The main purpose of this Master Thesis has been to evaluate whether active fund management is profitable on Emerging Markets. The material used to examine this consists of 106 actively managed funds, with varying length during the period 1988-2006 and who uses MSCI Emerging Markets (MSCI EM) as benchmark index. The thesis has been written under the supervision of the Asset Management Department of Länsförsäkringar AB (LFAB) and the Department of Production Economics, Linköping Institute of Technology. Apart from the main purpose, the methodology used is also meant to form a template for in-depth or similar studies, preferably by the assigner of this survey, LFAB.The results shows that the median manager underperforms the MSCI EM throughout the whole period, which leads to the conclusion is that active management on Emerging Markets is not profitable. A grouping of the funds based on tracking error still shows that a majority of the managers in all of the groups underperforms against the benchmark.

It is important for every store to have a good financial performance which can be affected by the average purchase and the number of customers in the store. Customers shopping experience can affect both of these factors and therefore it is important for retailers to know about how an in-store environment can affect this experience. The purpose of this study is to give retailers an indication of the importance of consumers' shopping experience and how this may affect the store's financial performance. To study this subject an in-store survey was conducted in four grocery stores in Stockholm where a total of 320 consumers answered a total of 41 questions about their shopping experience. By sales data it was possible to conduct a statistical analysis to see which variables regarding consumers shopping experience influenced the average purchase.

The Ericsson AXE-based systems are programmed using an internally developed language called Plex-C. Plex-C is normally compiled to execute on an Ericsson internal processor architecture. A transition to standard processors is currently in progress. This makes it interesting to examine if Plex-C can be compiled to execute on the JVM, which would make it processor independent. The purpose of the thesis is to examine if parts of the run-time environment of Plex-C can be translated to Java and if this can be done so that sufficient performance is obtained.

Under 1990-talet kom Kaplan och Norton fram med styrningsfilosofin balanserat styrkort som innebär att managers uppmanas att inte enbart ta hänsyn till finansiella mått utan bör använda sig av både finansiella och icke-finansiella mått för att kunna styra företag. Det här konceptet med balanserat styrkort har sedan det togs fram utvecklas och i början av 2000-talet finns den tredje versionen av balanserat styrkort som tillsammans med avancerad teknologi bildar konceptet business performance management. Det innebär att den information som ligger till grund för de rapporter som består av finansiella och icke-finansiella mått hämtas från en central databas i det verksamhetsöverskridande business performance management systemet. En anledning till det är att business performance management knyter samman balanserat styrkort med avancerad teknologi som möjliggör att managers därmed har möjlighet att få tillgång till en gemensam version av verkligheten, det vill säga en gemensam mental bild hur företaget presterar. Dessutom möjliggör den avancerade teknologin att managers oavsett om beslut tas som är strategiska, taktiska eller operativa att de har tillgång till den information som beslutsunderlagen baseras på i rätt tid.Den information som beslutsunderlagen baseras på måste bestå av en tillfredställande god kvalitet för att möjliggöra att managers tar korrekta och optimala beslut.

When the independent upper secondary schools were started in 1992, it meant a change in the competitive relationship for the local upper secondary schools. A reduced number of students during some years ahead, while the number of independent upper secondary schools increase will probably result in tougher competition between upper secondary schools.The purpose of this study is to review and compare financial and performance management between a public and an independent upper secondary school. The dissertation will focus on the now existing competitive relationship between the two types of upper secondary schools.The theory underlying the study is Porter's model - five competitive forces. The model is applied to the local upper secondary school and used to identify competitive factors affecting upper secondary schools. The study is using a qualitative approach with five interviews at two upper secondary schools, one independent and one public, located in the same town.The comparison of financial and operational management of upper secondary schools indicate that the differences are not as great as we first imagined, but that there still are some differences.

The purpose of this masters thesis is to examine how managers in public libraries are managing financial cuts. Questions posed are: What strategies are used by the library manager to handle the cuts and how are the strategies being worked out? What are the consequences of the cuts? How do the managers use their library plans in the work with the cuts and how do the plans change as a consequence of the cuts? Library managers in eleven communities are interviewed about their financial cuts in 2003 and/or 2004. The result shows that cuts are made in different ways. The study analysed the managers statements with a model about strategies created by Oulton.

An efficient market implies that the use of fundamental analysis should not result in excess return, and that any return exceeding the market average can be explained by compensation for risk, accord-ing to The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). The focus of this study is to test whether the suc-cessful investment strategy developed by Piotroski (2000) generates excess return on American data, after risk adjustment by using Fama & French?s (1993) 3-factor and Carhart?s (1997) 4-factor CAPM. Initially we form stock portfolios based on companies characterized by high book-to-market values, additionally, we divide them into different performance classes by ranking them with Piotroski?s (2000) measure of financial performance, F_SCORE.

