A positive aspect of globalization, from a western viewpoint, is the growing demand of advanced products in China and other developing countries. The construction industry is thriving in China and Swedish companies have taken part in various projects. However the situation have been difficult for some of the companies. The aim of this study is therefore to investigate how strategic and cultural factors affect the potential for Swedish companies to operate on the Chinese construction market. The theoretical framework of the study consists of Porter?s and Kotler?s theories about strategy, and Hofstede?s, Bjerke?s, and Daun?s research about different cultures.

The financial sector is an important part of the infrastructure. As a consequence of deregulations on the financial market, several new actors have entered the market. This has made it even more important for banks to identify the factors that are decisive when customers chose a bank. The purpose of this thesis was to clarify which factors that are decisive to students choice of bank. A survey was performed among students at Luleå University of Technology.

BACKGROUND: Project based structures has become more and more common in the organizations of today. As the project based structures are given a more central role in the organizations the interdependencies between the projects are getting more attention. These structures need a new type of control to meet the unique challenges that arise. The researchthat has been done has been concentrated around the project form and the projects internal control, the area of multi-project management is therefore relatively unexplored. The few existing studies on the subject focus on projects in the construction industry why research inmore complex fields of business have been requested.PURPOSE: The purpose of this thesis is to explore and analyze how knowledge intense multi-project organizations manage their project activities, and to determine how different organizational characteristics affect the need for management control systems.METHODOLOGY: The empirical data has been collected through interviews with personnel in BT Products R&D, Gambro R&D and AstraZeneca Development.

AbstractMaster thesis of one year in Business Administration, Swedish Business School at Örebro university,Marketing, HT 2011.Authors: Grunér, Linus and Malm, Ludwig Tutor:Pia Lindell Title:Brand building and creating relationships ? A study of a small business in the B2B market Keywords:Brand building, business relationships, SME, B2B. Problem:How does a small business in the B2B market work with brand building and creating relationships? What critical factors can be identified regarding the process of relationship-building and brand building within the context of a small business in the B2B market? Research objective:The purpose of this study is to use existing research to create understanding for how a company in the B2B market is working with relationship-building and brand building. The study also aims to identify any critical factors concerning the process of relationship-building and brand building.

AbstractMaster thesis of one year in Business Administration, Swedish Business School at Örebro university,Marketing, HT 2011.Authors: Grunér, Linus and Malm, Ludwig Tutor:Pia Lindell Title:Brand building and creating relationships ? A study of a small business in the B2B market Keywords:Brand building, business relationships, SME, B2B. Problem:How does a small business in the B2B market work with brand building and creating relationships? What critical factors can be identified regarding the process of relationship-building and brand building within the context of a small business in the B2B market? Research objective:The purpose of this study is to use existing research to create understanding for how a company in the B2B market is working with relationship-building and brand building. The study also aims to identify any critical factors concerning the process of relationship-building and brand building.

Background: Accounting of intangible assets have increased during the last years which have created a debate about if trademarks should be accounted as assets with the uncertainty of the value in mind. Valuation and accounting of trademarks are of interest for accountants and investors. These should be able toget information about the assets that are of importance for the company. A solid brand can be of great value for a company, which should be accounted for. Purpose: The purpose of this master is to examine the function of the brand in the different companies in the study and map the definitions that the different companies have of brands.

I Sverige sker det ständig en ökning av antal köpcentrum, vilket medför att konkurrensen om kunderna ökar. För att möta en ökande konkurrens och kunders krav har olika köpcentrumägare i allt större utsträckning börjat differentiera köpcentrumen. Syftet med vår uppsats är att undersöka hur val av inriktning påverkar utformning och strukturering av två olika köpcentrum, Triangelns Köpcentrum och Gallerian Storgatan, i Malmö. Vi ska dessutom undersöka hur differentiering och profilering påverkas beroende av deras inriktning. Beroende av inriktning är ett köpcentrum riktat till olika kundsegment. För att nå och tilltala denna kategori försöker köpcentrumets förvaltare stärka varumärket och profilera sig med hjälp av marknadsföring och utformning.

Private Banking är en banktjänst för förmögna individer och företag som syftar till att hjälpa dem med förvaltning av deras kapital men även andra tjänster såsom hjälp med deklarationer. Storbanker idag kämpar med att återfå kunders förtroende efter finanskrisen 2008 och fokusen på riskhantering har blivit viktigare. Kunder har blivit mer känsliga för risker och därmed försöker banker dra fördel av detta genom att skapa värde i riskhanteringsprocessen. I detta värdeskapande eftersträvar man en bra relation till kunden som därmed kan generera i ökade marknadsandelar. Vår problemformulering i uppsatsen blir då följande: ?På vilket sätt kan den svenska storbanken Nordea öka sina marknadsandelar inom Private Banking med hjälp av riskhantering??Syftet med vår uppsats blir därmed att få en djupare inblick i hur Nordeas Private Bankingtjänst arbetar med riskhantering och hur det påverkar deras marknadsandelar.

