Umbrella organizations, organizations that have other organizations as members, are in previous research described as arenas of conflicts with problematic decision-making and contradictory parallel action towards political decision-makers. However, the research within this subject is limited, and therefore the aim of this paper is to add knowledge to how such organizations in fact work. After conducting a case study at the trade association ESTOC this thesis challenge previous statements about umbrella organizations and conclude that there, under certain circumstances, may exist harmony within an umbrella organizations. The main implication, thus, is that we have to readdress umbrella organizations in quite another way to be able to make a more realistic interpretation of collaborations in umbrella organizations..

Parallel import in the European Union is the perfectly legal activity under Art. 28-30 EC of buying goods in a low-price country in order to ship and sell them in a high-price country. The pharmaceutical market in Europe is subject to the subsidiartiy principle of Art. 5 EC and heavily characterised by national regulations that lead to significant price differentials between – generally speaking – Northern and Southern Europe. This incites the activity of parallel traders in the first place, who act as arbitrageurs.

AbstractThe aim with this essay has been to investigate if Sweden?s attitude against the European Union has changed expressed in the statement of government policies, during the years 1988-1998. In the prolongation I want to see if the policies can be seen as examples of agenda-setting.My comprehensive objective is: In which way is the change of the Swedish attitude towards the European Union expressed in the statement of government policies during 1988-1998 shown?My other objectives are: In which ways describes the statements the integrations process in Europe generally?In which ways does the integrations process influences Sweden in generally?In which ways does the integrations process influences Sweden?s relations against the European Union?I have used qualitative text analysis as method in my essay to find the answers to the questions. I have classified a number of opinions, found in the policies, summarized under my three objectives.The result of my essay was shown that the changed not can be found in the policies and they are examples of agenda-setting.

The discussion about organic and fair trade products has been a big issue during the last few years. Despite an extensive knowledge about the environmental problems and a willingness to do something about it, the consumers are not always acting that way. Children do imitate their parents and other adults at an early age, so if the role models do not begin to act, think and dress ethically correct, neither will the children. Three problems have been identified out of the discussion. They relate to the questions of how older school children and parents of younger school children are taking sides regarding the organic/fair trade clothes and how existing trends in the society as well as those in fashion contexts influence their attitudes and consumer behaviour.

This essay presents an alternative approach to the predominant democratic analysis of the European Monetary Union. As the Treaties stipulate the political conduct within Monetary Union and put certain restrictions on the European politicians they are to some extent constitutional in their character. Essential for constitutional theory is the concept of precommitment; according to which a decision is made in t1 purposing to obstruct certain actions in t2. In light of this the aim of this essay is to investigate whether or not delegating monetary responsibility to the ECB can be seen as an example of constitutional precommitment and if so, if this constitutional perspective can add something to the predominant democratic analysis of the EMU. According to the author the EMU is by and large a form of precommitment as the leading politicians in Europe figuratively have tied their hands from intervening in the common monetary policy.

This essay concerns the visual trade grading of pine and spruce.In the 1800s developed rules for sorting of wood. The rules used to facilitate the export trade.The terms of the regulatory sorting systems developed in the 1900s. While it still used some of the older terms.The essay deals with how the grading rules affect the use of wood and how the rule work and how the terminology works.Some of the terms used for sorting are O/S, Kvinta, Utskott and A,B,C,D.You sorting by counting the numbers of knots, cracks and other characteristics of each piece of wood.The sawmills have much influence in how the rules developed.Today it is often already determined in the sawmills which uses each piece of wood most have..

Parallel import in the European Union is the perfectly legal activity under Art. 28-30 EC of buying goods in a low-price country in order to ship and sell them in a high-price country. The pharmaceutical market in Europe is subject to the subsidiartiy principle of Art. 5 EC and heavily characterised by national regulations that lead to significant price differentials between ? generally speaking ? Northern and Southern Europe.