Abstract: Title: Communication of and around internal performance reports - A study in seven manufacturing companies based in Blekinge. Authors: Marcus Harrysson and Mikael Johansson. Supervisors: Lars Svensson and Carina Svensson, Blekinge Institute of Technology Department: Department of Business Administration. Course: Bachelor thesis in Business Administration, 10 credits Purpose: Our purpose with the bachelor thesis was to investigate if there is a connection between communication of and around internal performance reports and profitability in companies. Method: Our investigation has been made at seven companies in the county of Blekinge by making personal interviews with people in both production and business departments at each of the companies. Result: We have come to the conclusion that there is a connection between communication of and around internal performance reports and profitability. Sammanfattning Titel: Kommunikation av och runt interna ekonomiska rapporter ? En studie i sju tillverkande Blekingeföretag. Författare: Marcus Harrysson och Mikael Johansson. Handledare: Lars Svensson och Carina Svensson, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola. Institution: Institutionen för Ekonomi och Management Kurs: Kandidatarbete i företagsekonomi, 10 poäng Syfte: Syftet med kandidatuppsatsen är att undersöka om det finns ett samband mellan kommunikation av och runt interna ekonomiska rapporter och lönsamhet. Metod: Vår undersökning har gjorts i sju stycken Blekingeföretag genom personliga intervjuer med representanter för både ekonomi- och produktionsavdelningen på varje företag. Slutsats: Av vår undersökning drar vi slutsatsen att det finns ett samband mellan kommunikation av och runt interna ekonomiska rapporter och lönsamhet i företag..

American football is a well-known sport in America. In addition to the design and rules of the game and the surface it is played on, there are also other differences that are not directly visible. One difference noted in this study is how the teams in the game provide players. Each team has a board of directors together with the team's leadership and they will determine which players are most suitable for the team. These players are recruited to the team after graduating from a U.S.

This paper explores the emic use of ?Internet trolls" and trolling behaviour in one specific Internet community. The findings are compared with, and put in relations to the conventional definition of Internet-trolls as individuals who deliberately, typically anonymously, antagonize other users of online common spaces.A forum dealing with matters of relationship issues in the Swedish online community Message Board of Familjeliv.se, was the subject of field-work that provided the basic empirical material for the research; three comparable threads on the subject of infidelity. These could all be said to contain suspected trolling, and such suspicions were also ascribed participants throughout the discussions. The analysis was undertaken mainly in terms of quality of narrative, performance and interaction.A comparative method and a genre analysis out of a holistic and functionalistic perspective is used to shed some light on how forum participants organize themselves and steer narratives towards desired outcomes.

Many companies do not register all the stops that occur in a production plant, it often takes longer to report than to fix the problem. If no problems are registered, you cannot trace where the problems arise.This master thesis was performed at AcobiaFLUX and they have noticed an increased demand from their customers to trace problems raised in their processes. The aim of the thesis was to find out how a tool to monitor a process best could be developed. Then the most essential from the theoretical base was developed into a useful tool for operators. For the operators to know if the process utilizes the full capacity of a process, the tool presents a measure of the Overall Equipment Efficiency, OEE.

With new energy directives in place, the Swedish Social Service (SSS) stands beforethe challenge how to reduce the energy demand in its locales. It is a complex matter,as the locales are rented from various property owners and it becomes a question ofhow to reduce the operational electricity and influence the property owners to workmore with energy efficiency. This thesis takes a balanced research approach in threeparts. Firstly a qualitative part in form of interviews with personnel at the SSS and itsproperty owners, secondly a quantitative part of descriptive nature in form of energystatistics and thirdly a literature review of Energy Management (EM) Supply ChainManagement(SCM), Green Supply Chain Management(GSCM) and EnviromentalPerformance Indicators (EPI). This in order to be able to give normativerecommendations of how the SSS should act to reduce its energy consumption in itslocales and provide new insights on how EM, SCM, GSCM and EPI can be applied ineffect.

Research shows that people with burnout experience a high degree of impairments in a range of cognitive functions including memory, attention and concentration. The overall aim of the present study is to investigate whether there is a correlation between subjective estimates of cognition and cognitive performance with objective tests in people with burnout with a focus on working memory and executive functions. Three specific questions were addressed; First, what cognitive problems are described and to what degree? Second, is the performance of executive and working memory tests related to self-reported cognitive problems? Third, are the self-reported cognitive problems related to measures of psychological distress? The study included 77 patients, 65 women and 12 men, with a mean age of 43.48 years. The results show that patients with burnout perceive themselves as having significantly impaired cognition in everyday life, which is clearly evident on the basis of the self-assessment forms PRMQ and CFQ.

Ett psykologiskt test används främst inom utbildningssammanhang och kliniska sammanhang, men även inom rekrytering, urval och organisationsutveckling. Det finns idag ett flertal personlighets- och begåvningstest som mäter olika aspekter som kan vara relevanta för en organisation. Predicting Job Performance, PJP, som har sin utgångspunkt i femfaktormodellen, är utvecklat av Psykologiförlaget AB och består av två delar som mäter olika dimensioner av personlighet och begåvning. I denna studie har psykometriska beräkningar utförts för att utvärdera instrumentets reliabilitet samt validitet, främst genom test-retest-metoden. Undersökningsdeltagare var 49 psykologistudenter vid Stockholms Universitet.

The purpose of this literature study was to examine what kind of composition fermented liquidfeed can have, what a desired composition is and possible advantages and disadvantages onhealth and growth performance of the pig. A well fermented liquid feed is characterized by a lowpH (.