Intelligence is an elusive concept with strong links to business intelligence , in which organizations have recently more and more have incorporated the use of IT (Information Technology). A research carried out recently have identified the importance of effective monitoring, but there are few studies showing how organizations actually work in the field.A qualitative study consisting of the interviews with employees at an IT company was done to see how external monitoring is carried out in practice, in a specific company and how it would help the company to develop. The company we visited did not work with special procedures of any kind regarding external monitoring but still knew about the term and its meaning.The conclusion account for detected patterns as well as difficulties, including the definition of external monitoring which differs a lot between individuals. The patterns discovered points to the importance of clarity and objectives regarding the use of external monitoring for it to be effective and measurable.Keywords: External monitoring, Business Intelligence, Competitive Intelligence..

Businesses role in society is changing. Corporations are expected to take responsibility, not only for their traditional business conduct, but also for social and political issues. A rise in globalization and international trade has led to an increased interest in the concept of CSR. Accordingly, stakeholders are expecting multinational companies to be accountable for existing issues in developing countries. New business models are needed to meet increased expectations of responsibility and shared value creation. Based on an understanding of the need for new business models a multinational corporation is studied in a local context, where a radically new way of doing business is developed.

The purpose of this master thesis is to understand how busy moms experience their grocery shopping trips and the in-store environment. In gaining this knowledge, we aim at being able to suggest ways to improve the grocery shopping experience of busy moms; and present insights that can help food retailers in targeting this consumer group in-store. Methodology: We use an iterative approach, and work with photo elicitation interviews. We let our respondents capture their experiences in photographs, which then aid in recalling their memories in follow up interviews. Theoretical perspective: We base our theoretical perspective on environmental psychology where we use the original M-R model, and include personal and situational variables suggested by Bäckström and Johansson (2006); where the latter variable includes the views by Turley and Milliman (2000).

This study aims to analyse textbooks used in the course Religious Education 1 in Swedish upper secondary schools. The textbooks were analysed by using qualitative content analysis. By using queer theory and the theory about ?homo religiosus?, the study examined which norms concerning sex, gender, sexuality and relationships the textbooks convey.            The study shows that the textbooks convey norms about sex and gender by portraying the men?s perspective when educating about the different religions. The women perspective is being discussed in a specific part of the chapters and is therefore being portrayed as different.

The purpose of this report was to increase knowledge regarding the co-operation between social services from the perspective of employees at a school. The focus was on the question: ?In the schools view, what is the relevance of co-operating with social services?? The problem was divided into three categories; the value of the co-operation, the schools discourse on co-operation and the balance of power in the co-operation. The scientific topic was addressed using a qualitative survey method at a school. Four people were interview; the principal, the welfare officer, and two teachers.

Growth of small businesses is vital to the Swedish economy, and many entrepreneurs want their enterprises to grow. However, the business climate of today is more changing than ever, and attributes becoming increasingly important for companies in order to deal with this are flexibility, speed, and adaptability: characteristics normally attributed to small enterprises. As a larger organization often is associated with more rigidity as a consequence of a higher degree of formalization, entrepreneurs are hesitant to seize growth opportunities, as they fear it will have negative impact on the aforementioned competitive advantages their enterprise possesses as a small business. This simple case study of a growing small enterprise investigates the effects of organizational growth on a small business' organizational structure and through its above mentioned advantages. The study finds that avoiding formalization while growing damages the competitiveness of the firm, and concludes that a degree of formalization is a necessity to maintain the flexibility, speed and adaptability in a growing small business..

Beslut innebär att välja mellan olika alternativa handlingar för att uppnå de angivna målen. För att underlätta beslutsfattande finns det ett antal olika stödsystem som tar fram underlag till besluten. Vi är intresserade av att se hur dessa understödjer strategiskt beslutsfattande och till vilka typer av beslut som de används.Uppsatsens syfte är att granska beslutsstöds betydelse och hur beslutsstöd kan underlätta organisationens verksamhet och dess beslutsprocesser. Vi vill skapa en bakomliggande förståelse om beslutstöds användbarhet och huruvida beslutsstöd används, samt i vilken utsträckning. Vi vill även undersöka de nackdelar som skapas i och med användandet av beslutsstöd.Studien visar att användning av Business Intelligence effektiviserar beslutsprocessen och möjliggör för ett ökat proaktivt agerande.

