A positive aspect of globalization, from a western viewpoint, is the growing demand of advanced products in China and other developing countries. The construction industry is thriving in China and Swedish companies have taken part in various projects. However the situation have been difficult for some of the companies. The aim of this study is therefore to investigate how strategic and cultural factors affect the potential for Swedish companies to operate on the Chinese construction market. The theoretical framework of the study consists of Porter?s and Kotler?s theories about strategy, and Hofstede?s, Bjerke?s, and Daun?s research about different cultures.

This study is a part of a Swedish research and development project that is about heat-treated wood and is led by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Luleå University of Technology. Products that are heat-treated already exists on the market, foremost the Finnish brand ThermoWood®, bur the project group want to find out if it would be possible to start a Swedish production with somewhat different applications than what is common today. The heat-treated wood has many attributes that have changed in the heating process. It becomes more biologically durable, it gains stability in form and dimensions and it becomes darker and looses several unwanted extractives such as resin. Disadvantages that can be mentioned are that the wood becomes fragile and the strength properties changes. My main purpose with this study is to look into customer involvement in the early phase of product development. I also want to find out if the customers I interview think that the product is worth working with, which means start a Swedish production.

The management of information is a significant competitiveness in companies. Companies stored and save information every day, and it is very common to save de information in different sources. This makes de management of information complex. To mange, monitor and analyze the information, companies can use a system called Business Intelligence. BI system is an analytical system that extracts and converts data into useful information that helps employees to make informed decisions.

One of the biggest changes which have affected businesses during the last ten years is the accelerating speed at which Internet technology and e-commerce has developed. If Internet earlier was used in the purpose to entertain it is now accepted as an essential business tool and companies are investing more of its resources in e-commerce activities. Everyone ?has to be on the net? today but that implies a challenge in matching e-solutions to the company?s business goals. It is necessary to have clear goals, carry out research and plan a strategy in order to operate an optimal e-commerce website for the company?s needs.The purpose with this dissertation was to see how well companies adjust to new demands in the rapidly changing e-environment.

There are countless methods for companies to use as marketing tools and one method that has become more and more popular is sponsoring. Reasons for companies to use sponsoring as a marketing tool is to be exposed and associated in connection with the sponsored item. Companies also use sponsorship to create relationships with the company's target audience. The use of Internet and Internet marketing has also increased during the last years and this paper examines the combination of these two areas, sponsorship and Internet marketing. A survey that examines the websites owned by companies who also are sponsors, answers the following problem:How do companies communicate their sponsorship on their own homepages?The purpose of this study is to describe how companies use their homepage to communicate their sponsorship.

The forest industry is anonymous among the young people of today. Many youngsters do not know what the forest industry has to offer. As a result of this, many schools and forest have a weak recruitment. This is not a problem for Sweden and the forest industry only, many other businesses companies suffer from in Sweden and other countries in Europe share the same image problem. The interest and values of young people drives them to look for opportunities in other betterknown sectors with better image and reputation. Many companies report having problems with recruiting the best and right employees and fear that the recruiting-problems will increase when the older generation born in the 1940?s will retire.

The legal right to take time off from work to care for one`s children has been regulated in Swedish law since late 1930. This right was limited to mothers and was provided under restricted forms. There was a long qualification period and the length of parental leave was limited.Since then, the right to parental leave has been extended through several modifications of the law. The question of equality in both the labour market and the private sector has been one of the greatest forces behind these changes. By including men in the right to take parental leave, the work place has become more equal and it is now considered a natural part of the employee?s life to request time off to care for children.Labour Arbitration Court has shown through its case law that equality in the work place is of the utmost importance and has shown its support in this matter through its judgements.

In today's Sweden there are approximately 23 000 combination companies, and most of them have a connection with the agricultural sector. The most common type of additional operation is some form of contracting.The aim for this degree project is to answer the following question: which problems and key factors exists within combination operations? The main topic will be within coordination and management questions within agricultural companies with an additional operation.Litterateur written earlier within this subject will be used in this thesis. Mainly litterateur which contains information about combination companies and diversification of some sort. There are also other theories used in this thesis such as; resource based theory and decision making theory in order to understand the problems and key factors within combination companies.In order to investigate the aim of this thesis we have chosen to perform two qualitative interviews with the managers of two different combination companies.

