The Commission can investigate infringements of the competition rules on its own initiativeor after a complaint from a third party when it suspects the existence of a cartel under Article81 or abuse of dominant position under Article 82. The EC Commission has extensiveinvestigatory powers under Regulation 1/2003 Articles 18 and 20. The visits by theCommission are made unannounced and that?s why they are popularly known as ?dawnraids?. The surprise arrival is essential in the fact-finding process because the Commissionlooks for information, which the undertaking subject would rather not give to the Commissionand takes measures to hide.The Commissions powers during a ?dawn raid? have been subjected to criticism.

Företagande och entreprenörskap har under 2000-talet fått allt större genomslagskraft isamhällsdebatterna och antalet nystartade företag inom tjänstesektorn har ökat markant. Denökade globaliseringen har bidragit till att fler aktörer väljer att etablera sina verksamheter påinternationella marknader och bidrar därigenom till en ökad konkurrens.Syftet med uppsatsen är att ur ett företagsekonomiskt perspektiv. Utifrån ämnenaentreprenörskap och entreprenöriellt agerande har vi undersökt bakomliggande motiv tillvarför entreprenörer väljer att etablera affärsverksamheter på marknader med hög konkurrens.För att besvara vår forskningsfråga, varför väljer man att starta affärsverksamheter på enmarknad med hög konkurrens, har vi utgått ifrån en kvalitativ ansats och använt oss av trefallföretag i form av språkskolor i Alicante, Spanien. Vi har intervjuat de entreprenörer somhar varit med och grundat språkskolorna samt genomfört observationer på entreprenörernabakom en av skolorna. Vidare har vi studerat relevant litteratur och forskningsartiklar inomämnet för att skapa oss en större kunskap och förståelse för studieämnet.Vi kan av studien dra slutsatser att entreprenörerna på fallföretagen inte upplevde den högakonkurrensen som ett hot.

The private forest owners play a key role in the supply of round wood to the Swedish forest industry. Today it is a keen competition between forest companies about the wood from private forest owners. In order to get access to the wood from the private forestry you need to be an attractive collaboration partner, who can offer long-term collaboration, service at top-level, and acting for good prices to the forest owners. This work aims at analysing the situation on the market today. It gives Sveaskog purchase department a good view of the forest owners? opinion in general about the existing purchase activities. Forestry service level and timber prices are determining factors for a successful relationship between forest company and forest owner.

In 1993 the internal market within the European Union was formed and ensured free movement of goods, services, capital and people. This led to the removal of trade barriers between members of the European Union. When opening up for competition, price differences between countries decreased and more jobs were created. A single currency was introduced by eleven countries in 1999 with the goal of reducing transaction costs, eliminating exchange rate risk and to further simplify trade. In 2001 Greece joined the collaboration and introduced the euro.

Due to the harsh competition among Swedish food retailers, in-store marketing is a crucial component in the stores marketing strategy. In an attempt to differentiate among its competitors, COOP Sweden has begun to use concave store shelves. Although the food retailing industry is one of the most studied, no research has been conducted on the concave store shelves. The objective of this study is to describe how these shelves effect the customer perception of the assortment, their experience of the store environment and their buying behavior. An S-O-R framework is used as an overall basis in order to outline the effects investigated in this paper.

Den offentliga sektorn anses som ineffektiv av förespråkarna för New Public Management (NPM) som hävdar att den offentliga sektorns verksamheter ska bedrivas mer resultatinriktat, likt den privata sektorn. Detta för att skattebetalarnas pengar ska komma tillbaka till medborgarna. Ett sätt att lösa vad de framhåller som ett ineffektivitetsproblem har lett till konkurrensutsättning, där privata aktörer får en möjlighet att genom upphandling utföra offentliga tjänster. Syftet var att undersöka hur det strategiskt arbetas med stöd och vägledning till chefer i konkurrensutsatt verksamhet, samt hur chefer upplever att de får det stöd som behövs för att fullgöra sitt arbete. Vi ville även förklara de bakomliggande motiven för konkurrensutsättning.

Background: A strong brand is becoming an increasingly important factor when surviving on a competitive market. A strong brand can therefore be considered a strategically important resource. The relationship between a brand's strength and its distribution can decide the future of a brand in the long run. Lifestyle branding is becoming a more popular way of differentiating ones brand from the competition. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to identify factors which according to the lifestyle brand owners are central when measuring the strength of a brand.

Today many industrial companies invest a lot of resources on research and development to resist the tough competition on the global market. This leads to a high risk game when the companies start many development projects, with uncertain outcome where some of the projects have to be terminated prematurely. The main purpose with this study is to identify factors, both internal and external, that influence the decision to terminate projects prematurely in Swedish development projects. Factors mentioned in the literature will be compared with case studies on three Swedish industrial companies to demonstrate the most important ones when taking such decisions. First a literature study was made to identify basic terms, a general project model and factors affecting the decision.

