This thesis is about how the front-staff in two service companies experience empowerment. Competition for business in today's society is becoming increasingly fierce, which means that they must find a way to differentiate themselves from competitors. Service has become a way to compete. Front-staff competence and ability to offer a good service is a crucial factor when the company's success is being measured.Empowerment in business is used as a tool to create motivation and satisfaction of individuals at work. Companies using empowerment can create the freedom and opportunities for employees to act at their own intelligence and discretion.

During twelve weeks of practice experience at the company Sydved AB, I received the mission to develop a structure for the company?s internal communication. A part of this mission was to find out what the company?s employees thought of Sydveds internal communication and the most important; Sydveds intranet called ?Outlook?. Due to Sydveds plans of developing the intranet I designed and accomplished an inquiry-study to find out about the employee?s opinions on the company´s internal communication and in particular their intranet.The answers I want from this study are if I shaped the inquiry-study correctly the first time.

This Master thesis was written in collaboration with the Kalmar-based consulting company Sederkvist Kommunikation. The purpose was to explore the market potential for Sederkvist Kommunikations new software Bellman Marketing. Based on these results a launch plan was created and advoice were given to Sederkvist Kommunikation as to how their new administrative tool could be introduced on the market. Data were collected through semi-structured telephone interviews. The population was Swedish so called Gazelle-companies (growth-companies listed yearly by the business newspaper Dagens Industri) and totally 27 units were examined.

The study has shown that retailers in the mid-price segment differentiate their brand through developing a strong company identity around the brand. The personality involves store atmosphere, merchandise and advertising. Larger companies have chosen to lay the responsibility on management level, which facilitates on store level. By controlling the strategies on a central level the company can make sure that the stores are steered in the direction that the company wants them to be steered in, and also that they follow the positioning-concept. The company can also devote its efforts to working with its core value, which is service.

The study has shown that retailers in the mid-price segment differentiate their brand through developing a strong company identity around the brand. The personality involves store atmosphere, merchandise and advertising. Larger companies have chosen to lay the responsibility on management level, which facilitates on store level. By controlling the strategies on a central level the company can make sure that the stores are steered in the direction that the company wants them to be steered in, and also that they follow the positioning-concept. The company can also devote its efforts to working with its core value, which is service.

Abstract: Title: Communication of and around internal performance reports - A study in seven manufacturing companies based in Blekinge. Authors: Marcus Harrysson and Mikael Johansson. Supervisors: Lars Svensson and Carina Svensson, Blekinge Institute of Technology Department: Department of Business Administration. Course: Bachelor thesis in Business Administration, 10 credits Purpose: Our purpose with the bachelor thesis was to investigate if there is a connection between communication of and around internal performance reports and profitability in companies. Method: Our investigation has been made at seven companies in the county of Blekinge by making personal interviews with people in both production and business departments at each of the companies. Result: We have come to the conclusion that there is a connection between communication of and around internal performance reports and profitability. Sammanfattning Titel: Kommunikation av och runt interna ekonomiska rapporter ? En studie i sju tillverkande Blekingeföretag. Författare: Marcus Harrysson och Mikael Johansson. Handledare: Lars Svensson och Carina Svensson, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola. Institution: Institutionen för Ekonomi och Management Kurs: Kandidatarbete i företagsekonomi, 10 poäng Syfte: Syftet med kandidatuppsatsen är att undersöka om det finns ett samband mellan kommunikation av och runt interna ekonomiska rapporter och lönsamhet. Metod: Vår undersökning har gjorts i sju stycken Blekingeföretag genom personliga intervjuer med representanter för både ekonomi- och produktionsavdelningen på varje företag. Slutsats: Av vår undersökning drar vi slutsatsen att det finns ett samband mellan kommunikation av och runt interna ekonomiska rapporter och lönsamhet i företag..

This Bachelor thesis is a qualitative study of the public debate regarding the role of Public service in the media converged society today. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the public debate, that is the Swedish Public service television and people with broad representative knowledge about Public service, motivates a change of the function of the Swedish Public service television.Our issues are: What does the public debate say about the function of Swedish Public  service television in our society today and how is a change motivated in this debate? How does the public debate look upon today´s media convergence and the fragmentation of the audience which, according to Denis McQuail, is a consequence of this?The method of this thesis is a qualitative analysis and we have analyzed ten opinion articles and Swedish Public service television magazine ?DittSvt?. The theoretical background was obtained from Henry Jenkins and Håkan Hvitfelts theories and thoughts about mediaconvergence. We have supplemented this with Denis McQuails theory regarding the fragmentation of the audience.In this thesis, we see that the public debate is a lot about diversity in Swedish Public service television programming and that the democratic base is still very important.

