In past decades information technology has changed the conditions of organizations, not at least within the industry. Advanced IT systems have become a fact in order to cope with rapid changes in the market and to effectively manage an organization?s knowledge. When organizations became more flexible and customized expectations from customers and stakeholders also become higher. These expectations and guidelines are documented in a company?s management system, which can be designed differently depending on what standards the company chooses to implement.

The main purpose of this essay is to investigate if Latvia´s pattern of trade has become more similar to the mature market economies, after Latvia´s independence 1991.Today, the intra-industry trade (IIT) dominates the trade of mature market economies. One of the pioneers of intra-industrial trade is Paul Krugman, who was the first to emphasize the importance "of scale and consumers' desire for variety" in explaining the basis for modern commerce. Customers get more variety and usually cheaper goods when the market gets bigger. I mainly use the modern trade theories to explain the trade pattern in Latvia. To measure how Latvia has developed its intra-industry trade, and thereby is approaching the mature market economies´ trade pattern, I use the Grubel-Lloyd index (GL-index).

Problem formulation: Recent results from the European Food Information Council?s consumer research on nutrition information and food labelling revealed that most consumers have little understanding of the nutrition information found on food products, feel that there is little authority regulating these matters and wish for a more trusted source of information and regulation and lastly it was found that consumers accept their limitations and have little motivation to even read or learn about nutrition information. Thus what are the reactions of the various legal authorities to this problem? How are food retailers and producers responding to the needs of the consumer? How are consumers then reacting to these two players in the industry and the changes they are making?Purpose: The purpose of this research is to gain new perspective and a better understanding of relationship between consumers, companies and legal instruments in relation to nutrition and health claim labelling of food products. Method: The nature of this multi-disciplinary research has led to the study of all three areas, business administration (containing consumer behaviour) and business law, which are contained in this paper.

Undersökningens resultat visar att det finns betydande kostnadsbesparingar att göra vid införandet av en ny metod för askåterföring. Den nya metoden medför betydligt mindre transporter vilket leder till ett reducerat utsläpp av koldioxid och andra ämnen som har en negativ miljöpåverkan.I den nya metoden utnyttjas i viss utsträckning timmerbilarnas lediga kapacitet för transport av aska ut till spridningsområdet vilket då ökar chansen till högre lönsamhet för åkerinäringen..

The media industry, and especially the news, in Sweden is living in a dark world that seems to get even darker by the minute. According to Nordicom (2013) the number of readers in the ages 15-24 has dropped by 24 percentage points between 2007 and 2012. This is a big problem for the news industry, but also for democracy that require citizens that are well-read and know what is going on in society. Enda and Mitchel (2013) found that 65% of people in the USA have stopped reading a certain news source since it no longer fits their needs. Maybe with a better understanding for young adults needs this trend can change.This qualitative study was conducted using interviews with eight respondents to find out why young adults who study at a university consume news.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine how to build a personal brand and how to use this brand. The method used was a case study with personal interviews. The persons who were interviewed was Jan Carlzon and Peter Wallenberg Jr, two of the most important persons in the Swedish business industry. The study has shown that the person as a brand creates benefits and can gain opportunities if used in the right way..

The purpose of this thesis is to examine and analyze the characteristics of the management control system private equity firms use to manage their portfolio companies. The thesis takes a share holder value perspective, and it is assumed that the goal of the management control system is to increase the shareholder value in the portfolio company. In a qualitative study two private equity firms and two portfolio companies, one for each private equity firm, were studied in detail. In total, nine in debt interviews were completed. The results from this study suggest that the characteristics of the control system are dependent on the surrounding context; the focus on shareholder value and the specific characteristics of the private equity industry shape the characteristics of the management control system.

This thesis compares different methods for risk assessment of a creosote contaminated site in Vansbro, Dalarna. In a complementary study the importance of using representative data for calibration and validation of stationary groundwater models is discussed. The time dependency between surface water levels and groundwater levels on the site in Vansbro is evaluated by step response analysis. The results show that the groundwater levels reflect only long-term variation in the surface water levels. Hence the use of such long-term means for calibration and validation of the stationary groundwater models is the only theoretically defendable alternative.As a first step in the comparison of risk assessment methods the degree of contamination is evaluated on the basis of generic guideline values for contaminated soils, developed by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

The furniture retail industry in Sweden has gone trough large changes during the last decades. Today the industry is tough and in the maturity stage where few new companies enter, especially if they do not have a unique offer. The furniture companies have become larger and fewer, the changes have lead to difficulties for smaller and medium sized companies to grow and be profitable.Our purpose is to analyse, evaluate and compare three smaller companies in Stockholm with the intention to find what kind of marketing strategies they are using to survive on the Swedish market. First we interviewed the three companies to see what they do to survive on the market, then we asked 100 persons to fill in a questionnaire to see if they had the same opinion as the companies described.With help from theories we prepared questions which laid the foundation to the empirical part of the essay.The result from this study shows that the three companies differ from each other when it comes to using relationship marketing and placing the customer in the centre. All of them are aware of the importance of doing so, but because of different limits and possibilities they can not fully adjust everything to the customer.

