During the last decades the local business as well as the multinational organization hasexperienced prominent changes in the technical field. The requirements for reaching newmarkets and achieving higher efficiency in daily work have risen to a whole new level. Totake advantage of the possibilities of IT the user has to be aware of the company?s businessactivities, what shortcomings and chances of development exist today. This is what makes itinteresting to depict the current situation of the company?s business.

The network with its virtual business structure challenge the established vertical business structure. Part of the network theory that has developed focuses on relationships that forms B2Bnetworks. One way to create a B2B-network is for independent businesses to form a organization promoting co-operation. For co-operation to be successful it requires well thought-out actions, but a lack of how these actions are implemented have been noticed. This study explores how encouragement of co-operation can be done practically.

The purpose of this report was to investigate how the Umeå School of Business and Economics at Umeå university can work to increase the share of courses and programmes that discuss sustainable development. Furthermore the purpose was to develop an action plan that can be used to increase that share. Methods used were a questionnaire directed towards the educators at the Umeå School of Business and Economics and an assessment of the content of courses and programmes connected to the Umeå School of Business and Economics. There was no clear structured way of working with education for sustainable development, but at the same time there was a will to integrate sustainable development in the education. Curricula were according to the educators an important tool to achieve this integration, their experience were that there are not enough time, people and money to work with sustainable development in the education and they would like to see more clear directions from the management.

Title: Interorganizational accounting in close relations ? A case study of the relation between a big purchasing company and two of their most important cooperation partners Course: Master thesis in Business and Administration within Accounting, 30 ECTS Advisor: Gun Abrahamsson Theoretical framework: This thesis uses theories of business relationships, management information systems and interorganizational accounting. Conclusions: Despite a difference in the relations the interorganizational accounting is designed and used in a similar way. The interorganizational accounting that exists in the two relations has a medium scope, fast timeline, high aggregation and high integration. The information is mainly used for attention directing and for decision making.

This study examines how management consulting firms work with business- and functional strategy and how these strategies are interrelated. More specifically we focus on business strategy (business unit level) and knowledge strategy (functional level) and whether these are aligned or not, i.e. whether strategic congruence exists.A number of recent studies have examined the importance of business strategy and knowledge strategy in management consulting firms separately, but few have pointed out the importance of the alignment between them. With this study we contribute to the strategic field of research with a model that describes how management consulting firms should work with their knowledge strategy given their business strategy. The model is developed through a synthesis between theories in the field of strategic congruence, business- and functional strategies and thereafter tested by an empirical case study of six management consulting firms.

Att handla på Internet har blivit mycket populärt. Allt fler företag öppnar handelsportaler på Internet där konsumenten kan köpa företagets produkter. I och med att kunden inte kan se produkten i verkligenheten, utan bara som en bild på Internet, händer det att kunden blir missnöjd med produkten och väljer att returnera den. Produkter som säljs på Internet har en tendens att returneras i högre grad än andra produkter som säljs på traditionellt sätt. När det gäller betalningen av produkterna har konsumenterna många olika betalningssätt att välja bland.

Syftet med vår undersökning av nybilsförsäljarna i Blekinge är att klargöra hur deras belöningssystem är uppbyggda. Sett ur ett ledningsperspektiv vill vi också veta hur de uppfattar sitt belöningssystem, och om de skulle vilja att det utvecklades vidare. Vi vill också ta reda på huruvida deras belöningssystem resulterar i de effekter som de eftersöker, och om systemet resulterar i ett positivt ekonomiskt resultat..

