As a result of global competition, companies within the automotive industry are required to improve their production systems to achieve sustainable and competitive production. To attain operational excellence, companies have adopted concepts like lean and World Class Manufacturing (WCM).In order to deliver, companies need to increase the availability and reliability of production equipment. This demands focus on both operational and strategic maintenance, and efficient equipment acquisition and management. The main objective of this thesis is to identify processes and success factors that are necessary for improved maintenance performance. By conducting a case study and by performing a literature review, the following has been studied: 1) how companies within the automotive industry work with maintenance and maintenance strategies, 2) implementation of maintenance strategies, and 3) new acquisition and spare parts management for maintenance. The results show that basic maintenance concepts and related terms are well defined in the literature.

Communication is essential for the survival of an organization. The management formulates strategies to ensure thatthe organization will get to where they want it to go. The strategy is then communicated to the co-workers through the line manager. But who is to say that the co-worker experience the message the same way as the line manager or the management for that matter? The purpose of this study is toinvestigate how the middle managers at Southern Älvsborg Hospital experience strategic internal communication andfurther how they communicate with their co-workers.Through a case study approach, the case being the communication of the hospitals research strategy, I conducted 13 interviews.I analyzed the material from the interviews using a hermeneutical approach and I used an interpretative approach to get a deeper understanding.

ABSTRACT The aim of this thesis is to illustrate how surgical operation theatre nurses perceive debriefing within emergency health care. The study has a qualitative design with semi structured interviews that have been performed with seven operating room nurses working in emergency health care. The strategic selection consists of professional operation theatre nurses working in emergency care at Uppsala University Hospital. The main goal of this thesis is to increase the understanding of debriefing and to highlight the need of debriefing after difficult or unexpected events in the emergency health care profession.The interviewed nurses perceive debriefing as an important way to develop the day to day work, but also as a way to unburden the staff at the time of bigger traumas. Even though the effect of debriefing is not univocally positive in the literature, the staff perceives that it reduces different kinds of stress.

Purpose/Aim: To create a communication strategy for PADI Nordic with the intention of getting Swedish divers, who have been certified abroad, to Swedish dive centers.Material/Method: The study is based on a number of personal interviews conducted with a) divers who are active in Sweden, b) divers who are not active in Sweden and c) representatives from PADI and PADI affiliated dive centers.Main results: The main reason that people who have been certified abroad do not dive in Sweden is that they regard it as being too complicated, too cold, too expensive and with nothing interesting to see. These might partly be misconceptions that can be corrected through a communication strategic effort. The best way to change this perception is by two different forms of communication. One will go from PADI Nordic straight to the divers through an email. This will have the purpose of getting their attention, making diving sound interesting and raise their awareness in preparation for the other part of the process.

Master's thesis, Master of Business Administration program, School of Business ofEconomics at Linnaeus University, Management, Course code, 4FE10EAuthors: Anton Milemo and Christoffer WideénTutor: Magnus ForslundTitle: Focus on employee turnover - an ethnographic study on the insurance companyTrygg-Hansa?s outbound department in VäxjöBackground: The costs of losing employees, recruiting new people, making a selectionof potential employees and training them are all high. The costs often exceed onehundred percent of the annual salary for the otherwise vacant position. In addition to thedirect costs of employee turnover troubles, things such as work confusion, loss oforganizational memory along with strategic skills can arise. The employee turnover rateof Trygg-Hansa?s outbound department in Växjö is too high according to the officemanager.Purpose: Understand the causes of high employee turnover in a Swedish insurancecompany.Methodology: This thesis consists of an ethnographic study of a Swedish insurancecompany.

The Smart Grid technology has during the last decade been established as a way to create a greater flexibility on the electricity grid that will be needed as the development moves towards an increased share of renewable primary energy sources in the electricity production. One part of the Smart Grid technology is the ability to shift loads in time, to adapt to either price or emissions, known as Demand Response. This project, which was conducted at KTH in collaboration with the consulting corporation Capgemini, examines the economic, environmental and social aspects of the Demand Response technology. In the project, three household products are used in a model that derives the potential savings in costs and emissions of CO2e. The results show that the actual savings measured in SEK are small, but that the savings measured in percent can be as high as 20 percent. Reduction of CO2e emissions is slightly lower.

The study focuses on mapping how well prepared the counties in the west region of Sweden is in case of restructuring. The study explores what kind of activities and routines that contributes to prepare the organization for restructuring. The study also aims to investigate the effect of precedent restructuring, and if the counties who experienced restructuring are more prepared than others.The research within the field of restructuring characterizes of an evaluating nature and the focus has been after the restructuring occurred. There have also been a lot of studies of the negative consequences on individual and organizational level. Since downsizing is a frequently used method by management despite its consequences is it important to investigate how organizations can learn and thereby be more prepared for restructuring.

