Most of the clothes sold in Europe today are produced in developing countries where the production costs are lower. The exploitation of the developing countries has led to that the inferior working conditions in these countries have attracted attention from media and NGOs. Globalisation makes company activities more transparent and the absence of transnational laws calls for alternative regulations. Many companies in Europe has since mid 1990s developed codes of conduct to satisfy the demands of external and internal stakeholders. EU also brought Corporate Social Responsibility to it?s agenda in the beginning of the 2000s and subsequently signals of approaching laws were given.

AbstractThis study is about describing the pre- internationalization phase and to studycompanies that are in this phase. We are trying to capture characteristics of decisionmakersin the pre- internationalization phase, to then compare the theoretical materialwith empirical material from case companies. Then in the final stages of the thesis, wewant to account for if we managed to answer our research questions. In the method, wegive a description of the approach selected in conjunction with the study. The study isqualitative and we used both primary and secondary data, with a deductive approach.The theory chapter will consider the most relevant theories that are related to the topic,which is internationalization, pre-internationalization, international entrepreneurship,and the psychology behind personalities, attitudes, and how these can affect theorganization's strategic decisions.

The absence of female directors on Swedish corporate boards is currently a hot topic for both politicians and business leaders all over the world. This thesis aims to discuss reasons for the scarcity of women on boards in Swedish publicly listed companies as well as what actions are taken to alter the composition of these boards. A rigorous selection of gender theories have been used together with data collected from in-depth interviews with mainly board members and nomination committees. Extensive analysis has led to findings that historical perceptions of differences between men and women linger as of today, which prevents women to reach top executive levels as well as board positions. The increasing use of headhunters has encouraged companies to look beyond male-dominated networks in an attempt to widen the range of potential board nominees.

The Brussels I-Regulation, often referred to as the Jurisdiction Regulation, is said to be the matrix of the European judicial cooperation system within the area of international private law. The Regulation states how jurisdiction is to be determined in an international dispute. The aim of the Regulation is to ensure that parties in a dispute within the EU have access to justice.The Regulation is considered to be working well in general, and have been since it came in-to force in 2007. Although it is held to be well functioning it does not exclude that some improvements might be needed. The commission ordered a review of the Regulation and the result was that some deficiencies were identified.

As the globalization of companies increases day by day, the need for a clear and comprehensible legislation to overcome the problems with transfer pricing transactions increases as well. Incorrect pricing in transfer pricing situations between companies with close economic ties to each other makes countries risk parts of their taxation income.Swedish legislation uses the internationally accepted arm?s length principle to regulate the transfer pricing transactions. Through the correction rule, the rule is upheld that the pricing between two companies with close economic ties to each other must apply to the same conditions as it would have been if it was between two companies without close economic ties to each other.To ensure that enough material is provided to base the assumption whether or not the correction rule has been followed or not, Swedish legislation provides a number of paragraphs to regulate the matter. The legislation is spread all over and is hard to interpret.

The purpose with this article is to give examples how to remain and in a long run develop a higher interest in maintenance activities and knowledge. First reason is the changed age-distribution with more number of older employees among maintenance personnel staff and second reason is demand for education due the increasing demand in environmental responsibility.In spite of there is a lot of knowledge of maintenance in national organizations of interests it will not be used in a sufficient extent in many companies. This knowledge is an important base to use to re-built the missing or loosed skills in companies. The national organization UTEK is involved in European projects to validate knowledge of maintenance. Lost of or bad maintenance activities will always affect on the environment.Establish a network between companies is a good way to exchange information in their common business areas.

Background: The reasons why this study is conducted is because of the latest recession in the global economy. The current recession has made a lot of companies more aware of its cost, and in order to fit the new harsher economic climate the companies has to be more cost efficient. In order to do so many companies choose to reduce their amount of employees. When this happens in a recession, most of the layoffs are an effect of reactive causes, such as lower incoming orders, and fewer customers. This leads to a problem for the companies that don?t know how these kinds of layoffs will affect the value of the company?s stock.

