Background: The fierce competetivness that characterize todays market force the companies to differentiate their offerings to a greater extent. The customers do no longer choose their supplier on the attributes of the products alone. Their purchase decisions also depend on the relationship the customers have with their supplier. With new customer channels like the Internet and advanced computer systems companies can increase the value for their customers through a better understanding of the customers needs and preferences. In this way companies can create longterm relationships with their customers.

With the globalization, companies in the West chose to shift production to developing countries to cut down costs. This had a major impact when child labor and very poor working conditions in these factories were discovered and led many companies to take responsibility for their suppliers and the employees by adopting voluntary so-called Codes of Conduct.There is a subtle balance to enforce improvement of working conditions for employees at suppliers´ factories and to keep costs down. On the one hand, companies would like to conduct extensive audits at their suppliers to ensure code of conduct compliance and thus protect their legitimacy. On the other hand, audits are expensive so companies would like to minimize audits to keep costs down. Companies thus have to strike a delicate balance in relation to how many and what suppliers they choose to audit.

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate and analyse how the concept of lifelong learning is expressed in political documents concerning public libraries and education and how it can be related to earlier concepts of education within the discourse of public libraries. Focus is the official approach to the concept of lifelong learning and public library. The documents examined contain the political aims for education and culture policy on a national and local level. The theories used in the study concern the background and meaning of the concept of lifelong learning, they describe public libraries and their earlier perspectives of education and they also give a picture of practices of governing within the framework of public libraries. The purpose is to see how the speech in the documents is reflected in discourses of society and public library.

Recent studies made by Margaritis and Psillaki,have shown that a lower debt ratio and higher efficiency are correlated in their studies performed oncompanies in New Zeeland. Other researchers have been able to show a connection between other industries than the one used in our studies,among these are Titman and Wessler. These studies have been done with a great selection of companies in different industries and time periods. However most of these researchers have used traditional ratios and variables.This study aims to find and analyze connections between returns and lower debt ratios in real estate companies listed on the Stockholm stock exchange. Instead of the traditional debt-equity ratio we will construct our own taking long term debts and property assets.

The overriding purpose of this graduate thesis is to evaluate if municipalities and county councils can deviate from the legislation of public procurement during procurement of customer choice agreements within the health and social care area. The intention of this Quasi-market is to provide the users with competition in terms of quality rather then the general principal rule of economic value.My conclusion results in a legal situation without rules of general procedure. So far the authorities make their own regulation in the field of customer choice agreements. The problem lies within the authorization of new contractors and their right to make an appeal against resolutions made by the authorities social care divisions.One solution is to legislate within the present law of public procurement. Another way to solve the problem is to create a lex specialis apart from the present public procurement regulation..

Denna uppsats handlar om hur Shared service (SS) inom den offentliga sektorn kan ses som en del av New Public Management (NPM). SS har beskrivits som ett verktyg för att uppnå de egenskaper som karaktäriserats som NPM, och denna uppsats syftar till att se ifall användandet av Shared Service inom den offentliga sektorn kan ses som en del av New Public Management. Genom en fallstudie på Kammarkollegiets Enhet för Administrativ Service har detta genomförts. Sekundärdata i form av rapporter har studerats samt intervjuer med direktören för Enheten för Administrativ Service Håkan Viberg har genomförts. Analysen visar på att detta fall i hög grad uppfyller kriterierna för NPM och motiven för SS, även om vissa skillnader har kunnat identifieras.

This study aims to investigate development and reasons behind sustainability reporting in large Swedish companies. By examining 15 companies? environmental and sustainability reports between the years 2000 and 2008, data was collected on matters such as frequency, scope and design. Identified trends were to a large extent in line with previous studies on international development; sustainability reporting is growing in several aspects. The authors have found one major reason for this development to be increasing requirements and expectations from stakeholders and a need for companies to legitimize their actions.

