Abstract                - ?Mergers and acquisitions ? How does the integration process affect the result in mergers and acquisitions?Date:                              May 31st 2012Level:                             Master thesis in Business administration, 15 ECTSInstitution:                  School of Sustainable Development of Society and Technology, Mälardalen UniversityAuthors:                       Mikael Hansson              15th May 1984                                         Jani Timonen                   12th June 1983Title:                              Mergers and acquisitions ? How does the integration process affect the result in mergers and acquisitionsTutor:                             Staffan BoströmKeywords:                   Mergers, acquisitions, synergies, cultural, competitive advantage, integrating, stakeholder theory and institutional theoryResearch questions:                   How has the integration process affected the outcome of the acquisition of Jokab and what can ABB do differently in future acquisitions?Purpose:                       The purpose of this master thesis is to identify the factors that affect a merger or an acquisition and the factors that make the integration process a success or failure.Method:                       The method used in this study is based on systems theory, this means that reality is explained as objective and completely as possible. The study is qualitative in nature, in which a deeper understanding of the subject mergers and acquisitions wants to be achieved. The study uses an abductive approach and the data used was both from primary and secondary sources.Conclusion:     The result of the study shows that the integration process is influenced by several factors. The most important factors from the acquirer are to have a time schedule, clear communication and a person in charge of the integration process.

AbstractAt a time when the discussion of feminism is hot in the media, in the schools and in the cottages so I have been interested in how feminist worlds order might look like and what are the roads there. There are plenty of barriers in the community, some of them you easily could influence.This essay problematize and define the problems behind the difficulties of reaching a feminist world order, but also the factors that are important to achieve this world order. How colonization that began several hundred years ago spread and secured the patriarchal society and its influence all the way to the society of today. But even more immediate factors, on how we ourselves are involved in shaping our society in terms of where we live, how we educate ourselves, and what jobs we choose. Status symbols in society as economics, profession and political influence are all to be reckoned with when it comes to influencing society.

This thesis explores and compares the former armed opposition groups; Mozambique National Resistance (RENAMO), Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) and South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) transformation processes into political parties. The first question addressed is; What factors determines the ability of these armed opposition groups to transform into political parties after armed conflict? The question is addressed through four structural and organizational factors; international involvement, the organizations ideology and identity, their ability to change inter-elite relationships and their ability to change collective incentive strategies. The second question addressed is if the transformations process can affect the parties? degree of institutionalization? The degree of institutionalization is examined through the party's adaptility, complexity, autonomy and coherence.

There are several competing views on how to best utilize air power. Following his quantitative study of air power, Robert Pape developed a theory which focuses on undermining the target state's military strategy. According to Pape it is possible to explain the outcome as a result of military vulnerability. This essay seeks to determine if Pape's theory can predict the outcome of Operation Unified Protector. By using a mixed methods approach on four hypotheses, it will be determined if the operation was a successful case of coercion, if NATO acted according to Pape's model and whether this achieved the desired effects or not. The results reveal that the theory could not successfully predict the outcome of the conflict.

With this study, our purpose has been to achieve profounded knowledge and understanding regarding the use of discretion among social workers specialized in social allowance issues. The Social Services Act, structured as a framework law in the Swedish context, provides the social worker with a certain degree of discretion, in order to enable accommodated decisions depending on client case specifics. This study problematizes these aspects of legal security, and our intention has been to examine which factors impact the assessments social workers carry out in statutory decisions of social allowance applications. To attain this, we narrowed down our intention into a number of distinct and delimitated research questions: (1) Which elements of the client case impact the social worker?s assessment? (2) Which external aspects influence the social worker?s assessments and decisions? (3) How do social workers decide the client?s credibility? In order to establish answers to our research questions, we have utilized a qualitative approach of research by exerting qualitative interviews in addition to a vignette study.

The response to many on-going or emerging conflicts since the beginning of the 21st century has been different forms of multinational complex peace operations. Civil-military relations are a commonly studied field that traditionally has its focus on nations. This study intends, in the context of organisations, to test the correlation between a civil-military approach and outcome in complex peace operations. A hypothesis has been deduced from researcher Robert Egnell?s theory on complex peace operations, that states that: UN peace operations with an integrated civil-military approach are more successful in achieving their goals than peace operations with a divided approach.

