This paper examines family owned tourism businesses with a special focus on succession. In Nordic countries tourism has been widely promoted and used in rural development as a replacement economy for ?traditional? livelihoods based on rural production. Because the tourism and hospitality industry, especially in rural areas, is dominated by family enterprises, the topic of succession is of great relevance for tourism and tourism destinations. This paper looks at family businesses? special characteristics, challenges and advantages in terms of ownership structure, lifestyle, motivations, employees and destination impact.

The European economy today is built on small and medium sized enterprises (SME?s) and SME?s recieve a lot more attention in the litterature now. Even though SME?s have earned more attention in the litterature there is a significant lack of information regarding purchasing and supplier selection in these companies?. This report aims to create bigger understanding of SME?s and their purchasing by showing how seven swedish SME?s select their suppliers.

The objective of this thesis is to examine the capital structure of Swedish small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Accounting data from Swedish game developers, combined with the result from a survey, is used to examine their financial conditions and capital structure decisions. We find that non-debt tax shield, firm size, growth opportunities and age are, to various extents, the determinants of capital structure in the game industry, while effective tax rate and asset structure have marginal effects. Our study also implicates that most of the existing capital structure theories can explain SMEs leverage decisions to some extent; however, some adaptation is needed to fit these theories into the SME context. Additionally, we find the existence of a financial gap in the game industry which might need efforts from both demand side and supply side to eliminate..

Sand pits are a valuable habitat which can hold many sand living species including several endangered ones. As many sand habitats with exposed sand are declining, sand pits have a potential as a substitute habitat. This study was conducted to see what effect the area of a sand pit has on species number and composition of ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae). Also, the effects of other environmental variables were tested, for example the proportion open sand, vegetation cover, sun exposure and tree cover. The study was conducted in the county of Uppsala in 2008 and included 13 sand pits with areas between 200 and 180,000 m2.

Two field experiments were conducted in central Sweden in order to: 1) Determine a relationship between the number of approaching pine weevils (Hylobius sp.) and the number of attacks by pine weevils, in relation to the size of seedlings of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris). 2) Determine if application of methyljasmonate (MJ) on seedlings of Scots pine will result in higher resistance towards attacks by pine weevils and/or have any effect on the number of approaching pine weevils. The field experiments were designed with two separate parts in close vicinity on the same clear cuttings: a) pitfall traps placed in patches of scarified soil that caught approaching pine weevils at 2.5 cm from the bait, which consisted of different sized seedlings of Scots pine some of which were subjected to application of MJ and b) the same type of seedlings planted out in patches of scarified soil. The first field experiment was conducted on a 1-year old clear cutting outside Uppsala in east central Sweden and the trapping part of the experiment consisted of 8 blocks with 6 treatments: 1) control, 2) small over-wintered seedling, 3) medium sized seedling, 4) medium sized seedling treated with 0.5 ml 100 mmol MJ 4 days prior to start of experiment, 5) large seedling, 6) vial with 9.5 ml of ?-pinene. The trapping experiment lasted for 6 weeks in the early summer.

In 2010 mandatory audit was revoked for small and medium sized companies in Sweden. At the same time the authorization for accounting consultants was established with the aim of raising the knowledge and status of the profession. Even though The Swedish Companies Registration Office has discovered more errors in the accounting after the mandatory audit was eliminated, it especially concerns those companies who does not have neither an auditor or an accounting consultant. One of the reasons often mentioned to be audited is the auditors role when it comes to lending decisions. Our empirical studie show that the auditors most important function, being unbiased, is not what is of greatest importance for the credit institutions.Instead it was professional skills, and for small and medium enterprises (SME) it was consulting they requested the most.

With an increased demand for biomass based energy and with development of better technique harvest biomass, new possibilities open up. With the possibility to combine traditional cleaning of road?s right of way with biomass harvesting, the work of suppressing tree vegetation could become profitable or at least decrease the road maintenance cost. However, knowledge about productivity and profitability in mechanical biomass harvesting in roads? right of ways are still limited.

