Den globala ekonomin har gjort att företag är beroende av säker information som ska hjälpa dem att fatta bättre beslut. Allt fler företag agerar på den globala marknaden vilket gör konkurrensen större. Därför behöver företag allt mer och säkrare information. Deföretag som har många konkurrenter behöver mycket information om dessa för att kunna fatta beslut som kommer att ta dem ett steg före konkurrenterna. Att kunna anpassa sig i denna omvärld ställer stora krav på företagen.

Humanity?s increasing consumption has resulted in an increasing use of resources and thus an increasing environmental impact. Hence, the environment has become an important political issue. The increasing demands from stakeholders on companies to "green" their products and work internally with environmental issues makes it more and more important for enterprises to address these issues. Small enterprises constitute the majority of all enterprises and therefore they have a significant impact on environmental problems.

AbstractAccording to several researchers finance is scarce, scarcer for Small Businesses than for big enterprises. Small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, that want to start exporting and sales or manufacturing abroad need capital to get ready. Which capital structure and financial costs do they have, and which forms of finance do they actually use for that purpose. New american research by Mansi, Reeb (2002) has suggested, that there is a positive connection between leverage and a negative one between financial costs and internationalization, and that a non-linear model better describes this connection.This study has gathered data in two ways: Through a questionnaire from 37 SMEs and balance sheet figures from totally 166 manufacturing SMEs. In order to examine, whether the company was active on the international market, 200 SMEs in south Sweden were asked, if they exported to, produced or sold on any other market than their home market.

The amount of cargo has since the 1970s increased in Sweden and the road traffic accounts for a large part of the transported volume. In Stockholm County the amount of cargo is calculated to be doubled in size from year 2001 to 2020 which means a greater need for transport is required. Much of these transports are being carried out by haulage companies of varying sizes which acts externally as carriers for their customers. All of this despite a greater awareness, laws and demands regarding environmental performance.The trend shows that the haulage industry in Sweden are moving towards fewer but larger haulage companies, which means that the competition is getting tougher for the smaller haulage companies. Smaller haulage companies and research about their competitive strategies is a neglected part of this industry.

Problem: How does project managing appear in small IT-consulting companies and how does the project manager carry out their projects to create successful solutions for their customers?Purpose: The research has the purpose to analyze and review how IT-consults in small companies work and lead their projects to create profitability for the company, which leads to a good development for the company.  Methodology: The research is made on eight research objects in IT-consulting business and the sizes of them are between 1-49 employees. The research is made with a qualitative method to get closer to the research objects. Therefore the research is made in forms of interviews. The analysis is grounded on a comparison between the research data and the theories that are used in the research.Theoretical perspectives: The theories which have been used in the research are Involvement theory (Fill, 1999), PAFF-metoden (Marcusson & Ahlin, 2002), Projektledning (Tonnquist, 2006), Jakten på det effektiva projektet (Engwall, 1999) och Mervärde (Grönroos, 2002)Empirical foundation: The research data are founded from the interviews of the eight research objects, they have the fictive names: Gondor, Minas Morgul, Minas Tirith, Mordor, Osgiliath, Rivendell, Rohan and The Shire. Analysis/Result: Each study object starts their projects with a pre-study phase, as the PAFF-method describes it.

Executive SummaryThis final thesis has examined the effects of an increased centralization and better coord­in­ation of the distribution logistics at ABB in Västerås. The company is today strongly decent­ralized and there is a minimum of collaboration between the 20 business units. This is why the questions were raised; how could the business units coordinate outbound logistic activities and what effects would that provide. The obj­ect­ive of this final thesis is to provide basic data for a future decision-making which desc­r­ibe these effects.The report has mapped out the factors that are important to ABB in an evaluation of their logistic activities and how the outbound logistics work today. The four factors are cost efficiency, delivery service, environmental impact and logistics capability.

This study was performed to examine whether horses that are kept alone in smallpaddocks are less likely to suffer injuries, compared to horses kept in biggerenclosures with the company of other horses, or not. In not yet published researchmaterial from 2005, risk factors associated with ?accidental injuries? versus ?wearand tear injuries? (represented by trauma injury and fetlock inflammationrespectively), were compared. That material, based on the results of 507 returnedquestionnaires from owners of horses in a Swedish insurance company, includedquestions about paddock/pasture confinement. The results from those questionswere then analyzed in this study in a so called case-control study, in which thegroups with trauma and fetlock inflammation were compared to a healthy controlgroup.The results show that the risk of fetlock inflammation is greater in a smallconfinement, OR for inflammation in a small paddock is 2,2 (95% KI 1,2-3,9)compared to a bigger paddock.

