Intense competition among companies and luck or unavailability of certain resources in country of company?s origin force last to cross the borders, and start to hunt for new markets and cheaper inputs. However, by investing abroad the company is not only facing and dealing with cultural differences and new regulatory framework, but also becomes dependent on decisions and actions of different and to large extend unknown government. Moreover, the majority of the investments? flows are directed to developing countries, where power and capabilities of state authorities are considered to be more extensive than in countries of developed economies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the method called zero recognition that is used in accounting for construction contracts when the outcome is uncertain. When this is the case it is hard to make the necessary estimates needed for the percentage of completion method to be used. Both the meaning of the method from an accounting perspective and the practical importance and purpose of the method is investigated. The method used for this study is the qualitative one and the deductive model is used to relate the theory with the empirical research. The theoretical background consists of accounting theory and theories about individuals, companies and markets.

The Swedish legislation (Socialtjänstlagen, SoL 5 kap 1§ 6 st.) state that the social welfare committee is particularly responsible for those children whom are in need of support and help after an adoption or custody matter has been decided. "Adoption - but at what price?" SOU 2003:49 is a state report with the purpose to investigate different aspects around international adoptions, which brings up and discusses what supports there is for adoptive families in Sweden. With this background and a special attention towards adoptive children's health conditions when arriving to their new country we decided to study the subject adoption. By interviewing different professionals and volunteers that work with adoptive families in Sweden the aim with this study was to acknowledge how they look upon the support the Swedish community offers for adoptive parents and also how they consider the knowledge about adoption among those who in their line of work can meet adoptive children is.

The aim of this thesis is to describe the subject indexing of images performed at the provincial museum of Jämtland and to evaluate the inter-indexer consistency at the museum. The main questions are: How are photographs indexed in the database SOFIE foto regarding Outline-codes, subject headings and natural language keywords? How does these procedures compare to research and indexing projects? How consistent are the indexers at the museum when choosing Outline-codes, subject headings and natural language keywords? Answers are sought by reading articles about classification, image indexing, indexing language, indexing consistency and by looking at a number of projects attempting to standardise image indexing practice in Sweden. The indexing practice at the museum is also described. In addition a minor inter-indexing consistency study, based on the subject indexing of ten photographs made by five indexers at the museum, is performed.

The automotive industry is a highly competitive market characterised by low profit margins or huge losses. Cost reductions have been of top priority for all OEM?s (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and will continue to be so for many years to come. Beside cost reductions, reducing the time-to-market is of greatest importance to stay in the competition. OEM?s that are slow to market with products that neither matches customer expectations nor the products of their competitors, will soon loose market shares and see their economical performance falter.

AbstractToday, too many construction projects are delayed and deviates from the budget. Agood project management is the basis for successful construction project. The mostcommon planning methods in the construction industry is currently Gantt chart andCPM. The problem with these is that focus is only at the time of the project anddoesn?t handle the budget.

This essay aims to investigate the affects of interaction between different professions ina municipal project. In the project, professional representatives from the social servicesand schools have collaborated with staff in preschool/school and exchanged knowledgeto improve the work around children with antisocial behavior. It is in this essaysambition to create an understanding of how professional practitioners, with a monopolyon certain knowledge, influences the possibilities and limitations of cooperation in amunicipal project. This is examined through six qualitative interviews with members ofan municipal project. By using theories about professionalization, social closure,alliance strategy and social control it is possible to understand how division intoprofessions creates opportunities and limitations of interaction exchange incollaborative projects.

The building and plant sectors represent a large part of Sweden?s energy use. Putting energy requirements in public procurement as a tool for reducing energy consumption in the building and plant sectors is therefor an opportunity that operators can take advantage of. The aim of this thesis was to map the energy requirements in procurement that operators in the public sector use today in building and plant projects. The analysis was made with respect to if the energy requirements corresponded to the parts with large energy use in building and plant projects and also in which way energy requirements in procurement are written in the contract.

Starting point to this Paper is the idea and wish to adapt the society and its different activities to a recycle society. A building area in Göteborg is planned and investigated for such adaptation. In the district named Skogaberg, about 130 households totally are planned from what 20 are blocks of flats. The idea with this project is to constitute an alternative sewage system, a Blackwater system, were the fractions of most nutrients and least pollution are separated, taken care of and utilised. The aim is to get a market and use the nutrients of the organic waste from the household in agriculture use.

This report deals with the theory and empirical evidence of how knowledge generated within a project is to be captured and shared with other projects and the surrounding organization, after the end of a project. A number of authors have highlighted knowledge management within a company as a key component in building a unique competitive advantage and knowledge should therefore be considered a very important resource within companies. The difficulties of ensuring that knowledge generated within a project can benefit other projects are many. The nature of the project form has been highlighted as one of the biggest problems, due to the fact that budget and time requirements often restrict the propensity to work with knowledge transfer. Other difficulties that this report highlights are in particular the lack of a knowledge sharing culture within the organizations, as well as human cognitive and psychological limitations and lack of tools design for knowledge transfer.

The Civil Engineering office in Skellefteå needs to develop the users' participation in the planning of parks and playgrounds. In order to get such a procedure to work one have to find a method that can work in the daily activity. My work aims to find such a method and to implement it in practice. Apart from helping the Parks departement to find an functional method I will also develop a deepened knowledge about users?participation wich can be very useful i my future profession. This work can be divided in three stages.

Producing a building is a long and complex process. It consists of several parts, from the feasibility study and design stage onto the construction and finally the management of the building. The design process is a critical part of the process where construction plans are made. The quality of the plans affect the production phase in great extent and faulty plans can pose a risk for extra costs for all parts in the process. The cost of producing dwellings has increased the last years and the detail design process is one of many phases where improvements can mean cost savings within the whole building process.This report aims to point at parts within the detail design process which could be more efficient, regarding communication, follow-up and time planning, and to give suggestions for improvements.

This graduate thesis is engaged with perceived safety and "safe making" design in public places. Despite the fact that we have never been as safe, questions of safety get more attention than ever in today?s society. Public demands for safer and more secure environments and low levels of experienced feelings of safety indicate problems in society that can shrink people's usage of public places as well as their quality of life. Through methodical exaggeration of danger and legislation of laws, the state creates a situation that in different respect work to overprotect the citizens, who are not unlikely to experience feelings of being unsafe at the same time that the actual safety is to big. An expansion of protection against fear can unlike what was first intended decrease the experience of safety.

 Today a major part of the energy produced steams from fossil fuels, finite resources, and a change towards an energy sector based on renewable energy is necessary. Sweden is one of the leading countries with regards to investments in renewable energy but most other countries have a long way to go. This makes it interesting in developing renewable energy projects in new markets in countries like Poland where still a lot of fossil fuel is used. Large infrastructure development projects are very costly and therefore external investors needs to be involved. The investors play an important role in changing the usage of fossil fuels towards renewable energy sources.

The major environmental problems that we have today are frequently mentioned in the media today. One example is the ongoing debate regarding global warming and its causes and consequences. There are also several other problems in our society such as segregation and social tensions. Most agree that we must do something to solve these problems and that we must try to achieve a sustainable development for the entire planet. But how should it actually be done and what trade-offs, compromises, sacrifices and changes must be made?The purpose of this paper is to examine how these issues are being dealt with in Swedish city planning.