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze homelessness in a medium-sized municipality from an organizational perspective. Some of the central questions in this study are: How is the cause of homelessness explained? How do different actors in the community address, prevent and combat homelessness? Who is responsible for the homelessness?This study is based on four semi-structured interviews with organizations that work with homelessness. The analysis is based on problem definition theory.The result of this study shows that homelessness is a problem in this medium-sized municipality even if it is not a big one and that it is often closely combined with substance abuse. The responsibility for the homeless is on the homeless themselves and the social service because that causes is, according to this study, individual based.  .

Title: The way to successLevel: Final assignment for a Master?s Degree in Business AdministrationAuthors: Larisa Glazkova and Veronika LarssonSupervisor: Jonas KågströmDate: 2011 ? JanuaryAim: Many companies are started each year, but only some of them are successful and generate worthwhile profits. Many new companies do not survive the first few years. The purpose of this thesis is to identify factors that can lead to success for Small and medium-sized enterprises in Gästrikland.Method: We analysed 559 interview surveys that were collected during the years 2004-2010 and success factors were defined. Additionally, financial reports from the database Retriever were analysed.

Human Resource Management (HRM) consultants are becoming more common. Simultaneously there is a lack of HRM in small and medium enterprises (SME?s). SME?s states neither to afford, nor have the time to perform HRM in their business.This thesis is a Working Scholarly essay based on qualitative method, based on ten semi- structured interviews.

Foreign invested SMEs have recently become increasingly interested in China. The enterprises are in this report categorized as second wave companies since they follow the footsteps of previous pioneers, of which mostly were larger companies. The ambitions of the SMEs are either to sell products on the ever expanding Chinese market or to utilize the potential of low cost production for global markets. The existing literature is fragmented and solely based on the experience of larger companies. We believe that SMEs are facing new and different challenges, and thus a new generic theoretical frame work is desirable.

The global market is becoming increasingly integrated and to keep up with growing competition and to achieve even greater success, companies expand to foreign markets. Previous studies have shown that the concept of psychic distance has an important impact on international performance regarding Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). The aim of our study is to provide the reader with a deeper understanding of how psychic distance influences export performance regarding Swedish SMEs. Through a single case study of a Swedish SME, we chose to research three different markets in three different continents. Our findings show that psychic distance influences export performance through export marketing strategy and active learning.

Sustainability has become more interesting to several companies through the last years, the trend attracts lots of attention around sustainability. Sustainable development means different to different people. The most frequent definition that we have found and which we believes compare with our definition of sustainable development.?a social change which satisfies daily needs without endanger next generation?s possibilities to satisfy their needs?.We have in this project commence from the English word sustainability and establish our own apprehension of its meaning, in the Swedish translation we have chose to call it sustainable development.This study is a part of an extensive project which is going on around the world and the material of the empirical study is designed after the international variation.Our study on over fifty small and medium sized enterprises has got the conclusion about what they think of sustainable development. We have compiled their answers and then the answers have been divided in three main categories.These main categories are:? Environmental-? Social-? Economic sustainabilityWe have also described what kind of obstacles which can be considered as standstill?s in the work with sustainable development, we have been summery them in three main categories:? Time? Cost? KnowledgeWe have seen that enterprises mostly see it as an competitive advantage to work with the main categories which is included in sustainable development, but the three standstill?s makes it difficult fore them to reach right up to sustainable development..

Background: Knowledge management is a concept that is considered of increasing importance in the developing knowledge society. Previous research in the area has to a large extent been based on large multinational companies. Purpose: The thesis aims to clarify how middle-sized Swedish management consultancy companies work with knowledge management. The thesis intends to use existing theories about knowledge management to explain the effect of size and area of operation on management consultancy companies? knowledge management.

For many providers of ERP-system, Poland is one of the most valuable markets in Central andEastern Europe. The Polish market for ERP-systems is still a growing market, especially; wecan see the low utilization of ERP-systems among Small and medium-sized enterprises. Thisis due to several factors, primarily the cost of implementing the system and the necessary infrastructure.Subsequently due to the lack of knowledge, where there is no sufficientknowledge of the benefits arising from the use of an ERP-system in their business, and thereis a fear within the companies that its business would start stagnating.This paper investigates the implementation process of a Polish consulting company whichworks towards small and medium-sized businesses. The key success factors will be studied inthe implementation of ERP-systems, and the instance factors of the interrelationship betweenthe consultant and client from a consultant perspective. The review of the literature has beenidentified and discussed in relevance to the empirical study.