Background: Mergers and acquisitions have evolved from initially almost exclusively having been an American phenomenon, to becoming a common occurrence throughout the world. Companies though, are not defenseless against hostile bids, but must take many factors into account when selecting defense measures. Purpose: This paper aims to enhance the understanding of acquisitions through hostile bids on the companies studied. More specifically, this study aims to create a deeper understanding in how Scania and Skandia have chosen their defense measures, or could have chosen, before and during their hostile bidding processes with specific concern for their strategic credibility. Method: This paper is based on two companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange exposed to hostile takeover attempts in a similar time period.

The Swedish market for vehicle inspection is re-regulated since June 2010. More than four years after the re-regulation there are eight companies in the market. Two of these companies are a result of the former monopolist's owners divided the business among themselves. The remaining six companies have entered the market through acquisitions or by building up their business from scratch, these are known as new entrants in the study. The competition has developed slowly and the former monopolist still has the highest market share.

Alien plants that have intentionally been introduced to an area for cultivation in public or private gardens constitute the primary pathway of introduction for invasive alien species that spread into nature. Garden owners want species that have satisfying characteristics, these characteristics are often also linked to plant invasiveness. Thus, the horticulture industry plays an important role by making scientifically based decisions and phasing out invasive plants and replacing them with alternative species with satisfying characteristics, but low risks of becoming invasive. This thesis aimed to examine the sale of and the attitudes towards alien plants in the horticulture industry in Sweden. Alien terrestrial plants identified to have a severe risk, high risk or potentially high risk of spreading and becoming invasive according to ArtDatabankens assessment, were examined to see if they were for sale.

Title: Festivalernas Intåg ? Korröfestivalen- en bordunstämmas resa genom festivaliseringenThe Korrö festival- The establishment of a Swedish Folk Music Festival.This thesis describes how folk music festivals have been escalating during the past few and how they have influenced Swedish folk music. To reach my results I have been studying one festival in particular which is the Korrö Folk Music Festival. This event started in the mid-eighties as a small happening that attracted almost exclusively musicians that were a part of the bordooon movement. The bordoon movement gathered a couple of days in the summer at what they called the ?Korrö bordunstämma? to build instruments and play folk music.

Due to an increasing global market with a growing competition and an escalating technologydevelopment the demands on companies today are increasing. To maximise the output fromtheir recourses they need to be more efficient. The research on product development and how toensure the efficiencies in the process are extensive and companies could by adapting andimplementing the result of this research use its benefits.This master thesis is made for Knightec AB with the aims that through interviews anddiscussions with three companies investigate, collate, justify and give proposals for productdevelopment process together with supporting methods and procedures for technical projectmanagement. Besides Knightec AB three other companies located in Sweden has beenparticipating in this study. Through semi structured interviews and discussions in focus groupsinformation from the three involved companies were obtained.

During the last decades the questions about environment and social ethics, so called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), have increased in importance. It is in the business world highly important for the corporations to show the public that the company care about these questions. A common approach nowadays is to outsource productions to other countries resulting in that suppliers have a great part of the work with CSR. CSR as a trend is a rather new phenomenon, and therefore interesting to see how the corporations handle these questions and how the approach looks like. The purpose with this study is to show how corporations which are recommended by CSR organizations for their handling regarding these questions approach CSR and how the work look like in the supply chain.

Sweden's government is dedicated to the goal of having a vehicle fleet that is independent of fossil fuels by 2030. Achieving these goals requires, among other things, new types of fuel that give lower net emissions of carbon dioxide. The present market includes stations offering lowlevel blends of renewable fuels in conventional diesel as well as some stations offering renewable fuels only. The purpose of this study is to survey purchasers? attitudes to the use renewable fuels in roundwood and bioenergy transport in forest- and energy companies. The study was based on qualitative interviews through a combination of face-to-face meetings and telephone interviews with each sample group. The total number of respondents was ten (10), consisting of five (5) from forest companies and five (5) from energy companies. Transport service purchasers were generally positive to renewable fuels and considered these necessary in the future.

Background and problem: Financial reports are created for the users as decision support. Stakeholders are often subjects to information asymmetry. Banks represent one of the primary stakeholders and financiers of a company, and place great emphasis on financial reports in their credit assessment process. The question is, however, how useful the financial information actually is. According to previous research, banks consider accounting information as troublesome in some respects, mostly due to accounting choices and judgments.

Large companies in today?s business environment are to a great extent depending on their credit score by rating institutes like Moody?s and Standard & Poor?s. There is however indications that these big institutes are not always rating companies accurately. This is why this thesis aims at developing a new credit rating model, CRITA-Score, with the objective of determining a company?s financial health more accurately.

International expansion has long been associated with a positive trend that many companies, regardless of industry, choosing to realize mainly to expand its market share and hence its profitability. Various theories describe differentiated strategies to promote corporate expansion. Either they shall be financed by internal funds, or balancing equity with debt, or only increase leverage in order to achieve the desired results. This study focuses on the Swedish fashion market and its degree of internationalization. The purpose is to attempt to discern whether there exists a correlation between the degree of internationalization and its financial performance.The study was based on a quantitative approach where secondary data was collected so that we then would be able to perform regression calculations.

The agriculture is today in a development that leads to bigger and bigger units in the primary production. To be able to follow this development many companies chooses to cooperate in different ways. The most radical change is when farmers fuses with other farmers and merge into to a big collectively owned operation firm. The reason behind this idea is that the firms achieve the big companies advantages by being complement to each other. The purpose of this essay is to make an economic analysis of two crop production companies who works together in an operation firm.

The postindustrial market increasingly demands service infused products to add more value to the customer in order to be competitive. Much research regarding digitalized services indicates that companies have to be innovative in order to compete on the market. However, companies within different industries face different challenges with digital service development. This study has been conducted because there are little known about the opportunities and the challenges different industries faces with a globalized market. Our research question is what the challenges are and what opportunities does strategic digital service development entails for companies.

This study focuses on the internal marketing and how it affects the complaints by companies? communication control. Our purpose with this subject is to increase the understanding of which components affects the relation between internal marketing, communication control and complaints. We have chosen the subject, internal marketing because it caught our interest in an earlier course. On the basis of the literature of costumer complaint there have not been so much research about it and that is why we have chosen this perspective on internal marketing.This study is based on a qualitative approach.

This dissertation aims to explore how an investment appraisal differs depending on if it is conducted by a municipal or a private real estate company. Municipal and private real estate companies are not performing on totally equal terms in the property market. A municipal company in Sweden has a public service mission. The consequence due to that mission is that they have limited yield potential but on the other hand the right to certain subsidies. They are also limited by the law of public purchasing (in Swedish: Lag om offentlig upphandling) in the investment process.

Purpose/Aim: The aim of this thesis was to examine how multi channel publishing in different stages effect the work for journalists.Material/Method: The thesis is based on ten case studies selected from the literature and one conducted especially for this thesis. The case studies have been categorized according to a model that describes three strategies for multi channel publishing. The first strategy is to have a primary publishing channel, the second is to have separate editorial staffs for all publishing channels and the third is to treat all publishing channels equally.Main results: Journalists working for companies using the first strategy have not experienced any major differences in working conditions or work practices. For journalists employed by companies using the second strategy for multi channel publishing the effects on the journalists was noticeable but not major. The effects on journalists in companies using the third strategy are mainly stress and an uncertainty regarding how to use special media techniques..