The business cycle of the wood flooring branch is currently high however that situation may not be sustainable. In a possible future weaker business climate, the importance of marketing becomes accentuated for firms that aim to maintain their sales levels. We can see trends that competition among the Swedish and foreign manufactures is already stepping up. The intent of this study is to establish marketing guidelines for floor- and molding manufacturers, so they can establish a clearer brand image in DIY retail outlets. By comparing the approach of sports- and DIY stores to brand and product placement, this study aims to bring new knowledge to the DIY branch for improved consumer and product handling.

The purpose of this master thesis is to, with the strategies of the organization and the preferences of the co-workers in mind, explore how reward systems can be designed in heterogeneous organizations. This is done by interviewing store managers and sales personnel in a heterogeneous organization. The frame of reference deals with theoretical approaches on reward systems and is divided in the following sections, individual or group based, differentiated or not differentiated rewards systems and goals, measurements and rewards. These sections are highlighted from the following aspects, equity, implementation possibilities and finally environment. The theoretical discussion ends in the conclusion that heterogeneous organizations should have several different reward systems, but not if a restructuring process is in progress or the system becomes too costly.

There is a tough competition in food-stores these days. Storeowners have been forced to try something new to attract customers. One way to accomplish that is to add private labels to the assortment. There are several benefits with these labels; its higher margins for this type of brand and the brand can also strengthen the stores image in the customers mind. When private labels first entered the market, the customer had a relatively low attitude towards the brands.

Society today is characterized by the transforming effect IT has had, the majority of the activities we perform on a daily basis involves one way or another digital technology. One area which has not yet seen the positive effects of IT is education. Despite the progress of technology, the school education has barely changed since it first saw the light of day. Our goal with this study is to investigate the possibility of implementing Gamification elements in educational environments and examine whether it could increase our young students learning motivation. We believe that this kind of implementation will have a positive effect for these young people since they have been interacting with games since they were small and are familiar with the driving force of a reward system.With this study we want to examine the opportunities and challenges that Gamification implementation brings out in a learning environment and therefore encourage and motivate our young ones to study even harder..

In industry applications, such as power supply plants, the issue of interaction between fluid and structure is always presented. More precisely, the fluid flow affects the structure by applying force(s) on it and vice versa. As a result, the structure can move (vibrate) or deform. A good understanding of this problem can help to design the system in term of safety, stability and efficiency.This project aims to optimize and test the Unicorn FSI solver from the FEniCS project [1] to simulate the interaction of fluid and structure in an experiment, which was carried out at Vattenfall Research and Development. The target is to improve the Unicorn FSI solver to cope with a real industrial problem.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between Earnings Management (EM) and certain characteristics of management forecasts, among a sample of Swedish listed companies. The forecast characteristics studied are: 1) Forecast venue: How explicitly is the forecast presented? 2) Forecast precision: How detailed is the estimated number? 3) Forecast measure: Which measure(s) are forecasted? We use a sample of 68 annual management forecasts, obtained from year-end reports between the years 2007-2011. EM during the forecasted year (2008-2012) is estimated using the cross-sectional modified-Jones model. The forecast characteristics are then related to the degree of EM during the forecasted period.

Background: Sporting events conveyed by the TV medium affect people and can give many unforgettable experiences. Sport may be synonymous with excitement and drama or just serve as entertainment. Through TV broadcasts from different sporting events, millions of televiewers all over the world have enjoyed athletic feats of extreme top class. TV broadcast sport always attracts a great number of viewers, also in Sweden. The prices of broadcasting rights to sporting events have risen strongly during the last decade, much as a consequence of the increasing competition between different TV companies both internationally and in Sweden.

