The business world has been through an extreme transformation over the past decades, which have forced companies to look at themselves from a new point of view. Consumers have a complete new set of ways to gather information and are more motivated than ever to make sustainable consumption choices. This change of attitudes among consumers has made companies focus on other things than price versus quality. A whole new concept has been brought up to questioning: environmentalism. Consumers demand more organically produced products.

In April 2008 an official report, SOU (2008:32), was presented. In that report it was suggestedthat the statutory audit for approximately 96 % of the Swedish companies was to be abolished.The report suggests that the new regulations should apply to all limited companies thatare below two of three limits that have been suggested: a) a balance-sheet total of 41,5 millionSEK; b) a net turnover of 83 million SEK or; c) less than 50 employees. The regulations aresuggested to come into force July 1, 2010. According to the Swedish laws that regulate thelimited companies, Aktiebolagslagen 10:11, should all limited companies regardless of sizehave an chartered accountant or otherwise approved. The purpose of the audit is to create atrust towards the figures that the company shows and also to act as an assurance towards thirdparties (Collis, 2003; Strenger et al, 2008).

This thesis was conducted at SverigeGrepen in Vänge-Körlinge, Uppsala, Sweden.SverigeGrepen is a family business that develops and manufactures a few different parts of different kinds of products. My task is to come up with a good idea that facilitates the coupling of trailers, i.e. from an idea to a fully functioning prototype. The product is intended for use by all customers for all kinds of trailers. The actual goal of the work is to develop a full prototype that you can install and use in the easiest way possible, a prototype that follows the specifications.

Quality assurance for Scania engine componentsScania engines have become one of the world?s most renowned corporations in themanufacturing of engines. This is mostly due to the quality and performance thatScania have shown. However, this does not stop Scania from trying to achieve moresuccess in the fields of development and research to assure the quality of theirengines.The purpose of this thesis is to show how Scania ensures the quality of the enginecomponents, both those who made externally and internally at Scania, also inclusivethe manufacturing and assembly process.Three engine components were examined: D16 block engines, water pump andXP-Iinjectors. The study included the whole process from the step of supplying therow materials to the last step in production functional test.In this thesis an investigation of how other companies are working with qualityassurance was conducted.

In order to achieve comparability, which is one of the fundamental principles of accounting, companies should be consistent concerning the accounting policies they use. Only under certain circumstances changes in accounting policies are allowed, and when there is a change in accounting policies, it is important that the change is reported in a way that assures that the financial reports still achieve comparability. The purpose of this thesis is to establish which rules and recommendations about changes in accounting policies that exist in Swedish and German law and what their meaning is. Further, the purpose is to compare these rules and recommendations and discuss their differences and similarities, advantages and disadvantages. Since publicly traded European companies will be obliged to prepare their consolidated accounts in conformity with International Accounting Standards (IAS) from 2005, I also describe the content of IAS 8 which deals with changes in accounting policies, and discuss what the consequences of this transition might be for Swedish and German publicly traded companies considering changes in accounting policies.

Background: It is today common for companies to provide some sort of incentive for CEO's and senior management positions to motivate, retain and benefit employees within a company. This is in order to drive the goals of the CEO and management in the direction that is desired by the owner. Currently, the Swedish centre-right government has forbidden the use of such variable pay within state-owned companies. There are two different attitudes to variable pay, one that is in favour and one that rejects it. However most people agree on the fact that a well-functioning incentive scheme can be of great strategic importance for a company.Approach: has variable pay to CEO's had any effect on the company's profitability.Aim: the aim of the study is to compare companies who use variable pay to CEO's with companies that do not in relation to their profitability in terms of profit margins, yearly performance, returns on total capital and returns on equity.Method: the study uses a quantitative approach.

It is important for all companies to be seen on a competitive market. It?s all about positioning yourself so that you?re seen and that you?re are attractive for both customers and employees. A crucial factor to achieve this are how the brand are handle directly by the company it self and by the market. Establishing a brand on the market is not easy and it takes time to establish what the company stands for. To be able to succeed with this you need to have a strategy and a strong belief on the brand.

Today?s companies offer their products and services through multiple distribution channels in an increasing extent, in order to reach bigger markets and more customers. Multiple channels result in an increased risk for channel conflict.This essay is an exploratory and descriptive study with the purpose to explore some companies? channel conflicts on the basis of sales commission and price differences. A case study has been made at two different companies and the empirical material has been collected with qualitative interviews.We found more channel conflicts in the company that uses sales commissions than in the company that doesn?t.

Many companies are currently working to optimize and streamline their processes and production lines to achieve higher profitability. In increasingly competitive markets, companies are working to find solutions to increase the value of their production with such a small use of resources as possible. A tool used to accomplish this is the Lean management system. Lean comes from the production system that Toyota has been developing since the early 1900's, The Toyota Production System (TPS). The Lean philosophy helps companies, by working towards continuous improvement in its operations, to achieve higher customer satisfaction, more efficient production and ultimately higher profitability. Many companies are working to implement Lean in their organization. But there are many who fail to implement a complete change towards Lean.

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.

In companies today, it is becoming more and more common for employees to work in a project based environment, as a result many companies have developed their own project models. Companies with a well developed product culture are striving to improve their existing models, and businesses relatively new in the marketplace are aiming to reach a high level of maturity as well as reach high levels of efficiency in the shortest time possible. As the number of mature and efficient companies with well developed project model increase, so does the level of competition in the market. Since a well developed project model often leads to a more efficient and accurate way of carrying out the project, which in turn leads to shorter delivery time towards the client. This is crucial as time is one of the most valuable parameters of competition in today?s business environment.

Problems:How would a decision model that takes into account more aspects and dimensions than just the financial aspect look for smaller service compa-nies? What aspects are important to consider in such a decision model?Purpose:The purpose of this master thesis is to develop a decision model based on previous research, to improve decision making in smaller service com-panies ? by considering perspectives that traditional investment calcula-tions ignore.Method:The study was qualitative and was based on both primary and secondary data. As data collection method for the development of the model we used literature search on previous research. The study?s primary data consisted of responses from five smaller service companies.

New rules for bank capital adequacy were introduced in 2013. This caused a changein funding of real estate companies. The bank could not cover as much of thecompanies funding?s as before and they had to explore other funding opportunities,such as bonds. Bond funding in Swedish real estate companies regularly consists ofunsecured corporate bonds and the secured ones are not that common.

 Introduction and research question: In the global media field, global expansion has become more common and is a way for media companies to reach out to a broader audience. Both advantages and disadvantages come with a global expansion and there are several cultural differences that have to be considered. This thesis will deal with the cultural differences and discuss how a Swedish media company efficiently goes about establishing in Vietnam. This leads us to this thesis' research question: How does a Swedish media company succeed in Vietnam? Purpose: This thesis' purpose is to find out what media companies do to successfully acclimate to the Vietnamese culture and the important aspects of the cultural differences to consider.Delimitation: In order to present a thesis with greater depth and acquire a deeper understanding, the study is limited to examine Swedish media companies and what intercultural aspects are important to consider when establishing in Vietnam. Method: The research we have done is based on interviews, which we thought could give us the accurate information and a good base to stand on.

This thesis analyses the scope of the treaty articles 43 and 48 concerning the freedom of establishment of companies. The interpretations of these articles made by the Commission and the European Court of Justice are analysed to see whether they are consistent. The analysis encompasses the provisions and directives in the field of EC Company Law as well as the essential case law from the ECJ regarding these issues. The conclusion that must be drawn from this thesis is that the Court of Justice adds the momentum in these issues whilst the Commission is held up by political considerations..