Umbrella organizations, organizations that have other organizations as members, are in previous research described as arenas of conflicts with problematic decision-making and contradictory parallel action towards political decision-makers. However, the research within this subject is limited, and therefore the aim of this paper is to add knowledge to how such organizations in fact work. After conducting a case study at the trade association ESTOC this thesis challenge previous statements about umbrella organizations and conclude that there, under certain circumstances, may exist harmony within an umbrella organizations. The main implication, thus, is that we have to readdress umbrella organizations in quite another way to be able to make a more realistic interpretation of collaborations in umbrella organizations..

The discussion about organic and fair trade products has been a big issue during the last few years. Despite an extensive knowledge about the environmental problems and a willingness to do something about it, the consumers are not always acting that way. Children do imitate their parents and other adults at an early age, so if the role models do not begin to act, think and dress ethically correct, neither will the children. Three problems have been identified out of the discussion. They relate to the questions of how older school children and parents of younger school children are taking sides regarding the organic/fair trade clothes and how existing trends in the society as well as those in fashion contexts influence their attitudes and consumer behaviour.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att kasta ljus över ämnet Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Inom detta ämne kommer fokus att ligga på det initiativ som heter Global Compact (GC), och som blivit föremål för såväl beundran som skepticism. Målet är att utröna om GC i Sverige blivit, eller är i riskzonen för att bli, en front för det som i uppsatsen kallas kulörtvätt, eller om det tvärtom är en välfungerande sammanslutning som hjälper till att sprida CSR. Frågeställning: ”Hur och vart åberopar de svenska företagen sitt medlemskap i Global Compact?”, ”Av vilka anledningar ansluter sig företag till Global Compact?”, ”Vilka effekter kan företagens frivilliga val av Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) som rapporteringssystem ha på de åtaganden av transparens och kommunikation som Global Compact medlemskapet för med sig?” Metod: För att uppfylla syftet och frågeställningarna används en kvantitativ och en kvalitativ metodel. Intervjuer har genomförts med Global Compacts svenska medlemsföretag och dessutom har hemsidor, årsredovisningar, artiklar samt litteratur inom området använts.

The aim of this project was to develop a numerical model simulating the global transport of air pollution. The model currently used by SMHI, the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, was intended to perform such simulations at regional scales. However, the usage of a grid based on longitudes and latitudes makes this model work poorly in global simulations. The problem with this grid is that the nodes are concentrated near the North and South Poles. Due to this characteristic, the Courant, Friedrich and Lewy-condition for numerical stability puts a sharp bound on the timestep length.

This essay concerns the visual trade grading of pine and spruce.In the 1800s developed rules for sorting of wood. The rules used to facilitate the export trade.The terms of the regulatory sorting systems developed in the 1900s. While it still used some of the older terms.The essay deals with how the grading rules affect the use of wood and how the rule work and how the terminology works.Some of the terms used for sorting are O/S, Kvinta, Utskott and A,B,C,D.You sorting by counting the numbers of knots, cracks and other characteristics of each piece of wood.The sawmills have much influence in how the rules developed.Today it is often already determined in the sawmills which uses each piece of wood most have..

The European economy today is built on small and medium sized enterprises (SME?s) and SME?s recieve a lot more attention in the litterature now. Even though SME?s have earned more attention in the litterature there is a significant lack of information regarding purchasing and supplier selection in these companies?. This report aims to create bigger understanding of SME?s and their purchasing by showing how seven swedish SME?s select their suppliers.

I denna studie testas tio hypoteser som relaterar till finansiell teori för att se hur väl teorin kan förklara skuldsättningsgraden i små börsnoterade bolag. De teorier som testas är avvägningsteorin (trade-off theory), hackordningsteorin (pecking order theory) samt teorier relaterade till asymmetrisk information och agentkostnader. Testen genomförs med multipel linjär regressionsanalys och de undersökta bolagen är samtliga bolag med färre än 200 anställda på tre av de mindre börslistorna i Sverige. Resultatet visar stöd för åtta av de tio undersökta hypoteserna och är i flera avseenden tydligare än i tidigare studier som testar onoterade små bolag eller ett bredare urval av bolag..

