Servicescape is a research area within service management which processes the effect that the environment has on the service experience. The purpose of this essay is to find out how servicescape, with focus on the ?background music?, affects customer behavior in a clothing retail store. Through manipulation of the background music?s tempo the essay aim to explore to what extent this part of the servicescape a) affect the customers approach and avoidance behavior, b) is affected by customers with a hedonic or utilitarian shopping behavior, c) affects pleasure, arousal and dominance perceptions for the customer, and d) how the servicescape is perceived.Key words: Servicescape, approach-avoidance behaviour, pleasure, arousal, dominance, hedonic-utilitarian behaviour..

Problemdiskussion: IT?investeringar är ofta den största investeringen ett företag gör.För ett medelstort företag blir det extra viktigt om att försäkra sigom ett lyckat IT?projekt. Denna uppsats lyfter fram skillnadernamellan vad teoretikerna anser vara en kritisk framgångsfaktor ochvad praktikerna har för syn på dessa.Syfte: Studiens syfte är att designa och utvärdera ett Business Case av enIT?investering för ett medelstort företag. Vi vill skapa en ökadförståelse hur ett Business Case kan utformas för ett SME och vadden bör innehålla för att öka chanserna för att lyckas medprojektet då det idag sker många misslyckanden vidimplementering av affärssystem.Avgränsningar: Ofta innehåller ett Business Case många fler punkter än de vi valtatt behandla.

Problembakgrund: Konfektionshandeln karaktäriseras av omfattande mängder information, vilket riskerar att leda till Informationsöverflöd för beslutsfattare. De potentiellt negativa konsekvenserna ligger i att de beslut som fattas görs på så undermåliga beslutsunderlag att de riskerar att underminera den strategiska styrningen. I strävan efter att fatta snabbare och bättre beslut har utvecklingen och utbredningen av Informationsteknologi(IT) skett, vilket ökat riskerna för Informationsöverflöd i och med att mängderna information som kan förmedlas till beslutsfattare kan ökas betydligt.Syfte: Syftet med studien är att ge ledande beslutsfattare inom konfektionshandeln ett kontextuellt ramverk, för variabler som påverkar informationskvalité, som ligger till grund för företagets strategiska styrning. Ramverket ämnar öka möjligheterna att på ett effektivt sätt utvärdera beslutsunderlag, vilket torde leda till bättre beslut. Vidare syftar studien till att skapa förståelse för vilka implikationer Business Intelligence har medfört för informationskvalité.

The preschool should lay the foundations for lifelong learning in a good educational activity. Preschool curriculum is designed to enhance the quality of the educational activities. To translate the curriculum in business, the importance of early childhood special education knowledge. With regard to the completion of theoretical knowledge requires the ability to translate theory into real action. Professionalism is essential to anchor the curriculum in daily operations.The study's purpose was to investigate preschool teachers' perception of professionalism and how the implementation of the preschool curriculum in their daily business functions.The study was an interview with four pre-school professionals with the spread in age and experience.

A Social Enterprise is a business that features a mixture of characteristics that originates from the third and private sector. A general conception of Social Enterprises is that they aim to improve social welfare by the use of sustainable business models. The mixture of social and business features has created ambiguity about how to define Social Enterprises. The purpose of this study is to clarify Swedish Social Enterprises as a phenomenon and to examine antagonism that arises from mixing the two different sets of organisational characteristics. This is achieved by conducting a qualitative study of ten Swedish companies that the market considers to be Social Enterprises.

To start a company on the Internet is something that has appealed a lot of people during the last couple of years. Some of the companies have succeeded in their struggle but a lot of companies have failed to live out their ambition. This paper deals with the concept of e-commerce and aims to study whether or not the companies that has succeeded has made use of business models and what other factors that is important that you wont find in any written theory.The paper also aims to study the concept of business models and what a business model consists of. To be able to do this research we have interviewed three different companies that are all active in e-commerce and have survived for at least three years. Two of the companies are classical web shops that sell products to their customers and the last one is a site with articles about hardware and IT business in general.

The success of self-service technology in retail grocery stores cannot be ignored, and the fact is that every other grocery store in Sweden has implemented the self-scanning or self-checkout systems. The trend is that the technique is spreading into other markets with potential to increase productivity for companies and enhance the service for customers. Fast fashion is one branch that is left untouched by the development in payment processes, and despite the leading companies extensive focus on fast service, the concept of self-service technology has not yet been tested. This paper undertake a quantitative, experimental approach to the issue and examines the effect self-checkout would have on Fast fashion- customers. By presenting a scenario with and without self- checkout and afterwards asked about the respondents experience, we can provide the marketing world with new insights.