Consumption of meat and poultry has increased during the last ten years while the production in Sweden has decreased. Cheap imports are competing with Swedish products and consumers, restaurant and retail let the price decided what to purchase. Swedish food producers can become better at communicating the added values that meat and poultry produced in Sweden has. Social media gives companies a possible tool for communication in order to communicate and create a relationship with consumers. The rise of social media does not only affect consumer decisions making, but also corporate communication. The objective of this project is to investigate how social media can connect the farmer to the consumer.

AbstractTitle: Leadership and ethics in the Real estate agent-industry Level: Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration Authors: Paula Massamiri & Therese Delmar Supervisor: Lars-Johan Åge, Jonas Molin & Jens Eklinder Frick Date: 2014 ? May Purpose of study: The aim of this study is to create an understanding of how leaders trough a Structural ethical climate can contribute to a Situation-based ethical decision-making of their employees. Method: We have used a qualitative method and conducted semi-structured interviews with respondents from real estate agent firms. When we studied our phenomenon, our overall research deign was qualitative interviews. Our data has been analyzed with an abductive method of analysis, influenced by Grounded theory. Results and conclusions: The study shows that leaders in the real estate agent-business trough a Structural ethical climate contributes to a Situation-based ethical decision-making of their employees by acting as role models, leads by example, highlighting the office values and rewards & punishes behaviors to control their employees? ethical decision making. Suggestions for further research: We believe that future studies can be conducted through observations to study both leaders and employees, to pay attention to employees? opinions and reflect on what affects them.

Timber floating operations in Scandinavia during the 19th and 20th centuries has contributed to severe negative impacts on riverine ecosystems. Increase in water velocity and lack of stream bed heterogeneity as a result of stream channelization lead to increased bed load transport. Since availability and recruitment of new suitable spawning substrate in Scandinavian watercourses is sparse, spawning habitats for salmonids has become a scarce commodity. Lately, increasingly more attention has been given to the recreation and improvement of brown trout (Salmo trutta) spawning habitats in restoration projects. While much of the research on spawning habitat has been focused on evaluation of the influence that the constructed spawning grounds have on fish populations, few studies have been conducted to evaluate the persistence of these constructions over time. I evaluate erosion of constructed spawning beds as an effect of sediment transport attributable to water discharge.

The comprehensive purpose of this Master of Science thesis is to examine which fleetmanagement services for engineering vehicles, ?Fleetech? preferablyought to develop inorder to reach a broad market and meet the demands of contractors.Scanty explained, fleet management is the management of a company's vehicle fleet and theservices can include a range of functions such as driver management and fuel management. Inshort the thesis encompasses four sections:1.Survey of the general contractor industry: The survey has been preformed toevaluate the potential size of the market for fleet management services in the generalcontractor industry.2.Needs analysis: The needs analysis aim was to define what contractors tasks andgoals are, and to determine what functions they want and need from a system.3.The use of CAN and the technical premises: The prerequisite for developing asophisticated and generic system is that vehicle data can be accessed from the CANbuss.The use of CAN standards in construction equipment has therefore beenexamined.4.Specification: An explicit set of requirements have been set to be satisfied by a fuelmanagement service, based on CAN standard protocol J1939.Important conclusions: The use of CAN protocol standards are extensive and the prerequisitesfor developing elementary and CAN based services good. The services should be compatiblewith different manufacture?smachines.

Förr eller senare minskar tillgången på råolja och därmed bensin och diesel i världen. Då måste vi människor finna andra drivmedel för att klara våra transportbehov och andra behov som är beroende av drivmedel. Förutom detta finns det behov av åtgärder som minskar emissioner av CO2 till atmosfären. Etanol som drivmedel är relativt nytt, och marknaden är potentiellt mycket stor. Agroetanol AB är en etanolfabrik i Norrköping som använder spannmål som råmaterial.

Syfte och frågeställningarSyftet med studien är att undersöka om det finns några skillnader i fysisk aktivitet beroende på upplevd stress. Undersökningen avser att jämföra en tidsmässigt lugn respektive stressig vecka. För att besvara syftet undersöks om deltagarna når upp i rekommendationerna för fysisk aktivitet samt om det finns en skillnad i aktivitetsgrad mellan domänerna.  MetodStudien är en tvärsnittsstudie där enkäter används för att besvara syftet. Enkäten är egenkonstruerad och uppdelad i två delar, där delarna representerar en vanlig lugn vecka och en vanlig stressig vecka. Den upplevda stressen är utgångspunkt, den fysiska aktiviteten undersöks genom frågor som berör intensitet, duration och frekvens.