The purpose with this master thesis is to analyze how the Swedish County Administrative Board (Länsstyrelsen) acts in an environment that changes fast with more regional actors than ever before. There are also proposals regarding new public authorities and eventually a reduction of the Swedish County Administrative Board.By studying a report issued by the Board in December 2005 the aim is to find their intentions and actions for the future. By using three diverse theoretical concepts - the public organisation, the instrumental perspective and two separate perspectives from new institutionalism - the expectation is that I will have the possibility to analyze the intentions of the organisation in many different ways.In this case study I also want to take into consideration the central discourses in the regional debate, shall we decentralize or shall we keep on having a strong state even in the future? What kind of regional policy does the Swedish County Administrative Board prefer?The result shows that the Swedish County Administrative Board struggles for a strong state even in the future, but it does not propose any huge changes. In many ways it seems like they act as they are supposed to - as an instrument for the government - but despite that it is obvious that the Swedish County Administrative Board tries to show that it has the traditions and knowledge.

Derome Skog AB is a purchase company whose main task is to provide Derome Timber's sawmills in Halland with timber raw material. Because of the very hard competition in the roundwood market it is important to know what kind of purchase offers are required in order to buy a valuable product from forest owners.This study aims to elucidate the crucial factors when private forest owners choose to harvest and sell their forest. As base for this study, a questionnaire has been performed with private forest owners. The result of the study shows that it is not particularly often that the timber price is the crucial factor why the forest owners choose to harvest and sell the forest products; i.e. timber, pulpwood as well as energy assortments.

The technological development and increasing popularity for integrated multichannel solutions constitutes both severe opportunities and challenges for todays' and tomorrows' retailers. On the account of consumers leaving traces when using digital channels and the technological development enabling retailers to use this information to create relevant offers, goal-congruity is relevant to apply in the multichannel shopping context. Based upon previous research on goal congruity and channel integration, our main purpose in this study is to increase the understanding for how congruity in an offer increases the intention to redeem the offer. Several studies focus on and contrast the product characteristics hedonic and utilitarian. However, it has been stated that it is crucial that research also examines the difference in target audience, buying situation and as examined in this study: buying decision process.

Event marketing's ability to create strong communication effects is a well-known fact and a contributing factor to its popularity in the world of marketing today. But while we know that it is the interaction between consumers and the brand within the scope of live marketing that gives rise to loyalty and purchase intention, we have no knowledge in how the company's efforts affect the outcome. As the investments in event marketing are growing at a comparatively high pace, it is urgent to obtain a deeper understanding and a sense of direction of the elements infuencing its success.In this study we investigate in what way and to what extent the amount of effort that a company puts into the making of an event is used as a signal of manufactor credibility, ability (i.e., expertise) and consumer care. And in what way and to what extent the perceived effort influence purchase intent, attitude and word-of-mouth. We also analyze marketing events in terms of the theory of equitable exchange and "desperation", a subject matter thus far only touched upon.As we identify two different types of events on the market today, we include both in our study: the in-store promotion related event and the party event, which is held in an external venue.

Campaign websites are a growing Internet based type of advertising, dependent upon the advertisement being actively pursued by consumers. The popularity of campaign websites stands in sharp contrast to the increasing advertising boredom among consumers often discussed in both public media and academic contexts. Despite the increasing importance of this kind of communication, little academic research has been conducted on the subject. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the value of campaign websites for advertisers and consumers. Through a quantitative web based field study combined with an exhaustive qualitative study, we can draw conclusions concerning campaign websites and contribute with a theoretical framework for this type of advertising.

This report was written as a final thesis within the Department of forest economics at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences as a completion of the M.SC Forestry programme. The aim of this study was to create a model that, with respect to given stock levels, temperature, fuel usage and fuel price, would identify the optimal levels for purchase of bio fuels, optimal levels of incineration of bio fuels and the sum of the present values of all costs. The model would be applicable for a larger district heating plant. Data regarding temperature were received from SMHI. Information considering fuel prices was taken from the Swedish Forest Agency and the facts about fuel usage were collected from a large district heating plant, located in the southwest of Sweden. For the temperature, a sinus curve was adapted to describe the temperature over a year.

