In a time of economic turmoil and financial crisis profitability matters rise higher and higher on company agendas. Many companies are pressured to find profitability to avoid layoffs or even bankruptcy. Profitability essentially depends on the margin on the product or service sold and the costs associated with selling these products or services and hence these areas are of vital importance if companies are to improve profitability. Previous research has focused, for the most part, on product profitability while customer profitability has received less attention. This study is based on a case study of a Swedish publishing house and aims to investigate how the company?s Cost-to-Serve varies between its distribution channels.

Shopping malls have been growing in numbers during the last few decades. As an effect, consumers are increasingly placing a greater amount of their purchases under one roof. The problem is that stores within these malls have to fight for the consumers' attention in competition with all the other stores. Thus, making consumers noticing their store is critical for success. Creating attention through floor advertising could be a potential way of doing so.

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.

A company reconstruction is an alternative procedure, for companies in payment difficulty, to receivership. Those in any kind of relationship with the ailing company ends up in a dif- ficult situation at a company reconstruction, as in any case when someone is in financial difficulties. Not only is there a risk for the providers not to get paid, the costumers are also at risk if the reconstruction company does not fulfil their agreement. These kinds of rela- tionships are controlled by a contractual relationship. Therefore the regulation has to con- tain how to deal with these contracts when the ailing company no longer can fulfil its obli- gations of the contract.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine what part and importance electronic games play in the life of girls, how the girls use electronic games and what the girls think and say about their use of electronic games. We also intend to examine what girls have to say about electronic games at the public library. Our attempt is to illuminate and bring knowledge to those who work within the library with the selection, purchase and conveyance of electronic games. Method used in the survey is focusgroup-interviews with girls in the age between 12-14 years in three different schools. The findings are related to four different perspectives, theory of child development, from a gender perspective, theories of understanding how young people use computer games and theories to understand the purpose of public libraries.

Abstract The topic of this essay is to show why I regard the non fiction novel as a problematic genre and to compare two popular and famous swedish non fiction novels; Legionärerna (1968) by Per Olov Enquist and Gömda (1995) by Maria Eriksson and Liza Marklund.I start with giving a short introduction to modern genre theory and to non fiction novels as a genre. I also discuss different definitions of non fiction novels by, for example, Rolf Yrlid and Lars-Olof Franzén. Then I discuss Enquist?s Legionärerna and the critics? reception of it. I am also doing the same with Eriksson?s and Marklund?s Gömda before I compare these two novels with each other. My conclusion is that Legionärerna and Gömda have a lot in common although there are some differences.

The difference between the public sector and the private sector in Sweden was once very small. These sectors have been united as well for the people, the organizations as for the finances. During the 1960´s and 1970´s the public sector in Sweden was expanding and after the 1980´s the people started talking more about an expanding private sector instead. The year of 2007 Hökarängen Hemtjänst Ekonomisk Förening submitted a tender to Äldreförvaltningen about a purchase of the home- help service in Hökarängen and they accept there tender.Exposing public organization for competition can be a good way to make sure that most value for the money is created and that it generates the most cost- effective organizations. The motivation factor is used to describewhat makes people perform more than what is expected of them.The purpose of this study is to describe and explain similarities and differences in working- motivation between those how are members of Hökarängen Hemtjänst Ekonomisk Förening and those how are not.

To purchase a house or an apartment is often one of the major personal financial commitments for a person. In 2005, 84% of the homeowners sold their homes using a estate agency. During 2006 several new opportunities appeared on the market, giving the homeowners more of a choice in what way to sell their homes. Media describes the alternatives in general ?as the agents on the Internet?.

This master?s thesis investigates in which ways students seek out and access their textbooks and how they use their university?s library in this process. Data is collected through interviews from six students several semesters into their studies at the University of Stockholm. For the interviews two students each were selected from the fields of law, economics and humanities. The empirical findings were analyzed using T.D Wilson?s model of information behavior (1997).

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the relationship between the socially constructed genders is manifested in American library science. To visualize gender, bibliometric analyses of peer reviewed articles published in three core journals of library science between 1980 and 2000 inclusive, are performed. The three journals are: College and Research Libraries, Journal of Academic Librarianship and Library Quarterly. Questions: 1. Does gender affect the publishing process regarding the distribution of female and male authors? 2.

Sweden is dependent on secure sea transport. Shorter disruption of imports of fuel and crude oil can be managed with an emergency stock, but a prolonged halt in imports creates problems. For industry, the vulnerability is greater. Fragmented production chains in combination with expenditure reductions in inventory causes a dependency on proper transport of intermediate goods in the manufacturing industry. A lengthy disruption thus involves disruption of production for both domestic consumption and for export goods containing imported parts.In order to secure shipping routes with a limited number of vessels, Mine Counter Measures (MCM) capacity is required, and according to the Armed Forces, developed with new sensors and autonomous vehicles.

The point of departure for this thesis was an article written by Christer Hermansson (2008). He thinks that librarians, following the development of Library 2.0 and the change of public libraries, have strayed away from what he believes should be the focus of the library: Literature. The aim of this thesis is to study how librarians in six Swedish libraries perceive their occupational roles. How does the increased user control, which is seen as part of Library 2.0, affect the tasks of libraries and librarians? The material used in this study was acquired using a qualitative interview technique in which six librarians working in public libraries with experience of IT, mediation and purchase of literature partook.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine how the build-up of customer relations can be characterized at the end of the industrial selling process and how companies engage their cross-functional selling teams into this relationship building effort. Through a case study of Omega, a multinational company engaged in the selling of products of an industrial character, it was revealed that the build-up and maintaining of the customer relationship is of acute importance, as it presents the company with a window of opportunities. Through its relationship with the customer the company can be able to sell other products, which are related to the original purchase made by the customer. For the company?s competitors the established relationship might also serve as a barrier when attempting to enter the market or increase market share.

A large part of the agricultural products that are sold in Sweden are imported because Sweden cannot meet the consumers agriculture products demand all year around. One problem that can occur and become problematic when trading across boarders is if there are errors in the delivered agricultural products. What must the Swedish buyer do, for example, make for it to be considered complained fault in the goods against the seller? Another problem in international trade is that the buyer may need to apply complaint rules they have not previously been in contact with since their domestic law is not always applicable to the contract. To avoid getting into this situation, the buyer should try to negotiate with the seller that the contracting parties shall use compensation claim rules that the buyer is familiar with, or which is even more advantageous than to the seller.

In hydropower plants it is necessary to always have local power supply. Therefore, the plants are equipped with batteries as stationary back up power. Vattenfall Vattenkraft is using lead acid batteries but has been investigating alternatives to replace them. The aim of this study is to investigate the potential of using Li-ion technology as back up power.The study showed that Li-ion batteries have many qualities. The Li-ion technology will decrease the space and maintenance demand.