The need of raw material does of course fluctuate but the long term view is an increasing demand due to the growing consumption of sawn timber products, pulp, paper and lately also biomass. This has led to a keener competition for wood. At the same time there is an ongoing structural change of a significant part in the Swedish wood supply market, the private forest owners. In 1992, 22 % of Sweden´s 335 000 private forest owner lived apart from their forest. In 2007 this figure had risen to 36 %.

AbstractArtists ? the invisible assets; a qualitative study about the view on music rights and artist brands as intangible assets within music companies.This paper is a study of what view representatives from Swedish music companies have on activating music rights and artist brands as intangible assets. Throughout the paper, a discussion is held regarding what the representatives think about activating these intangible assets. From this, we have identified and analyzed possible pros and cons to such activation.Our interest to this question was brought to us when we realized that most music companies in Sweden have intangible assets without activating them. This is, even though these are their main source of income.

Private equity bolag som skapar värde genom leveraged buyout har under de senaste åren fått ökad konkurrens inom den process vilken syftar till att finna attraktiva investeringar som kan generera avkastning enligt uppsatta avkastningskrav. Processen som karaktäriseras av informationsasymmetri och kallas för deal sourcing har därmed blivit ett svårare moment för dagens private equity bolag. Denna empiriska fallstudie undersöker hur svenska private equity bolag inom kategorin leveraged buyout i praktiken arbetar med deal sourcing och vilka drivkrafter som processen utformas efter i syfte att finna potentiella investeringar. Detta undersöks i ljuset av den akademiska forskning som tidigare gjorts på området. Studien utgår ifrån tio intervjuer med företagsrepresentanter vilka har insyn i och är delaktiga i processen med att finna bolag.

Private equity-investeringar innebär kapitalsatsningar i onoterade företag med ett aktivt och tidsbegränsat ägarengagemang. Detta kan indelas beroende på tidpunkten och kapitalbehovet för investeringen och benämns: affärsänglar, venture capital och buyout. Det finns en allmän uppfattning att dessa bolag agerar som affärspirater, vilka suger ut tillgångarna i företag för att sedan sälja av det utan att tänka på konsekvenserna. Det finns en ovetskap om vad som egentligen tillför värde och på vilket sätt detta sker. På uppdrag av Svenska Riskkapitalföreningen skrivs därför denna uppsats.

There are two main reasons for why companies engage in sponsoring and Event Marketing; affecting the brand awareness and/or the image of the brand. Historically the main focus within the research field has been on how sponsoring and Event Marketing can create and achieve high brand awareness. More research regarding the image transfer from event to brand has been requested and this study is to be considered as an attempt to begin filling this gap. Today we see more and more brands choosing to arrange their own events; hoping to attain a more direct connection between the event and the brand. This trend raises questions such as - Do brands arranging their own events receive more image transfer from event to brand compared to brands sponsoring the same kind of event? - Are there any differences between an established well-known brand and a new unknown brand? - Will an event fully owned by a brand attract more or less people than an event arranged by someone considered to be less biased? These are some of the questions asked and answered within this thesis.

This thesis describes and examines a new line of business, CleanTech. CleanTech comprises a wide range of different types of companies and is not yet well defined. In this thesis only the Swedish market is considered, and a variety of players on the market are included to give the most extensive picture of the current situation. Recent research shows that a gap has arisen between governmental financing and private equity-investments in CleanTech-companies. This gap occurs mainly in companies in expansive phases and causes problems both for the companies and for the line of business as a whole. To investigate this gap the Swedish CleanTech-business is described in terms of earlier and existing financing, age and size of the companies and their turnover and profit.

Denna studie underso?ker huruvida Private Equity-bolag lyckas skapa besta?ende operationellt va?rde i fo?rva?rvade portfo?ljbolag. Studien beaktar ma?tt som reflekterar utvecklingen fo?r olika intressentgrupper i syfte att a?ska?dliggo?ra Private Equity-bolagens sammantagna bidrag till va?rdeskapande. Underso?kningen a?r av kvantitativ karakta?r och a?r baserad pa? ett urval av 19 svenska bolag som under a?ren 1999-2008 fo?rva?rvats och avyttrats av ett Private Equity-bolag.