Title: Point of Purchase TV-screens - An analysis of Gender and Generations in the In-store-Retail-EnvironmentDate of Seminar: May 29th 2007 Course: BUS 809, Master Thesis in International Marketing and Brand Management.Authors: Søren Berg Jørgensen, Daniel McCartney and Ben Wallenborn.Supervisors: Karin Alm and Ulf Johansson Keywords: In-store Marketing, Point-of-Purchase, In-store TV, Gender, Generations. Thesis Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to contribute to a greater understanding as to how consumers react to and perceive PoP TV-screens within the in-store retail environment. More specific, the aim of the study is to investigate if gender and generations react and feel differently towards the use of PoP TV-screens. From a practical standpoint, the study will aid marketers in how they can communicate more effectively with their target-market inside the store. In addition to this, the study will provide retailers with an insight into the overall atmospheric effect that the placement of TV screens has on stores.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to accomplish an understanding for how librarians purchase fiction literature in public libraries. To answer these questions, we have performed four qualitative interviews with librarians in three Swedish municipalities. We have also performed a smaller document study to give us an overview of the used guidelines at the selected libraries. The results of our survey have been analyzed on the basis of our revised version of Sanna Talja?s model The Interpretative Repertoires of the Music Library.

This research examines the effects of creative store window displays of fashion brands in enhancing recall, attitudes, intentions and brand associations. A comparison has been made between high-end and low-end brands, creative versus non creative store window displays to identify differences in effects. The theory applied in this study has been used from creative advertising effects due to the lack of relevant research in store window display effects. Therefore this study is a contribution to the research of store window effects. The method used in this study compare fashion high-end brand with fashion low-end brand by placing the products in the store window display where the creativity has been manipulated.

This essay analyses the act of reading August Strindberg?s novel En dåres försvarstal (A Madman?s defence). It reveals the writer?s motif and purpose with the text and it shows how a certain interpretation of the text is crucial for the writer?s intentions to become reality. But it also shows how this interpretation is threaten by several, both intertextual and extratextual, thematically and structural, factors.

This master thesis focuses mainly on the concept of quality and how the librarians responsible for phonogram purchase use it. The main object is to investigate how the librarians responsible for the purchasing of phonogram works when in the process of selecting the phonograms and how they speak about the concept of quality. Based on this main object four problems has been addressed. The empirical material is interviews made with the seven librarians responsible for phonogram purchase at seven Swedish libraries. The result of this investigation is analyzed based on a theoretical framework created by Sanna Talja, which focuses on what a phonogram collection should contain.

Previous research analyzing information and communication effects regarding high-involvement purchases has so far concerned communication length and the use of salient attributes. Studies investigating the effects of communication on a word-level is however limited. For a high-involvement purchase like an apartment the need for information is vital in the customers purchase decision. The main purpose of this study is to investigate whether the communication in the prospectus varies based on sales success. The study connects research in information search, high-involvement purchases, communication length and information vividness.

The purpose of this essay was to study the implementation of a policy document, which concerns questions of integration, in a municipality with an indirect government. I have especially focused on issues regarding how civil servants describe the usage of a specific policy document and to what extent their autonomy and the indirect government have had an impact on implementation, and to what extent signals from surrounding institutions have had an impact on the creation of the policy document. The study was based on qualitative interviews in groups, pairs and with single individuals with twenty-seven civil servants and politicians working with issues concerning the specific policy document.One of the conclusions of my study is that the reason for producing the document in the first place is that the municipality as an organization strives to acquire a sense of legitimacy. The intentions of the document have only partly been implemented by the civil servants and politicians, since the document is not used in their daily work. Here, their autonomy has played an important part, as the choice to not use the document is the servants' own.

Advertisers of today are facing a great challenge in a landscape where it becomes even more difficult to break through the clutter and convince consumers to buy their products. In order to succeed, they need to come up with new ways of communicating with their customers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate if micro-blogging could be considered an effective media choice in order to enhance the perception of brand associations and traditional communication effects. The subject is of interest as brands are putting increasingly more resources into this communication channel. However, at the current date the marketing effects of micro-blogging is unexplored in academic research.

The aim of this study is to examine the language, used in parts of The day care report of 1968 (?1968 års Barnstugeutredning?). The day care report of 1968 was a public investigation appointed by the cabinet intended to prepare new policies on the part of the Swedish state.  I focus on the change, which can be assumed to have occurred, when replacing the names ?day care? (?dagis/daghem?) and ?kindergarten? (?lekskola?) with the name ?preschool? (?förskola?).