The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare how and why consumers of different ethnic backgrounds value and prioritize product attributes among food in certain ways. We expected to find culturally bound attitude differences and our aim was to relate those to, and challenge, present knowledge of information structures. Consequently, we also aimed to use this new knowledge of attribute attitudes in connection to assortment variety theory, as attributes constitute important motives to how consumers perceive variety. A theoretical framework was constructed to suit our purpose and function as an analytical tool, consisting of Culture perspectives, Information structures (product attributes), and Assortment variety. In this thesis we focused on attitudes and consumer perspectives and excluded actual behaviour and the retailing perspective.

Because of an increasing demand from customers and changing external environment, there is a need for continuous improvements, for both manufacturing and service organizations, to meet these demands. Manufacturing organizations have been working systematically with quality improvements for a long time, but it has not been as common for service organizations. Because of that the methods to use for implementation of the systematic improvements have not been designed to fit service organizations, and not either for public organizations. The purpose of this thesis is to explain if and why the Swedish Road Administration?s organizational culture and handling of ideas and deviation support an implementation of continuous improvement management.

Vårt syfte är att skapa en djupare förståelse och klargöra för användningen avbegreppen management och ledarskap i praktiken. Med hjälp av begreppens innebörd kan vi som forskare få möjligheten att framföra hur begreppen används praktiskt. På så vis kan vi se om teorin reproduceras i praktiken. Vår uppsats visar att intervjupersonerna tror att de utövar ledarskap, men att det inte kan utövas i praktiken. Detta har sin grund i den tvetydighet som omger begreppet ledarskap och företagets organisationskontext.

En sammanfattning av uppsatsen på maximalt 8000 tecken..

In these days of globalization, with a higher level of openness and interaction over geographical, cultural and economical borders, the importance of the company?s intangible asset, its brand, is gaining importance as a differentiating factor. Building a strong brand and the emphasis on strategic brand management is something that before was given less attention in firms but today we can see a general increase in awareness and relative emphasis in the strategic work of companies.Countries as brands: Is it possible to consider a nation or a country as a brand the same way you consider a product? Well, looking in to the subject it seems to be a rather complex matter and there are many questions to be asked and answer. Nations around the globe are indeed marketing and positioning themselves for several purposes.

Background: Knowledge management is a concept that is considered of increasing importance in the developing knowledge society. Previous research in the area has to a large extent been based on large multinational companies. Purpose: The thesis aims to clarify how middle-sized Swedish management consultancy companies work with knowledge management. The thesis intends to use existing theories about knowledge management to explain the effect of size and area of operation on management consultancy companies? knowledge management.

The aim of this paper is to examine how the design of management control in a retail trade company affects motivation among its employees. Our purpose is to identify what actions create motivation and how management can benefit by developing and promoting such activity from its high-performing employees. Motivated personnel have become increasingly important in companies today, and companies are increasingly reliant on individual employees? capabilities. The study covers all parts of the management control system, to see how these align to create goal congruence in an organizational context.

Information is one of the organization's essential resources, and as such it needs Strategic management. The authors use the information audit, which was developed by Orna 1999 and Henczel 2000 as a tool to evaluate how well an organization's information activities connect to its mission, goals, and objectives, to evaluate the municipal politicians' information support in Härryda municipality. The decision situations met by politicians often are complex; they are ambiguous and unstructured, with a high level of uncertainty. Human information sources meet needs arising in this kind of decision situations best. Since most of the politicians work full-time besides being politicians, Härryda municipality has to substitute the human sources by textual ones composed of highly summarized information.

En sammanfattning av uppsatsen på maximalt 8000 tecken..

En sammanfattning av uppsatsen på maximalt 8000 tecken..

En sammanfattning av uppsatsen på maximalt 8000 tecken..

The purchasing of management consulting services has traditionally been characterized by informal and relation based interaction. However, case studies have shown that there is a movement towards more formalized and structured purchasing procedures among buyers of management consulting services. The purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence and the implications of this professionalization. To investigate to what extent certain mechanisms of professionalization have been implemented on the Swedish market, a survey directed to Sweden?s 500 largest companies was conducted.

SammanfattningUppsatsen's titel: Sund positionering för IP-telefonioperatörerSeminariedatum: 4 juni, 2008Ämne/Kur's: FEKP01, Examensarbete på magisternivå, 15 poängFörfattare: Andrea's Dehlin, andrea's.dehlin.238@student.lu.se och Albin Wennerström, albin_percy@spray.seHandledare: Per-Hugo SkärvadNyckelord: IP-telefoni, telefonoperatörer, bredbandstelefoni, strategisk marknadsplan, generativa relationer, strategiSyfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur IP-telefonioperatörer kan positionera sig för att ta sig in påtelefonimarknaden.Metod: Arbetet kommer att ha både ett induktivt och ett deduktivttillvägagångssätt, och vi har genomfört en kvalitativ studie, därvi med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer undersöker tvåIP-telefonioperatör.Teori: Teorin tar sin utgångspunkt i Strategic Marketing Plan,Innovation Ecosystem, Generative Relation's, The Delta Modeloch hur teknologier blir marknaden's standard.Empiri: Det empiriska materialet är insamlat genom intervjuer medföretag verksamma inom IP-telefonimarknaden och enbranschexpert. Även rapporter från Post & telestyrelsen haranvänt's som sekundärdata.Resultat: Våra resultat visar att IP-telefonioperatörerna har godaförutsättningar att lycka's, men det kräv's att de blir bättre påatt utnyttja sina kundrelationer, att de bygger generativarelationer med andra företag, att de utnyttjar sin höga kunskapinom IP-teknologi och att de även undersöker alternativastrategier som kan vara användbara om marknaden skiftar..

The industry of management training programs is increasing rapidly. Every year numerous organizations sponsor expensive management training programs for their managers, hoping that this will pay off and make the organizations more profitable. The companies that offer these management training programs could be seen as important conveyers of conceptions of leadership. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to identify similarities between a number of management training programs and see how they are related to different leadership theories , and based on this try to recognize the conceptions of leadership that are conveyed. The study is of qualitative nature and is based on interviews with representatives from five management training companies in Sweden along with a text analysis of written material presented by the companies.

The purpose of this study was to examine earnings quality and earnings management in U.S. ex-post failed firms. A quantitative study was made, using the Modified Jones Model, to identify abnormal accruals up to six years before bankruptcy. 9 003 continuing firms and 187 bankrupt firms, active sometime between 1990 and 2010, were examined. The study concludes that U.S.