In this study we have focused on how board work is affected by companies growth and development. This research has been conducted through a case study of Teleopti AB, a private Swedish family-owned company, together with theory and literature studies. We have studied the development of Teleopti since its founding in 1992 until today and what impact this company's development has had on Teleopti's board work and composition during the same period. Through the study we came to the conclusion that Teleopti's board work has gone from being supportive and advisory to more professional with a higher degree of board involvement. This change has been caused by the reduced information asymmetries, the increased need for board's expertise, the new board dynamics and the CEO change caused by the company's growth..

Due to poorly functioning local and regional markets, the smallholders in San Francisco, Petén, were dependent on intermediaries that took advantage of the smallholder?s distance to markets. In an attempt to secure income and strengthen their bargaining position, 189 smallholders joined forces through the creation of a social smallholder network, held together by a community based enterprise. This enterprise was initiated in 2011 with the help of government incentive programmes and NGOs that within a few years will leave the enterprise to auto regime. This study treats the sustainability of a community forest based enterprise, Chachaklum, in northern Guatemala. The study identifies factors that enable smallholders to organize themselves in order to obtain business practices that support an improved standard of living.

The environment has become an important part in people´s lives, and in today´s society stakeholders demands have increased upon companies when it comes to sustainability reports. How these sustainability reports are designed depends on whom it?s for, laws and regulations, and the companies own norms and values. The purpose of sustainability reports is to measure, monitor and compare a company´s enviromental impact. It?s not only about integrating economics, but also enviromental and social standards together to get both financial and competitive advantages.Sustainable Value method is a new model and is the first real method that can be used to evaluate a company´s resources, both financial, social and enviromental to a sustainable value.This model is used to compare the resource efficiency between companies.In this thesis, a documentary study with an experimental approach has been made.Sustainability reports from six selected companies (in the engineering and forestry sector) have been investigated with respect to their accounting for carbon dioxide, and an experiment using the method ?Sustainable Value Approach? was subsequently performed.

Background: Pesticides in conventional food may be related to morbidity and mortality. Furthermore pesticides have a negative impact on the whole ecosystem. Organic food can presume better health as they contain less chemicals and toxins and contribute to sustainable development efforts.Objective: The aim was to examine what attitudes consumers have regarding to purchase organic fruit, vegetables and root vegetables.Methods: The association between consumers? views on conventional food and organic food was investigated using questionnaire given to a population sample of men and women aged by 23-65 (N=60) in grocery stores and in a fitness center. The study was based on a cross-sectional study in a municipality in central Sweden.Results: Consumers were interested to buy organic food.

There is no commonly accepted definition of a business method. It ought to consist of a method or a process of doing business. Business methods constitutes a broad category of patents, it is hard to tell exactly what can be interpreted in to the term. Most of the world's legal systems have made an exception from patentability for business methods. In the USA the exception was abolished in a case 1998.

Purpose: We wish to gain a deep knowledge about product development processes in relation to the aspect of time in companies in highly technological and rapidly changing markets. The purpose is to establish how organizations better can employ time as a resource to make the product development process more efficient. Conclusions: Information we gathered from theory and primary data show that information flow, synchronization and time profit when seeing time in three dimensions are factors which should be reflected in the architecture of a product development process. To illustrate our findings, we decided to create a model..

The main objective of this thesis is to study the brand manager?s role within a global business to business (B2B) company. In order to meet the main objective we have chosen to study and analyse one global B2B company, Alfa Laval AB, Alfa Laval DK, Alfa Laval PL and its co-partners such as an advertising agency. We have also studied three global business to customer (B2C) companies, Mars, Unilever and Nestlé, to get a picture of brand managers? role and responsibilities within the B2C environment which is already quite far ahead in the development of the brand management thinking..

My thesis is a combination of theory and practice, where theory is meant to create a context and a background for my interpretation proposal. I wanted to ?access? the ideas that are always in the background of the reasoning which underlies both planning in a larger scale, and the design of a place. I wanted to make a ?work of ideas.? In the process of shaping the proposal, I wanted to be deleted from the site itself.

AbstractAt the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 the nations stated that traditional environmental policies were not sufficient to handle the multidimensional challenges posed by sustainable development. Governments needed to broaden their political decision making procedures in order to coordinate and integrate environmental, social and economic policies. Therefore a new tool was introduced in Agenda 21, National Strategies for Sustainable Development (NSDS). The aim of an NSDS would be to bring together actors from all parts of society to jointly reach a consensus on how to work towards the vision of a sustainable society. An NSDS would be seen as a strategic tool to help focus national policies for SD.

The role of small businesses is fundamentally important for the economic development in countries. Within this context, business incubation is used as an entrepreneurship development instrument to promote and support new firms in the early stage of their existence. However, research in the field tends to disregard the perspectives of incubatee entrepreneurs. The performed investigation is based on interviews with entrepreneurs from two different business incubators at Swedish universities. This study uses a Situated Learning Theory (SLT) as a theoretical framework, to examine the entrepreneur's experience of the learning environment in a business incubator.

As the cities are becoming more crowded, the urban distribution has become a major logistical challenge. Some commonproblems in the inner cities arelimited accessibility and idling. Many of Sweden's municipalities are above the limit values for PM10limit set by the EU.Sundsvall is one of these municipalities and has the vision to create a sustainable city and region. Sundsvall LogistikparkAB is part of an EU project, SMARTSET, which is collaborationbetween several cities in Europe. SMARTSETSundsvall is about to develop a market-based sustainable model for city logistics.

This thesis examines the ongoing European political debate on the links between livestock production and climate change. In the end of 2006 the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released their report Livestock?s long shadow, showing that livestock production represents some 18 % of the total global greenhouse gas emissions. The purpose of this paper is to explore the European Commission?s position and response to this question since the release of the report.Using Arne Naess? argumentation analysis, statements made by the Commission will be systematically organized and broken apart.

The importance of chemical use is enormous for areas such as agriculture, industry and medicine and hence a prerequisite for our modern society. In order to protect humans and the environment from the negative effects of chemical use, chemical regulations have been used at a relatively early stage in our history. The purpose of REACH, the new chemical regulation of the European Union, is to generate new knowledge of chemicals within the European market and to increase the responsibilities of the enterprises when it comes to risk management. Whether the enterprises will implement the regulations or not will be of vital importance for the realization of the law?s intentions.The purpose of this study was to identify possibilities and problems that can occur when a downstream-user SME is about to implement REACH.

Process standardization is a topic that has generated a lot of research and literature. At first, the focus was on production; today processes are used in all different kind of business areas.The aim of this study has been to analyze how processes can be applied on development businesses and how IT systems affect the result of the process. To accomplish this, we have asked questions such as what standardization is in a development process? Why are the processes standardized? What difficulties can appear with standardization? And how the IT-systems affect the result of the process?To answer these questions, we have preformed a case study on Saab. Saab is a well know Swedish company who are working with a project called the GMS-project, where they develop processes to cover the whole company´s business areas.The literature gives the reader an understanding of processes and standardization.

The aim of this study has been to examine if an implementation of a One Stop Shop in the public sector and its IT-support can serve as a motor for business development. By examine the relation between the One Stop Shop and the public administrations we have tried to answer this question. The municipality that we have examined underwent a big change, seven years ago, when they implemented a One Stop Shop including a IT-support called Flexite. But despite these seven years and the fact that Flexite has changed approach from a Case Management System to a Support System for Business Development the municipality have not adapted to this change. .