Background: Small- and medium- sized businesses have during a long time had difficulties in raising long-term funding from external financiers, a reason for this is that these companies may have more information about their own business than the bank has. One way to reduce this problem is to hire a certified public auditor or a certified accounting consultant. Much has changed in recent years in the accounting profession. Mandatory audit has been abolished for small- and medium-sized businesses, which has led to major changes. Auditors are now not mandatory for these companies, which opens up the market for accounting consultant´s.

AbstractMaster thesis of one year in Business Administration, Swedish Business School at Örebro university,Marketing, HT 2011.Authors: Grunér, Linus and Malm, Ludwig Tutor:Pia Lindell Title:Brand building and creating relationships ? A study of a small business in the B2B market Keywords:Brand building, business relationships, SME, B2B. Problem:How does a small business in the B2B market work with brand building and creating relationships? What critical factors can be identified regarding the process of relationship-building and brand building within the context of a small business in the B2B market? Research objective:The purpose of this study is to use existing research to create understanding for how a company in the B2B market is working with relationship-building and brand building. The study also aims to identify any critical factors concerning the process of relationship-building and brand building.

AbstractMaster thesis of one year in Business Administration, Swedish Business School at Örebro university,Marketing, HT 2011.Authors: Grunér, Linus and Malm, Ludwig Tutor:Pia Lindell Title:Brand building and creating relationships ? A study of a small business in the B2B market Keywords:Brand building, business relationships, SME, B2B. Problem:How does a small business in the B2B market work with brand building and creating relationships? What critical factors can be identified regarding the process of relationship-building and brand building within the context of a small business in the B2B market? Research objective:The purpose of this study is to use existing research to create understanding for how a company in the B2B market is working with relationship-building and brand building. The study also aims to identify any critical factors concerning the process of relationship-building and brand building.

The Main problem: How small-sized manufacturing companies can create and sustain a stable position in the industry, which leads to profitability.Purpose: The purpose with this essay is to compare two small-sized manufacturing companies, Datek Industrielektronik AB and AB Micatrone to study which strategical resources each company possesses. At the same time analyse if the strategical resources are to be consider as sustainable competitive advantage.Method: A case study has been implemented in two small-sized manufacturing companies. The collected primary data derives from semi-structured interviews.Theoretical framework: The theoretical framework is based on The Resource-based view where the independent variables are the VRIO-model, resource tree and external resources. The dependable variable is sustainable competitive advantage.Empirical foundation: The empirical foundation is based on the compilation of the few conducted interviews with Datek and Micatrone.Results & Conclusion: Datek and Micatrone show both similarities and differences in what creates their sustainable competitive advantage. The management of both companies creates according to the VRIO-model sustainable competitive advantage.

The purpose with this essay is to study how a micro enterprise builds a brand. This because the current situation makes it difficult to stand out from the vast amount of marketing messages available in the market without having an extensive marketing campaign. Small companies do not have the opportunity to put a lot of recourses as money into marketing as the large companies do. Neither do they afford to repair a brand failure.Brand building is a process that constantly is in progress in a company, large or small. To make this process concrete we have chosen to study the four factors; brand awareness, perceived quality, brand associations and brand loyalty.

This essay is about the origin, planning and establishment of the European Space Research Organisation's (ESRO) sounding rocket base Esrange outside Kiruna in Northern Sweden. Three main questions are examined. First I show there were not just scientific and technical but also political, economical as well as military reasons to build a European rocket base. Second, I scrutinize the reasons to choose Northern Sweden as the location for the rocket base. As it turns out, the main reasons were the favourable location of Northern Sweden within the aurora oval zone, the proximity of the Kiruna Geophysical Observatory, and the possibility to use a large, although not quite uninhabited, area where the launched rockets could crash.

Kalmar är i dagsläget i en kraftig expansionsfas. En satsning med ett stort internationellt mässcentrum och hundratals bostäder i norra Kalmar innebär att staden sätts på kartan på ett nytt sätt, inte bara som den historiska staden. För att centrala Kalmar ska kunna behålla sin särställning som stadens kommersiella centrum krävs det att även det utvecklas. Det är dock inte helt okomplicerat. Kvarnholmen har en begränsad yta och stora delar av den består av värdefull bebyggelse.