The purpose of the present investigation was to identify how knowledge about goal-setting is developed and applied in practice of male players in the Swedish national floorball team, by using a qualitative methodology. Participants were 6 players playing for the Swedish national team. They were asked to respond to the interview questions in relation to their perception of setting goals for a successful outcome in sports, how their goal- setting process has developed and how they deal with goal setbacks and goal attainment. Results revealed that Swedish national players in floorball employed goal setting often for both individual and team goals in practice and competition. In addition, many interesting findings regarding the process of goal setting emerged in the result.

The purpose of this study is to analyze how places can be marketed through tourism brochures. The study is based on a discourse analysis and texts and pictures from three brochures, which come from the region of Småland in Sweden, have been analyzed. The first brochure is from Visit Småland, the second from Vetlanda municipality and the third from Värnamo municipality. With the rise of globalization one of the consequences has been the increased opportunity for tourists to visit places all over the world, which also resulted in a greater competition between places than before. One reaction to this has been the increased marketing of each place unique characteristics in the tourist brochures.

Rapid urbanization causes competition over land use between green area preservation and urban development in cities and greatly affects ecosystems as well as human well-being. This conflict is significant all around the world as many cities are now replacing existing green areas with new developments. The area around Dag Hammarskjöld's väg in Uppsala is currently experiencing the same conflict, as the need that the city has for new housing represents a threat for the many valuable green areas that are in the site. The purpose of this project was to understand how the need of urban development and the preservation of green areas could be balanced. This understanding would thereafter be used to make a design proposal for the area around Dag Hammarskjöld's väg.

Abstract Semester and year: Spring, 2008Writers: Victor Andersson and Filip ForslundTutor: Thomas HelgessonProgram: Marketing program, Halmstad University - School of Business and EngineeringTitle: Differentiation from a consumer perspective - How important is differentiation from a consumer?s perspektive when choosing a residence? Presentation of problem: How important is differentiation from a consumer?s perspective when choosing a residence?Purpose: The purpose is on basis from previous theories on the subject to describe what kind of differentiating that from a consumerperspective is the most important when choosing a residence. Key words: Differentiation, brand, apartment market Methodology: This thesis is built on an qualitative method, where eight open individual interviews have been made. Our choice of respondents was based on what kind of respondents that could give us the most accurate information on the subject which we based on relevant variables. Theory: The framing of the theories is based on a marketing perspective within the area of differentiating and focuses on how companies use different tools to differentiate their offer to create competitive advantages.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the Dual-Effect hypothesis in Pritmani, Shome and Singal paper (2003), in order to analyze the exchange rate exposure on firms listed on the U.K. market. The study will examine if the foreign involvement of the firm will affect the share price of the firm.In addition to evaluating the Dual-Effect hypothesis in Pritmani et. al. (2003), we will evaluate the effect of foreign interest rates impact on U.K.

Syftet med undersökningen är attöka förståelsen för operatörers möjligheter, hinder samt drivkrafter tilllärande i en lean organiserad verksamhet. För attundersöka detta har vi brutit ner syftet i följande frågeställningar: (1) Vadfinns det för möjligheter, hinder samt drivkrafter till lärande utifrånperspektivet arbetets utformning och autonomi? (2) Vad finns det förmöjligheter, hinder samt drivkrafter till lärande utifrån perspektivetledningens stöd? (3) Vad finns det för möjligheter, hinder samt drivkraftertill lärande utifrån perspektivet samverkan och team?(4) Vad finns det för möjligheter, hinder samt drivkrafter till lärande utifrånperspektivet kompetens? Vi har i denna undersökning använt oss av kvalitativmetod och genomfört kvalitativa intervjuer med arbetsledare, teamledarekoordinator, teamledare och operatörer. Resultatet visar attoperatörsarbetet i många delar har en hög grad av standardisering, vilket å enasidan kan innebära att individen lär sig att bemästraen viss uppgift men det kan även bli ett hinder för ett mer utvecklingsinriktatlärande. Samtidigt framkom faktorer som möjliggör ett mer utvecklingsinriktat lärande i arbetet.

In today?s society Internet is evolving the tourism industry and it?s the pioneers that use this marketing channel to further their brands that?s that reap the benefits of early adoption. In this essay we research how well two kinds of ownership structures, private ownership and chain ownership, in the hotel market match up against each other in Internet presence and the steps they have taken to encourage guests too book via their websites. We determined that the hotel market in Karlstad was sufficient to study the different kinds of ownership structures as it?s small enough to see the competition between private ownership and chain ownership clearly instead of as normal in more densely populated cities where chain owned hotels dominates the marked due to sheer size. The scientific research consists of two types of methods.