Background: The Swedish retail trading company KappAhl has reorganized all the boutiques in Sweden. Before the reorganization many of the boutiques consisted of four levels: shop manager, assistant shop manager, department managers and regular personel. After the reorganization assistant shop managers and department managers have been replaced by a so called ?responsibility group? consisting of some of the employees. The change is presented as a decentralisation.

Background: A debated subject in today?s society is CEO compensation. Companies which give the CEO compensation mean that it motivates them to maximize the company?s return. The compensations are based on various types of variables, such as financial measures and financial ratio.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the major swedish banks look upon and promote student profitability as well as long-term relationships within the student segment from a CRM point of view. The study incorporates a qualitative course of action with an abductive research approach which has been carried out by conducting personal and telephone interviews with representatives from three out of the four major swedish banks Nordea, Swedbank and Handelsbanken. Our research finds that the banks appear to regard their relationships with students as long-term investments, but that they simultaneously seem to lack distinctive, clear and procreative strategies for securing these relationships. Furthermore, the development of profitability within the student segment is considered an informal process that does not necessarily need to be computed through the use of quantitative estimates. Also, educational variables does not influence the banks as they segment their customer base and the student-centred offerings within the banking industry is to be deemed as being standardized rather than differentiated..

This paper examines the impact of the congruence between the background music and the brand image on the customer behaviour in retail store. The essay's hypotheses are built after the famous S-O-R-model that unveils if congruence background music affects the customers' emotions, brand image and response. The aim of the study is mainly to answer if the congruent background music stimuli in the retail store environment will affect the customer's emotions and if it will increase spent time and money. The congruent background music has been selected through two pre-studies based on consumers' brand image. A quantitative study has been conducted where triangulation was applied in a real store environment, where in total 201 surveys was collected for the main study.

This thesis studies the customer relationships and customer accounting methods used by a Swedish fashion company. The aim is to test the empirical applicability of the relationship based framework developed by Lind and Strömsten and to explain potential differences between empirical observations and theory. The framework is based on the categorization of four customer relationship groups and the appropriate customer accounting methods to be used for each relationship. The fashion company, that recently assessed the profitability of its customer base in an aim to implement a new customer strategy, is the object of the qualitative case study. The case study reveals that all customer relationships are to be found at Whyred, except the connective customer relationship.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of capital structure in Swedish small and medium sized firms. The study includes 24.859 Swedish firms which are further analyzed with regards to their financial characteristics. These characteristics consist of short term debt, long term debt and total leverage. The study compares the relationship between these characteristics and six independent variables.The result shows that profitability is the greatest determinant for capital structure in Swedish small and medium sized firms with regards to total leverage. When profitability increases the total leverage of the firm decreases.

Background: It is today common for companies to provide some sort of incentive for CEO's and senior management positions to motivate, retain and benefit employees within a company. This is in order to drive the goals of the CEO and management in the direction that is desired by the owner. Currently, the Swedish centre-right government has forbidden the use of such variable pay within state-owned companies. There are two different attitudes to variable pay, one that is in favour and one that rejects it. However most people agree on the fact that a well-functioning incentive scheme can be of great strategic importance for a company.Approach: has variable pay to CEO's had any effect on the company's profitability.Aim: the aim of the study is to compare companies who use variable pay to CEO's with companies that do not in relation to their profitability in terms of profit margins, yearly performance, returns on total capital and returns on equity.Method: the study uses a quantitative approach.

The purpose of this study is to investigate a loyalty card and its relation to accompanying promotional benefits, and their linkages to grocery retail service loyalty. Also, the aim sets out to find relationships between demographic variables and proneness towards the promotional benefits, the loyalty card, and loyalty. A quantitative approach has been assumed and empirical data has been collected through the use of questionnaires. The data has been analyzed through descriptive statistics, correlations, and regression analysis. An operationalization used to measure satisfaction of the loyalty card and attitudinal loyalty is also presented.

Logistics planning for a construction site is usually limited by traffic flow to and from the workplace. The geographical location of the construction site is determined by roads around the workplace and opportunities for well-functioning logistics. Inventory of material is often impossible because of the frequently small workspaces. As a result, a concern relating material handling remains . Even before the establishment of a construction site, it is required in the construction industry to eliminate errors that might arise in the planning stage.

In order for companies to be competetive on the market, there?s a need of capital. If a company is in a need of capital to make major investments and isn?t able to prioritize internal funding, the priority will be external financing with safe securities; loans. How companies should prioritize the allocation between equity and debt, which together form value, leads us to the subject of capital structure.

This essay highlights the Swedish retail companies? engagement in ethics and environment issues as a part of the business concept. The Customer is today more aware about what is going on in the world than ever before. Two of the main reasons are the Internet and the globalization. In relation to the customer being more aware about the situation in the world today, the demand for products which have been produced in consideration of ethical and environmental values has increased.

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.

To be able to protect themselves from credit risk, the banks must constantly check the performance of  the companies they have lent money to. There are many mathematical models for predicting financial distress. These models use accounting-based ratios, which often are historical and not representative for the present situation. This study describes how the banks do in practice to find signals of insolvency in time and the variables they are observing for doing that.In addition to financial reports which the company sends in to the bank at least once a year, also the relationship between them and information from different information  agencies are of great importance to track  signals of insolvency. Poor profitability is the primary cause of insolvency.

Mountain holding in the 21st century ? difficulties and possibilities This study examines the difficulties and possibilities that mountain holding farmers have today. The following questions were considered: i) Who is cultivating mountain holdings today? ii) Which is the most important reason to keep animals there? iii) What kind of subsidies are most common? iv) What kinds of animals and what breeds are the most common? v) For how long period of time are the animals kept at the mountain holdings every season? vi) How are the fundamental regulations in the animal welfare law being followed, and are there any problems/conflicts in keeping animals at the mountain holdings? vii) What meaning do the animals have for the farmers and what are the farmer?s thoughts about the future? A survey based on these issues was sent out to 107 mountain holdings farmers with animals on grazing land, where 59 % submitted a response. The results showed that knowledge on how to keep animals at the mountain holdings was overall good.

AbstractThis bachelor?s thesis at the Department of Production Engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm deals with the subject of automated metrology. The degree of automation of tasks within production has been a growing trend but the measurement of quality has not followed the same trend. The main thesis follows:What incentives are there to automate the measurement of quality in production?What factors are crucial and why are not all metrology automated?The thesis comes along with a number of sub-queries and delimitations.The working method includes both theoretical and empirical studies.