Background: Nespresso is a part of the Nestlé group and was founded in 1986, in the liaison of the revolutionary new method of brewing coffee. The idea was that everyone should be able to brew themselves a cup of espresso that would taste as if a professional barista had done it. Nespresso has now turned in to a new coffee culture. From the beginning Nespresso only sold their products via their club, Nespresso Club, but in year 2000 they opened their first store in Paris. The first store in Sweden opened year 2006 in Stockholm, followed by one in Malmö year 2012.

Title: Competition for small audit firms ? a qualitative study on possible competitive strategies and how the upcoming changes will influence competition on the audit market    Subject: Auditing Tutor: Margareta Paulsson  Authors: Per Dahlström and Martin Holmberg Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop an understanding how smaller auditing firms use competitive strategies and why. The result aims to work as a support for owners and leaders of audit firms as they make decisions of how to compete in the future. We would also like to explore how smaller audit firms view the change of the mandatory audit, that is, our intentions are also to examine how they think the consequences on the market will be and their view on its affect on the competition of the market.    Methodology: Our methodological approach was characterized by a hermeneutic approach in order to explain and understand why the smaller audit firms do what they do. Our approach is a combination of inductive and deductive as it allows us to develop an understanding of the subject, then gather our empirical data and from that draw valid conclusions.

Year 1996 a new law was introduced in Sweden, the law of corporate restructuring, what purpose was to help companies in financial distress. Now, nine years later the procedure hasn?t been successful. This is what this thesis is trying to find out.This thesis main question is: What distinguishes the companies that have filed for a corporate restructuring, according to the financial position?The purpose of this thesis is to find out if key ratios can be used to distinguish the companies that filed for corporate restructuring.

This study aims to describe how a company behind a well-established brand in the fashion industry has strategically chosen to communicate with their target market. Interviews with four individuals in different positions within the company have generated qualitative data, which is presented and analyzed in relation to the theoretical frame of reference in this study. The results show that the company does not use conventional marketing, but relies rather on marketing based word-of-mouth generated by its customer base due to its unique store concepts. Previous research has shown that this type of marketing strategy is effective and beneficial to the brand equity, a conclusion that is demonstrated to also apply to the survey object of this study. Furthermore, it is also shown that this is largely due to the distinct and coordinated image that the company maintains through strict standardization..

Goal: To describe which evaluation method is used by Swedish retailers to assess a potential retail location and to describe to what extent the retail brand effects this strategic decision. Design: Analysis of ten interviews with companies within five retail sectors in Sweden. Main study: Indication of what methods are used to evaluate a location and how a company's retail brand affects the decision. Results: Retailers use a mix of theoretical methods to evaluate the location attributes and possible profit. Most common among mixtures was an application of the analog method, residual method or the checklist method in combination with a financial assessment.

 The aim of this essay is to examine if the Swedish Major labels are moving towards making their catalogue available on different platforms rather than their traditional distribution of music. The new technology has really stirred things up for the major labels and file-sharing has been a problem for a long time. The labels have a history of fighting new formats instead of embracing them and listen to what their consumers actually want. We have found that the majors now are in the leading edge of music distribution due to technology and that is a first. We have focused this essay on if the consumption of music has changed the distribution of it or the other way around and found that people have changed their ways of consuming music over the years and the labels have always been forced to adapt.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate whether accounting quality is a priced factor by investors. The event studied is the release of year-end result and the release of the annual report. To assess accounting quality a sample of 30 companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange during 2003 to 2007 are studied. We assess accounting quality by the absolute size of discretionary accruals using the modified Jones model developed by Dechow et al. (1995).

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to examine whether companies listed at Nasdaq OMX Stockholm (Stockholmsbörsen) sanctioned by the legal unit Nasdaq OMX Disciplinary Committee (Disciplinnämnden), could be distinguished from the remaining companies that have not been sanctioned. As Stockholmsbörsen is the most influential unit when trading shares in Sweden, listed companies need to behave in legal aspects. Actions and decisions that affect investors do also influence the listed companies and their performance. Some companies might be tempted to manipulate financial statements and public information to retain stakeholders; other miss to report properly without being fraudulent. To control this, the legal unit Disciplinnämden is introduced.

