Studies show that product placement is becoming a more and more common method for companies to use when communicating with consumers. The results of this study can?t confirm nor deny that claim, but instead we offered the observation that as a communication method, product placement and TV-commercials are more similar than revealed at first glance.Cars of the brand Ford appeared in seven out of the 50 motion pictures that made up the sample material in this study. In several instances the values that were communicated regarding the brand matched, completely or in large parts, the values communicated about the Ford brand in Ford?s own commercials.This doesn?t hold true for all companies.

As a result of global competition, companies within the automotive industry are required to improve their production systems to achieve sustainable and competitive production. To attain operational excellence, companies have adopted concepts like lean and World Class Manufacturing (WCM).In order to deliver, companies need to increase the availability and reliability of production equipment. This demands focus on both operational and strategic maintenance, and efficient equipment acquisition and management. The main objective of this thesis is to identify processes and success factors that are necessary for improved maintenance performance. By conducting a case study and by performing a literature review, the following has been studied: 1) how companies within the automotive industry work with maintenance and maintenance strategies, 2) implementation of maintenance strategies, and 3) new acquisition and spare parts management for maintenance. The results show that basic maintenance concepts and related terms are well defined in the literature.

This study deals with sustainability reporting in three governmental and three non-governmental Swedish companies in different industries. With increasing demands from the society regarding company?s CSR - Corporate social responsibility, the perspective of accounting gets broader and covers even non-financial information to meet not only the owners? demands but also others stakeholders' requirements. Sustainability has become an important tool for creating company?s business value and a positive sustainable external image.

The purpose of this thesis was to describe how service producing IT- companies handles their internal marketing. We wanted to understand how management deal with internal marketing activities and how different companies create a working environment to encourage employees to motivation and well-being. To be able to find out we did a case study on a service producing IT-company. Two personal interviews were done with two of the managers. Our empirical research showed that the company used internal marketing on a daily basis.

The purpose of this thesis was to study the importance of an artist?s personal brand from a record company and artist management perspective. We also aimed to investigate how these companies work to create and maintain an artist?s personal brand. The study conducted was a case study based on interviews with staff members of a major record company, Universal Music AB, and an artist management, United Stage Management Group AB.

Under de senaste årtiondena har inköpsfunktionen förändrats drastiskt. Funktionens roll har gått från att vara en stödfunktion som fokuserar på kortsiktiga lösningar till att satsa på att agera proaktivt samt finna långsiktiga och konkurrenskraftiga lösningar. Dagens strategiska inköpsfunktion handlar till stor del om affärstänkande och att se en helhetsbild. Inom det strategiska inköpsarbetet läggs det också stor vikt vid att följa upp inköpen och kontinuerligt utvärdera dem. Genom kostnadsuppföljningarna är det möjligt att effektivisera inköpsverksamheten.

This thesis is about how the front-staff in two service companies experience empowerment. Competition for business in today's society is becoming increasingly fierce, which means that they must find a way to differentiate themselves from competitors. Service has become a way to compete. Front-staff competence and ability to offer a good service is a crucial factor when the company's success is being measured.Empowerment in business is used as a tool to create motivation and satisfaction of individuals at work. Companies using empowerment can create the freedom and opportunities for employees to act at their own intelligence and discretion.

Sustainability work is something that is emphasized more and more. Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, is discussed and the question of how much responsibility companies should really take is frequently in the news. Companies tend to ask themselves how much responsibility they should take. CSR is a common concept of companies environmental and social work and a concept we tend to see here and there in our modern society. CSR includes companies? social responsibilities, both in terms of carbon footprint, working conditions, social responsibility and more.

The first aim of the thesis is to analyse the problems of trust, according to game theory, in the Russian market for private pensions insurance. The second aim is to find suitable strategies to solve the problems. Problems of trust have arisen because, (i) buyers of insurance have had negative experiences when dealing with insurance companies and corruption has decreased trust for all players in the market, (ii) incomplete information makes it difficult to separate honest actors from dishonest, and (iii) dishonest insurance companies do not get punished because of corruption and weaknesses in the law. Mutual risk-sharing is a potential solution as necessary conditions already exist in the Russian society. There are groups who (i) share the same type of risks, (ii) are aware of moral hazards, and (iii) are able to control each other.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the qualitative aspects of IASB?s Exposure Draft of Proposed Amendments to IAS 37 and to evaluate what quantitative effects an implementation would have on the capital structure of listed companies in Sweden. The major changes of the proposed amendments compared to the current IAS 37 are that the terms ?provision? and ?contingent liability? are eliminated and instead a new term called ?non-financial liability? is introduced. Furthermore, the valuation in current IAS 37 based on a best estimate is replaced by a fair value valuation.

A company may use different accounting techniques to adjust accounting information and thereby attract investors. Big Bath Accounting is defined as a strategy used to make changes in the financial statements and reduce the results further when the companies expect negative results. This phenomenon has been observed empirically and occurs when including CEO change and negative results. The aim of this study is to test whether there is another factor affecting Big Bath Accounting, namely remuneration of the CEO. The CEOs should, by changing the accounting information, be able to influence their compensation.

This essay highlights the Swedish retail companies? engagement in ethics and environment issues as a part of the business concept. The Customer is today more aware about what is going on in the world than ever before. Two of the main reasons are the Internet and the globalization. In relation to the customer being more aware about the situation in the world today, the demand for products which have been produced in consideration of ethical and environmental values has increased.

The purpose with this essay is to study how a micro enterprise builds a brand. This because the current situation makes it difficult to stand out from the vast amount of marketing messages available in the market without having an extensive marketing campaign. Small companies do not have the opportunity to put a lot of recourses as money into marketing as the large companies do. Neither do they afford to repair a brand failure.Brand building is a process that constantly is in progress in a company, large or small. To make this process concrete we have chosen to study the four factors; brand awareness, perceived quality, brand associations and brand loyalty.

This paper examines women's positions in the music industry. By quantitativelyinvestigate ten major companies on the swedish music market, the authors have beenable to mapp positions that are dominated by women and as well as men. The essaydiscusses several theories of both gender in organizations and gender in society inorder to analyze the quantitative results.The aim of the paper is to highlight the current segregation of careers in the musicindustry as well as to lay a foundation for further research on why it is segregated.Clear graphs shows the gender distribution between women and men in business butalso the distribution of gender in occupations / positions in similar companies. In theanalysis the authors reflects on the results using relevant gender theories. In theconclusion, the authors explain the result generated by the analysis and illustrates theprevailing segregation that exists in the music industry.This paper has concluded that a seemingly even distribution between men andwomen in business organisations can sometimes be misleading.

This thesis has enlightened how consumer behavior is when buying clothes via the Internet and the problems and difficulties that could face the companies. This study was conducted through interviews with people that have bought clothes through the Internet, traditional catalogues and real stores. The conclusions showed that the Internet is as suitable as traditional catalogues for buying clothes. Another dimension were put to the aspect of availability to a virtual mall in the design of the catalogues. Finally, it is in the best of the e-business companies interest to study how e-catalogues should be structured and designed for the consumers..