A sequence of actions in the world have influenced the information science, one of these actions is the lateral movement in how companies use their IT-systems. IT-systems today, in comparison to before, are used by companies to improve their relationship with their customers. Every year a big amount of money is spent on developing and improving IT-systems. That is why it is important to develop and create IT-systems that are clear, and which encourage, enable and simplify a user?s action.

Business across the Internet has increased in recent years and most companies that are selling trips have increased their sales online. Many companies that are selling trips strive for customers to receive and experience a personal service online. The meeting between the client and a webpage service system on the Internet should work. Service encounters are an essential part of the contact between customer and company and play a big part in how the first impression is perceived by the customer. To understand how a service encounter works, meeting face to face, companies need to understand how customers perceive that meeting.

Abstract: The purpose of this thesis is to study the importance of having a website for traditional service companies as well as the factors that might influence its importance. This is done by answering three research questions that all contribute to the answer of the main purpose. A qualitative study has been performed including eight interviews with respondents from eight different service companies presenting four different types of businesses. The empirical findings of the study are analyzed with the help of the theoretical frame of references in order to identify the most interesting conclusions. The results of the thesis state that the main purpose of the website among the studied companies is to rationalize and save costs.

Today there are a number of different financing options but few of them are suitable for start-up companies. Business angels are in that case an exception and a suitable investor in these companies. Business angels are individuals who invest in young companies and differ from other financiers in the sense that the collaboration with the company is closer. Business angels are although few in numbers while the young companies often tend to be in most need of funding and has the greatest potential to grow.The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the cooperation between entrepreneurs and business angels and to identify which effects the financial gap have on these financial associations.Business angels and entrepreneurs collaboration are hard to interpret and therefore demanded a deeper examination. We thus used a qualitative method consisting of six different interviews in three different cases.The study shows that established collaborations between entrepreneurs and business angel?s seem to be affected by the financial gap to a great extent, which has been expressed in negative consequences.

Having a functioning internal communication is necessary for the survival and existence of every company. Traditional communication channels are for example meetings, noteboards and personnel newspapers. During the last ten years we have witnessed an explosion of new channels, who are based on information technology. IT is a natural part in new IT-companies, like Framfab and Icon Medialab, but what role does IT have in a large, manufacturing company with a long history? The purpose with this thesis is to investigate how IT has influenced the internal communication in a company.

The last few decades largeincreases in institutional and foreign ownershipin Swedish listed companies have created a concernthat the traditionalSwedish ownership model are disappearing.With increasing globalizationand ever morecapital-intensive markets, so have great owners forced to admitcapital fuelled institutionaland foreign investors into their companies. By from an agency theoryperspective examine how different ownershiptypes and ownershipconstellations affects the cost ofequity, we want to see if there is reason for concern. Is the change in ownership structure affecting theSwedish listed firms?Our results show that the owneridentity or ownership constellations don?t affect the cost of equity that much.The only owner-identity that shows a significant correlation with the cost ofequity is the institutions and they relate to a lower cost of equity. Theresults show that companies with two controlling shareholders relates to lowercost of equity which can show that ownership structure affects the cost.

The Swedish business cycle is in a strong position at the moment, leading to great results and larger profits. This strong business posture has encouraged companies to increase both their liquidity and revenue. Now there is a dilemma, what actions should or could a respectable business take on these newfound liquid assets.The purpose of this paper is to deliver a clear picture of what options there are for such companies listed on the Swedish stock-market, and how the market wants them to act. To these means we have studied the basic theories linked to this subject and reviewed the cause and effects that motivates them. We have also conducted interviews with the people representing the market through their line of business.In the theory we found several options on what companies in similar situations tend to do.

The aim of our thesis is to study and analyze the components and features a brand should have to provide a solid foundation for brand building. Furthermore, we show how brands can make use of trends in a brand establishment.This paper is written from a qualitative approach. Through both structured and semi structured interviews, we obtained valuable information from our respondents. Our frame of reference and empirical foundation are linked together through an abductive approach which has resulted in our analysis and conclusions.A trend brings with a set of emotional characteristics, which companies can?t influence but must adapt to.