Organizational democracy has been a popular research area in recent decades but the implementation in real organizations is slow (Kokkinidis, 2012; Verdorfer, Weber, Unter Rainer & Seyr, 2013). Several researchers (Schön Jansson, 2012; Falkheimer, Heide & Johansson, 2013) argue that communication practitioners have a key role in democratic processes and that because their job role is under constant change there are only a few modern studies regarding the subject. The purpose of this study is to illustrate how communication practitioners in private and public organizations experience their role in the process of internal communication and to what extent they are aware of, and work with internal organizational democracy.The practitioners we interviewed had a strong feeling that they were a support function for the business and the organizational management. As a result of the study it is clear that communication practitioners are very loyal to their employers and to the organization they work for. They are, therefore, not neutral in their professional role and argue that their task is to represent the management's interests.

Companies of today are facing a development where it is more significant to focus on existing customers since the approach constitute a more cost reducing way, compared to finding new customers. During the last decades the marketing has therefore moved towards a relationship based marketing. Companies emphasize creating long-term relationships with customers, instead of consider the sale as a non-recurrent phenomenon. To engender customer loyalty has been an essential objective in the creation of long-term relationships.In this essay the authors have chosen to do a study which enlighten how companies in the ready-made apparel business produce added value to their brand and through this generate customer loyalty. Through a case study we analyze how Filippa K, Tiger of Sweden and Gant do to maintain value in their brand, in both a business- and customer perspective.

We have produced a process mapping and from there developed a document management plan for the research service at the Labour Movement Archives and Library (ARAB) in Stockholm, Sweden. The project was conducted during five weeks in the spring of 2011 at ARAB and the resulting classification structure and document plan has been formulated and presented to the staff at a seminar. We found that the institution in some cases were suffering from an inadequate documentation in a number of the identified processes, and also in their records management and archiving. In this additional memorandum follows an analyzing discussion of activity-based document- and archive management, e-archives and process mapping. We have accordingly tried to standardize the process of research services and contribute to a more adequate document management within the institution.

The purpose of this thesis was to get a deeper understanding of why and how companies work with background music in event marketing and also how it can affect on companies image. In our research a case study was conducted and based on interviews with four respondents who all have experience working with background music throughout their careers. The study has shown that background music can be a very effective promotion tool in event marketing when it's used in the right way. Furthermore this study has shown that companies consciously use background music to enhance the experience and emotional affect the attendant through choice of music and the music can affect companies' image. Event marketing combined with background music is an effective tool for companies to generate positive associations to image and to reach their target group when right music is correctly conducted..

Nature?s Best is a quality-label for Swedish Eco-tourism. It is one of very few active ecotourism labels and the only one that claims quality as its main focus. The objective of this thesis is to evaluate the certification scheme Nature?s Best with regards to the values the certification creates for the companies that certify their products.

Outsourcing is today a common phenomenon among businesses in most industries. The term outsourcing means transferring the responsibility of performing a certain function to an external supplier. There are usually certain methods to investigate the effects and the outcome of a function that is performed by the company itself. When this function is performed by an external party, the complexity of the function will increase.This leads us to our purpose: Based on different theories clarify how a company ensures a desired effect out of marketing when this function is outsourced to a certain retail- and advertising agency.In this essay we have defined us to study one of Sweden´s leading mobile operators who have outsourced their sales management to a retail- and advertising agency. To get an additional point of view, we have included one of the mobile operator´s intermediates, which is a selling agent whose sales function is led by the retail- and advertising agency..

In the early 1990?s more and more companies of the Swedish public sector were exposed to competition, and this started the debate on how such actions might affect the business and even society.The first chapter examines how the public sector and especially health care, is financed and managed. We also explore what it means to be exposed to competition and find that there are many different ways of exposing the public sector to competition. The study examines dental care as an example of a market with both publicly and privately owned companies. The purpose of this paper is to explore how publicly and privately owned health care companies view their relationship with their consumers.

The study has shown that retailers in the mid-price segment differentiate their brand through developing a strong company identity around the brand. The personality involves store atmosphere, merchandise and advertising. Larger companies have chosen to lay the responsibility on management level, which facilitates on store level. By controlling the strategies on a central level the company can make sure that the stores are steered in the direction that the company wants them to be steered in, and also that they follow the positioning-concept. The company can also devote its efforts to working with its core value, which is service.