The SMEs’ internationalization strategy—Foreign Market Entry Modes selection Title: 1st of June 2006 Date of the Seminar: Bus 809. Master thesis in international marketing Course: Han xiao Author: Ulf Elg, Associate professor, Lund University, Sweden Advisors: Ying Bin, Associate professor, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, China. Guest researcher, Lund University, Sweden Internationalization, entry mode, SMEs, foreign market Keywords: The purpose of this study is to understand the internationalization process of the SMEs, and try to define the motives and internal factors impact their foreign market entry mode selection. Thesis purpose: This thesis is based on qualitative method using case study. The primary information sources are the interviews with key-persons in internationalization process of SMEs Methodology: The literature review in this study concerns areas of SMEs’ motives for internationalization, foreign market entry mode approaches and influence of internal & external factors.

China is considered as one of the world?s fastest growing economies and the future of China looks promising. Even though the Chinese market attracts many new foreign companies to enter the market there are entry barriers which companies may encounter as obstacles, which will aggravate the market entry in China. As a result companies loose business opportunities and therefore it is of great importance for Swedish companies, which are planning a Chinese market entry, to identify which entry barriers that are considered to be the most difficult obstacles to overcome.The purpose of the thesis is to examine which entry barriers that are generally considered to be the most difficult obstacles for Swedish companies to overcome when entering Chinese markets and to rank the five most difficult entry barriers to overcome.Information about these entry barriers have been gathered from Swedish companies, which have carried out successful market entries in the Chinese markets, through an e-mail questionnaire.The result generally shows that the most difficult entry barriers to overcome in China were: bureaucracy, property laws, language, cultural differences and difficulties finding local partners. The ranking of the entry barriers? result shows that bureaucracy is the most difficult obstacle to overcome, followed by cultural differences, language, relations and access to distribution channels.We conclude that companies experience different difficulties overcoming these entry barriers, which depends on the companies? size, years in China, markets and if the entry barriers were considered controllable or uncontrollable.

Goodwill accounting has for a long time been, and with the implementation of IFRS in 2005, has become an even bigger issue. Critics mean that reporting of goodwill impairments is subject to discretion that can be used by the managers. We have applied a study made by Carlin and Finch (2009) on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm during 2006-2012. Our study contains 50 of the 255 public companies at 2012-12-31. The purpose of the study is to investigate if companies use an opportunistic discount rate when testing for impairment in goodwill and if the relation between goodwill and net profit before taxes, goodwill intensity, is an incentive for opportunism.

Account receivables tie up large amounts of capital in. Various reports show that the actual time for customer to pay their invoices is getting longer. This is a problem both from a society and a business economic perspective. The purpose of the essay is to find out if Swedish companies have longer credit days than normal contractual terms of payment and if so, can the business cycle or the geographical distribution of sales have an impact and does it make a difference if the companies have an active monitoring of the actual customer credit days. To answer this, we studied 12 listed companies in four different sectors between the years 2000-2008. In the analysis, we reason about the results of the study and how the various factors may have influenced the outcome.

In todays society the demand on companies to deliver better project management is crucial for them to survive. The higher demands from clients make older project management weak and unreliable. In the constructions sector more and more companies are created and the competition is higher than ever. The clients are aware of the higher competition in the construction sector. This has resulted that construction companies must now make their project management more efficient to create better projects and better relationship with clients. The purpose of this thesis arose from this problem in the construction sector.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the underlying motifs leading to the decision to appoint a supplemental liquidity provider and how they vary between companies. As the first study of its kind to take on an internal company perspective, the goal was to broaden the knowledge base of the field and lay ground for further studies. The study has been conducted by interviewing companies providing the service, their customers and the stock exchanges which they are traded on. The results show that there are two main motifs for appointing a liquidity provider, 1) Creating conditions for increased trade and 2) Improving the pricing of the stock. There was also a supplemental group 3) Other motifs consisting of the observations that would not fit in any of the main categories.