Agila Business Intelligence System (ABIS) är en relativt ny och komplex typ av informationssystem, som kännetecknas av förkortade utvecklingstider, genom att exempelvis införa mer självbetjäning i de analytiska systemen, för att kunna möta ett behov av att analysera omvärldsfaktorer, som förändras i en allt snabbare takt. Eftersom ABIS är ett nytt och relativt outforskat område, finns ett behov av att utforska detta område. IT-investeringar är alltför ofta olönsamma och finns ett intresse av att visa på vad som bidrar till ett framgångsrikt införande av ett ABIS och på vilket sätt.Syftet med denna fallstudie var att identifiera högt rankade och gemensamma faktorer baserat på de kritiska framgångsfaktorer som belagts av tidigare forskning inom ABIS, beskriva hur dessa bidragit till ett framgångsrikt införande samt utröna skillnader och/eller likheter mellan hur dessa faktorer verkar ur kund- respektive leverantörsperspektiv.Som underlag för denna studie användes framför allt tidigare forskning kring kritiska framgångsfaktorer för Business Intelligence System. Speciellt en modell som utvecklades 2010 av Yeoh och Koronios användes som utgångspunkt för att lista de potentiella faktorer, som skulle beaktas av denna studie.Denna undersökning genomfördes som en fallstudie med hjälp av ett företag, som både levererar konsulttjänster och ABIS. En Delphipanel användes för att sortera fram framgångsfaktorer, som sedan studerades närmare genom semistrukturerade intervjuer för hur dessa kritiska framgångsfaktorer bidragit till ett framgångsrikt införande av ABIS från dels ett kundperspektiv, dels ett leverantörsperspektiv.De två faktorer som rankades högt och samtidigt delades av samtliga respondenter var:affärsvision och planerdatakvalitet och dataintegritetKundperspektivet var det styrande och leverantörens roll var ordentligt förstå kundens perspektiv, för att på så sätt framgångsrikt införa ABIS.

Foreign invested SMEs have recently become increasingly interested in China. The enterprises are in this report categorized as second wave companies since they follow the footsteps of previous pioneers, of which mostly were larger companies. The ambitions of the SMEs are either to sell products on the ever expanding Chinese market or to utilize the potential of low cost production for global markets. The existing literature is fragmented and solely based on the experience of larger companies. We believe that SMEs are facing new and different challenges, and thus a new generic theoretical frame work is desirable.

This master thesis attempts to answerthe question if a startup with amaterial innovation needs a specialbusiness development model. Mainstreambusiness development literature is notwell adapted to the rigor of testing anew material and bringing it tomarket. This was studied using threedifferent methods. First of thetheories that are considered canonicalfor high tech business development wasexamined. The next step was to go into the role of a business developer inone of the hottest high tech materialinnovation startups this decade,Disruptive Materials.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka om de klassiska modellerna och teorierna inom strategiområdet är relevanta och tillämpbara för företag som håller på att etablera sig. Metodmässigt bygger vårt arbete dels på en rad intervjuer med personer som är engagerade i fallföretaget och dels på litteratur studier inom ämnet strategi som vi behandlar i uppsatsen. Resten kommer sen..

When contemplating entering an alliance the rationale behind the decision should differdepending on the size of the companies involved as well as on other important factors. The importantfactors influencing the decision are related to the resource pooling potential of the alliance,the power structure along with the business network the companies are a part of. Theanalysis has shown proof of a need for cooperation if one wish to succeed in the telecommunicationindustry and it has also determined which resources that are deemed to be most important toget in touch with, for our study object, to facilitate its access to the market. Those resources aredefined as a direct channel to the customer, funds/capital and the access to relevant businessnetworks. To get in touch with these lacking resources, three alternative approaches has beenproposed; all of them involving a strategic alliance decision.

The most vital for a business is to understand how to please and satisfy its customers in order to make them loyal to the company. Companies weapon for competition in the retail business is defined through the retail mix. The retailer however often have limited resources whereas they have to prioritize between the factors included in the retail mix. The main purpose for this paper is to investigate what kind of internal connections that may occur between the factors in the retail mix, with focus on the job satisfaction as a catalyst on driving the values of the parameters included in the retail mix, where the factor service is the starting shot for the others included..

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how key performance indicators are being used as performance management tools within the production industry. Specifically the purpose is to investigate how the KPI:s within the telecommunications industry drives reusability regarding production test systems. This thesis will also highlight today?s cost models and suggest improvements of the KPI and what new ones could be introduced. A case study at Ericsson AB has been performed.

This study is about the female entrepreneur in rural areas in Sweden. Five women were interviewed with the aim to examine their way of living (livsform), their motivation, what significance it is to be a woman in business and how female entrepreneurs can be encouraged to start their own business. The conclusions : ? The women in this study live an independent life , but the their way of life (livsform) has changed during their life ? Female entrepreneurship can be promoted trough greater knowledge of the female business, better advice to the entrepreneurs, more networking groups and reducing bureaucracy. ? The driving forces for the women is to do what they like and are interested in, at the same time as they have time for the family and children. They also like to work in the rural areas. ? Female entrepreneurship can be promoted through greater knowledge of female businesses in the community, by creating virtual meeting places such as networking groups and mentor groups on internet.