It today's global world we live in the media have started to examine businesses more and more. In addition consumers are expecting more from products, because they are well informed. This means that companies need to market themselves effectively, to convince and get across their message to their customers. Marketing is an extensive process in which different factors must be taken into account. A company must know what the coustomer needs in order to get through to them.

This Master thesis has been carried out at Scania CV AB in Södertälje, in collaboration withKTH, The Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. The focus of this Master thesis isSetBased Concurrent Engineering(SBCE), with the purpose of answering the questions: what isSBCE, how does it work, and for what purposes is it applied.It was early established thatSBCE is often included as a part of Lean product development,which in its turn is often related to Toyota?s way of working. TheSBCE method includesworking with multiple solutions in parallel, eliminating weak alternatives throughout thewhole process. In opposite to a conventional product development process, where it iscommon one at an early stage tries to identify and choose the most promising alternative.Despite the appearance ofSBCE as a resource consuming method, figures from Toyotaindicates the opposite, thatSBCE is in fact a very effective way of working compared to othermore traditional methods.The process of this Master thesis was divided into three phases.

Title: Market Communication in transformation Authors: Gabriella Holm and Christoffer LarssonPurpose/Aim: The purpose of this paper is to examine how market communication at PR-firms in Sweden has changed over the first decade of the 21-century. In 2007 social media expanded on the Swedish market. This had implications for the way we are looking at communication and therefore also the PR business and how they are operating. The aim with this paper is to see how social media have affected marketing communication at PR-firms.Methodology: This paper is based on case studies from Swedish PR-firms. We used five cases from 2003-2005 and five from 2010-2012.

This master of science thesis intends to examine how the established innovation theoriesinteracts with the social and cultural phenomena arising from the reduction in communicationcosts as a result of the development of the internet.The aim is to present a knowledge inventory of attitudes to and experiences of an openapproach, with emphasis on collaborative innovation, in product and service developmentdriven companies in different fields. The studied theories and the empirical results forms thebasis for an analysis of how companies can benefit from the diversified knowledge that existsoutside their borders as well as an exploration of the potential for this kind of knowledgeexchange to act as a catalyst for innovation.The theoretical part of the study is based essentially on two tracks: (1) innovation theories witha focus onopen innovation and user innovation, and (2) a broad review of how theories ofdiversified knowledgeand collective intelligence has become possible to apply in an innovationcontext. The empirical part of the study is based on material obtained from semi-structuredinterviews with respondents from six companies.The results show that companies have implemented unstructured innovation initiatives withoutany formal links to the structured product development processes, which are part of thecompanies core activities. The main conclusions include the following insights: There is a needfor structured links between the unstructured initiatives and the core activities, which makes itpossible to take promising ideas to market. The companies also have to lose some control of theunstructured initiatives; consequently it is impossible to pinpoint what the outcome will be.

AbstractThe aim of my study has been to investigate which expectations students at The Hotel and Restaurant Programme have for their futue working life and labour market. I want to investigate if these expectations are important factors that female dominance is large within the meal service sector. I have chosen to do qualitative interviews to discover these expectations.Some explanations that the respondent give for the gender differences within the restaurant and meal service sectors are the old tradition of male and female work. Furthermore the possibility of becoming well known within the market and the possibility for personal development in this market are described as important factors.The answers to my questions show that all respondents are positive to future work markets; also they all want to work within the restaurant sector and not in the meal service sector. The reasons for their choice cannot give a complete explanation to why female dominance is so big within the meal service sector.Keywords: Gender, status and celebrity-hood..

Bactiguard is a Swedish company within the field of medichal technology. The company has been very prosperous since it was founded in 2005 and was electedÅrets MedTechföretag 2008 ?MedTech Company of the year 2008. According to a definition by NUTEK, Bactiguard is still considered a minor company ? despite high market value and international expansion.

Banks are an important institution for the economy of a society. During the later years the world of banking has changed. Several new actors have entered the market and taken over traditional bankservices as well as new ones. The way of conducting banking has changed with the event of new technology. One of the banks customer segments, the students have also been under a change.

