The ability for companies to anticipate the future and stay in the forefront of the competition is essential for successful business. The tool of Environmental Scanning is basics in the process of developing prescriptive strategies as well as vital in evolving emergent strategies. The complexity lies in gathering relevant information and transforming the information into adequate data, which can be utilised by management to optimise strategies. The purpose of this study is to scrutinise how successfully operating Swedish manufacturing companies, listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange?s ?Large Cap?-list, organise their Environmental Scanning actions and how this affects the development of strategies. Prior research on the subject has been used as foundation to presenting relevant theories.

As companies exert themselves to find new ways of achieving market dominance and stronger brands, the phenomenon co-branding has become increasingly popular. By cooperation between two different firms the combined effects can result in synergies not only on the balance sheet, but even through softer values such as Brand recognition, equity and larger market share. Recently the fashion company H&M launched a collection together with the esteemed fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld. The objective of this paper is to examine the effects the collaboration had on consumer?s attitudes towards the two brands.

This report deals with an IT solution for the fictive company, Nexus Consulting. It is a small company with four employees, dealing with economic policy. The company wishes to set up a complete network environment with antivirus, firewall, computers and servers. They want us to analyze and compare different outsourcing companies offering cloud services and then recommend which company would suit them best.In addition, the company wants to have a webpage containing essential information about them and the services that they offer their customers.The report describes, analyzes and compares three outsourcing companies offering complete cloud services where a practical solution proposal has been developed by the group.The network component is based on the Windows platform and the web part is coded in HTML and PHP.The report also discusses what cloud computing is and why so many companies choose to move to it..

AbstractTitle: Relevant factors that affect three small and midsize enterprises during an ERP-system implementationAuthors: Fredrik Dreimanis and Thomas JylhäTutor: Peter EkmanKeywords: ERP, implementation, SMEProblem: Which factors has relevance for small and midsize enterprises during an ERP-system implementation?Purpose: The purpose with this essay is to describe and analyze what distinguishes an implementation for small and midsize enterprises.Methodology:The authors have answered the problem with help of theories and articles within the subject of IT and economics and five interviews with companies in different areas of business.Theoretical framework:The most difficult part with adapting a new ERP- system is the implementation phase. (Muscatello et al. 2003) The reason is that the standardization and changing of business processes is a common occurrence during an implementation. (Gattiker and Goodhue.

This essay reviews the situation for small actors in the Swedish clothing industry. In this essay we assume that loyalty is a requirement for survival on the competitive clothing market. Four small actors have been analyzed up on theories on loyalty, brand equity, relationship marketing, service marketing, quality, interactive marketing, distribution and value creating activities. The chosen actors are Fifth Avenue Shoe Repair, Boutique Sportif, Jenny Hellström and Ida Sjöstedt. The conclusion of the essay is that it is possible for small actors on the Swedish clothing market to build loyal relationships with their customers.

Background: Enterprises often refer to their employees as ?Our most valuable assets? in annual reports and other written statements. In reality, employees are seen as an expense rather than an asset in annual reports and the voluntary disclosure is often insufficient. Human capital disclosure has been discussed through decades and the latest topic in voluntary disclosure is called integrated reporting. Knowledge firms should disclose more about their employees than industrial companies due to the fact that the employees are a considerably more important asset to these types of enterprises.Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to study the disclosure of human capital, compare the disclosures between knowledge firms and industrial companies, and study the development of the human capital disclosures between the years 2003-2013.

Som en reaktion på ökad globalisering och teknisk utveckling har antalet samarbeten överorganisationsgränser ökat. När två eller flera samarbetsparter går samman och skapar ett gemensamtbolag benämns samarbetet som ett joint venture, vilket är en vanlig form av interorganisatorisksamverkan. För att kunna dra nytta av de fördelar som ett interorganisatoriskt samarbete erbjuderkrävs en ändamålsenlig ekonomistyrning. Antalet studier rörande styrningen i interorganisatoriskasamarbeten har ökat, men få behandlar den speciella problematik som föreligger i joint ventures, därrelationen mellan ägarna såväl som relationen mellan ägarna och det samägda bolaget skall beaktas.Studien syftar till att utveckla kunskap om vilken typ av styrning som tillämpas i relationerna, hurstyrningen utvecklas över tid och vad som påverkar styrningens utformning. En fallstudie av ett jointventure-bolag genomfördes och resultatet visar att styrningen i den horisontella relationen mellanägarna till övervägande del var förtroendebaserad som en följd av restriktivitet i val avsamarbetspartners.

Share repurchases in Sweden has since legalization in 2000 gained momentum. Similar to other corporate events, there are studies that examine whether this affects the share price performance. With studies in the U.S. that measured excess returns of approximately 3,5 percent on the announcement day; Swedish buybacks, holding a tighter regulation is of interest to study. The Stockholm Stock Exchange regulation regarding reporting is also similar to the Stock Exchange in Hong Kong.