Shopping for groceries often means that, as consumers, we travel to the grocery store ourselves, by ear, bike or on foot. At the store we pick out the groceries that we want, go the register and pay for them. During the last couple of years consumers in Sweden have been given the opportunity to let someone else select and transport the groceries to their home instead, so called home shopping. As this report is being written, the possibility to buy groceries this way is somewhat limited, but many forecasters believe that in the near future it will increase immensely. Because of the large volumes of groceries that are being transported, there is great transport work being done in the supply chain.

The purpose of this study is to investigate university students, studying social work, attitudes against the drug policies, zero tolerance and harm reduction. This was done by quantitative survey utilizing questioners targeting students in semester one to four at Stockholm University, Department of Social Work. The study included 295 students responding to the questioners. The results have been analyzed utilizing theories regarding attitudes and their influence of different social aspects; social influences, social norms and conformity. The result of this study shows that the students prefer the drug policy of harm reduction over zero tolerance.

AbstractThe development of the construction industry is slower compared to other industries. This implies that there must be improvements in this field. One step to increased effectiveness in construction projects is making the construction process more efficient, therefore resulting in a positive result for both the actual construction project and for the overall branch. The purpose of this study is to identify areas for improvement within the municipal housing company Gavlegårdarna completed construction project, who will then contribute to increased efficiency in their upcoming projects. The work has been performed with the help of two case studies examine construction projects "Fullriggaren" and "The three nursing homes." Opinions about what could have improved the efficiency of these construction projects further have been collected with the help of an interview study among some of the project participants involved in both projects.There have been many studies addressing the topic of how the construction process can be streamlined and similar studies that have been previously conducted.

On November 1st 2010 the obligatory audit was removed in Sweden for small companies. What factors influence such companies to have their financial reports audited, and what factors exert the strongest influence. Purpose: The authors would like to investigate factors that affect companies with voluntary audits in Skåne län to continue with the audit. The authors also wish to examine the factors that have the strongest impact on the choice to adopt auditing. Method: A quantitative study has been conducted in which aquestionnaire was sent to companies in Skåne Län Conclusion: The factors that affect smaller companies to continue with audit are as follows: Accounting quality, cost, creditors (loans), suppliers / customers, the tax office and distort competition.

The aim of this study was to illuminate critical factors that facilitate respectively obstruct the novice nurse's development during her first year in the profession. The method used was a systematic literature review according to Goodman's model. The 8 qualitative scientific articles were scrutinized by using a form developed by Pedersen and Sigling (2002). The result shows that cognitive factors, stress, social factors as well as affective factors are critical during the novice nurse's first professional year. The results are related to Antonovsky's concept sense of coherence..

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine the similarities and differences between best practice literature regarding digitization and an existing cultural heritage digitization project. It also aims to determine whether this literature is of any help during an actual project of digitization. These results were achieved by examining literature regarding best practices in digitization and analyzing how well an actual project correlates to this advice. The information about the Digidaily project was obtained through two qualitative interviews as well as the project blog. The outcome of our research showed that although there are a great many similarities between theory and practice, the project in question was not helped by literature.

Female genital mutilation is an ancient custom, practiced mainly in African countries. For several years, Africans has immigrated to Sweden and many of the women are genitally mutilated or circumcised. The aim of this study was to bring some clarity to the attitudes and experiences regarding female genital mutilation among those who are affected. Articles for this literature review were searched for in international databases, and in the university library database. The outcome of this study shows that health care staff is in need of greater knowledge about this custom, in order to be able to handle the situation appropriately.

During the last years, the importance of sourcing in firms has increased. Globalization, fierce competition and an increased level of outsourcing are common explanations to why firms have highlighted the potential to realize savings and the value creation that the Purchasing department can generate. One trend that follows in parallel with globalization is an increased pressure from society on firms to take responsibility for the impact that its products and services have on the environment. This responsibility creates even more attention as outsourcing involves trade with suppliers in low wage countries, where the level of environmental and social responsibility is not always satisfying. The Purchasing department, the firm?s interface with suppliers should therefore, together with the firm?s Environmental department, play a key role in the firm?s contribution towards sustainable development.

This report is based on factors that has had affect on drugaddicts in their decission on quitting their abuse. The questions we have built our report on are: What external factors have had an impact on the drugabuser to end his or her drugabuse? What internal factors have had an impact on the drugabuser to end his or her drugabuse? Does the police have an influence on the drugabuser to end his or her drugabuse? The report is based on intervjues with former drugaddicts. We have also studied the theory of symbolic interactionism and litterature written by different authors to obtain a broad picture of drugabuse. Our results in this report show that the people we have intervjued have been influenced by many different factors and people in their enviroment.