Signalspaning har sedan länge varit en förmåga som Sverige genomfört och under kalla kriget blev det klart att ge-nomförandet av dessa uppdrag inte var helt ofarliga. Med hänsyn till att det nuvarande systemet är påväg att bli äldre bör en planering av ett ersättande system vara lämpligt att genomföra i närtid.Syftet med föreliggande Studie är att genom en systemanalys kunna finna en lämplig ersättare till den nuvarande plattformen för signalspaning, Gulfstream GIV-SP. Det system som har använts som jämförande plattform är den obemannade plattformen Global Hawk vilket är en toppmodern farkost framtagen av USA som en strategisk UAV. Plattformarna har för att få relevans jämförts emot de grundläggande förmågorna Underrättelse/Information, Uthållig-het samt Skydd vilket medför att prestandan kopplas till dessa.Resultatet av uppsatsen påvisar att prestandamässigt kopplat mot de grundläggande förmågorna så är Global Hawk bättre än det nuvarande systemet och de skillnader som en UAV medför är positiva. Vad gäller just underrättelse så är systemen relativt lika potenta men när det gäller uthållighet och skydd är den obemannade plattformen framstående.Slutsatsen av studien är att Global Hawk just nu är en plattform som kostnad sett är för dyr för det svenska försvaret och är på så sätt inte aktuell i närtid.

Detta arbete har kartlagt att BP har ett CSR-arbete utifrån Global Compact?s tio principer, men med brister. Den främsta bristen gällande deras CSR-arbete är inom miljö, men företaget är klar med att företagets huvudsyfte är att hitta, utvinna och generera vinst till sina aktietagare - vilket följaktligen inte är en miljövänlig handling för ett oljeföretag. Arbetet har även jämfört det CSR står för med Global Compact´s tio principer, som utvecklades av FN 1999. Global Compact innefattar fyra områden; Mänskliga rättigheter, Arbetsrätt, Miljö samt Bekämpning av korruption.

In 1995, the World Trade Organization WTO was established. Today WTO has nearly 150 member countries, accounting for over 97 percent of the world trade. WTO has a number of agreements and one of them is the General Agreement on Trade in Services GATS. GATS control the service sector, and the public library is a small part of this sector. The purpose of this study is to examine the Swedish debate about GATSs possibility to affect the public library.

The aim of this thesis is to identify some of the obstacles to trade, that occurs on the common market, and to analyse the errors that still occurs in the national authorities application of the principle of mutual recognition. Is the principle of mutual recognition sufficient for the creation of a common market, or is there a need for additional measures to cope with the obstacles to trade that still exists on the common market? The problems related to the incorrect procedures of the national authorities and the fact that undertakings prefer to bring their products in to line with the rules of every single member state must be solved, if the principle of mutual recognition is to become trustworthy. On some areas, harmonisation ought to be chosen above the principle of mutual recognition, but in other cases an increased administrative collaboration, mandatory training for the national authorities or information campaigns intended mainly for undertakings could be the answer. The possibility to help undertakings to sue member states for damages should also be investigated.

The thesis examines the crisis that the Swedish-flagged merchant marine underwent in the 1990s, that resulted in a narrow market for the Swedish-flagged fleet. In order to save the industry, the TAP- agreement was created, consisting of three parties, government- market and interest organizations.  Purpose in this thesis, is to exam how the TAP-agreement was carried out in relation to the parties, and how it correlates in relation to how the global political economy affected the Swedish maritime politics. Two questions are presented. Is the TAP agreement an expression of Swedish corporatism?  Which aspect of Global Political Economy is characteristic for the TAP agreement? A case study is preformed in three steps. The different parties of the TAP-agreement have been interviewed.  A comparative study of two Swedish crises has been performed, in order to establish the correlation between them, in regards to corporatism.  A survey, with the aim to pinpoint which aspect of Global Political Economy is characteristic of the TAP agreement. Findings in this thesis are that the TAP-agreement was designed through corporatism, and that the most important aspect of all, the Swedish flag was worth saving, for all parties. .

The main objective of this thesis is to study the brand manager?s role within a global business to business (B2B) company. In order to meet the main objective we have chosen to study and analyse one global B2B company, Alfa Laval AB, Alfa Laval DK, Alfa Laval PL and its co-partners such as an advertising agency. We have also studied three global business to customer (B2C) companies, Mars, Unilever and Nestlé, to get a picture of brand managers? role and responsibilities within the B2C environment which is already quite far ahead in the development of the brand management thinking..

When implementing syncronous filters with global clock nets, a substantial amount of energy is consumed in the clock net. Hence, it is interesting to reduce the size of the clock net, which in turn will reduce the total energy consumption. One way to acheive this, is to create a SIC (Structured Interfacing of Computational elements) since such a structure can be created without a global clock net. Our results show that a fifth order wavedigital filter with a sample rate of at least 10M samples/sec may be achieved.

The market of fruit and vegetables develops continuously to become tougher and more complex. The fast development makes it difficult to keep up with all the changes. This is the case for apples and tomatoes. The purpose of this work is to explain what the trade routes are like for Swedish imports as well as the Swedish production of tomatoes and apples, both in the present and the past times. There is also an ambition to create comprehension of the trade routes.