Title: Competition for small audit firms ? a qualitative study on possible competitive strategies and how the upcoming changes will influence competition on the audit market    Subject: Auditing Tutor: Margareta Paulsson  Authors: Per Dahlström and Martin Holmberg Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop an understanding how smaller auditing firms use competitive strategies and why. The result aims to work as a support for owners and leaders of audit firms as they make decisions of how to compete in the future. We would also like to explore how smaller audit firms view the change of the mandatory audit, that is, our intentions are also to examine how they think the consequences on the market will be and their view on its affect on the competition of the market.    Methodology: Our methodological approach was characterized by a hermeneutic approach in order to explain and understand why the smaller audit firms do what they do. Our approach is a combination of inductive and deductive as it allows us to develop an understanding of the subject, then gather our empirical data and from that draw valid conclusions.

This project has been made in cooperation with Stora Enso Research Centre Falun (Research). Thebackground of the project is that Research has customers who demand a method to measure the quantityof varnish online in offset printing. The aim with the project is to investigate if any test method correlateswith the quantity of varnish and to improve the understanding of the variables in the varnishingunit. The goal with the project is to develop a functional method. Two printing trials have beenperformed.

Trade is the driving force for economic development. A greater equity in international trade can improve the livelihoods and the well being of producers in developing countries. The small-scale farmers have limited resources and have difficulties to get access to the international market. As a result of this, the Fair Trade movement has been developed and has now formed a trading partnership between the producer and the consumer. This study analyses if the Fair Trade movement can be a way for the workers in developing countries to achieve more justice in their production manner in the international trade of cut flowers and continue to be an important competitor of these products, but with better livelihood conditions. My method has been to do a comprehensive literature study of the Fair Trade movement, in which I describe the certification process, and the market of Fair Trade in Sweden.

A study has been conducted on how organizations in Sweden administer costs of facilities management services internally. There are three main theoretical methods for administering costs. In the first method, costs are maintained on a central level; in the second method, costs are allocated and in the third method, internal transfer pricing is used. The aim of the study is to identify which methods are applied in practice, to evaluate whether the methods fulfill their intended purposes and to study the relationship between the methods used and the cost level of facilites management services. In practice, a large diversity of methods are used for facilities management costs.

This thesis is an investigation of Iranian immigrants and their use of libraries in Sweden. It isbased on a combination of a qualitative and a·quantitative method.Using a qualitative method, I give an outline of the history of lran from ancient times up to the present, as well as the different ethnological groups in Iran and their cultures. The main objective of this part is to clarify the contrasts between Iranian and Swedish cultural, social, linguistic and family structures, and also the characteristics of the crisis that most immigrants go through on their arrival in the new country. The qualitative method also involves structured telephone interviews with eight highly educated Iranians.This method was supplemented by a quantitative study through questionnaires of the attitudes· of lranian immigrants to libraries and reading. Iranians in Sweden turned out to be frequent Iibrary users.

This thesis is an investigation of Iranian immigrants and their use of libraries in Sweden. It isbased on a combination of a qualitative and a·quantitative method.Using a qualitative method, I give an outline of the history of lran from ancient times up to the present, as well as the different ethnological groups in Iran and their cultures. The main objective of this part is to clarify the contrasts between Iranian and Swedish cultural, social, linguistic and family structures, and also the characteristics of the crisis that most immigrants go through on their arrival in the new country. The qualitative method also involves structured telephone interviews with eight highly educated Iranians.This method was supplemented by a quantitative study through questionnaires of the attitudes· of lranian immigrants to libraries and reading. Iranians in Sweden turned out to be frequent Iibrary users.

There is no commonly accepted definition of a business method. It ought to consist of a method or a process of doing business. Business methods constitutes a broad category of patents, it is hard to tell exactly what can be interpreted in to the term. Most of the world's legal systems have made an exception from patentability for business methods. In the USA the exception was abolished in a case 1998.

