Recent years have been very turbulent for most private equity firms. Especially the financial meltdown in global economy has affected the industry, but also the public pressure has made private equity houses change their control strategies towards more conventional methods used in public companies. This thesis aims to put light on the control methods used in listed private equity houses which use a buyout strategy. The paper describes how the control methods change over the different phases the asset experience and how different value generating strategies use altered control methods. Using Merchant's (2003) framework for management control systems and Berg and Gottschalg's (2004) research on value generating strategies in buyouts the thesis shows that action controls as designing instructions for the board and a business plan, together with goal alignment is the commonly used control strategy directly after the acquisition.

During the last years, the importance of sourcing in firms has increased. Globalization, fierce competition and an increased level of outsourcing are common explanations to why firms have highlighted the potential to realize savings and the value creation that the Purchasing department can generate. One trend that follows in parallel with globalization is an increased pressure from society on firms to take responsibility for the impact that its products and services have on the environment. This responsibility creates even more attention as outsourcing involves trade with suppliers in low wage countries, where the level of environmental and social responsibility is not always satisfying. The Purchasing department, the firm?s interface with suppliers should therefore, together with the firm?s Environmental department, play a key role in the firm?s contribution towards sustainable development.

The construction industry is currently receiving much criticism for inefficiency and slow development while demands for reduced built in moisture and efficiency increases. This report examines whether the use of field factories can meet these requirements and what factors that will be critical for future use of field factories. Industrialized construction with field factory is compared with traditional loose timber construction and industrial construction in the fields of execution, logistics and working environment. The aim of this report is to provide a basis for field factories current and future use and development. To achieve the aim of the report, people with experience in the use of the various methods was interviewed and literature studies in the various fields done.

This thesis focuses on RM and customer relationships and tries to answer two research questions: how firms can retain customers and how to generate profitable customer relationships by using relationship marketing. We conducted case studies on JOB media, a company in Luleå, and Polardörren, a company in Öjebyn, Piteå. Our research has revealed that in many ways our case study companies conform in major ways to the theory in this particular area. However there are differences between how these two firms go about in regard to customer retention and establishing profitable customer relationship. We have discovered that JOB media, which is a service company is more inclined to maintaining close and long-term relationships with its customers.

Companies acquiring ERP systems are often dissatisfied with the project and therefore consultancy firms wish to make use of project models in order to achieve success in implementations. Since research on ERP implementations in service companies is limited, there is a need for mapping of critical activities in implementation projects in this line of business. Under these premises, the purpose of our master thesis is to develop a model for implementation of ERP systems, specified in activities, which can be used by mid-sized consultancy firms with mid-sized qualified service companies as customers.A literature study including project models, modern models and methodologies for ERP implementation, commonly existent activities, success factors and system development methods was carried out. Starting out with this, a theoretical model for ERP implementation was generated. In excess of this, a case study was conducted, where the implementation of the ERP system Microsoft Dynamics AX at the service company Eurostep, performed by the consultancy firm Medius, was studied.

For the company to work well, it is necessary with a good economy, a high qualitative production and a well working system concerning the environment: the whole cycle on the farm needs to be working. At the same time, debaters about the environmental impacts are also requiring higher demands for the dairy farmers and therefore also the management programs. Management programs for feed evaluation calculations have been more developed over the years. Big amounts have been invested in the new feeding system with NorFor, but no one seems to have asked the dairy farmers what they themselves want to spend their money on, and what they need help with. For the dairy farmers it is necessary that the whole company is controlled in the right way, and much more than just feed evaluation is included in this.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the process of technology sourcing within firms active in the CRT-market. The primary focus of the study is the motives, risks and problems associated with technology sourcing, to construct key learnings for organisations consider undertaking this way to access research and development or those organisations that are already operating in the CRTmarket. Method: As method has abduction been used. The empiric material of the thesis is based on qualitative research in form of interviews in a conversational manner. For correct interpretation and understanding a hermeneutics approach has been used.

