The purpose of this thesis is to illustrate how non-profit organizations map the market of potential donors and how they apply their knowledge about the motives of the potential donors. The case-study of Church of Sweden Aid shows how a Swedish non-profit organization applies this in the daily work. In its strategic marketing the organization actively use marketing surveys in different forms. By employing an analyst Church of Sweden Aid has a possibility to make another step forward in order to understand its donor market and to adjust its strategic marketing plan to it. Church of Sweden Aid says that they don?t work with the donor?s motives.

The aim of this thesis is to assess the strategic importance of Central Asia as a whole and interests of great powers in the region in particular within the theoretical framework chosen. The work shows Central Asia as an area of the New Great Game, analogue of the original Great Game which was played out between the British Empire and Tsarist Russia in XIX century. The parallels between the original Great Game and the New Great Game are drawn in order to understand the scope and the true intentions of the players of the latter one. Also, the security issues in the contemporary Central Asia are explored and analyzed to provide with the background for future predictions. Furthermore, the indirect purpose of the thesis is to examine whether the international system has changed from that of two centuries ago by comparing the structure of the international systems at the time of two Games.

The study addresses the field of design as a profession and examines the views on strategic management in a design project among nine selected graphic designers. The graphic designers who participate in the study are permanently employed at design companies in Stockholm. The study has a qualitative approach and the method is based on face-to-face interviews. We have chosen to examine this subject due to the opinion among professionals that strategic management in the design industry has increased during the last decades. There is a belief that strategic management in some cases are used too extensively as a way for design companies to make more money.

The purpose of this candidate thesis is to obtain an overall picture of how many prohibitions against owning or taking care of animals that were announced in Sweden in the years 2006-2008 and on what basis these judicial decisions were taken. What is the situation for the person behind the judicial decisions? Is there a so-called risk category where preventive actions to solve the problem can be taken at an earlier stage?The first Swedish animal welfare legislation came into force in 1944. Previously there was a law of 1857 that only prohibited the maltreatment of farm animals. In 1988 the existing animal welfare law was revised into an in principle new law (1988:534).As early as in the Royal Majesty?s government bill (1944:43) to the 1944 animal welfare legislation, there was a proposal that issued prohibition for those having been convicted of aggravated cruelty to animals.

The use of environmental management systems, and objectives-led corporate management have become a widespread phenomenon today. Identification and assessment of an organisation?s significant (environmental) aspects is crucial within this work. Identification and especially assessment of significant aspects is often considered as a problematic step in many organisations. There are no generally accepted methods how to undertake this crucial step.

The world becomes more globalized for each year that passes by due to economical, political and technological processes. The globalization process leads to increased contacts with people from different cultures and therefore intercultural communication occurs.Intercultural and strategic communication is significant to accomplish successful establishments and effective communication for companies. The export from Sweden abroad increases every single year and today there are about 1500 Swedish companies around the world and 350 established in Russia. The purpose of this study has therefore been to analyze the factors that affect the establishments of Swedish companies in Russia.Material to our study has been collected through qualitative interviews and a seminar focusing on these questions. Our interviewees all have experiences on working with Russia, as most of the interviewees work for Swedish companies in Russia or are consults that help companies to succeed with their establishment.The material has been evaluated and analyzed in relation to our main theories in intercultural- and strategic communication using theorists and theories such as Hofstede and his five cultural dimensions, Goffman?s staging and Habermas communicative action theory.Our theories have been put in relation to our collected information and complemented by earlier research and the result indicates that you need intercultural competence to manage an establishment of a Swedish company and the strategic communication in Russia because of the intercultural differences that the respondents experience..

Background: Mergers and acquisitions have evolved from initially almost exclusively having been an American phenomenon, to becoming a common occurrence throughout the world. Companies though, are not defenseless against hostile bids, but must take many factors into account when selecting defense measures. Purpose: This paper aims to enhance the understanding of acquisitions through hostile bids on the companies studied. More specifically, this study aims to create a deeper understanding in how Scania and Skandia have chosen their defense measures, or could have chosen, before and during their hostile bidding processes with specific concern for their strategic credibility. Method: This paper is based on two companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange exposed to hostile takeover attempts in a similar time period.