The aim of this small thesis is to investigate if the probability of business failure is higher at the time of divestment than at the time of acquisition for portfolio companies that have been subject to private equity ownership. The background for this thesis is the widespread critique aimed at private equity firms, claiming that they increase the risk in their portfolio companies. We have performed a study of 53 buyout transactions, involving Swedish manufacturing companies, covering a time span of 13 years, from 1995 to 2007. We find evidence of an increased risk of business failure for the portfolio companies with a short forecasting horizon (within one year). The absolute increase in the sample is however small.

ABSTRACT This essay is about traffic analysis of Web servers. The purpose is to investigate if companies analyse the traffic on the Web server and if they use this information to create more than simple statistic reports. The questions that we will answer are the following: ? How common is traffic analysis on the Web server among companies? ? Is the Web administrator limited in analysing the Web traffic, if the company has the website on a Web hotel? ? Does the company uses the results they get from analysing the traffic on the Web server for updates and changes on the Web page? To answer these questions we made a questionnaire investigation by telephone interviewing the companies? webmasters. The extent of the investigation was 20 companies in Blekinge.

The purpose of this study is to highlight the opportunities of using social media as a communicative tool to attract and engage customers on different social media platforms. In recent years social media has become an important way for business to communicate with people both national and global. The idea behind this thesis was found when we saw different approaches of how companies used social media as a marketing tool. Through a qualitative approach we did eight interviews with six different companies and two social media consults which have given us a basis of what companies really want to achieve with social media. With these interviews we were able to analyze and discuss the abilities to interact with people and how companies distribute content that engage users and increase their credibility to the company..

Revenue is the largest post in the financial statements but is often least described. They are an important element when different companies are compared with each other. Revenue is often associated with assessment which Enron and Prosolvia is two examples of. Enron reported their incomes and assets while their costs and debts were not reported. Thus were a positive image maintained of the company when the financial position in reality were otherwise.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a topic that is becoming increasingly important in today's society. CSR is a concept whereby companies voluntarily integrate social and environmental concerns both in their business but also in interaction with their stakeholders. The society of today sets high expectations for how companies take their social responsibilities, especially in industries where the risks to individuals and the environment are high. In this study, we tried to answer the following questions; what kind of responsibility do companies in the plastics and chemicals industry claim to take and why might this be due? What differences exist between the investigated companies in the industry and what may these differences be rooted in? The purpose of this study was to obtain an understanding of the interest in working on sustainability in the plastics and chemicals industry.

The SMEs? internationalization strategy?Foreign Market Entry Modes selection Title: 1st of June 2006 Date of the Seminar: Bus 809. Master thesis in international marketing Course: Han xiao Author: Ulf Elg, Associate professor, Lund University, Sweden Advisors: Ying Bin, Associate professor, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, China. Guest researcher, Lund University, Sweden Internationalization, entry mode, SMEs, foreign market Keywords: The purpose of this study is to understand the internationalization process of the SMEs, and try to define the motives and internal factors impact their foreign market entry mode selection. Thesis purpose: This thesis is based on qualitative method using case study.

The purpose of this thesis is to define and theorise willingness-to-support as a possible measurement of corporate reputation. The knowledge production in this thesis is done through reasoning with companies to gain a deeper understanding of the social world and the respondents? view of their reality. Grounded theory is used as an inspiration for conducting the research. A qualitative method is used in the form of semi-structured interviews with six companies in three different business sectors.

Companies today need to be more focused than ever on having an active Human Resource Management culture. This is not only because of the companies? concern for their staffs wellbeing, but for the companies? effectiveness in the long run. The reward systems which many corporations use today, to both keep their employees and attract new ones, is a well researched subject by scholars as well as journalists. Earlier research has suggested that it is important to implement an active Human Resource Strategy.

Marketing is an important tool for companies to use in today?s consumptions society, to reach out with products and services. The message that has been sent out is also important, because the message can be distort or reach wrong customer group. Above all this the competition and the struggle round the customer?s increases and it has become more common that the customers tend to be less loyal towards the company.