The number of new estate agent offices is increasing yearly and each year many hundred new estate agents graduate. The comparing of estate agents by sellers has perhaps been most common in larger cities, but as competition has increased even in smaller towns we experience that it has become a common phenomenon even there. We both come from a small town but are not afraid of the idea of moving to a larger city as newly qualified estate agents. We ask ourselves, which are the determining factors in the choice of a estate agent in a large city as opposed to a small town? Can we see any differences? The purpose with this essay is to give us added knowledge about which factors private persons consider to be important in their choice of an estate agent when selling a house.The body of information is based on two parallel surveys, one in Hudiksvall and one in Stockholm, together with interviews of people in this line of business.

Purpose: To investigate whether or not the credit granters believe the quality in audits will deteriorate after the abolishment of statutory audit and, if that is the case, how the abolishment will strike the purpose and goal of accounting.Approach: To answer our purpose we carried out a literature study to later implement interviews with four granters of credits specialised in business accounts.Findings: The process of credit granting will not change after the abolishment of statutory audit for companies still using audit reports. Though, for other companies the process will change dramatically since the lean time of the process will increase. Higher demands will be put on these companies since the reliability in the economic information will decrease when it is no longer being reviewed in the same sense. Though, the credit granters believe that some form of substitute for audit will be demanded in order for the companies to be granted credits from the bank..

AbstractAuthors:Stefan Harrå and Magnus BjörkAdvisor: Markku PenttinenTitle: Accounting Consequences of the change in pension accounting Background to problem: When the revised IAS 19 comes into force January 1, 2013, it means that two of the three accounting principles for defined benefit pension plans are disappearing, including the corridor method. The corridor method has made it possible for companies to defer its actuarial gains and losses. Now that the corridor approach abolished then the unrecognized actuarial gains and losses immediately be covered by equity, which involves very large amounts of some companies. Why the amounts have grown so big is much because of the discount rate. The discount rate is a controversial parameter, and there is disagreement on how it should be fixed.Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine the accounting implications this will have for the company applied the corridor method, and if there is some parameters in the actuarial assumption that is more important than others.Methodology: The thesis has mainly been based on a qualitative research through qualitative interviews with a small sample that is affected by this change.

BackgroundToday a common approach to solve a complicated problem is to assemble a temporary workforce in order to solve the problem by working together within a project. One of the difficulties with working in projects is to maintain the planned budget. Working hours and costs are often exceeded. Many companies presume that any certain project will succeed, a presumption that leads companies not to anticipate risks involved in a project. In companies today there is seldom time for evaluation or moderation of a project, in order to have time for evaluation there is a great need for an adequate planning of the project.IntentThe intention with this study is to create a model for planning, budgeting and evaluation of projects within consultancy companies.MethodWith the help of interviews and discussions within the group Hamnar och Byggkonstruktioner at Sweco has evidence to present a proposal on planning, budgeting and monitoring been developed.ResultsA model has been developed to ease for consultancy companies to plan, budget, monitor and evaluate projects.

With the globalization, companies in the West chose to shift production to developing countries to cut down costs. This had a major impact when child labor and very poor working conditions in these factories were discovered and led many companies to take responsibility for their suppliers and the employees by adopting voluntary so-called Codes of Conduct.There is a subtle balance to enforce improvement of working conditions for employees at suppliers´ factories and to keep costs down. On the one hand, companies would like to conduct extensive audits at their suppliers to ensure code of conduct compliance and thus protect their legitimacy. On the other hand, audits are expensive so companies would like to minimize audits to keep costs down. Companies thus have to strike a delicate balance in relation to how many and what suppliers they choose to audit.

This essay which is an event study aims to examine if an announcement of a CEO exchange actually is course-affecting information. The essay study?s if a variation can be detected in the share price in relation to an announcement of a CEO exchange. The study also aims to examine if the characteristics; age, number of years at the post, and compensation to the CEO effects the share price progress. The study embraces 46 companies from eight different line of business.

Due to the highly competitive and busy marketplace of today, companies are forced to take unforeseen measures in defending and developing their brands. Key elements like opinion leadership and lifestyle marketing are commonplace and aim to deliver values that are more difficult to define compared to quality, price, looks and usability. This paper aims to develop what should be considered most fundamental to all commercial branding. By investigating the ideologies that are the core of many successful companies, we hope to clarify the importance of communicating these ideologies. The topic is examined by method of quantitative analysis and the main purpose is to determine; what do the companies think of their ideologies, and how do their consumers recieve them? A secondary purpose is also to investigate whether different kinds of consumers recieve the ideologies in different ways..