The main purpose of this essay is to investigate if Latvia´s pattern of trade has become more similar to the mature market economies, after Latvia´s independence 1991.Today, the intra-industry trade (IIT) dominates the trade of mature market economies. One of the pioneers of intra-industrial trade is Paul Krugman, who was the first to emphasize the importance "of scale and consumers' desire for variety" in explaining the basis for modern commerce. Customers get more variety and usually cheaper goods when the market gets bigger. I mainly use the modern trade theories to explain the trade pattern in Latvia. To measure how Latvia has developed its intra-industry trade, and thereby is approaching the mature market economies´ trade pattern, I use the Grubel-Lloyd index (GL-index).

Problem formulation: Recent results from the European Food Information Council?s consumer research on nutrition information and food labelling revealed that most consumers have little understanding of the nutrition information found on food products, feel that there is little authority regulating these matters and wish for a more trusted source of information and regulation and lastly it was found that consumers accept their limitations and have little motivation to even read or learn about nutrition information. Thus what are the reactions of the various legal authorities to this problem? How are food retailers and producers responding to the needs of the consumer? How are consumers then reacting to these two players in the industry and the changes they are making?Purpose: The purpose of this research is to gain new perspective and a better understanding of relationship between consumers, companies and legal instruments in relation to nutrition and health claim labelling of food products. Method: The nature of this multi-disciplinary research has led to the study of all three areas, business administration (containing consumer behaviour) and business law, which are contained in this paper.

The media industry, and especially the news, in Sweden is living in a dark world that seems to get even darker by the minute. According to Nordicom (2013) the number of readers in the ages 15-24 has dropped by 24 percentage points between 2007 and 2012. This is a big problem for the news industry, but also for democracy that require citizens that are well-read and know what is going on in society. Enda and Mitchel (2013) found that 65% of people in the USA have stopped reading a certain news source since it no longer fits their needs. Maybe with a better understanding for young adults needs this trend can change.This qualitative study was conducted using interviews with eight respondents to find out why young adults who study at a university consume news.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine how to build a personal brand and how to use this brand. The method used was a case study with personal interviews. The persons who were interviewed was Jan Carlzon and Peter Wallenberg Jr, two of the most important persons in the Swedish business industry. The study has shown that the person as a brand creates benefits and can gain opportunities if used in the right way..

The purpose of this thesis is to examine and analyze the characteristics of the management control system private equity firms use to manage their portfolio companies. The thesis takes a share holder value perspective, and it is assumed that the goal of the management control system is to increase the shareholder value in the portfolio company. In a qualitative study two private equity firms and two portfolio companies, one for each private equity firm, were studied in detail. In total, nine in debt interviews were completed. The results from this study suggest that the characteristics of the control system are dependent on the surrounding context; the focus on shareholder value and the specific characteristics of the private equity industry shape the characteristics of the management control system.

The last hundred years humans have drastically changed the amount of available nitrogen in nature. Today human activities release twice as much available nitrogen as all natural processes are doing together. We also have degraded nature´s possibilities to take care of nitrogen through the draining of wetlands and straightening of rivers. In order to regain the potential of nitrogen retention in the water systems there now requires a reshape of the landscape we live in. A planned expansion of the mining activities in Garpenberg, Dalarna, would double the content of nitrogen in the waters below the mine.

The furniture retail industry in Sweden has gone trough large changes during the last decades. Today the industry is tough and in the maturity stage where few new companies enter, especially if they do not have a unique offer. The furniture companies have become larger and fewer, the changes have lead to difficulties for smaller and medium sized companies to grow and be profitable.Our purpose is to analyse, evaluate and compare three smaller companies in Stockholm with the intention to find what kind of marketing strategies they are using to survive on the Swedish market. First we interviewed the three companies to see what they do to survive on the market, then we asked 100 persons to fill in a questionnaire to see if they had the same opinion as the companies described.With help from theories we prepared questions which laid the foundation to the empirical part of the essay.The result from this study shows that the three companies differ from each other when it comes to using relationship marketing and placing the customer in the centre. All of them are aware of the importance of doing so, but because of different limits and possibilities they can not fully adjust everything to the customer.

Consumption of meat and poultry has increased during the last ten years while the production in Sweden has decreased. Cheap imports are competing with Swedish products and consumers, restaurant and retail let the price decided what to purchase. Swedish food producers can become better at communicating the added values that meat and poultry produced in Sweden has. Social media gives companies a possible tool for communication in order to communicate and create a relationship with consumers. The rise of social media does not only affect consumer decisions making, but also corporate communication. The objective of this project is to investigate how social media can connect the farmer to the consumer.