Background: The strategic importance of purchasing departments is increasing, yet supply risks are rather uncharted. The procurement of coffee involves supply risks and the purchaser needs to be able to handle these to enable the roasting-house to produce coffee as specified. Purpose: To chart risks in connection with the procurement of coffee as well as the possibilities of handling these. The thesis also examines if general risk management theories are applicable on the supply risk present within Swedish roasting-houses and can become an integral partof the purchasing process. Method: A qualitative case study of the purchasing process of Swedish roasting- houses.

Today?s farmers are constantly affected by the fluctuating world market prices on grain and thereby the price risk that comes with the price fluctuations. The volatile prices of grain increase the price risk within the business, which in turn affects the profitability of the business. The fluctuating prices together with the increased price risk within the farm business have opened up the market for hedging instruments. In this master thesis project, the aim is to identify the underlying end-values of 30 Swedish farmers? related to their choice of using hedging and the product; forward contract.

During the last decades the local business as well as the multinational organization hasexperienced prominent changes in the technical field. The requirements for reaching newmarkets and achieving higher efficiency in daily work have risen to a whole new level. Totake advantage of the possibilities of IT the user has to be aware of the company?s businessactivities, what shortcomings and chances of development exist today. This is what makes itinteresting to depict the current situation of the company?s business.

The network with its virtual business structure challenge the established vertical business structure. Part of the network theory that has developed focuses on relationships that forms B2Bnetworks. One way to create a B2B-network is for independent businesses to form a organization promoting co-operation. For co-operation to be successful it requires well thought-out actions, but a lack of how these actions are implemented have been noticed. This study explores how encouragement of co-operation can be done practically.

Title: How does the buying decision process really function within e-commerce? - A qualitative study of consumer behavior when they consume on Internet.Institution: School of Economics, Linnaeus University, Va?xjo?.Course code: 2FE16E.Authors: Sara Hja?rne, Mathilda Perem, Ewelina Wallin.Tutor: Dan Halvarsson.Examiner: A?sa Devine.Key words: Buying decision process, purchase decision process need recognition, information search, evaluation, purchase decision, postpurchase behavior, consumer decision making, E-commerce, E- commerce channels, online shopping, online purchase, e-retail, internet shopping, electronic shopping, consumer behavior, online appereal shopping, social media, decision making, online retailing, website design, customer satisfaction, webshopping, perceived risk, convinience, price, online consumption behavior.Background: Buying decision process is a model that marketers use to get a better understanding of their customers and their behavior when purchasing a product. This process consists of five different steps; need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision and evaluation. Buying decision process has for a long time been an accepted model but scientists argue that the introduction of Internet as a channel for consumption has changed this process. The Internet has also led to a change of power in which customers today have greater influence, which greatly affects the buying decision process in e-commercePurpose: The purpose is to explore how consumers perceive their behavior when they consume through e-commerce.Research questions:How do consumers perceive the buying decision process they experience when they consume through e-commerce?How do consumers perceive different factors that are important to them when they consume through e-commerce?Methodology: Qualitative study, cross-sectional design, semi-structured interviews.Conclusion: This thesis shows that the traditional model of the buying decision process is not consistent with consumers' perception of how they are undergoing the process when applied to an e-commerce context.

The purpose of this report was to investigate how the Umeå School of Business and Economics at Umeå university can work to increase the share of courses and programmes that discuss sustainable development. Furthermore the purpose was to develop an action plan that can be used to increase that share. Methods used were a questionnaire directed towards the educators at the Umeå School of Business and Economics and an assessment of the content of courses and programmes connected to the Umeå School of Business and Economics. There was no clear structured way of working with education for sustainable development, but at the same time there was a will to integrate sustainable development in the education. Curricula were according to the educators an important tool to achieve this integration, their experience were that there are not enough time, people and money to work with sustainable development in the education and they would like to see more clear directions from the management.

Title: Interorganizational accounting in close relations ? A case study of the relation between a big purchasing company and two of their most important cooperation partners Course: Master thesis in Business and Administration within Accounting, 30 ECTS Advisor: Gun Abrahamsson Theoretical framework: This thesis uses theories of business relationships, management information systems and interorganizational accounting. Conclusions: Despite a difference in the relations the interorganizational accounting is designed and used in a similar way. The interorganizational accounting that exists in the two relations has a medium scope, fast timeline, high aggregation and high integration. The information is mainly used for attention directing and for decision making.

This study examines how management consulting firms work with business- and functional strategy and how these strategies are interrelated. More specifically we focus on business strategy (business unit level) and knowledge strategy (functional level) and whether these are aligned or not, i.e. whether strategic congruence exists.A number of recent studies have examined the importance of business strategy and knowledge strategy in management consulting firms separately, but few have pointed out the importance of the alignment between them. With this study we contribute to the strategic field of research with a model that describes how management consulting firms should work with their knowledge strategy given their business strategy. The model is developed through a synthesis between theories in the field of strategic congruence, business- and functional strategies and thereafter tested by an empirical case study of six management consulting firms.