Syfte: Syftet med studien är att öka kunskapen om de strategiska möjligheter företag har att välja mellan när det gäller IP-skydd på emerging markets. Vidare syftar studien till att presentera en karta av handlingsmöjligheter när det gäller IP-skydd. Studiens bidrag ska särskilt vara till nytta för företag som planerar en affärsetablering på den kinesiska marknaden genom att belysa vad som är viktigt att tänka på och vilka metoder som finns att tillgå för att skydda IP. Förutom detta praktiska bidrag syftar studien även till att ge ett teoretiskt bidrag i form av viss teoretisk belysning av sambandet mellan IP-strategi och konkurrensstrategier i företag. Metod: Studien är av explorativ karaktär varför författarna valt att anta ett hermeneutiskt forskningsideal.

Sweden's contribution to the world today is not labor-intensive industry, it is high technology and know-how. Many of the rules concerning employment security for the workers derived from the industrial era and have been to some extent modified by hand. This paper focuses on the discrepancy between the purpose of the priority rules in Swedish law and how it works in the reality. My opinion is that due to the development of the labor market, a powerful revision of priority rules is needed. In addition to today's job market is knowledge-intensive I point in the paper at a number of factors that contributed to the loosening of the priority rules. Examples of these are the increased incidence of temporary staffing, more open markets and more multinational companies, political will to disadvantaged groups in the labor market should be prepared job and gender issues.

Aim: The aim of this study is to do a comparative study between Swedish Ethical equity Funds with Swedish traditional equity funds in terms of return, risk and risk-adjusted return.Theory: Sharpe ratio and Modigliani-Modigliani.Method: The essay will be based on a quantitative research method in which secondary data is the basis for the calculations. A statistical analysis was applied.Conclusion: The study concludes that there is no significant difference between the ethical fund group and the traditional fund group in terms of return, risk and risk-adjusted returns. The traditional fund group was those who had the best returns but only by small margins..

Ungdomar lever inom en social kontext vilken direkt samt indirekt påverkar deras ställningstaganden gentemot cannabis. För att motverka att bruket ska öka i framtiden bör man se över vilka risk- samt skyddsfaktorer som påverkar deras attityder samt bruk av drogen. Idag råder en oro över att legaliseringsdebatten runt om i världen kan resultera i en negativ följd i form av allt mer liberala attityder bland den yngre generationen. Syftet med denna studie är därav att undersöka relationen mellan ungdomars attityder, eventuella bruk och de risk- samt skyddsfaktorer vilka finns i deras sociala omvärld. Resultatet från föreliggande studie visar att ungdomarna i den berörda kommunen har en restriktiv inställning gentemot cannabis dock visas en liberalare attityd bland de som testat substansen.

The purpose of this master thesis is to present a model that illuminates the important factors when deriving technical information from market data within a company. For companies to be able to become and stay competitive in the market, product quality is an important factor. Whilst good product quality leads to customer satisfaction and loyalty, lack of quality brings costs in service and replacements. To improve product quality, the developers need information and knowledge about what quality issues affect existing products. Most companies gather data from market about known issues, but in order eliminate known quality issues in new products; this data has to be transformed into information and knowledge.

This paper takes it points of departure in a gender equality perspective and the perceived paradox between the governmental labour market policy and family policy. The first policy area has the aim to put people to work, whereas the other introduces a reform, vårdnadsbidraget, that point in the opposite direction. Which are the problem representations within the two policy areas and are the problem representations concordant or contradictive? From a constructivist perspective, langue is closely related to power through defining and ascribing meaning to reality. Drawing on political documents, speeches and articles formulated within the government, this paper analyzes problem representations through the use of discourse analysis and feminist political theory.

This paper presents empirical evidence on the determinants of interest rate swap spreads in Sweden during the period 1999-2003. The results suggest that the spread between STIBOR and the general collateral repo rate is positively related to shorter maturity swap spreads. The risk premium associated with commercial bonds is positively related to swap spreads of all maturities. A negative relationship is observed between the term structure of interest rates and swap spreads. The short-term interest rate is positively related to spreads with shorter maturities.