This report describes the initial work intended for updating the car sharing service Roadmate. Roadmate is one of the services received by the car rental company Hertz First Rent a Car. The goal was to present the client with design- and structure proposals for a car sharing service that includes high usability and at the same time remains aesthetically pleasing.The work is based on an initial study with data collection, mapping the target user group and its needs. Subsequent structural and design proposals for Roadmates company carpooling service are based on the facts surrounding the target group's needs. The result are well developed and tested design sketches with accompanying visual identity and sitemaps that can be the basis for the further work on the development of the service..

The aim of this thesis is to examine the existence and prevalence of earnings management in Swedish companies. Theoretical frameworks often suggest that there are strong incentives to practice earnings management. The research area of earnings management has, to date, mainly focused on detecting earnings management. However, to our knowledge, no such studies have been conducted on Swedish companies. This thesis provides evidence of the existence and prevalence of earnings management in Swedish companies.

The function of budgetary controls is to control the resource allocation within companies. It can also be an instrument for measure and control subordinates and/or business units? performance (Van der Stede 2001). This paper concerns the latter; when the budgetary control function is used to measure and control subordinates performance based on budget. Previous research in this area has not yet accomplished to explain the effects of tight budgetary control which Hartman (2000) considers as the main issue to be concerned about in management accounting research.Previous research has presented contradictory findings regarding tight budgetary control explained by positive effects as well as negative effects during the last decades.

Product placement isn´t a new concept, matter of fact it has existed for almost hundred years. On the other hand to use TV-series as a marketing channel for product placement is a present vogue for brands and companies to reach the right target audience. Through product placement in TV-series companies are available to get away with the problem that people zapping commercials. Our purpose with the thesis is to have increased comprehension about TV-series as a channel for product placement considering effect against different target audience, products and brands. For this study we applied a qualitative approach and did six depth interviews with different people to gain several viewpoints.

Uppsatsen är baserad på en fallstudie gjord på Tetra Pak. Syftet med fallstudien var att utforma en lista med faktorer att som bör beaktas för att ett införande av ett Competence Management-system ska bli framgångsrikt. Tillvägagångssättet i fallstudien har varit en dokumentstudie och ett antal intervjuer. Använda teorier är hämtade från områdena Change Management, Knowledge Management, Competence Management och Human Resource Management. Undersökning resulterade i ett antal intressanta faktorer som bör beaktas.

Forestry has three main aspects to take into consideration today; economical, ecological and socio-cultural. In order to reach the broad policy goals for sustainable forest management, an increased variety of management approaches are requested. Today clear-cutting is the only method used in 96 % of the managed forests in Sweden. The Swedish National Board of Forestry has therefore initiated a project in order to investigate and develop Continuous Cover Forestry (CFF). This study is a part of this project.

We have through our theoretical framework been able to create a simplified measuring tool for a KIZ; the S-TKL. We have found that the S-TKL is possible to implement on the Öresund Region but with some flaws. Even though the Öresund Region has implemented the mindset of a KIZ, accurate statistics are in some areas hard to find. We can also through our empirical findings say that it is difficult to use the S-TKL on Shenzhen. The data we have found gives a good indication of both of the regions.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka frekvensen av krisstrategier inom livsmedelsbranschen och hur pass sofistikerade dessa strategier är. Vidare vill vi se närmare på en del av de moment som crisis management-teorierna behandlar. Förekomsten av krisstrategier är stor, men endast ett fåtal av företagens strategier uppfyller våra kriterier för att anses såsom mycket sofistikerade. Företagen anser själva att det är viktigt med crisis management, medan de i verkligheten inte i lika hög utsträckning har de element som författarna till den crisis management-teori, vi använt oss utav, menar ska finnas med. Företag som varit i en kris har mer sofistikerade krisstrategier än de som inte har upplevt en kris under de senaste 20 åren..

ABSTRACT System development has become more and more concentrated on development for the Web and this has resulted in larger target groups. It will most surely continue to be so considering that the Web will be the infrastructure of business and services in the future. A big target group involves that the owner of a system can earn a lot of money from the paying users, but that assumes that the system can meet user needs. If a system on the Web does not satisfy the user?s demands then they will use the competitor?s system instead because it is only a mouse-click away.

Energiutvecklingsprojekt är idag mer aktuella än någonsin. För att kunna genomföra så stora projekt som hela fastighetsbestånd, och samtidigt ta hänsyn till lagen om offentlig upphandling har affärsmodellen EPC, Energy Performance Contracting, utvecklats. I samarbete med SIEMENS AB Building Technologies har jag tittat på hur man kan garantera en viss nivå på besparingarna som genomförs. Denna garanterade besparing beräknas mot en uppställd baslinje, som är en beräkning av hur energianvändningsmönstret skulle ha sett ut med dagens förutsättningar om inga förändringar gjorts. Modellen med regression är noggrann och hjälper till att identifiera avvikande användningsmönster..

E.ON Elnät has in their project Operational Performance developed a priority tool forconstruction and operation. The tool will help the users to increase the capability to prioritybetween new development projects and removal of faults. The tool can be seen as a measuringfor different bay?s reliability, size and the community usefulness. The result of the priority isdirectly connected to which calibration that is chosen in the tool.The priority tool is still under development and there is therefore an uncertainty about howsensitive the tool is for changes in the calibration.

The purpose of this thesis was to illuminate and create a deeper understanding of how small niche retail businesses within the apparel industry position themselves. We aimed to investi-gate how these small niche retail businesses create their position and how they communicate these positions to their target market. To be able to investigate the positioning-process within these small niche retail businesses a case study was conducted based on interviews with two respondents from two different companies and observations of these businesses physical envi-ronments. The study indicated that the small niche retail businesses mainly make use of emo-tional aspects and their assortment range to create their position. To communicate their posi-tion to their target market they mainly use their in-store personal selling and their assortment range..

The purpose is to improve IKEA´s understanding of how their target group of 12 to 18 years old boys and girls thinks when they visit the showrooms in the department stores. What make them enter the showrooms? Is it the colours, the furniture or the whole concept? How are they inspired to furnish their own room? Do they get ideas from the showrooms or are they looking for a specific furniture? These types of questions have increased young people´s interest for design and decoration over the last decade. It transpires with help from an article written by Vittorio Girotto and Michel Gonzalez how children are influenced in an early age by their own temperament and their natural surroundings. Children reasons and acts according to what they believe adults would have done in a similar situation.The methods that have been used during this project are interviews, surveys, observations, hypothetical persona, persona and ABL (IKEA´s own method).

Many companies have historically forced their interests through without any thoughts about the future needs of the humans and the society. In the last few years voices have been raised for a change, companies need to take their responsibility regarding sustainable development.The purpose of the report is to describe and explain possible relations between sustainabil-ity performance of companies and profitability, valuation, industry and size respectively.To be able to judge the sustainability performance of the companies Folksam (2006a) have been used. This is a solid investigation of the companies listed on the A- and O-lists of the Stockholm Stock Exchange by the end of 2005. The sustainability marks have been com-pared with the chosen key values for each hypothesis respectively. With this quantitative data as foundation, a quantitative approach and a deductive method have been used.In the first area of the investigation, profitability, the authors found correlation for the main hypothesis between sustainability performance and ?Return on Total Assets? through a statistical test.

This report that is written in cooperation with Peab Sverige AB, studies the information and knowledge management from the production support to the production management. The conclusion of this report is that to have a good and functional information and knowledge management it is necessary that the company has a good way of regain and handling experiences from its projects. The way to do this is to develop the managing system on the production management?s terms. It is also critical to find an easy way for the production management to use the system..