Background: Balanced scorecard is a relatively new strategy in analysing activities in a company. To carry out a strategy in an organization a successful implementation is very important. Strategy implementations are unique for each organization and to succeed it has to be formulated and implemented with the individual companies particular conditions as starting- point. A problem is that the implementation sometimes is treated as a small detail in the planning process. This problem depends on how the strategic plans is carried out.

The Smart Grid technology has during the last decade been established as a way to create a greater flexibility on the electricity grid that will be needed as the development moves towards an increased share of renewable primary energy sources in the electricity production. One part of the Smart Grid technology is the ability to shift loads in time, to adapt to either price or emissions, known as Demand Response. This project, which was conducted at KTH in collaboration with the consulting corporation Capgemini, examines the economic, environmental and social aspects of the Demand Response technology. In the project, three household products are used in a model that derives the potential savings in costs and emissions of CO2e. The results show that the actual savings measured in SEK are small, but that the savings measured in percent can be as high as 20 percent. Reduction of CO2e emissions is slightly lower.

Background: Businesses are traditionally valued with the so called Discounted Cash Flow-model. When valuing newly-started businesses, surrounded by high uncertainty, and whose capital mostly consists of unrealized business opportunities, the Discounted Cash Flow-model needs to be complemented if the total value of the business is to be captured. A valuation with the help of real options is capable of valuing these unrealized opportunities, which often exist in newly-started businesses. The unrealized opportunities are to be found in the business plan of the business, why this needs to be valued to capture the total value of a newly-started business. Purpose: To demonstrate what the use of real options can result in when valuing businesses.

This is a tale about energy and power. It describes the geographer Halford Mackinder?s geopolitical theories and compares them with current views outlined by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Michael T Klare, among others. With a critical approach it also provides a historical account of a Europe that stands in front of an energy struggle so severe that the current world order seems destined to fall. Oil and natural gas, has since the beginning of the 20th century, been used as a geopolitical tool in order to create dependence, control and even sometimes overthrow empires.

This essay describes the Swedish furniture business and its strong competition between domestic and foreign producers. As the demand on higher development speed grows stronger, alongside a fierce competition between the companies, long lasting and unique qualities such as customer relations and strong brand names become crucial. Nowadays many furniture producers chose to sell their products through retailers and they therefore miss out on invaluable direct contact with their customers. Consequently, this means that they lack the perquisite to build relations or more importantly, to communicate their brand.To illustrate the problem a case study and a survey have been carried out. The study compares the strategic marketing works between producers who have own concept stores and those who uses retailers.

Background: Good health at community and individual levels are key policy priorities. These priorities can be shown through supporting parents about various different healthy lifestyle choices. In order to know where interventions are needed, it is of interest to study how parents generally feel and how they perceive their parenting.Aim: To study how parents rate their own health and parenting skills, and examine whether there is any correlation between perceived general health and perceived parental competence.  Further, this study will show whether there is a correlation between rate of perceived general health and rate of perceived parental competence when it comes to gender.Method: 64 questionnaires were collected at strategic open kindergartens in the municipality of Uppsala. The questionnaires were distributed to the parents present and who chose to participate in this study.Main result: The result of this study shows that parents have a high rate of general health.

Corporate Social Responsibility is a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns into their core business and in their interaction with stakeholders on a voluntarily basis. The purpose with our thesis is to study how Swedish insurance companies work with Corporate Social Responsibility and to analyse the underlying strategies of the companies? social, environmental and economical activities. We will analyse where, how and for whom value can be created with CSR. Where does the value creation take place, how can it be created through these activities and who will benefit from Corporate Social Responsibility? Theories point out that companies need to assemble and value the total package of benefits to be able to create successful corporate initiatives.

The aim and purpose of this essay is to study if three museums are using Facebook strategically to promote two-way communication with their target audiences in their external communication. A qual-itative and comparative research method and has been used and communication managers from each of the three museums have been interviewed. These interviews have been transcribed and coded in order to reveal opinions and views on how that particular museum feels about social media and the use of these tools in their external communication. A number of Facebook statuses have also been collect-ed in order to discover how each of the museums is using social media in order to reach and engage their target groups. Should the results of this essay be summarized it would show that the museums are using the communication channel that they feel suits the needs of reaching a specific audience.