The grain market is facing substantial changes. Tradionally, cereal has been a supply-led market i.e. supply conditions have had a major impact on price level or indirectly, through market interventions implemented through the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP). Just a few years ago, Sweden and the EU were not affected so strongly by world market prices for cereals. EU was a surplus-area and to a substantial degree a local market.

Quality is the key to a well executed product or service. The construction industry hasn?t highlighted the quality in recent times which have contributed to the construction industry receiving much criticism in the field. The public sees it as an offhanded industry where errors and delays are common.The reason for this is considered to be primarily the lack of time, constant pressure to reduce costs and skills and the ability to communicate between the parties about what the correct quality really means. The industry has begun to realize that it must start setting clearer standards and that there are great opportunities for improvement.This report will give Peab an opportunity to develop their quality work.

Purpose: The purpose of this study has been to identify different actors and processes in music recording. We find this interesting since there have been a lot of changes in the music industry over the last years. Our ambition has been to point out different actors and their roles during the advent of recorded music, and identify different features and processes in the creation of music today and in the future. To fulfill our purpose we have had the following research question: What characterize, in a future perspective, the gathered process during the creation of recorded music from idea to delivery and experience?Method: We have used a qualitative approach for this study and we have conducted seven interviews with persons from different areas of the Music Industry and radio.

Computer programs must give a technical effect that goes beyond"normal physical interaction"to be considered to belong to a technical field. The invention shall be be susceptible of industrial application, which means that it should be possible to reproduce or use in any other industrial way. The reqirement that the invention shall be new means that the technique must not be previously known because of patents, published articles, etc. That an invention shall be a contribution to the state of the art in a technical field means that the invention shall not be obvious to invent for a person skilled in the art. Patents do effect the innovation among the inventers, but in most industries most inventions would be invented independent if there was a patent system or not.

Background: Since the early 60?s, the CAPM or Capital Asset Pricing Model, has been an invaluable tool for assessing an asset's expected return, assuming that the asset is added to an already well-diversified portfolio of assets. CAPM theory assume that the unsystematic risk can be diversified and that the systematic, market-specific, risk is determined by the Beta value, from the Greek ?. An investor who takes big risks expect higher returns.One of the CAPM?s basic assumptions is that disruption in the market is not taken into account.

The aim of this paper is to examine the youth library PUNKTmedis' work methods to adapt itself to the youth. Improved communication with this user group is the starting point for the new work methods. We have chosen to view the increased cooperation between the library and the youth as an adjustment to market demands. We have noticed the possible existence of an antagonism between on the one hand the traditional role of the public library of adult education and on the other hand an adjustment to the market demands. Adult education and the adjustment to market demands is seen as contributing to the image of PUNKTmedis.

There is much literature covering strategic change under different circumstances but very little concerning how companies act strategically under sudden and radical changes to market conditions. Based on three different events (the terrorist attack in the USA September 11th 2001, the Tjernobyl accident April 26th 1986 and the Islamic revolution in Iran 1979) with such radical changes as a result we chose three companies that were affected (SAS, Asea Atom and Atlas Copco). The result of the events that were studied in this thesis is extremely unusual to their character. The events themselves were sudden and of a temporary nature but the results were long term changes of market conditions. Through personal interviews the authors have tried to establish how the companies have perceived the events and how the top management has strategically handled the situation.

Question:"Does the market possess perfect information as the efficient market hypothesis says?""Is there any significant relationship between the abnormal stock return on the ex ? day and the dividend?" Purpose: The purpose of this study is to enlighten and find understanding about stock return versus dividend on the ex ? day and try to figure out if abnormal returns occur on the portfolio during dividends.Methodology:The study was based in a quantitative nature and was derived with an event study and a hypothesis testing. The authors investigated the thirty most traded shares on the Stockholm stock exchange during a period of five years (2005 ? 2009). They were analyzed during a total of nine days; the estimation window was set to sixty days.