One of the biggest changes which have affected businesses during the last ten years is the accelerating speed at which Internet technology and e-commerce has developed. If Internet earlier was used in the purpose to entertain it is now accepted as an essential business tool and companies are investing more of its resources in e-commerce activities. Everyone ?has to be on the net? today but that implies a challenge in matching e-solutions to the company?s business goals. It is necessary to have clear goals, carry out research and plan a strategy in order to operate an optimal e-commerce website for the company?s needs.The purpose with this dissertation was to see how well companies adjust to new demands in the rapidly changing e-environment.

Uppsatsens syfte är att analysera om det finns en medvetenhet om regional identitet och image inom regionen Satakunta, samt om åsikterna om utformningen av den regionala identiteten och imagen är konkretiserade, eller inte. Utifrån en studie av Jazzmusikfestivalen i Björneborg undersöks detta. I och med det diskuterar författaren huruvida evenemang har en roll i skapandet av en attraktiv och konkurrenskraftig region. Syftet är också att undersöka om det finns samarbeten i regionen för att göra den attraktiv och konkurrenskraftig. För att få svar på syftet har författaren använt sig av primärdata i form av intervjuer med representanter från Björneborgs stad, Björneborg turistbyrå, Landskapsförbundet, Satakunta Tourist och Björneborg Jazzmusikfestival.

This report describes the development of an application in collaboration with Designingenjörerna AB. The company has worked for a long time with a community platform and they required an application where users can create their own unique profile representations, called Avatar Creator. An Avatar Creator is computer based application, which makes it possible to create a virtual character. The problem area behind this is that, large websites require a lot of administrative work when people upload profile pictures on different community pages. They can contain abusive material or pictures of other people rather than those who created the profile.The questions in this report are, how can an Avatar Creator help user to get a unique profile of himself? What are the advantages and disadvantages of an Avatar Creator? How to create a user-friendly application?To understand how an Avatar Creator works and get ideas to create an application, exiting Avatar Creators were reviewed on the Web.Collaborative work with Designingenjörerna AB was done to pin down the requirements for the Avatar creator application.

Titel: ?Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.?Författare: Malin NybergInstitution: Fakultetsnämnden för ekonomi och design, Ekonomihögskolan, ELNUKurs: Turismvetenskap III ? Examensarbete, 15 hp.Handledare: Martin Gren, (Linnéuniversitetet, Fakultetsnämnden för ekonomi och design, Ekonomihögskolan, ELNU)Examinator: Stefan Gössling, (Linnéuniversitetet, Fakultetsnämnden för ekonomi och design, Ekonomihögskolan, ELNU)Syfte: Studiens syfte är att undersöka på vilket sätt och varför Öland som turistdestination är sårbar inför vädervariationer ur turismaktörernas perspektiv. Studien avser även att belysa på vilket sätt marknadsföring av Öland och medias rapportering om destinationens väderförhållanden är bidragande krafter till väderkänsligheten.Metodik: I undersökningen har en kvalitativ fallstudie använts som forskningsmetod med en induktiv ansats. Informationsinsamling har skett via semi-strukturerade intervjuer med respondenter från fyra turismverksamheter på Öland. Urvalet av fallstudieområde och respondenter har skett genom ett bekvämlighetsurval med hänsyn till access och karaktär av forskningsområdet.Slutsats: De viktigaste betydelserna av forskningsresultatet har bland annat visat att brist på alternativa turismprodukter innebär en stor sårbarhet för turismaktörernas verksamheter vid ogynnsamma väderförhållanden för de huvudsakliga aktiviteterna Forskningsresultaten har även påvisat att fokus på specifika väderattribut i marknadsföringen av destinationen medverkar till destinationens sårbarhet tillsammans med förväntningar om specifika väderförhållanden bland besökare..

A range of public health and animal welfare problems has been shown to be associated with free-roaming dogs. With a high density of free-roaming dogs and with a major tourism industry, Samoan tourists are likely to be influenced by the presence of the dogs. The tourists are mainly from the Oceanic region; with New Zealand and Australia as the biggest contributors. The aim of this study was to examine the potential impacts of dogs on visitors to Samoa. A questionnaire was handed out to 281 visitors all over Samoa, collecting opinions and information on visitors? experiences and behaviour regarding the Samoan dogs.

Title: The dynamics of the Audit expectation gapIntroduction: The audit expectations gap is the difference that exists between what auditors and users of accounting information expects an independent auditor to do. Since the definition arose in 1974, much research has been done about the gap. What is relatively unexplored is how the gap changes over time within a country, and how it is affected by external events. This lack of knowledge has motivated this study.Problem: How has the audit expectation gap changed in Sweden, from the emergence of the definition until today? In which way have corporate scandals and legislative changes affected the gap?Purpose: The aim is to identify and create an understanding of how the audit expectation gap has changed in Sweden.

Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) is a quality control system created by the European Union (EU) to protect integrity of certain food and drinks that are produced in a specific area in a unique way. By protecting these products, the EU can certify that the traditional region-specific methods of food and drink production are preserved. The EU countries that follow such a system are mostly from Southern Europe. For instance in France, the PDO system has helped improve the income for farmers, boosted the rural development and assured protection for farmers against the abuse of their brand and the selling of their products by outsiders. In Sweden, there are no PDO products yet, instead there is Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) and Traditional Speciality Guarantee (TSG) that are not as protective as PDO.

The wide spread of the Internet and new information technologies in recent years has come to effect how libraries manage and disseminate information. Search engines like Google are widely used by people who often find the information retrieval systems of libraries to be too complicated. In 2004 Google announced plans to digitise five major library collections. Organisations representing the publishing industry and authors have since then filed lawsuits against Google claiming that Googles scanning of library books infringe the rights holders copyright. Due to Googles potential impact on libraries this thesis aims to examine how Googles digitisation project, Google Book Search, has been received in the library community.

The aim of this thesis is, from a business perspective, to examine how the pharmacy chain Medstop is working with their positioning in order to achieve competitiveness in the re-regulated pharmacy market. This is studied through a theoretical framework that demonstrates five forces that affects the competitiveness in an industry, the five-force model by Michael Porter.The thesis is a qualitative case study where data collection was done through interviews, literature, articles, websites and internal information from Medstop. The data was then complied into the theoretical perspective the authors have chosen for this paper, the five-force model by Michael Porter. This model was chosen because it gives a broad description of the competition a company faces by describing five different forces that affect the competition within a branch. The fact was collected on the basis of the marketing strategy positioning, and the essay is written from a business perspective.Our cunclusions are that the pharmacy chain Medstop are in their initial positioning and has chosen to position itself on the basis of their core values; credibility, safety and security.

Thesis purpose: The purpose of the master thesis is to analyse the battle of meaning creation regarding the notion of smoking and to reveal the production of unequal power relations. The battle is fought by different stakeholders through means of language and the study focuses on the tobacco industry in Germany. Methodology: A critical discourse analysis is applied with a qualitative research strategy. Our data collection was inspired by grounded theory and is limited in scope through a relevant case within the context of smoking in Germany. Empirical data is collected by means of an internet based document study of publicly available texts.

This bachelor thesis in tourism studies focuses on people's use of social media related to travel. The paper aims to provide a wider knowledge of tourist?s propensity to display destinations through social media and how they perceive others that display travelling. This is put in relation to the term of social status in order to find out if there is a possible link. The intention was to provide an insight into the phenomenon to contribute new awareness that destinations can exploit in their marketing.

The aim for this master thesis is to create an understanding of the intersubjective processes of how individuals are experimenting with their identities in social media and the consequences for the identity and embodiment. The thesis is completed with the help of discourse analysis and a starting point in four complementary theories. Central to the implementation of the analysis is the concept of diffraction. Therefore the thesis is, which is reflected in the choice of theoretical approaches and methods, critical to many aspects of classical philosophy of science and method. The empirical material is based on interviews.

GIS on the Internet is a rather new phenomenon, which has evolved from the need ofdistributed geographical data. It is also a powerful tool for presenting information on theInternet. This master thesis aim to create a web based GIS application with information onlime spreading and the situation concerning acidification in the county of Kronoberg, Sweden.The web based GIS application will be used by the county administrations in Kronoberg toinform the public and the municipal authorities of current counteracting acidification activity.This report includes documentation on acidifying processes and liming activities, which arepublicised together with the web based GIS application. The web based GIS application wascreated with ArcIMS, a new program in the ESRI family of GIS programs. The programincludes a guided structure, to development of everything from a map to a complete GISapplication, including mapservice and websites.

There is a growing trend in the world, where cities compete with each other by building similar attraction to enhance the tourism at the destination. This competition often results in the opposite where the cities lose their authenticity. Stockholm on the other hand does have the possibility to offer its visitors Stockholm?s archipelago, which is a unique natural phenomenon that cannot be replicated. Stockholm is the most popular tourist destination in Sweden.

Tourism is a growing industry that brings in a lot of money each year, range ofactivities increases and people travel more than ever before. More and more chooseto move from rural areas to larger towns, at the same time when people are travellingthey want to visit quieter places that can offer outdoor experiences in the nature. Thisis something that tourism businesses located in rural areas have a great advantage of.But when the range is large, it becomes important for firms to communicate with themarket, to make the tourists choose to visit them.The purpose of this study is to investigate which media channels and target groupsthat tourism businesses use and how they reflect on the importance of communicatewith the market. To find this out, interviews have been conducted with tree differententrepreneur, all located in Jämtland. The theory?s that has been used is strategiccommunication, public relations, market communication, media channels, socialmedia and target groups.The result shows that all companies think that thecommunication with the market is an important part in the work with the company.The communication gets the business a chance to be seen and it becomes more easilyto create relationships with the stakeholders.