AbstractTitle: Leadership and ethics in the Real estate agent-industry Level: Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration Authors: Paula Massamiri & Therese Delmar Supervisor: Lars-Johan Åge, Jonas Molin & Jens Eklinder Frick Date: 2014 ? May Purpose of study: The aim of this study is to create an understanding of how leaders trough a Structural ethical climate can contribute to a Situation-based ethical decision-making of their employees. Method: We have used a qualitative method and conducted semi-structured interviews with respondents from real estate agent firms. When we studied our phenomenon, our overall research deign was qualitative interviews. Our data has been analyzed with an abductive method of analysis, influenced by Grounded theory. Results and conclusions: The study shows that leaders in the real estate agent-business trough a Structural ethical climate contributes to a Situation-based ethical decision-making of their employees by acting as role models, leads by example, highlighting the office values and rewards & punishes behaviors to control their employees? ethical decision making. Suggestions for further research: We believe that future studies can be conducted through observations to study both leaders and employees, to pay attention to employees? opinions and reflect on what affects them.

The comprehensive purpose of this Master of Science thesis is to examine which fleetmanagement services for engineering vehicles, ?Fleetech? preferablyought to develop inorder to reach a broad market and meet the demands of contractors.Scanty explained, fleet management is the management of a company's vehicle fleet and theservices can include a range of functions such as driver management and fuel management. Inshort the thesis encompasses four sections:1.Survey of the general contractor industry: The survey has been preformed toevaluate the potential size of the market for fleet management services in the generalcontractor industry.2.Needs analysis: The needs analysis aim was to define what contractors tasks andgoals are, and to determine what functions they want and need from a system.3.The use of CAN and the technical premises: The prerequisite for developing asophisticated and generic system is that vehicle data can be accessed from the CANbuss.The use of CAN standards in construction equipment has therefore beenexamined.4.Specification: An explicit set of requirements have been set to be satisfied by a fuelmanagement service, based on CAN standard protocol J1939.Important conclusions: The use of CAN protocol standards are extensive and the prerequisitesfor developing elementary and CAN based services good. The services should be compatiblewith different manufacture?smachines.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how key performance indicators are being used as performance management tools within the production industry. Specifically the purpose is to investigate how the KPI:s within the telecommunications industry drives reusability regarding production test systems. This thesis will also highlight today?s cost models and suggest improvements of the KPI and what new ones could be introduced. A case study at Ericsson AB has been performed.

Detection of leukocytes in semen from boars is part of the routine control of semen quality. Leukocytes in semen can cause damage to spermatozoa that leads to impaired fertilization. In the artificial insemination (AI) industry there are standard routines for the quality control of the boars and of the neat semen before use. Since 2001, Quality Genetics has not done the leukocyte examination on semen samples from boars which are used for the production of pigs for slaughter. The purpose of this study was to investigate the occurrence of leukocytes in semen from AI-boars. The questions addressed were whether there are boars that have leukocytes in their semen and how frequently it occurs and, moreover, if there are differences between breeds, or even between individuals whose semen was checked before use in AI-dose production compared to those which were not. The study included a total of 135 AI-boars, of which 67 were Hampshire, 35 Yorkshire and 33 Landrace, all belonging to Quality Genetics AI-station in Hållsta.

Small!size!enterprises!within!the!outdoor!industry!seldom!use!a!structured!process!or!method!when!involving!users!in!product!development.!One!reason!for!this!is!that!many!structured!development!processes!are!designed!for!large!companies!with!very!different!resources.!When!involving!users!in!product!development!processes,!the!most!common!user! is! an! elite! athlete.! She! or! he! often! has! different! requirements! than! the! regular!consumer!and!in!the!customers?!point!of!view;!this!leads!to!nonCmaximized!developed!products.!!The! result! of! this! thesis! is! a! user! involvement! process! for! small! outdoor! companies!based! on! the! Sister! Kenny! Research! Center! Innovation! Handbook,! a! product!development!process,!which!itself!is!based!on!a!phaseCgate!model.!The!process!focuses!on!the!user!category!enthusiastic!amateurs,!since!this!is!what!companies!in!the!industry!require.!The!process!also! focuses!on!how!and!where! small!outdoor! companies! should!involve!users!and!give!recommendations!on!how!many!users!that!should!be!involved!in!a! product! development! process,! different! from! what! the! theory! recommend.! The!process! also! builds! on! that! ideas! should! come! from! the! users! first,! and! then! being!further!developed!by!the!company's!product!developers.!The!degree!of!communication!between!users!and!the!company!is!shown!and!the!report!clarifies!the!user!involvement!intensity!in!product!development!processes.!!The!involvement!process!that!has!been!developed!has!also!been!summarized!in!a!guide!that! can!be!used!by! a! company!on! a!daily!basis.!This! contains! information!on,! among!other!things,!how!users!are!selected!and!how!to!plan!a!workshop.!!! !.

The music distribution in Sweden and the world is rapidly changing. The music industry, however, has been reluctant to change the way they distribute music. The consequence has been that illegal music files have been available for downloading to anyone with an Internet connection. Because of the illegal downloading a new law have been implemented in an attempt to stop this behaviour. Our theory is that in implementing the IPRED-law, the sites that were hosting most of the illegal material will experience a severe decrease in traffic.

Since 2007, I´ve been working in the steel industry in a place called ?SSAB?. That?s why itseemed right to contact them for this thesis.The SSAB concern is global, but SSAB Sweden involves raw steel producing in Luleå, heavyplate producing in Oxelösund, and sheet metal producing in Borlänge..