The purpose of this study is to examine which factors played an important role in the food price crisis of 2007-2008. Theories used are Microeconomic theory, explaining changes in supply and demand, and Macroeconomic theory, explaining the impact of changes in exchange rate on prices. A theory regarding speculation is also used to explain the impact of speculative activities effects on price. The method used is multiple regression analysis in order to determine the effects which ethanol production, oil price and dollar exchange rate had on the surge in the price of corn, rice and wheat.The data used is in monthly observations during the period 2005-2008. However, other factors are taken into consideration during the study, such as production quantity, stock size, economic growth, speculative activity and population growth.

Business valuation is something that has been more general and discussion around this subject is very common. The discussions often revolve the various principles and procedures that a business appraiser can apply when a valuation of a business should be done. When there are different evaluation methods there are also resulting in an assumption that there are not so easy to create a complete objective business value. The individual evaluator choice of method will determine the result of the business value. The global world for each business has been more uncertain and turbulent/changeable which have tended to exacerbate the work for the evaluator to determine a business value.

This report is a market research for the company 4 Body and Mind, a start-upcompany that works with personal training online. They wanted to know if themarket for elderly care could be interesting for them to enter. This report is hence aresearch of the market for health and welfare technology in elderly care within thepublic sector in Sweden. A general fact is that the world's population is getting older.This combined with rapid growth of individuals in the age 65+ changes the demandson the elderly care in Sweden?s municipalities.

Cloud computing is a new buzzword within the IT-industry, and introduces a whole new way of working with IT. The technique delivers web based services, which results in that the user no longer needs to install an application locally on a computer. Since the application no longer needs to run on a local entity, but in a datacenter located on a service provider, the users no longer need any specific hardware more than a computer with an internet connection. Cloud computing also offers IT-infrastructure and development environments as services, these three service types is better known as cloud services. Through the usage of different types of cloud services, the need for maintenance and hardware is significantly reduced.

This thesis has been made in cooperation with Forsheda Stålverktyg AB which develops and manufactures injection moulds and diecasting tools. The main concern has been their Trading-system which provides them with considerable amount of quality lost function.Focus has to however be put on the analysis of the Trading-system due to the fact that this has previously meant various quality issues for the company.This thesis treats quality assurance of the Trading-system, identification of the problems in the process and improvements of these problems.Quality assurance is carried out when a company detects that their quality based costs become too high. Quality based cost are? the costs that would disappear if a company's products and its different operational processes were absolute? (Sörqvist, 2001 p.30, free translation from Swedish). High quality based costs often result in increased quality problems, which can lead to substantial economic loss for the company.This work has resulted in a thorough review of the Trading-system whereupon problems have been identified.

The aim of this study is to study how sustainability policies are implemented and perceived in the operations of a Swedish fashion company. The fashion industry is affected by strict controls when it comes to transparency and reporting of sustainability efforts. This contributes to a strong focus on sustainability. The theoretical framework revolved around institutional theory where the phenomenas of decoupling and recoupling were central. A qualitative case study was conducted where interviews were the primary source of data.

It is important that organizations today focus on continuous improvements in order to face the growing competition in the world. A company needs a corporate culture that supports and encourages the employees to be creative and innovative in their work. This is necessary for the company if they are striving towards continuous learning and development within their organization.The main purpose of this paper is to investigate how the culture differences between Sweden and China affect Sandvik AB. We will also study how the company manages continuous improvements and what consequences culture differences have on their work.Our paper is a single case study at Sandvik AB in Sweden and China. We have visited Sandvik in Sandviken to conduct a series of interviews with employees of different position within the company and with dissimilar work tasks.

Textilindustrin står inför stora utmaningar när det kommer till forskning, utveckling ochproduktion på ett miljöanpassat och socialt ansvarsfullt sätt. Ökat miljömedvetetande hoskonsumenten har lett till ökat intresse och möjlighet för företaget att arbeta mot ett hållbartföretagande.Examensarbetet är skrivet som en del av kandidatexamen i textilingenjörsprogrammet föruppdragsföretaget BlåKläder AB och utfördes för att även kunna fungera som ett underlag förandra företag i avsikt med att påbörja/utveckla sitt arbete med socialt ansvarstagande.I arbetet presenteras miljöpåverkan av en arbetsbyxa i bomull från råväv till distribuering.Fyra miljöbelastande kategorier har tagits med i undersökningen, där mängden av kemikalie,vatten- och energiåtgång samt koldioxidutsläpp räknades ut per arbetsbyxa av minimumorder. Sammanställning av resultat visar att det används 2,5 kg kemikalier, 10,3 liter vatten,756 Wh energi och det släpps ut 0,4 kg kodoxid vid tillverkning av en arbetsbyxa.Rapporten behandlar och beskriver produktion av en rå bomullsväv medflamskyddsbehandling. Processflödet för hela behandlingsförloppet analyseras i arbetet därbåde kemikalier, energi- och vattenåtgång tas upp vid varje delprocess. Koldioxidutsläppanalyseras som en särskild del av rapporten och omfattar de direkta utsläppen av tung lastbiloch fraktfärja.