During the last years, the moral and ethics in companies has been a growing subject in media. Large multinational companies are to a bigger extent using workforce in developing countries and the working conditions at the workplaces in those countries, are more or less controlled. Even if a company carefully controls its own business, it can be using subcontractors that for instance use child labour or forced labour, or in some other way makes human rights abuses. When the world gets more globalized and the market where the companies act gets bigger, there will be new issues for companies to handle. The companies have to satisfy not only the interests of the costumers and the shareholders, but also the environment around it, containing many different stakeholders.

Sveriges befolkning blir allt äldre och år 2050 beräknas en fjärdedel av befolkningen vara över 65 år. Detta medför ett ökat behov av tillgänglighetsanpassade bostäder som till exempel mellanboende. Samtidigt håller sig Sveriges befolkning friskare och på grund av detta minskar vårdbehovet och efterfrågan av särskilda boenden. Trygghetsboende är en typ av mellanboende. Det är till för människor över 70 år som känner sig i behov av ett tillgängligt utformat boende och kanske känner sig ensamma men som av kommunen inte anses i behov av ett särskilt boende.

Sveriges befolkning blir allt äldre och år 2050 beräknas en fjärdedel av befolkningen vara över 65 år. Detta medför ett ökat behov av tillgänglighetsanpassade bostäder som till exempel mellanboende. Samtidigt håller sig Sveriges befolkning friskare och på grund av detta minskar vårdbehovet och efterfrågan av särskilda boenden. Trygghetsboende är en typ av mellanboende. Det är till för människor över 70 år som känner sig i behov av ett tillgängligt utformat boende och kanske känner sig ensamma men som av kommunen inte anses i behov av ett särskilt boende.

The care for the elderly in the municipalities has recently seen the need for a formalized system for quality assurance. Under increasing demands for monetary efficiency while bound by law to retain acceptable standards in health care, there is need for efficient and at the same time quality-assured management. The municipalities often solve this puzzle by introducing systems and standards influenced by theory-clusters such as NPM (New Public Management), TQM (Total Quality Management) or other quality management theories.This essay focuses on how the public administration in the municipalities defines quality and designs and implements system for formalized quality assurance. Our basic view of organizations is institutionalist and our theoretical framework includes theories about quality, NPM and TQM..

The use of group contribution between consolidated firms is a common phenomenon in Sweden where taxation is not based on the return on the consolidated level but on the return on the individual firms. However, the process of handling the group contribution does not work without problems. This thesis analyzes three main issues where group contributions oppose the Swedish Companies Act. ? The Swedish Companies Act enacts the decision regarding group contributions to be made at a shareholder?s meeting.

Climate change is one of the most difficult problems that humans have to deal with. Today, the evidence of human effects on the climate change and the rise of temperature on earth are strong. It is extremely important that all countries get together and cooperate in order to be able to solve the problem with climate change. One step in the work on climate changes is the Convention on Climate Change, which was agreed on in 1992. The Convention on Climate Change resulted in the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The Kyoto Protocol is an agreement between a number of industrialized countries to limit or reduce the green gas emissions.

Strategic development is something that concerns all companies, regardless of which industry they?re in. There is extensive research on this topic but one can question if the same theory also applies to E-businesses. Using case studies, this paper looks at strategic development in E-businesses and tries to answer whether strategic development in internet based companies is unique or if existing theory can still be applied. The predominant approach is to look into if E-businesses, due to a turbulent environment, rely less on market research and focus more on internal resources than would be expected by companies in more stable environments.

Agile systems development has in recent years become very popular, and many companies today claims to be working agile. At the same time there are studies about agile system development that indicate that there are difficulties in fully adopting the agile way. The purpose of this qualitative study has been to examine how true Swedish IT-companies conduct their agile system development compared to agile theory, and we have specifically for the purpose of the study designed a framework that has been used as an analytical tool. The framework helped us to maintain a structured and objective approach when we examined the participating companies and their practices. The study showed that there were differences regarding how true to agile theory the different companies conducts their agile projects, and that the differences in part depends on how long the companies have been working agile.