BACKGROUND: Today?s societal changes, including high rate of change and increasing information flows, are increasing the demand on the individual mental capacity. It becomes increasingly difficult to analytically process all the different dilemmas and everyday decisions as individuals have a limited mental capacity available to make these decisions. Thus, it has been suggested that ego-depleted relies more heavily on intuition, which is less burdensome, when making decision. However little is known about to what extent intuitive decisions differ from analytic.

Social enterprises are increasingly gaining ground as an organisational form in Sweden, however the institutional structures for financing these types of organisations are yet to be established. With its usual origin within the civic society, social enterprises prioritise a higher goal than to maximise economic profit, which often causes these organisations to be dependent upon resources from external constituents within its institutional environment. The aim of this study was to examine how a social enterprise, which derives from the civic society, acts to mobilise resources from constituents in its institutional environment. This was executed through a case study of Jordbro Världsorkester (JVO) - a typical organisation in the civic society which takes the form of a social enterprise - by identifying how assets were used to gain resources in strategic responses to institutional processes and examining how institutional processes affects how JVO acts. Throughout the study, qualitative interviews were conducted with JVO and constituents in its institutional environment and a theoretical framework was developed which explains how capital is used to gain more capital in an emergent strategy of strategic responses as the organisation gets in contact with institutional processes from its institutional environment.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the subject matter of visual communication in presentation brochures of two Swedish regions: Region Halland and Region Dalarna. My focuses are the following questions: what is the aim of the brochures and in what ways does the visual material relate to that aim? How can strategic communication be defined through a visual perspective and in what ways is it useful in the context of presentation brochures of the regions? What sort of communicational functions are specific for the visual material in relation to the written language of the brochures? Lead by these questions, I start by analyzing the brochures through a textual analysis and a social semiotic approach. The result shows that the aim seems to be both political and commercial, but that the visual elements relate more strongly to the commercial aim than to the political aim by the way they strive to present a positive image of the region. The visual elements work in strategic ways that I define as visual strategies.

The purpose of this masters thesis is to examine how managers in public libraries are managing financial cuts. Questions posed are: What strategies are used by the library manager to handle the cuts and how are the strategies being worked out? What are the consequences of the cuts? How do the managers use their library plans in the work with the cuts and how do the plans change as a consequence of the cuts? Library managers in eleven communities are interviewed about their financial cuts in 2003 and/or 2004. The result shows that cuts are made in different ways. The study analysed the managers statements with a model about strategies created by Oulton.

Among farmers in Sweden hedging of product prices is a relatively new way of thinking. A deregulated market and a more volatile price picture are consequences of the free market and the movements towards globalization. The effects of globalization are largely a demand- and supply driven market. These factors give the farmers incentives to stay informed and to act on their own in order to manage their price risk exposure.The overall purpose with this study is to analyze the farmers? attitudes and awareness of price hedging and to examine what type of decision processes that characterize hedging decisions.The study covers the period 2006 until 2008 and the crops oil seeds, barley (malt), milling wheat, feed wheat, oats and feed oats.

Background: Internet is a new phenomenon; small companies have only used Internet a couple of years. Internet created a lot of new possibilities for the companies. Internet is a new marketing and communication channel for the company. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine how small companies can use Internet as a strategic tool. Another purpose of this thesis is to generate a better understanding of the application of Internet in small companies.

BACKGROUND: Today?s societal changes, including high rate of change and increasing information flows, are increasing the demand on the individual mental capacity. It becomes increasingly difficult to analytically process all the different dilemmas and everyday decisions as individuals have a limited mental capacity available to make these decisions. Thus, it has been suggested that ego-depleted relies more heavily on intuition, which is less burdensome, when making decision. However little is known about to what extent intuitive decisions differ from analytic.

This essay deals with the same task that utilitarians have tried to solve for a long time, what is happiness? In the eighteenth-century utilitarians suggested that happiness should be the base for social political decisions. But the lack of definition disposed so that GDP became the measurement of happiness, which proved to be wrong when the unhappiness continued to increase. More than two hundred years later scientists came up with a new definition of happiness and new ways to measure it. And during the last decade economists have taken the discussion to a higher level.So once again we?re dealing with the same old issue, if happiness ought to be the base of social political decisions.