For innovative organizations and companies it is essential to use existing knowledge to avoid spending time and resources on already existing innovations. By using patent information, companies are able to get a picture of what is already done in their area of interest. The main purpose of the study is to examine the information use in small and medium-sized enterprises that are members of the Swedish Inventor?s Association, focusing on patent information. The study examines the use of patent information and which barriers the companies have to patent information.

This essay deals with the topic options costs and whether such costs would arise for smaller companies now when they have the opportunity to choose not to have an auditor. Small companies are defined as companies that fulfill at least two of the following three criteria?s: less than 1,5 million SEK in balance sheet, less than three employees and turnover less than 3 million SEK. The decision regarding internal revision does not only affect the company itself but also other parties such as the taxation authority, banks and others that can be influenced by the decision. This essays main focus is on the influenced parties, especially the taxation authority and the banks as these have been highlighted in debates in media and because the small companies themselves may have difficulties to foresee the consequences of the new changes. The opinions from accounting companies will be considered in the essay as they can be considered as experts regarding the different aspect within this area.

The purpose of this study is to give a picture of the current status for the recruitment to forest machine operator educations in Sweden, how many the educators are and the outcome of this activity. The three at present different types of education are upper secondary school, polytechnic school and vocational school. The method used for the survey is telephone interviews, pre-broadcast issues were discussed and the responses were recorded. The results are then compiled and presented in linear form. The conclusions one can draw is that education is desirable and important. To get young people interested in forest machine operator education it is very important that the forest industry continues to develop attractive employment..

Introduction: The auditor's going-concern warnings express the quality assurance of information and if these are wrongly based, the stakeholders become deluded. Previous research has shown that auditors do not have any major difficulties in identifying companies that are financially distressed to the extent that they risk receiving a going-concern warning. International studies on the determinants of going-concern warnings have instead focused primarily on the auditor's decision regarding companies that are already in bad shape financially. Auditor grounds for issuing a going concern warning may be linked to factors related to the client, the auditor, the audit firm, the relationship between the client and the auditor and the environment. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to find out what specific factors that affect the auditor issuing going concern warnings for financially distressed companies.

Intercropping involving trees is called agroforestry and makes it possible to get higher production for every area unit. The trees can function as food, fodder, fuel, medicine; prevent mark erosion and much more. Agroforestry can also be combined with animal husbandry. The aim of this study was to document the animal production systems used by rural small-scale farmers maintaining ruminants and using agroforestry in the northern province of Rwanda. The farmers using agroforestry is expected to have higher milk yield than average due to homegrown protein. The method used during the study was semi-structural interviews with booth open and closed questions. In order to get in contact with farmers that matched the criteria; small-scaled rural farmers with ruminants and using agroforestry, the ?Vi Agroforestry Programme? (Vi-Life) in Kigali were contacted and the staff worked as supervisors, translators and contact with the farmers throughout the study. During the study nine individual farmers, two cooperatives breeding sheep and one group interview were conducted.

This thesis is about informal seatings, those which are planned to merge into the city core environment and to supply a flexible public space. The thesis discusses how a diverse range of elements could result in different functions and social meanings. These are illustrated with visual examples and conceptual drawings. The position of the seating in a small public place is important, as well as its location in the city. Furthermore, the detail design of the seating, such as the form and dimensions have to be considered in order to create an informal seating appropriate for the user. This leads to the broad scope of this thesis which deals with the small scale - how the seatings can create a good environment in a small place; and the big scale - how a site can influence the city. This thesis suggests the physical design of some informal seatings and also investigates how these seatings can strengthen the place through their function and how they relate to their surroundings.

This master thesis aims to investigate and quantify the potential associated with increasing the usage of edible by-products as food for human consumption on the Swedish market. The main emphasis is on the Swedish production of offal and the obstacles that currently inhibit greater usage of these products as foods.The results indicate that the Swedish market for offal is limited. Only a small amount of the edible by-products that are produced in Sweden every year are consumed as foods and a considerable amount seem to be downgraded into animal feed or thrown away. The utilization of these products is restricted by economical, technical, legal, and cultural factors that all need to be taken into consideration. On the whole, large-scale slaughter plants seem to be more inclined to utilize these products effectively, as the profit from doing so increases proportionately to the produced volumes.