Game fields are one way to divert animals away from sensitive areas, create shelter and forage, and also to increase the biological diversity. In this study I investigated how the plant composition in six different crop mixes used for game fields affected the biomass production, biomass consumption and biological diversity at the Koberg estate in southwestern Sweden. Six experimental fields were used and each field contained six plots, approximately 1500 m2 each, that was sown with a different crop mix. The crop mixes ranged from a pure grass mix (A), 70 % grass and 30 % leguminous plants (B), 53 % grass, 21 % leguminous plants and 26 % other herbs (C), 100 % leguminous plants (D) to the most complex mixes constituting of 91 % leguminous plants and 9 % other herbs (E) and 87 % leguminous plants and 13 % other herbs (F). The fields were cut weekly during the summer in 2010, to estimate weekly biomass production.

The everyday work at a staffing agency and how its leaders deal with the problems that appears: A case study at Maxkompetens.The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of how leaders at a staffing company deal with the everyday problems that arise from a geographically dispersed workforce.The staffing industry has grown by 30-40 percent annually and has over the past 15 years been the fastest growing industry in Sweden. This shows that the interest and demand for the staffing industry and its activities are now rising at an increasingly faster pace. This is an industry that is operating under specific conditions and with a geographically dispersed workforce. This will make the leaders of a staffing company to an important link between the staffing leaders and the staffing personnel.The relationship between the staffing company's leaders and its personnel is important, but not completely trouble free. Difficulties arise in that the employees may be located in different places and at various client companies with the result that the leaders of the staffing company cannot have a daily personal contact with their geographically dispersed personnel.We have used a qualitative approach on our paper and our empirical methodology has been a case study with ethnography and interviews.

This literature review examines different forages which are well suited for suckle cow production in Sweden today. They should also be possible to cultivate in Sweden under the current circumstances. Crops suitable for grazing in Swedish climate but not used in Sweden today, but which may be relevant for Swedish conditions are also mentioned. In Sweden today, mainly grass silage, straw and hay are used as forage, but also wholecrop silage is used to some extent. However, concentrates are not used to a greater extent, since it contains too much energy.

The Swedish Textile industry has since the beginning of the 70-ties moved their production to countries with cheap labour further and further away. The production in the Baltic countries and Asia has become reality for many Swedish manufacturing companies. With today?s technology the communication with remote countries has ceased to be a problem. The difficulties have instead turned out to be more focused on transportation of goods and just in time deliveries to Sweden.

Generally in Macedonia keeping farm records and farm business planning is not often practiced like an ordinary activity in farming. Therefore one of the crucial things to do it is to comprise and continuously practice record keeping of farm data. The efficient and justified farm business planning should be based on farm records about the previous work of the farm, which will bring a structured approach for planning all the activities, as well as provide a good basis for attracting investors and creditors for the additional expansion of the business.Given that sheep breeding holds an important part of the livestock production in Macedonia, there is a need for adding analytical sheep enterprise budgets to support the farm business planning process at sheep farms.The aim of this research was to develop sheep enterprise budgets created on the best production practice for Macedonian conditions of breeding and test their applicability into the farm business plan model Agriwise Macedonia. The sheep budgets were composed with a process of data collecting consisted of direct farm data (for the cases), expert's consultation and relevant desk research, as well as a literature study. The aim of doing it was to attain more accurate calculations of the enterprise budgets, which will result in a more precise outcome in the farm business plan model Agriwise Macedonia.

Biogas is a renewable fuel that can be extracted from anaerobic digestion of many differentsubstrates, for example biological household waste. An alternative handling of the waste is tomix it with other wastes and incinerate it in a combined heat and power (CHP) plant. Thisstudy uses life cycle assessment to investigate which type of waste handling that is betterfrom an environmental point of view, anaerobic digestion with biogas production orincineration. The results are based on a case study of a biogas production plant owned by thecompany Ragn-Sells in Vänersborg. The alternative is incineration at a CHP plant inGothenburg.

AbstractPurpose:The purpose of the study is to describe the internationalization process of one firm when in a country culturally diverse from the firm?s original market.Methodology/approach:The study is a single case study which examines one firm?s internationalization process when entering the Chinese market. The approach has been an empiric interaction between empirical and theoretical data.Findings:The theory of the Uppsala model was applied to the case-company to test the model?s completeness. The authors found weaknesses and added three more aspects to the model.