Abstract: The fashion industry is perhaps the most unpredictable one where change occurs very rapidly. In order to be attractive and interesting in this competitive industry, a brand must constantly be up to date and differentiated from other brands to attract the consumers. This has given rise to an increasing growth of brands that cooperate for marketing reasons and more specifically, clothing retailers that perform designer collaborations with exclusive designers to create limited collections.Studies describing the effects of those collaborations on the retailers brands are rare and especially from a consumer perspective. Since H&M has been a pioneer in designer collaborations and has done it more times and for more years than any other retailer we have conducted our study on their case. Our intention was to investigate how the designer collaborations have affected the brand equity and image of H&M, if the collaborations have increased the willingness to pay for H&M's other ranges and if they have affected H&M's ability to extend its brand to higher price segments, through an experimental study.

The value of a good reputation for organizations is increasing today as consumers and citizens become more aware of brands. If a crisis hits an organization, there is now more to lose than before concerning reputation. Therefore the organization?s communication strategies must be developed to sustain the organization?s reputation during and after a crisis.In the field of crisis communication there are two distinguished theories which concern what an organization with help from crisis communication should do to undergo a crisis without losing its reputation. These theories are image repair theory and situational crisis communication theory (SCCT).

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study how important brand belonging can be for sport clubs.Method: The method for the empirical research is based on qualitative interviews. The data then gets compared and connected with relevant brand and marketing theories.Findings: The paper finds out the perks and disadvantages the researched clubs gain from the strong brand names they hold, and further discussion for development based on theory is being made..

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.

AbstractSince the Act Regarding Support and Service to Certain Functionally Handicapped Persons (LSS) were introduced in 1994, social care and service have increased inSweden(SFS 1993:387). The implementation of the act has caused many changes and also progress within the social care system. One main change is the division between public (provided by the municipalities) and private care providers. This division has led to many questions about how leadership is organized within different public and private organizations.The purpose of this study is to investigate differences between leader?s experiences of their role and working conditions within private and public assistance care for disabled.

Title: Argument in favour of and against private health care ? A scenario for a future health care with a possibly new Government Authors: Jessica Andersson, Nina Gunnarsson Supervisor: Thomas Danborg Department: School of Management, Blekinge Institute of Technology Course: Bachelor?s thesis in Business Administration, 10 credits Purpose: To describe the problem with privatizing of the health care by analyse the arguments in favour of and against private health care and describe a scenario about a future health care with a possibly new Government. Method: Qualitative Grounded theory method, categorizing secondary facts in order to get the complete picture. Results: The market for private health care will increase by a possibly new Government.

Product placement isn´t a new concept, matter of fact it has existed for almost hundred years. On the other hand to use TV-series as a marketing channel for product placement is a present vogue for brands and companies to reach the right target audience. Through product placement in TV-series companies are available to get away with the problem that people zapping commercials. Our purpose with the thesis is to have increased comprehension about TV-series as a channel for product placement considering effect against different target audience, products and brands. For this study we applied a qualitative approach and did six depth interviews with different people to gain several viewpoints.

This paper considers the Swedish regulations of purchase taking the perspective of private persons as a starting point. The law of purchase from the year 1990 is applicable on a number of legal purchase situations where the contracting parties varies. Nevertheless, the law is mainly focused on the purchase between businessmen. This places private persons on level with businessmen, since they are given equal responsibility regarding legal knowledge and the drawing up of contracts. In order to get a deeper knowledge of the law of purchase and to reach an understanding of how it should be interpreted we have studied the government bill on the law, cases from the Supreme Court, doctine on the area and legal articles. The purpose with this paper is to examine whether the law of purchase from the year 1990 is too old to be applicable on private purchases today.