Tourism has been an expanding market since the first travel agency started in the middle of the 18?Th century, and today it is a global industry, with intensified competition and high demands from the customers. Product development is therefore one of the most important aspects for successful companies, and scientists also agree that the first stages in product development are the most critical. This essay is focusing on those stages, regarding product development on travel agencies, and the research question is as follows: How are new tourism destinations developed and what is the difference in working process between small and big travel agencies? The empirical research consists of qualitative semi-structured interviews with two big and two small travel agencies.

The aim of this thesis is to develop a new business model for district heating and cooling firms which can contribute to a stabilization of the Swedish national energy system. The business model is developed for a district heating and cooling firm and is exemplified with Fortum Heat. The theoretical investigation around the topic creates a rigid base for following qualitative empirical studies. Osterwalder?s canvas for business model generation is used together with a Casual Loop Diagram to identify a number of business opportunities which stabilizes the national energy system.

The past and ongoing structural change in Swedish agriculture has led to an increasing number of large-scale farms. The biological factors associated with large-scale farming operations may cause increasing variability, risk and reduced yields due to sub-optimal timing and management of field operations. The theory of economies of scale suggests that largescale production may benefit from lower costs due to scale efficiencies. Thus, large-scale farms may face cost reductions in terms of long term inputs factors, e.g. agricultural machinery.

In recent years there have been major changes in the accounting field and the question of what is fair and accurate reporting is always a relevant issue. Defining the concept of true and fair view and to find an accurate synonym is difficult, still it may be considered that there is an implied meaning of the concept in the business of accounting. In 2004 BFN started the development of K2, a simplified regulatory framework for small companies. The purpose of K2 is to facilitate the accounting and reduce the administrative burden for these companies. In Sweden, 95 percent of all companies belong to the category of small companies and are allowed to use the new and simplified regulations, K2.

The purpose of the study is to examine and analyze the relation between the existence of global companies and given support to immigrant- owned companies with large cultural difference from public services. This helps answering the question "Which affect does the existence of local dominating companies have on the establishment of small companies owned by immigrants with large cultural differences?" This has been accomplished through a field study containing twelve interviews with small companies in two different cities and two interviews with the community officials in each city. The research was thereby narrowed to only treat the two cities in Sweden in order to examine the relation between public services support to small immigrant-owned companies and how the immigrants experience the support from them. The analyze was made due to a handful of theories such as the The network theory IP model, Hofstede's 4+1 model and the Product Life Cycle.

This paper aims to investigate whether a small organization with small development teams can find a value in leaving a functioning development process to follow a formal systems development methodology, if these organizations can find support in an agile systems development method and in such case the method needs to be adjusted according to the organizations unique conditions.A traditional plan-driven system development methodology includes a number of phases that are carried out sequentially and a completed phase can basically not be resumed. All requirements are specified at the beginning of a project and at the end of the project only one delivery of software take place. This can cause difficulties in for example dealing with changing requirements. Agile system development methods intend to deal with changing requirements and to enable continuous delivery of valuable, working software.In this paper, both the traditional plan-driven methods and agile methods will be explained. Research methodology and existing system development theories will be discussed and a company where the study has been conducted will be presented.

I design a service building for the climbingcompany Klättertorpet.Klättertorpet is a small company that is situated outside Lysekil.Klättertorpet o!ers courses in climbing and campingsite."e new building will include kitchen, room for socialmeetings,gym, a small shop and safety lockers. "e starting point revolvesaround how to capture the companys values and philosophyin the design. "e purpose was to add value to the companythrough the design and for myself to get more experience ofworking with a client. During the project questions developedin to how to work with the hole lifecycle of the inertial in mindand how to make the place attractive to climbers. I worked withmodels, moodboards and sculptures to explore the form.

Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration,Mid Sweden University in ÖstersundSpring term 2008Title: Abolishment of statutory audit ? a qualitative research on banks attitude when credit rating small businessesAuthor: Rima Harouki, Carina HoffmannSupervisor: Anna-Maria JanssonBackground & problem: In Sweden the statutory audit has been mandatory for every corporation since 1983. With the membership in European Union it became possible to allow exception from statutory audit for small businesses, according to the fourth commission of EG. Today, in the European Union, there are few countries that still have statutory audit for smaller businesses, Sweden is one of them. There are discussions about whether Sweden should follow the trend of abolishment and an analysis management by the justice of the Supreme Court Bo Svensson was recently presented, which ended in the conclusion that statutory audit ought to be abolished.