This paper studies the fragmentation and reuse of early christian monuments ("eskilstunakistor") in churches in Östergötland during the medieval period. This is found to have been done in two stages. The first stage shows a collectivization of society. Within religion the change from ancestoral cult towards the saints' cult is important as the fragments are reused like relics. During the second stage the collectivization has been fulfilled, and the reuse is instead part of the christian churches' strategy for incorporating old powerful symbols from the landscape into their own church building..

The essay discusses how to look at a equality plan of a academic department experiences the, gender equality in general and how power is portrayed from a gender perspective in the academic department. Through the use of qualitative interviews and a short survey the results have shown that few of the staff members have knowledge about the equality plan and few are familiar with its contents. Furthermore results show that the academic department is run hierarchyilly and that both vertical and horizontal gender segregation exists.The climate at the academic department is characterized by the will to work with gender equality but so far there have only been few exercised or planned efforts to do so. The gap between theory and practise is wide, the will to be seen as an equal academic department concerning equality of men and women seems important. The conscious or unconscious strategy of covering up the real gender equality seems to be done by focusing on the numerical equality..

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to assess whether the overreaction found in ?Does the Stock Market Overreact?? by DeBondt and Thaler still persists today, and by equivalence test if a trading strategy based upon these assumptions would generate abnormal returns. MethodThe research has been carried out by studies of the stocks that for a prior period of one year has over or underperformed their benchmark. The stocks used in my study are all part of S&P500 index, and the period of study runs from three to five overlapping years over the last twenty years. ResultsMy tests indicate that the type of overreaction proposed by DeBondt & Thaler still is present, at least considering the stocks that during the formation period were winners..

The purpose of this thesis is to increase the understanding on how market leading pharmaceutical companies in Sweden limit the market share decrease when these companies patent expires. In order to respond to the purpose, two research questions have been asked: how do pharmaceutical companies deal with market strategies prior to the expiration of a patent: and how the market strategies is used when a patent has expired and as a consequence, generics entered the market. A case study was implemented based on two interviews with a brand manager and a therapy area manager within the company Pfizer AB in Sweden. The results suggest that pharmaceutical companies implement strategies in numerous ways which differs substantially from the theories, this having to do with Swedish legislation. The main aim with the execution of the strategy, before and after patent expiration is not to limit a decrease in market share hence, rather to retain the pharmaceutical companies strong brand image.

This study is about job training for people with psycho-social problems without income. The purpose with this sort of job training is to bring these people back to the regular labor market as well as the experience of having a job. In the labor market situation in Sweden today there?s no guarantee that the individual will return to the labor market after having undergone job training. The aim of this study is to understand how supervisors at job training activities experience that the organizations of the activities and resources affect their work.

Den svenska säkerhetspolitiken har genomgått stora förändringar sedan kalla kriget. Den tidigare inriktningen av alliansfrihet och neutralitet har ersatts av en solidaritetspolitik. Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka om synen på användning av det militära maktmedlet har förändrats i takt med den säkerhetspolitiska omställningen.Uppsatsen antar karaktären av en innehållsanalys, med utgångspunkt i den strategiska hierarkin och fyra konstruerade jämförelsedimensioner: mål, medel, metoder och hot. Två försvarspropositioner analyseras, från år 1982 och år 2008. Undersökningen visar att både hotbild och den förändrade säkerhetspolitiska inriktningen har medfört en förändrad syn på det militära maktmedlet. Försvarsmaktens exklusivitet för användning i krig har minskat, till förmån för funktionen som krishanteringsinstrument i samverkan med andra maktmedel..

In this study we have examined the possible quality standards and methods for applications with service workshops in the forest industry. The purpose of the methods presented here was to start the work of standarardising the maintenance service in the industry and be of use for service providers in their quality effort.The methods we used to accomplish the study were interviews and field visits together with a comprehensive literature research. Our results are presented in the form of four solution proposals: a standard based on existing SIS standards for terminology and key indicators, checklists that are filled in by mechanics with customer participation, the construction of a instructions database, and the implementation of the method 5s.We believe our suggestions can help the service providers in the four problem areas that we have identified: long term strategy, documentation, recruitment of competent technicians, and standard procedures in their operations. These improvements will be beneficial for both the service provider and the customer..