There is an ongoing process where the free market within the European Union is expanding, partly through the incorporation of new member states, partly through the signing of association agreements with nearby countries and regions. When trade barriers are removed in different ways more companies consider an internationalization of the company. However, the procedure of the internationalization of companies is a rather new and unexplored area in the context of research. The focus of this study is therefore to examine how a few companies situated in Sweden, has proceeded while searching for knowledge during the internationalization process. Data has been collected through interviews that have been balanced with information from Internet and other sources.

The European economy today is built on small and medium sized enterprises (SME?s) and SME?s recieve a lot more attention in the litterature now. Even though SME?s have earned more attention in the litterature there is a significant lack of information regarding purchasing and supplier selection in these companies?. This report aims to create bigger understanding of SME?s and their purchasing by showing how seven swedish SME?s select their suppliers.

I denna studie testas tio hypoteser som relaterar till finansiell teori för att se hur väl teorin kan förklara skuldsättningsgraden i små börsnoterade bolag. De teorier som testas är avvägningsteorin (trade-off theory), hackordningsteorin (pecking order theory) samt teorier relaterade till asymmetrisk information och agentkostnader. Testen genomförs med multipel linjär regressionsanalys och de undersökta bolagen är samtliga bolag med färre än 200 anställda på tre av de mindre börslistorna i Sverige. Resultatet visar stöd för åtta av de tio undersökta hypoteserna och är i flera avseenden tydligare än i tidigare studier som testar onoterade små bolag eller ett bredare urval av bolag..

This thesis has its focuson media portrayal of a large political institution; the European Union. Articles from two nations daily newspapers have been analyzed in order to examine how the European Union is described and framed for their readers. The newspapers that was chosen for this study and from which the material was collected, were the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet the American newspaper The New York Times. The material was taken from three periods of time, and by this the results did not only serve a presentiment on how the media reports about the subject, but also an idea over the media?s coverage character over time.

Debate over Intellectual Property Rights ?IPRs? particularly patent and copyrights is mainly on forward-looking industries in computer software. As part of a trade deal reached in 1994, the member nations of the World Trade Organisation must adhere to a global agreement known as TRIPS, for the Trade- Related Aspect of Intellectual Property Rights.This study is to analyse the ethical conception of Intellectual Property Rights and in particular its implications on the developing countries in relation to TRIPS. The approach will be to analyse a broad philosophical theories of property to see if there is any justification for a software program to be treated as private property and also argue base on John Rawls two principles of justice in relation to TRIPS Agreement. Some reflections will be put on the use of open-source software by less developing countries.From the study it was asserted that, strong IPRs protection would hinder technological transfer and indigenous learning activities in the early stage of industrialisation when learning takes place through reverse engineering.

In 1995, the World Trade Organization WTO was established. Today WTO has nearly 150 member countries, accounting for over 97 percent of the world trade. WTO has a number of agreements and one of them is the General Agreement on Trade in Services GATS. GATS control the service sector, and the public library is a small part of this sector. The purpose of this study is to examine the Swedish debate about GATSs possibility to affect the public library.

The aim of this thesis is to identify some of the obstacles to trade, that occurs on the common market, and to analyse the errors that still occurs in the national authorities application of the principle of mutual recognition. Is the principle of mutual recognition sufficient for the creation of a common market, or is there a need for additional measures to cope with the obstacles to trade that still exists on the common market? The problems related to the incorrect procedures of the national authorities and the fact that undertakings prefer to bring their products in to line with the rules of every single member state must be solved, if the principle of mutual recognition is to become trustworthy. On some areas, harmonisation ought to be chosen above the principle of mutual recognition, but in other cases an increased administrative collaboration, mandatory training for the national authorities or information campaigns intended mainly for undertakings could be the answer. The possibility to help undertakings to sue member states for damages should also be investigated.

Sweden became a member of the European Union in 1995. When Sweden entered the Union the government also agreed on implementing every law, regulation and directive the Union have and will have in force. One directive the Union wants every country to implement is the Directive (93/104/EG) concerning certain aspects of the organization of working time. This directive includes regulations concerning the relationship between employer and employees. The regulations in the directive must be in force before January 1 2007.One of the main points in the directive is the possibility for the parties on the labour market to reach agreements through collective agreements that deviate from the legislation concerning work hours.