In 1998 a new regional development policy was introduced by the Swedish government. A central feature in the policy was the formation of partnerships at the regional level. The partnerships were meant to consist of local and regional stakeholders, representing a great variety of interests, who would collaborate in order to improve regional development. The new policy was promoted, besides being more efficient, as a way to broaden political participation and to break male-dominated structures.This thesis discusses whether the regional partnership actually favours ?women's interests?, in terms of how the relationship of power between women and men is constituted by the model.

It is important to understand the process of appraisal of a business in order to establish its value. The purpose of our thesis is to establish which methods and models are used when evaluating a business and investigate the factors that may affect the value and price tag of a business. We have used a qualitative approach by conducting both indepth interviews and a survey as well as reading literature within the field. The main conslusion in our findings is that the common practice of discounted cash flow is widely used when bestowing a monetary value for a business, and in order to raise the value a well established customer relationship was the single most important factor. As far as lowering the value, the answers were of such a wide spread that a single factor could not be attributed.

The fitting room is an important part of a clothing store, it's often where the customer decides if they want to buy the garment or not. Therefore it is important that the customer can feel safe and comfortable when they are trying the clothing. A typical fitting room in Sweden today has only one bright spotlight that emits light either towards the face or from the ceiling above. This study explores possible lighting solutions that take into account the customer's experience in the fitting room.The study aim to increase understanding of the importance of a good light in fitting rooms, so that customers gets a nice experience and that clothes, body shape and facial features are shown in a natural way. The issue therefore included how lighting can affect the customer's perception of the clothing and how the perception of body shape, facial features and the clothes change in different lighting solutions.To answer these questions, observations were made in various clothing stores, followed by an experimental study divided into two parts.

Background: During the 2000s, there has been an increased interest in studying business management and strategy implementation with customer focus in public organisations. To achieve business goals it is important to continuously work with strategies to meet customerdemands for increased efficiency and service. Purpose: The aim of the essay is to examine how to work on strategy implementation in a municipal real estate company from a management perspective in order to achieve overall goals. Method: The study?s methodology is a case study based on qualitative telephone interviews that were conducted with representatives in managerial positions from various levels of the company.

Kevin Roberts has extended the comprehension of strong consumer brands to a higher level where loyalty beyond reason is established. He calls this new status Lovemarks. As the concept of Lovemark has only been applied in B2C markets, this thesis is directed to find out the applicability of Lovemarks in B2B context. In order to fulfill the research purpose, three main questions are answered based on a cross-sectional research approach: What role do intangible factors play in B2B branding? Is the idea of B2C Lovemarks transferable to B2B context? How should a B2B Lovemark be characterized? The results of the qualitative interviews indicate insights of high investment and involvement, integrated brand communication, balance between function versus emotion, brand?s trustworthy personality, customer partnership, and finally, the potential establishment of B2B Lovemarks.

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IntroductionIn this study, we have explained the complexities of social media, as it is still a relatively unexplored area. With the rapidly growing use of social media in recent years, companies have chosen to establish themselves in social networks to advertise themselves and communicate with their customers. In this study we analyze IKEA Sweden and their use of social media on the national market, where focus lies upon IKEA Sweden Facebook-page. The study intends to find out how the company uses social media as a marketing and communication tool and also analyzes the relations and conversations that occur on the Facebook-page. Purpose and research questionsThe purpose of the study was to gain a deeper understanding of how a large Swedish company as IKEA has chosen to use social media and how it's perceived by them. We also intended to find out how IKEA Sweden uses social media in their daily work and how the company communicates through this media channel.