Since July 2005 the major companies listed on the Swedish stock exchanges are required to apply the Swedish Code of Corporate Governance. The code states that companies shall have a nomination committee responsible for nominating new board candidates and seek to obtain gender equality in the Board of Directors. This paper examines the trend of board as well as nomination committee composition among Sweden's 60 largest publicly traded companies between 2005 and 2008. Our overall finding is that neither the board nor the nomination committee composition has changed to a notable extent during the period and that the share of newly appointed female board members has actually decreased. However, the trends vary between different sectors.

At ABB LV Motors in Västerås the shaft is assembled into the rotor with a shrink fit. After athorough investigation of the assembly method, several factors that make the insertion of theshaft more difficult has been discovered. Some affect the assembly directly while others onlyhave an indirect influence. The investigation has shown that the radial play between the shaftsouter radius and the rotors inner radius might be too small which could lead to anunsuccessful assembly. For the larger rotors, the condition is the opposite, and the rotor mightmove compared to the shaft direct after the assembly when the rotor still is warm.

AbstractTitle: Accounting firms´ view on the (new law) in joint-stock companiesCourse: Business Administration, Financial Accounting in Corporations and Groups, Ad-vanced Course, 15 ECTSAuthors: Mikaela Uveby, Shadi Nourbehesht, Almira DizdarevicAdvisor: Kent TrosanderProblem: During the last few years, more importance and emphasis has been put on auditors and accounting in general due to a number of company and business scandals on both national and international levels. The United States as well as the EU consid-ered it a necessity to make regulations stricter when it comes to auditing and ac-counts in order to increase the public trust to accounting. At January 1st, 2007, Sweden also changed its law concerning accounting firm challenges. The new law states that as soon as someone of the auditor?s co-workers assists a client with some part of the basic bookkeeping, the main bookkeeping or the drawing-up of the an-nual account, the challenge situation becomes a fact.Purpose: The purpose of the essay is to examine and inquire into how the renewed law con-cerning accounting firm challenges, that was established and put to action at Janu-ary 1st, 2007, has affected accounting firms.Method: The writers have chosen to complete qualitative interviews in order to get a deeper insight to and an understanding of the topic.Conclusion: One year after the renewal of the law, the writers have reached the conclusion of that the new law has not had a great impact on the accounting firms.

Year 1996 a new law was introduced in Sweden, the law of corporate restructuring, what purpose was to help companies in financial distress. Now, nine years later the procedure hasn?t been successful. This is what this thesis is trying to find out.This thesis main question is: What distinguishes the companies that have filed for a corporate restructuring, according to the financial position?The purpose of this thesis is to find out if key ratios can be used to distinguish the companies that filed for corporate restructuring.

Som en reaktion på ökad globalisering och teknisk utveckling har antalet samarbeten överorganisationsgränser ökat. När två eller flera samarbetsparter går samman och skapar ett gemensamtbolag benämns samarbetet som ett joint venture, vilket är en vanlig form av interorganisatorisksamverkan. För att kunna dra nytta av de fördelar som ett interorganisatoriskt samarbete erbjuderkrävs en ändamålsenlig ekonomistyrning. Antalet studier rörande styrningen i interorganisatoriskasamarbeten har ökat, men få behandlar den speciella problematik som föreligger i joint ventures, därrelationen mellan ägarna såväl som relationen mellan ägarna och det samägda bolaget skall beaktas.Studien syftar till att utveckla kunskap om vilken typ av styrning som tillämpas i relationerna, hurstyrningen utvecklas över tid och vad som påverkar styrningens utformning. En fallstudie av ett jointventure-bolag genomfördes och resultatet visar att styrningen i den horisontella relationen mellanägarna till övervägande del var förtroendebaserad som en följd av restriktivitet i val avsamarbetspartners.

Most companies and organizations today depend on technology connected to the Internet. Schools and offices have therefore been providing computers, phones and other technology to the employees. The recent technological development and decline in prices for technology have contributed to making these products a part of everyday life for most people. This has made it very common for employees and students to bring their own devices into school and workplaces.The aim of this study is to define what "Bring your own device" means for Swedish companies and organizations and how it has been implemented in those. The aim is not mainly to generalize to all Swedish companies but create an understanding how the trend is used to provide a basis for continued research in this area.

Background: Enterprises often refer to their employees as ?Our most valuable assets? in annual reports and other written statements. In reality, employees are seen as an expense rather than an asset in annual reports and the voluntary disclosure is often insufficient. Human capital disclosure has been discussed through decades and the latest topic in voluntary disclosure is called integrated reporting. Knowledge firms should disclose more about their employees than industrial companies due to the fact that the employees are a considerably more important asset to these types of enterprises.Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to study the disclosure of human capital, compare the disclosures between knowledge firms and industrial companies, and study the development of the human capital disclosures between the years 2003-2013.