blog realized at the public libraries in this study? ? What are the views among the librarians in this study regarding the realization of the library blogs?The analytical model in this thesis is Connie Crosby?s six steps on how libraries successfully can realize their blogs. Four of the six steps were selected: planning, implementation, marketing and measures of success. The Methodology used for this study was semi-structured interviews. Two interviews were conducted with three librarians that have partial responsibility of their respective library blogs.The results of the study show that the process of the library blog can look different in different libraries, and that the respondents had clear views on how the realization of a blog should be done.

Background: As the economy turns up and down, and companies sometimes face loosing employees, it is important for them to make sure they do not loose competence at the same time. Therefore a need to handle competence efficiently exist. Purpose. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate what measures companies take to minimise the risk of loosing competence from the company, at times of layoffs and in general. Methodology: We mainly used interviews to gather information.

Background: Swedish football clubs have lost their competitiveness both economically andgamely. The last time a Swedish team was represented in Champions League was 1999 and last season there were only 2 clubs with positive financial results in Allsvenskan. One factor that has not worked is budgeting where many clubs have budgeted too optimistic and thus not able to make positive results.Purpose: The purpose of this report is to review and analyze how the Swedish football clubs are working with their budgeting. The goal was to identify problems in their budgeting and to find solutions which can be used practically.Methodology: This report is a qualitative study consisting of a cross-sectional study of how Swedish football clubs are working on budgeting in 2014. Data collection has primarily consisted of interviews of budgetmakers in the clubs.

When producing an interview report the researcher is put to the test of describing the qualitative interview method in terms of assumed orderly steps and procedures taken during the interview process, while at the same time account for a very social dynamic process. In practice, even the most carefully prepared scenario for a qualitative interview study probably does not correspond to the expectations made. What happens between the plans and the actual interview itself? This issue is investigated by contrasting the actual engagement of the participants in an interview project to how these relationships are accounted for in Master thesis from the Swedish School of Library- and Information Science in Borås. Theory and Methodology from Actor Network Theory (ANT) have been applied into the area of qualitative interviews.

User friendly and usable are two words that are often mentioned in the context of marketing new products. By doing so it adds an extra sense of quality to the product. The meaning of these words is therefore something that every product wants. But what is it that makes a product usable and user friendly? What Methodology exists formaking sure that a product is usable? Does it exist applicable processes to ensure user centered development? These questions together with a practical example are parts of what will be addressed in this report.The thesis was carried out for C2 Management, a company that works with supporting other companies in their work with quality and constant improvements.

Background: When firms grow through acquisitions it is commonly debated whether the two entities ought to be better off as standalone companies rather than as a merged company. This thesis aims at discussing this issue of M&As advantages and disadvantages in terms of source of synergies from the perspective of resource allocation. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze to what extent pre-M&A differences (against similarities) in resource allocation and corporate culture between the acquiring and target firm have an impact on the post-M&A performance. Theoretical framework: Efficient market hypothesis, resource based view, strategic fit. Methodology: A longitudinal study is conducted on the EU market during 1992 to 2002 based on balance sheet and income statement data.

In august 2006 the Swedish government official report (SOU) about the structural discrimination was published and caused a lot of debate in the media. This paper is about the report as such, as much as the academic quarrel it caused in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter. My aim is to explore why the report is so provocative and what the debate actually is about. I use discourse analysis both as a method and theoretical framework, inspired by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Using this Methodology I explore which discourses that are articulated.

Purpose: To examine the governance mechanisms and the competence PE-firms adds to theirholding companies through an active ownership in order to create growth.Methodology: A qualitative study with interviews as its main source of data.Theoretical perspectives: Corporate governance and relevant theories within that subjectsuch as agent theory, board of directors and management. Previous research within the subjectwill also be presented.Empirical foundation: The empirical foundation consists of three conducted interviews anddata collected from the chosen PE-firms as well as six different holding companies.Conclusions: The governance mechanisms used in the PE-firms we have chosen are stronglyrelated to both theories within corporate governance as well as previous research on thesubject. The governance mechanisms being used are an explicit owners agenda and strategy, athorough acquisition process, usage of external competence, active ownership through theboard of directors and the insertion of incentive systems..

This study is a comparative analysis of how Hollywood portrays people from the Middle East before and after 9/11. The films used to conduct this study are True Lies (1994), The Siege (1998), The Kingdom (2007) and Body of Lies (2008). With a qualitative Methodology, discourse analysis and postcolonial theory this study analysed not only how people from the Middle East is portrayed, but also how the Americans in the films are presented and how the characters in the films changed in the movies produced after 9/11.     The results show that people from the Middle East are portrayed in a negative way and that Hollywood uses stereotypes. However, people from the Middle East are more gradated in the films post-9/11. There is a bigger focus on Islam in the movies produced after 9/11 and the study also shows that family values play a less central part in the story in the films made after 9/11 and that work is of more importance.