Frågeställningar:- Hur arbetar Carpenter Powder Products och deras anställda med att upprätthålla relationerna till sina kunder?- Vilka faktorer ser Carpenter Powder Products anställda som de viktigaste i en affärsrelation?Syfte: Syftet är att kartlägga hur de anställda på Carpenter Powder Products arbetar med att upprätthålla relationerna till sina kunder samt vilka faktorer som är viktigast inom affärsrelationer. Detta för att skapa en djupare inblick i hur ett industriellt företag inom en B2B bransch arbetar med sina kundrelationer.Metod/teori: För att kunna se hur Carpenter Powder Products arbetar för att upprätthålla sina kundrelationer genomfördes kvalitativa intervjuer med sex respondenter. Studien utgår från Grönroos teorier då författarna anser det intressant att testa relationsmarknadsföringsteorier som är menade för ett tjänsteföretag, på ett industriellt B2B företag istället.Resultat: Resultatet av studien visar att Carpenter Powder Products arbetar aktivt med sina kundrelationer för att skapa långsikta relationer på olika sätt men att det i nuläget saknas ett strukturerat kundvårds-system som både kan förbättra och förenkla deras kundrelationer. Av de faktorer som anses viktigast i affärsrelationer var det förtroende som stack ut hos studiens respondenter.

In 2010, SAS received the "On time performance service" award by Flightstats. This award was an affirmation of long-term work, both in projects and as an ongoing process, which the company sought to systematically improve punctuality on its flights. The extent to which SAS followed the values and the underlying theories of the cornerstone model for total quality management was the main issue in this essay. Whether there are conditions for the company to get even further by working in other ways was also investigated. In addition, the importance of punctuality in relation to customer satisfaction was discussed.

Groupon is a popular group-buying website where they act as an intermediary between buyers and sellers. The company has grown rapidly and was established in Sweden in the year of 2010. The aim of this study is to investigate if businesses that have been marketed in Stockholm and that have been co-operating with Groupon have been affected in terms of customer loyalty and profitability. Furthermore the study also examines consumer?s opinions, purchase behavior and loyalty against Groupons business partners.

This paper discusses the strategy and strategic change in the Swedish freight forwarding business and analysis factors that influence the forces of the business. Three companies of various sizes are chosen to be investigated as a case study, outline that cost leadership and differentiation are both important strategies for companies to compete in the market. However, companies outpacing competition do not only pursue either of the two strategies, the need the ability to add one (cost leadership) to the other (differentiation) in relationship to environmental change over time..

The main intention with this thesis is to investigate the relationship between dividends and investments. We hypothesize that firms may be forced to cut back on investments if dividends are not curtailed in times of poor annual earnings. According to contemporary theories, we argue that firms may be reluctant to cut back on dividends even when annual earnings decline and the level of investments will consequently be determined by the financial mobility of companies. The survey is carried out by means of a quantitative analysis, which includes all firms quoted on the exchange of Stockholm from 1980 through 2000. On the contrary of previous research, we conclude that even firms with high dividends can be forced to curtail investments if payouts to shareholders are maintained or increased when companies are faced with a decline in annual earnings..

The purpose of this study is to examine the experiences of threats and violence among four social workers at a social services' reception center for individual and family care. The study uses semistructured interviews and an abductive approach. The analysis is based on previous research, communication theory, coping and sense of coherence, SOC. The study shows that the studied workplace isn't considered to be particularly exposed to threats and violence, although all four respondents have experienced threats and/or violence. The respondents make a difference between threats and harsh words from clients because they consider their clients are entitled to be upset considering the nature of the work conducted at the workplace.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine how public libraries use socialmedia for marketing purposes, and what librarians think about this. My focus of this thesislies on what librarians think about marketing of libraries through social media and if theythink that marketing through social media can create a better relationship between the libraryand its users. The questions I wanted to answer were:? Libraries using social media, for what purpose do they use them? ? Do the libraries choose to use social media to market their organization? Why? ? What attitudes exist among librarians about marketing through social media?The theoretical framework for this thesis is Evert Gummessons model off Relationshipmarketing and the process of Internet marketing, which both are based on relationalperspective. The methodology used for this study was structured interviews.

The aim of this thesis is to examine young adults? attitudes towards libraries marketing in social media. Libraries mainly use social media to reach out to young adults. However, young adults mainly use social media to communicate with their friends. The question that arises is if young adults are interested in communicating with organizations such as libraries on social media.