Today's consumer society has led to never-ending choices in terms of brands, products and prices in an endless variety of shops. The retail industry is a very complex industry that includes many different types of sales channels and many different types of products. A consequence of this trend is that brand owners today face difficulties in understanding how their products are being evaluated and difficulties in knowing which final cause that make a consumer willing to by their product is hard to figure out. The industry is very diversified, which means that for a company to really understand their position and their role on the market it requires that the company put a lot of effort and also a lot of money in the process of trying to figure it out. We will with this paper try to explain a small piece of that understanding and we hope to get results, which contribute to the further research in this area.

The negative trend of newspapers reading gives the owner of several paper manufacturingcompanies in the West worries. Producers should be more concern to strengthen their marketpositions in order to maintain profitability in the paper mills. Holmen Paper is a medium sizedpaper mill company with all of their production in Europe. Sales are mainly made to printingcompanies operating in European countries. In order to strengthen their economic strengthHolmen Paper needs to increase the market share in markets where they have the greatestprofit margins.

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.

According to recent statistics the construction industry is responsible for the largest waste discharges of both dangerous and non-dangerous waste, when disregarding the "non-dangerous" amount of granite waste produced by the mining industry and the waste produced by the Pulp and paper industry. Preventive work within waste management is an ongoing practice so to be able to reduce negative environmental effects. One of the most common actions for the companies to take is to separate the different kinds of waste from one another at the construction site. Although by working with the problem in earlier stages of the process a large amount of the waste could already have been reduced.Companies in the construction business that are actively working to decrease environmental impact in their operations often use an EMS (Environmental Management System). By using environmental management as method the company can manage their environmental work so that actions can be taken where they are needed the most.

The number of firms adapting the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility is constantly growing. It is no longer enough only to supply your customers with demanded products and services since todays? customers have an increased awareness and are demanding more transparence when it comes to the manufacturing and responsibility for society.Along with a growing interest in social, ethical and environmental matters, many firms have received critique, consequently forcing them to start taking more responsibility for their activities. The clothing industry was among the first to get critized and therefore early in starting their work with CSR.The purpose of this paper is to investigate how firms in the clothing industry work with CSR today, and also how they choose to communicate this work, both internally and externally. The methodology of the paper is qualitative and aims to deeply investigate four different firms, along with an additional interview with a CSR-consult from one of the leading communication-firms in Sweden.The theoretical foundation includes a frame of reference around CSR and the communication thereof, and also a few relevant theories around CSR and business ethics.After analyzing the empirical material the paper have reached a few conclusions.

This thesis analyses the prerequisites, profitability and competitiveness of eucalyptus plantation on the Iberian Peninsula and in Brazil. The thesis has a macro perspective and analyses a typical hectare of eucalyptus in each studied region. A survey methodology was used as a strategy to cover a broad perspective using expert respondents. The regions studied on the Iberian Peninsula were the ones found suitable for eucalyptus plantations from an economic point of view. The studied regions were Huelva in the South West of Spain, Galicia in the North West of Spain and Portugal.

Our purpose in this paper is to examine if there is any profitability for a company with a factory in the timber industry to invest in a combined heat and power, CHP. Based on analysis and the results that the paper generates, we will give Derome AB a suggestion on how it is a profitable investment or not to installing in a CHP.By investing in a CHP plant, you can get a high efficiency, which means that companies can use their resources more effectively. The Swedish wood industry has by-products of production that can be used for combustion in their boiler which is an advantage.The essay is a qualitative study where we have a case company, Derome AB. In this company, we interviewed two employees who have knowledge in the study. They have helped us to provide information and data about their business.We chose to use the pay-off- and the net present value method, NPV, to see if there are profitable advantages for the investment.

The Swedish labour market seems to be more gender equal today than what it has been before. A gender equality intervention as the practice of an equality plan is one of the strategies that have been used in the workplace to achieve equality. This study aims to examine women?s work experiences in purpose to identify gender patterns in working life in a comparison between the trading industry and the academy. Central aspects in this paper concerns opportunities for development, space in the workplace and expectations associated to gender.

A great number of empirical researches show that hedging is associated with higher firm value, particularly hedging interest rate and exchange rate. However, there is no clear support for value-added risk management hypothesis in the case of producers of commodities. Moreover, according to Shrand and Unal (1997), there are two types of risks, core business risks (or core risk) and homogeneous risks (or non core risks), which are based on a firm's comparative advantages with respects to the source of risk. Firm can earn economic profits for bearing core risks in which it has a comparative information advantage. Firm earn a zero economic rents for bearing non-core risks, where it has no advantage information than its competitors.

The purpose of this study was to examine two relatively similar product industries, of which one is successful in its commercialization and the other one is not successful. The two industries observed in this paper are both Swedish industries, and both of them produce slow moving consumer goods for the luxury consumer. The successful industry is represented by the Swedish fashion industry, more precisely The Swedish Fashion Wonder (TSFW) - a term describing the success of a specific coalition of fashion designers from Sweden. The unsuccessful industry is represented by the luxury watch industry in Sweden (LWIS). The method used to examine the two industries' inequalities is based on a qualitative study, consisting of in-depth interviews with industry expertise from both of the industries.

The credit rating industry is a complex and fascinating industry. Its history stretches back more than 150 years and has gradually increased in importance. During its history the dynamics of the industry have changed. The extended-principal-agent model was developed by synthesizing different principal-agent-relationships into one model. This model provides a holistic understanding of the credit rating industry and illustrates the interdependence between the different relationships.

Today, maintenance is a big part of the daily life on board ships. It is also one of the bigger expenses a shipping company has and without any loss of quality tries to run as economically advantageous as possible. In the hunt for economical savings the shore-based industry has subsequently applied the use of condition based maintenance, CBM, were a component is maintained according to its actual state. This leads to a reduction of maintenance costs since no parts are unnecessarily replaced. However, within the maritime sector a periodical maintenance is still the most commonly used maintenance system.The purpose of this paper is to chart the factors that are the reason for the low implementation of CBM on board the Swedish merchant fleet's ships.

Background: The way in which corporate managers interpret, reason and evaluate uncertainties and constant changes, and how they take advantage of their experiences and wisdom can make a big difference for the long term survival of their companies. The requirements for efficiency and flexibility have increased in many ways, especially concerning the workforce needed and its degree of competency. In Sweden, employee recruiting industry has grown concurrently with the changes in the Swedish economy. Purpose: The purpose is to better understand the recruiting industry by performing a theoretical evaluation from a cognitive perspective. Delimitation: We intended to study the cognitive characteristics of the Swedish recruitment industry.

This thesis paper discusses the results of a survey which was conducted to investigate the potential usefulness of mobile apps in the maintenance department at Perstorp Specialty Chemicals AB. The paper contains four sections, a theory section, a method section , a section that explains the functionality of the app, and finally a results section where the results and conclusions of the survey are discussed. The theory section explains and discusses relevant terminology used in the computer science field and in the maintenance industry. The theoretical model used in this paper is also discussed. The methods section gives a stepwise description of the project and a description of platform and software used.

This thesis paper discusses the results of a survey which was conducted to investigate the potential usefulness of mobile apps in the maintenance department at Perstorp Specialty Chemicals AB. The paper contains four sections, a theory section, a method section , a section that explains the functionality of the app, and finally a results section where the results and conclusions of the survey are discussed. The theory section explains and discusses relevant terminology used in the computer science field and in the maintenance industry. The theoretical model used in this paper is also discussed. The methods section gives a stepwise description of the project and a description of platform and software used.