This thesis studies the indirect effects of Europeanization on national political parties. I argue that Europeanization has affected the way national parties operate, and communicate with the voters, by restricting the national policy space through increased economic and political integration. Furthermore, I argue that the impact of Europeanization is likely to be reflected in electoral manifestos and changed patterns of party competition. Accordingly, Europeanization is hypothesized to change party rhetoric in a cartel-like manner by diminishing voters? expectations, and also by avoiding EU-affairs in electoral manifestos. The hypothesis suggests, moreover, that Europeanization is reflected in convergence among parties regarding the rhetoric concerning EU-affairs. The purpose of the thesis is to examine to what extent the rhetoric concerning EU-affairs has changed in electoral manifestos sinceSwedenjoined the European Union in 1995.

A large part of the interactions between horse and rider during horseback riding takes place through the reins and the bit and devices for measuring the tension on the reins, rein tension meters, has fairly recently been developed. To safeguard the welfare of the ridden horse riders need to be aware of the rein tension they apply and actively work to decrease it. Furthermore, there is a need to develop the study of rein tension through new techniques and refined analysis procedures. A good-quality rein tension meter should be small in size, sensitive, durable and as accurate for light rein tension as for strong forces. Rein tension meters used in research on horse and rider interaction commonly depend on strain gauge technique for generating rein tension data.

Debates about suitable content in children's literature occur regularly. In spring 2010 such a debate took place in Sweden. The purpose of this Bachelor's thesis is to analyse the debate to identify ideas concerning the role of children's literature in society. A second aim is to examine how children's literature is described and which concepts are used by the debaters. The empirical material used for the analysis consists of ten articles, blog posts, radio- and TV- features published in March 2010.

The initiative for this project was taken by Benteler Engineering Services, as a result of having identified areas of improvement, in designated accessible areas like the wheelchair spot onboard buses. Depending on a wheelchair to be able to move around can understandably be challenging.Public transport is a common good in today`s society, however despite the measures taken towards adjusting to accessible needs, the majority of those being disabled chose different alternatives of transportation. This is due to reasons such as the drivers' poor attitude, furthermore the limitations of the space allocated to accessible needs, as people with strollers also use these spots onboard. Also, some wheelchair users find the rides unsafe, as they could easily fall over during without the appropriate space for them onboard the buses etc. These are only a few reasons why other options are sought out, i.e.

The purpose of this essay is to analyze theories about positioning that will create an image of the positioning process, which we later on shall benchmark with other companies way to position their brand. By this, we want to obtain a well-documented work on how Luma Metall AB should work with the positioning on its brand in the future. This essay is based on a qualitative method that is characterized by an abductive approach. The empirical materials we have gathered through interviews with 5 selected persons that are well experienced on the subject have given us important information. We have come to a conclusion how a small company in a B2B market can position itself.

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is a technology that utilizes the temperaturedifference in oceans between the warm surface water and the cold water at 1000 m depthto produce electricity. The purpose of this report is to investigate if OTEC with its synergiescould become a commercially feasible energy solution for a small island. A literature reviewis conducted to explore the different OTEC technologies and to what extent the threesynergies; fresh water, air conditioning and aquaculture, could be used. In order to calculatethe profitability of these synergies there is also a study conducted on the conventionalmethods and cost of fresh water production, aquaculture and air conditioning. A model is setup using a scenario of a small tropical Island with population of 100 000 people.

The main intention with this study was to explore how parents, employed in three Swedish small- and medium-sized companies, experienced their combination of work and parental leave. The investigation was carried out by a questionnaire, and the 21 participants estimated the attitude from and the treatment by mainly the management and the colleagues. The answers were analyzed both from a perspective of gender and in the aspect of high- and low utilizers of parental leave. The results showed that although both men and women generally estimated the attitude from the management and the colleagues towards parental leave to be positive, the parental leave was divided traditionally and unequally between the parents..

Employers are becoming more and more aware of that the internal communication between employees is the reason why organizations are being held alive and also what impact the office environment has on employees work performances and their communication. The aim of our study was to gain an understanding of what significance an office's spatial design has for the communication between employees and managers in the workplace. We have through qualitative interviews with managers and employees from different business cases gotten a perception of their ways of communicating with each other. The results showed that employees and leaders thought that they shared the same picture of what their communication was like in reality, how they thought their ways of marking their territory in the office was understood and respected and what their opinions and expectations of how the communication between them and their leaders should be like. These results were then analyzed in consideration with relevant theory and previous research in the disciplines of office environment and communication studies.The main conclusions that have been drawn from the analysis are that the work environment's design can be both positive and negative at the same time and that what should be focused on is the leaders' communication. The leaders and their employees have to communicate more about their communication between them so thart misunderstandings can be avoided in the office environment - and therefore become more effective..