The manufactory industry, due to decline in profit margins, is seeking new business opportunities by moving towards servitization and value-adding services in after-sales. We have therefore conducted a case study to investigate a manufacturing company in their current transformation towards servitization. By studying the management perspective, we aimed to understand how Information Technology, by adding value, could play a role in the transformation process. This study shows that information technology can take an integrating role, by supporting new value-adding services to provider and customer, as well as a co-creating role, where both provider and customer benefits by learning from each other, in the changing work process initiated by new services. The study has also shown that Information Technology, together with organization, information and people, are crucial components in the manufactory industry?s transformation towards servitization.  Furthermore, the study has also shown that the value chain has the potential to drastically change due to the value-adding that the information technology brings to the progress of servitization..

The purpose of this study is to extend the understanding of how professionals in modern organisations want to be managed. We especially investigate professionals changing industries to describe if, and how, aprofessional in this situation is becoming a professional again after the change. This to find connections between intrinsic motivation and attitudes towards professionalism on one side, and applicable managerial methodson the other. Best practice in managing professionals is traditionally considered to be non-invasive methodologies such as indoctrination and training. Beyond that, operational-level management is usually considered to be bound to fail.The analysis suggests the following:? A professional changing industry will become professional again.? The driving force for becoming professional again is the strive for horisontal specialization, induced by higher education.? Management of professionals needs to account for the integrity of the horizontal specialization of the professional.

I will write about product placement in film from a Swedish point of view. This entails writing about Swedish films with different types of product placements, not only how they are done but also discuss how they succeed from a sales perspective. In my earlier work I have written about the product placement of watches. In this thesis I focus on the film series about the Swedish agent Carl Hamilton, since here you can see how Swedish film has developed during the past 30 years with regard to product placements. Both world politics and the concrete placements are illustrated in a clear way.

We got in contact with Marco AB, who we?ve had contact with before concerning earlier projects, to find out if they were interested in arranging a larger project for our last class (Examensarbete 15hp). They were very positive to this proposition, and soon they offered us a project regarding reconstruction of their current mechanical device that absorbs all the force from the lift itself when it is at a predefined level (sv. sjunkspärr). The current solution does fulfill the requirements that are given, however it is not a solution that gives a high level of satisfactory.

The student project Elba at KTH started in 2011 and is a project where a battery driven prototype car is developed. The vehicle competes in Eco Shell Marathon in Rotterdam, Holland. In this competition the vehicle that travels a certain distance including several starts and stops with the lowest energy consumption wins. To minimize the consumption is therefore very important, which requires knowledge of the vehicles energy losses.A vehicle's energy losses depends on several factors and can be divided into the powertrain efficiency and the driving resistance. The driving resistance can then be divided in to rolling and air resistance, if smaller losses like vibrations are ignored.

In this thesis I discuss and analyse the relationship between USA and Europe since the end of the Cold War. Many authors claimed that the Soviet threat was the glue that kept the continents together. Now that threat is gone and new challenges have risen. In what way has this relationship been influenced by the new challenges this new era stands for? By doing a case study and by using two quite different theorists, John Mearsheimer an offensive realist and Joseph Nye who is a liberal institutionalist, I?ll try to show how for example September 11, anti-amerikanism and NATO can be explained and understood.

The purpose of the paper is to explore of what importance network relations are to the small fashion company Clemens en August. Clemens en August is a new German fashion label, which has the goal to become established in the high-end segment. The company uses an innovative sales strategy, directly distributing its products to the end costumer. The theories used will serve as a tool to analyze Clemens en August 's strategy from a network perspective. As the Bachelors thesis nr: 12464 ?Clemens en August ? A Network Perspective?, authors; Malin Elmlid, Biancastella De Angelis and Carsten Juldorf, date of approval 2006-01-11, contains delicate data about the studied company we have decided to classify it as secret.

Several studies shows that dietary supplements do not have any proven effects on health, yet these supplements are increasing in sales. The study aims to find out what attitudes and knowledge people involved in physical activity have towards supplements and which factors influence them to buy supplements. How these factors differ between men and women was investigated. The study is based on answers from 100 collected questionnaires from people who are physically active at several gyms. Of those who participated in the study, 56 percent were men and 44 percent were women.