Management consulting firms are an important part of the knowledge economy and they capitalize on the analytical ability and knowledge of their employees. Much research have been made on large consulting firms and their management of knowledge, but little is known about how small consultancies manage their knowledge. Even less is known about the management of knowledge in small consultancies specialized in change management. These firms rely solely on senior consultants and focus on the human aspect of organizational development. This thesis aims to show how these firms manage their knowledge and also provide an understanding of why.

The purpose of this essay is to analyze and understand the effects that a recession can have on a company?s marketing department. In times of a recession most companies have less means to promote their products to their target market and to build their brand. This means that cutting the marketing budget will show some effects on today?s way of marketing.

En sammanfattning av uppsatsen på maximalt 8000 tecken..

En sammanfattning av uppsatsen på maximalt 8000 tecken..

This report, written by Ma?ns Ridze?n and Jonas Stenberg, presents the thesis carried out the spring of 2012. The authors met the first time in 2008, when they started their studies at Uppsala University. Since then they have completed various projects, both within and without the university. This study is based on a theory that was first conceived when Jonas Stenberg did his internship in the summer of 2010.

The Swedish National Heritage Board (RAÄ) is the agency of the Swedish government responsible for heritage and historic environment issues. During the last couple of years the agency has implemented a new management control system, the balanced scorecard, originally developed for profit driven organizations. Organizations within the public sector have other objectives than profit seeking organizations, and there have been difficulties in applying the balanced scorecard model in the public sector. Therefore we find it interesting to examine the reasons behind these difficulties and believe that some answers can be found in the identification process of the balanced scorecard. Therefore we aim to perform a case study of RAÄ and explain how the identification process of the components of their balanced scorecard can affect further usage of the model as a management control tool.

Thesis purpose: The main purpose of this study is to empirically verify the applicability of Kozinets´ model on an interest, activity or lifestyle based online community, in order to develop an adaptive segmentation approach for segmenting online communities. Methodology: This research is deductive by nature, cross-sectional by design and undertakes a quantitative approach using self-completion questionnaire as a part of a web survey to collect the empirical data needed. Theoretical perspective: The main theories guiding our work and supporting the findings of this study include: market segmentation (descriptive and behavioural) and communities (consumer communities and online communities). Empirical data: A web survey with self-completion questionnaire used to gather empirical data from members of interest, activity or lifestyle based online communities. Conclusions: This study took the specific characteristics of online communities into more consideration than previous research and literature has done and also recognized that an adaptive segmentation approach is needed, depending on the communities of study.

En sammanfattning av uppsatsen på maximalt 8000 tecken..

En sammanfattning av uppsatsen på maximalt 8000 tecken..

Corporate responsibility is a popular phenomenon of today. The interest for the subject is extensive and means for implementing corporate responsibility strategies within organizations are demanded. There are studies showing how management control systems can be used in order to implement general strategies into organizations. Still, management control systems designed for the implementation of corporate responsibility strategies, in particular, are not provided by the current academia. The aim of this paper is to contribute to studies within management control systems by studying the management control system specifically designed to implement corporate responsibility strategies.

SharePoint is a web based platform designed to provide internal communications and file sharing for businesses and organizations.In this project, we created a system consisting of multiple applications to be used together with SharePoint. These applications are meant to simplify the workflow for internal orders of products. The system is targeted towards companies that do not have a flexible approach to digital orders or companies that want to integrate this functionality into their SharePoint platform. The project includes, in addition to the creation of the system, installation of the software and the servers needed to run a SharePoint environment and their configurations.The system consists of four applications where one of these, the store application, is required for the system to be used at all. The other applications are an order management application, a purchase application and an incoming delivery application. Of these four, we have implemented the store application and the order management application. Our hope is that users will find the system easy to use and graphically appealing..

In the present thesis, we have studied the management control system in Enskede-Årsta-Vantör, one of Stockholm?s municipal districts, with focus on theories about New Public Management (NPM). When NPM was introduced, a number of complications arose. Some of these, along with the district?s solutions of the complications, are described and analyzed using e.g.

Asset management in insurance companies differs from conventional asset management to the extent that respect has to be taken to both assets and the commitments the insurance company has towards its customers. A model that has proven to fit well regarding the matching of assets and liabilities is the Asset Liability Management Model (ALM model). In addition to the matching in the balance sheet, the ALM model can be used in a company's work with strategic portfolio allocation by applying it as a basis for analyzing investment strategies with expected risk and return. From this, the ALM model also becomes relevant for calculating key figures according to the legal framework Solvens II which includes laws and regulations regarding the demands on economical strength (solvens) of insurance companies.Hence, the goal of this masters thesis has been to, on behalf of Bliwa Livförsäkring, create an ALM model to support the asset management department of Bliwa in their work with defining a credible way of analyzing the future risk and return of Bliwa's asset portfolio and insurance undertakings.The ALM model generally consist of four submodels, the scenario model, the liability model, the asset model and the company model, where the scenario model often is named as the core of the ALM model. The course of action has been to develop these submodels individually, with focus on the scenario model.

Sweden is known to be one of the world?s most equal countries. Nevertheless, out  of  Sweden?s 262 listed companies, only seven  of  them  has  a  female  president, which  is  equal  to  3,4  percent. To  counteract  these  numbers  there  are  several  possibilities.  One  arrangement  that  is  highly  controversial     is  affirmative  actions.  But  there  are  other  options,  for  instance  more  and  more female  networks  are  starting  to  rise  and  many  of  them  also  offers  a  mentoring  program  where  the  mentee  gets  the  opportunity  to  learn  from  someone  with  more  experience.The  purpose  of  this  study  is  to  examine  what  difference  the  female  network  Q80,  with  focus  on  its  mentoring  program,  is  doing  for  the  mentee.  As  an  underlying  purpose  the  study  is  also  examining  what  visions  and  attitudes  the  management  and  the  mentors  is  communicating  within  Q80.  The  focus  is  mainly  on  the  visions  of  Q80,  menas  mentors  and  business  exceeding mentorship.  A  survey  has  been  carried  out  among  mentees  from  three  different  seats of mentoring  programs  where  they  have  answered  19  different  questions  regarding  their  time  as  a  mentee.  Furthermore  interviews  have  taken  place  with the management  of Q80  and  two  mentors.  The  results  are  analyzed  based  on  theories  about  gender,  women  in   management,  leadership,  mentoring  program  and  organizational structure.  The  result  shows  that  Q80i  as  a  source  of  inspiration  and  a  support  for  the  category  of  "career  women"  with  its  core  mission  to  strengthen  the  participation of  individuals  on  a  personal  level  more than  to  work  to  even  out  the  gap  in  the  Swedish  labor market.

Human capital is professional service firms' most valuable resource and its quality is closely linked to the quality of its services. The purpose of this study is to investigate how professional service firms appraise their employees. A comparative study between an architecture firm and a management consulting firm is conducted with the aim to identify and explain similarities and differences in performance appraisal. Two qualitative case studies are performed and interviews as well as documents are used to explore the area. The thesis builds on a critical perspective and it has an explorative approach.