Public procurement in Sweden is regulated by the Act on Public Procure­ment (lagen om offentlig upphandling, LOU, in Swedish). The Public procurement in Sweden stands every year approximately for 500 bil­lion Swedish crowns of the taxpayers? money. It is therefore im­portant that the money is spent in the best possible way. The focus in this study is set on the relationship between the small- and medium sized building entrepreneurs and the government.

As a student during my studies, I have been told about entrepreneurs who have red numbers in their financial statements, and there is a forest machine operator shortage in Sweden. The basic idea of this thesis was to examine the underlying factors that may have caused the problems described above. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the factors that create stress and job satisfaction as a forest machine operator. The study was performed as a comparison between forest companies own harvesting teams and entrepreneur teams to investigate if there are any differences in stress and job satisfaction between the two different types of team. The study was conducted in collaboration with SCA Skog. The material for this study was collected by doing interviews with SCA's harvesting teams. A total of 27 forest machine operators were interviewed, divided into a total of 10 separate harvesting teams. It was very similar between the different type of teams, which situations the operators experienced stress.

Every year, reports are published that shows how universities fail to meet the demand from companies who are looking to hire students with solid communication skills. At the same time, the importance of communication for effective leadership is constantly increasing. Today, many business schools around the world states that they strive to educate future business leaders and have therefore realized the importance of teaching the skills of communications to its students. The majority of Swedish business schools, however, have not yet made communications an essential part of their curricula. This indicates that most business students in Sweden today, do not receive the toolkit needed to take on leadership roles.

Business Intelligence och realtids Business Intelligence har blivit ett område som allt fler företag intresseras av. Forskningen idag involverar en rad företag som koncentrerar sig på stora kund-, produkt- och tjänstevolymer. Ett av dessa företag är flygbolaget Continental Airlines. Detta bolag har funnit sju faktorer som bör beaktas då en realtids BI-lösning ska anammas. Detta arbete kommer att lägga fokus på en av dessa faktorer. Denna faktor säger att realtids BI endast levererar något värde om besluts- och affärsprocessen ändras i enlighet med den IT-lösning som införs i företaget.Under denna studie kommer det att undersökas hur denna faktor fungerar i mindre organisationer.

The thesis of this Masterpaper has been to analyse what tendencies there might be to distinguish structural alterations in the publishing business today and how they can be understood analytically. The following questions have helped form the principal opinions found in this essay: - What tendencies according to the alterations in publishing business is Piratförlaget representing? -What tendencies according to the alterations in publishing are the literary agents representing? What tendencies regarding the alterations in publishing are the electronic publishing and other techniques related to the publishing business representing? Participants, familiar with the publishing industry in various ways, have been interviewed. The main theory is based on facts from sociology of literature, although Faheys and Randalls Key Scenario, with its driving forces, also provided a great deal of help. In addition, to structure the dynamical publishing business, Peter Senges The Systems Iceberg Model was useful.

The topic for this master thesis is Business Intelligence, a means for decision makers to obtain accurate analysis about organisations surrounding world. The purpose is to examine how Business Intelligence is carried out in practice and how it can be made more efficient by considering some underlying and often overlooked factors. The study shows that organisations should strive for common goals and to engender corresponding perspectives amongst the co-workers. We have also concluded that Sensemaking, Knowledge Creating, Tacit knowledge, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Creativity and Visions, influence the ability to utilize the efficiency of Business Intelligence. In some aspects we have noticed that our theoretical backbone differentiates from reality, which reveals the complex prerequisites that relates to matters of Business Intelligence.

Under våren 2008 utförde jag mitt examensarbete på Utvecklingsverkstaden, inom Volvo Construction Equipment i Eskilstuna. Uppdraget bestod i att presentera förslag på ett skyltsystem som skulle vara modernt, professionellt utformat och ha ett enhetligt utseende. Den befintliga skyltparken var kraftigt eftersatt och föråldrad.  Syftet formulerades till att utforma förslag på ett tydligt skyltsystem som skulle representera aktuell avdelning och dess verksamhet. Syftet innefattade även att ta fram övergripande riktlinjer om placering, för varje kategori av skyltar.

The aim of this study is to investigate leadership in sports organizations and business organizations. The study focused on common and important leadership components and the most important leadership processes in both business context and sports context. The study also investigated common and important leadership components, leadership challenges and which degree leaders used the transformative leadership. The study focuses on leadership components most importantly from the leaders view, including both sport managers and business leaders. The investigation was based on eight interviews, which are analyzed with content analysis.