The global spread of the Internet has enabled busniesses and consumers in all industries to be better informed. Consequently, the buying process has appeared to become different from what tratditional models implies. As the buying behaviour among customers is evolving, selling companies are responding to this change. This thesis evolves around the consequences that the developing relationship between buyer and seller in business-to-business companies has led to. The topic in focus is the buzzword and phenomena "content marketing" with its marketing and selling strategy.

AbstractMaster thesis in Business Administration, School of Business and Economics at Linneaus UniversityAuthors: Patrik Larsson and Pontus GislénSupervisor: Håkan LockingExaminer: Sven-Olof CollinTitle: The index effect- a study on Nasdaq OMXS30 and OMXH25Introduction: A significant part of the financial literature is based on the Efficient Market Hypothesis which assumes that prices in the market reflects all available information. Anomalies, such as the index effect, indicate weaknesses in this theory as it has been proved that it is possible to outperform the market using public information. Hence, the index effect can be linked to market efficiency which makes it interesting to study from a theoretical perspective. The mapping of the index effect is also interesting from a practical perspective, as it leads to a better understanding of whether investors and firms should take this anomaly into account.Problem: Is there an index effect, how does it behave and what can explain this effect?Purpose: The aim of this study is to investigate the index effect.

The purpose of this paper is for the reader to realise how national innovation systems are deeply intertwined with the legal background of a country and to understand the processes that involves national innovation systems specifically regarding the stem cell / genetics research and how the need for specific community law must be considered targeting the stem cell patents. The legal part will try to answer: Why is it important given the actual state of the European stem cell national innovation systems for the European Commission to take a stand and tackle issues regarding the patenting of the human stem cell innovations? This is done from a country industry analysis (business approach) and then linking it with competition law from a community stand point of view (that tackles biotechnology issues). In order to achieve this the paper is divided into three separate analyses beginning with a theoretical background of general biotechnology / genetic terms that will enable the reader to have a general understanding of the importance of this kind or research ( genetics / stem cell research). The chosen countries case studies exemplify very diverse economies and development perspective from the traditionally R&D intensive to the least and from the biggest countries in Europe to one of the smallest, thus giving cultural, legal, economic and scientific variety..

The improvement programme Six Sigma has often been surrounded by an air of success since it was introduced in the 1980s. Yet there are cases in which introduction of the Six Sigma improvement programme show far from successful results, even complete implementation failures with no traces of the Six Sigma methodology or any improvements after completion of the introduction. These failures can cause severe damage to organizations through direct monetary loss caused by a negative result of the investment. Indirectly the failure can cause confusion in the organization and loss of employee motivation. The conclusions have been derived based on a qualitative case study at a Swedish telecommunications company.

We have left the industrial society, and instead, we live in a post-industrial knowledge and information society. It is often said that industrial production has disappeared or that it has changed greatly. This means that fewer are employed in the manufacturing sector while the service sector is increasing, resulting in that the boundaries between production and administration decreases. The production goes from mass production to more flexible and specialized solutions. This puts greater demands on the logistics chain that continually need to work to meet customer requirements.

All companies face risk in their daily business. Internationalised companies tend to experience higher risk due to for example unfamiliar business environment than companies that act only on the national market. Estonia became independent as late as in 1991 and is therefore a new interesting market for many companies in neighbouring countries like Sweden. Risks that are most apparent for an internationalised company are political risk, currency risk, capital and interest rate risk, business risk and credit risk. Our intention of this study was to find out how Swedish companies acting on the Estonian market faced the different risks when entering the Estonian market and how they value the risks today.

Östgöta Brandstodsbolag started its insurance business in 1841 and is today a part of Länsförsäkringsgruppen, which consists of 24 independent and locally anchored county insurance companies. The local concept is a condition for the county insurance (länsförsäkring) idea, which means that the 24 county insurance companies cooperate freely. Länsförsäkringar is the market leader within property and liability insurances in Sweden and has a market share of 30.5%. The largest, and most well known, insurance companies in Sweden, apart from Länsförsäkringar, are If, Trygg-Hansa and Folksam. This essay treats with Östgöta Brandstodsbolag, which is one of Sweden's largest county insurance companies. The company is active in the county of Östergötland where it has the dominant market shares within home, detached houses, car and farming.

This paper is about sensemaking. By using sensemaking we have derived bankruptcy factors from business leaders? own statements about their bankruptcies. The focus in this paper is to ensure how business leaders create meaning about the bankruptcies, which is also our research question.To make the study feasible, we used a method that corresponds well to the purpose of our work. The collection of data started with collecting a number of newspaper articles with direct quotes from business leaders.