In system development it is today increasingly common to use a model-based system development method. These methods that are suited for Agile work with simple and quick updates and implementations of new applications in systems conform to the requirements that are becoming more important today, namely more flexible and less expensive system that still maintain high quality and safety.A company that has been working with this type of system development method for a long time is Genicore AB, which also has developed their own tools and model language in order to better model the information management systems in complex and abstract operations. Genicore AB is trying to spread their method other developers and have therefore taken the initiative to start this study. The method is evaluated and tested by two students with relatively little experience in model-based systems engineering in order to gain a new perspective on how the method functions. The method has been applied to an educational activity in order to test it in a new domain, and this led us to our research question;?What criteria are of particular relevance in the implementation of a MBSD method on on complex businesses??Through literature reviews and interviews, we formed an idea of how model-based system development works from a theoretical perspective, and then continued to the case study conducted on the educational activities at the faculty of IT at University of Gothenburg.

Purpose/Aim: To create a communication strategy for PADI Nordic with the intention of getting Swedish divers, who have been certified abroad, to Swedish dive centers.Material/Method: The study is based on a number of personal interviews conducted with a) divers who are active in Sweden, b) divers who are not active in Sweden and c) representatives from PADI and PADI affiliated dive centers.Main results: The main reason that people who have been certified abroad do not dive in Sweden is that they regard it as being too complicated, too cold, too expensive and with nothing interesting to see. These might partly be misconceptions that can be corrected through a communication strategic effort. The best way to change this perception is by two different forms of communication. One will go from PADI Nordic straight to the divers through an email. This will have the purpose of getting their attention, making diving sound interesting and raise their awareness in preparation for the other part of the process.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of how a bank?s features and internal factors have affected its choice of method in calculating the capital requirement.Theoretical and Empirical Method: The research strategy of this study has been of a qualitative nature with a deductive approach. The choice of method was depth interviews with respondents from a targeted sample of Swedish banks. These respondents were chosen based on the knowledge they possess as key employees in the capital requirement process and their involvement in choosing their banks? method for calculating the capital requirement.

The struggle for the customer has become a priority for the fashion industriesconsidering that it is the customers? willing to shop that guarantees theircontinuous survival on today?s competitive market. To keep the customer happyand satisfied, should be their priority as this leads to an economic advantagesince the customer becomes the companies strongest allay with help of the socalled ?word of mouth? effect. The positive response is then transmitted fromthe customer, acting as a spokes- person for the company.

Problem: Should the european competition law be used as a integrationfriendly tool? Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to analyse wheather europena competition law should be govenrned by the aim of integrating the european market. Method: A traditional swedish law method har been used. Result: My conclusion is that marketintegration in itself should not be the only aim when applying european competition law..

Voltage sag indices are a way of quantifying the performance of the power supply, as far as voltage sags are concerned. Indices can be defined for individual events, for individual sites, and for a whole system. A standard method for single-event methods is part of IEC standard 61000-4-30.This thesis emphasizes the importance of voltage sag indices and different methods for calculating three-phase voltage sag characteristics. Three-phase events measured in a medium network voltage over period of one month were analyzed, results examined and statistically evaluated. An algorithm for calculating voltage sag characteristics and indices was created in Matlab.

Bakgrund: Den finansiella marknaden och dess tjänster har blivit alltmer komplexa under åren. Utbudet av olika produkter som exempelvis olika typer av fonder och aktier har blivit allt större. Det finns idag många olika handelsplattformar för aktier och fonder. Samtidigt som utbudet av komplexa produkter ökar, läggs mer ansvar på individen i exempelvis hantering av premiepension. Det förutsätter att konsumenten är väl informerad och tar rätt beslut.

During consultation procedures between forest owners and the Sámi, data on, e.g., reindeer lichen biomass on the current site is needed. Hitherto, the existing methods of measuring lichen cover and biomass has been either objective methods such as the Point Intercept method, which is time consuming, or some sort of subjective visual estimation, which is faster but less accurate. However, both these methods are sensitive to different observers and/or to different inventories. This paper addresses the further development and evaluation of a photographical inventory method that uses colour distribution in images to estimate lichen biomass. During the autumn of 2011 six different locations, with different grazing pressure and lichen cover, in Norrbotten county were inventoried using both the Point Intercept method and the photographical method, complemented with collection of biomass samples.