The theory that concepts that are interpreted subjectively in building care creates problems in how the concepts are defined in practice within the current governing documents and guidelines for building care. This essay has studied concepts in the building maintenance literature to investigate whether there is consensus in compliance practice within the building process. In the study, 9 concepts have been investigated through conversational interviews and questionnaires answered by practitioners with extensive experience in building care processes. In the survey, an attempt is made, to measure how big or small the consensus is between practitioners who often need to collaborate within the building maintenance process. The investigation shows that existence of the concepts in building maintenance is very common in the theoretical literature examined but is almost completely absent in the craft area. Since laws, regulations, principles, and guidelines have defined concepts to support the decisions in the building maintenance process, it can be concluded that there is a lack of practice for compliance.

The topic of our thesis is Packaging Design as a Brand Building Tool and we are presenting the Scandinavian perspective. We found the topic interesting because, from a theoretical point of view, we identified a scarcity in research focusing on packaging design as a brand management tool, and from a practical point of view, we found out that businesses use packaging design at different levels in their communication efforts. Thus we wanted to provide both academia and business world with a clear picture to what extent and how businesses use packaging design in their brand-building process. Therefore the aim of our thesis is to provide practitioners and academicians alike with a better understanding of how packaging design can be used to create strong brands in the FMCG sector in the Scandinavian market. To reach the stated aim first we provided a solid theoretical background of packaging, its elements and its role in the marketing mix.

The aim of this paper was to describe hindering and facilitating factors in the transition from upper secondary school and employment for a person with Asperger?s syndrome. In the process we used general systems theory and made semi-structured interviews with five persons in the network of institutions and associations working with the individual. Our findings showed that the hindering and facilitating factors were basically the same depending of the environmental adjustments. The interviews highlighted the following factors: the recent general unemployment rate in Sweden, selfawareness of the individual and the surrounding environment?s knowledge of the individual?s impairment in relation to Asperger?s syndrome.

The use of balanced scorecards have spread explosively throughout the world during the last decade. This management tool have become very common in a vide spread variety of organisations on all continents. Many balanced scorecard fails though and scorecard theorists often blame the identification- and implementation process as they claim that these lay the foundation for the use of the tool. As my literature study shows, academic research on the area is rare. Particularly the effect on the implementation process from organisational dynamics and organisational structures needs further research.

A description and analysis of the sales process of ERP systems is presented; also the consequences for the parties involved are discussed. The chosen methodological basis is an inductive research design consisting of a case study based on interviews. The analysis of the empirical data is done with a proposed analytical framework. Based on the agency theory, the analysis is tightly knitted together with opportunism. There are three controlling factors: relationships (relationship marketing), contracts (principal-agent theory), and competition.

Background: The increasing globalization of business and research has led to an increased demand for international meetings. This is a market that a number of countries wish to access and the competition is fierce to get the chance to host major conferences. Stockholm has a pronounced good position in the international meeting market and this essay will examine what it takes to be a successful meeting destination for international congresses.Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine the fundamental factors that must be met for a meeting destination to be successful in the international market for conventions.Question at issue: How can a city develop into a more attractive meeting destination for international congresses?Method: Persons with key positions in the Stockholm meeting industry have been approached by qualitative interviews by the authors.Theory: As a theoretical framework the authors used the value of the physical meeting, generally on the congresses, the planning process for site selection for the meeting, the meeting platform and image.Conclusion: The authors' findings are based on the empirical material gathered during the study interviews. The results from these interviews show the importance of facilities and hotels, availability, and the image..

This study is about assessment, in particular formative assessment also called assessment for learning. The purpose of this study is to investigate Swedish and South African primary school teachers? views and ideas about this didactic tool. The motives for this investigation are based on the fact that correct used formative assessment supports pupils? learning process and the fact that there are few researches made about this subject in Sweden.

Volvo Penta has been producing boat engines since 1907 and are world leading in this seg­ment. They have today an extended range and also sell industrial power stations. Quality, safe­ty and environmental care are three core values for Volvo and together they strive to give their customers the right product with the right quality.Volvo has developed a production system named Volvo Production System, VPS, and one of the pillars is continuous improvements. Within this pillar you can find value stream map­ping, which is used to analyze the value stream through the process. This tool gives a wide perspective and helps to keep focus on the entire process instead of just parts of it.Volvo Penta in Vara has earlier done value stream mapping but without good results since they didn?t take set-up times and imbalances in account.

AbstractThe dynamic environment means that organizations always faces new challenges. There are various factors which could affect the process of change thus the purpose of this investigation is to research into the key values of organizational changes. We have done an in-depth research about a planned and ongoing process of change in the organization HEM. The aim is to investigate how knowledge and learning are spread among the staff in the company before and during changes. Also further investigation has been made to study the communication between management and employees through the changes. This report includes seven individuals with different working positions within the organization.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how theoretical investment appraisal techniques are applied in an investment driven company, regarding investments in fixed assets. The aim is also to investigate on what grounds the choices of techniques are justified, and what consequences these choices have on the overall investment appraisal. The study is designed as a case study of Divisionen, a production unit of a market leading company in Sweden, which is kept anonymous in this thesis. The empirical data consists of interviews with company employees and internal documents, including decision support for seven approved investment projects. The interviewees were chosen based on their role in the investment decision making process.

This major project in Building Engineering has its focus on inquiring into what methods has been used in the planning process of the residential buildingLjusbojen 1. This project has been conducted in cooperation with Kadesjös Ingenjörsbyrå AB, an engineering contractor firm which also acts as the property developer. Initially several different general methods for planning residential buildings have been presented. After the methods from the process of building Ljusbojen 1 has been analyzed compared to the general methods presented in part 1. This shows what the determining factors are during the planning process; factors such as cost, quality, time management, know-how and environmental issues.

The thesis aims to increase our understanding about parents reasoning about the elementary school choice by studying which factors parents perceive as important during the decision making process and also by giving meaning to Pierre Bourdieu?s concept of capital through the parents perspective. The empirical material comes from seven BNIM-interviews made with parents, which has been analyzed according to the thematic field analysis.The results show that the parents are not especially concerned about making an active school choice. Stability, closeness, friends, rumors, development and adaptability to the reality are the factors that are perceived as the most important in the decision making process. The school choice has a limited meaning as an investment in social capital, from Bourdieu?s perspective.

Because of among other things the globalization and a focus on core competencies knowledge has become very important for the companies of today, especially for research-intensive companies. The problem is that the companies become more sensitive to how knowledge is created and spread, that is, how organizational knowledge is created. Especially sensitive are companies who are small, young and research-intensive. The purpose with this thesis is to explore how organizational knowledge is created in small, young and research intensive companies.The theory is based on a five-phase model of organizational knowledge creation and four modes of knowledge conversion described by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995). These concepts constitute the foundation of the analytical model used in the thesis.The study is carried out by qualitative, highly structured interviews with low standardization.

Organisations tend to focus more and more on product and process development to increase their competitiveness. Several major organisations, among them ABB, have developed models aimed to more effectively control and manage product development processes. ABB is using its standardised model ABB Gate Model for this. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how the introduction of ABB Gate Model has affected the outcome of decisions and also the decision-making in the product development process. The study is limited to elucidate the version of ABB Gate Model handling product development projects.

This study is made for Södra skog and is concerning how to minimize soil damage from planning to plantation. The purpose of the study is from the respondent?s perspectives; their own ideas and approaches. What emerged from the interviews is that the communication between the different organization levels can be improved. It is also important to prevent damage on the soil and to have in mind that the process of planning tracks to plantation continues for a long time and because of that, the soil condition meanwhile will change..