This text examines the ideological positions, as they appear in texts of central importance, of four Swedish protagonists ? Antipiratbyrån, Konstnärliga och litterära yrkesutövares samarbetsnämnd, Creative Commons i Sverige and Piratbyrån ? in copyright issues. The critical analysis is focusing on three themes ? economy, culture and civic rights and responsibilities ? and poses the questions of how the ideology of the protagonists relates to the changing processes between culture and economy in the society of today, and which interest of classes, understood in Marxist terms, they favour. Before defining the theory and method of the inquiry the authors give their understanding of the changing processes between economy and culture.

Study objects: JM, Folkhem and ABB.Purpose: The purpose with this study are to examine how the supplier relations are in the construction branch and compare that result with how the supplier relations are for ABB a production company.Theoretical: The theoretical chapter illustrates important and relevant parts of supplier relations, purchasing and supplier strategies to give good overview. The theoretical review will combine information from different fields to consent with the research problem.Method: A case study has been made on three different companies, one of the companies was active in the production industry the other two were active in the construction industry. Data was mainly collected through semi structured interviews on each of the three companies.Conclusions: The size of the company decided which point of view the company had on purchasing, traditional or modern view. All three companies had a centralized purchasing organization but the construction firms were more decentralized than the production company. The reason was that the construction firms were dependent with more flexibility when every construction project is unique..

After Sweden became a member of the European Union, EU, the debate regarding the Swedish participation in the EU?s currency co-operation, the European Monetary Union, EMU, has been intense. One of the biggest issues has been how our national economic politics will work within such a monetary union. What instrument will remain for the national economic politics within the EMU are highly uncertain. The question whether we will be able to affect our own economy or not has long been the essence in the Swedish debate.

General concerns about environmental issues may mean that the demand for bio-based products will increase. Opportunities that arise on markets, together with the declining demand for newsprint, may trigger firms in the Swedish forest industry to increase their development of new products. One product that has received a lot of attention during recent years (and is a contender) is nanocellulose. The purpose of this master thesis was to examine the Swedish forest industry?s view on the market potential of nanocellulose.

BackgroundIncubators are important facilities for economic growth in society. The main purpose of incubators is to accelerate knowledge intensive firms onto their market by both providing resources and an entrepreneurial environment.Problem Companies within incubators are encouraged to share knowledge and experience with each other with the goal to stimulate development and invention of new technology. This exchange involves interaction on an inter-personal and inter-organizational level. Incubators need to create an open and transparent environment in order to enable this exchange on both levels.Purpose The purpose of this study is to enhance the understanding of how knowledge and experience exchange occurs within the context of incubator systems. By understanding how incubators can capture knowledge and learn from the incubator process, this study can contribute by insights of how the incubator process can be further improved.Method This bachelor thesis is written from an abductive approach and is based on a qualitative case study of Ideon Innovation in Lund.

Accounting firms operate in environments with high competition for graduates and students today expect employers to be present on Facebook and the like. We aim to describe whether two major accounting firms use social media in their graduate recruitment. We chose to do case studies of Grant Thornton and Ernst & Young and how they use social media channels aimed towards graduates. Through a through study of how the two companies communicated through various social media, we concluded that Grant Thornton was significantly better than their larger competitor at social media use. Both companies use Facebook as their main communication channel.

Since the Bruntlandreport was published 1987, companies have shown their environmental commitment through an environmental account. Companies started these accounts because their rivals started having them and today most large companies have a environmental account or sustainable development report. The information given by the companies have been seen as slanted, and others see it only as a part of the image production for the companies. There have been several investigations of the stakeholders of environmental reports and it is not clear who is the primary stakeholder, in other words who actually reads them. All different stakeholders have different views of what an environmental account should encompass.

The value investing philosophy, which can be traced at least to the teaching of Graham and Dodd in the 1930?s, entails identifying and investing in potentially under valued stocks with a potential for extraordinary returns. The focus of this thesis is to identify patterns and characteristics in financial accounting data preceding creation of shareholder value. The authors of this thesis utilize a multivariate discriminant analysis in order to identify indicators of value creation and subsequent extraordinary returns in value stocks. A discriminant function is derived which successfully identifies which value stocks will eventually become growth stocks.