An industry in distress was the breeding ground for a noted pricing strategy, labeled name-your-price. The industry was the music industry and the pricing strategy bears reminiscence of how medieval buskers earned their living during the dark ages; by letting the customers decide how much the good was worth, embodied by a thrown coin into a hat or similar collector. Translated into the contemporary corporate environment of today, where technical innovations provides access to the intellectual property for free, a few mighty economic actors have once again turned to the strategy were it all started; letting the customer set the price. The hat has been replaced by a box for your credit card number and the live music by a MP3 file, but the similarity is striking. The business model have been applied in other industries as well with various levels of success, thus the purpose of this thesis is to set up a framework for where the name-your-price strategy is applicable.

The purpose of this study is to examine which factors played an important role in the food price crisis of 2007-2008. Theories used are Microeconomic theory, explaining changes in supply and demand, and Macroeconomic theory, explaining the impact of changes in exchange rate on prices. A theory regarding speculation is also used to explain the impact of speculative activities effects on price. The method used is multiple regression analysis in order to determine the effects which ethanol production, oil price and dollar exchange rate had on the surge in the price of corn, rice and wheat.The data used is in monthly observations during the period 2005-2008. However, other factors are taken into consideration during the study, such as production quantity, stock size, economic growth, speculative activity and population growth.

Biogas is a renewable fuel that can be extracted from anaerobic digestion of many differentsubstrates, for example biological household waste. An alternative handling of the waste is tomix it with other wastes and incinerate it in a combined heat and power (CHP) plant. Thisstudy uses life cycle assessment to investigate which type of waste handling that is betterfrom an environmental point of view, anaerobic digestion with biogas production orincineration. The results are based on a case study of a biogas production plant owned by thecompany Ragn-Sells in Vänersborg. The alternative is incineration at a CHP plant inGothenburg.

A common assumption in marketing is the wider variety of product a corporation has, the better for the consumer: more product - more choices. Companies often develop a line extension to broaden consumer range through product attributes including quality, function and design. These developed attributes within the product are not always optimal for the consumer. As a result, companies often become entangled in having a price higher than the cost and benefit of the products. This essay aims to analyze the consumer value of line extension products and how these evaluations relate to extended line product pricing.

The print- and mailroom at Gefle Dagblad (GD-tyck) is handling an increasing amount of commercial jobsalong with the newspaper production. Investments have above all been done in the mailroom to be able tooffer commercial costumers a higher degree of finishing and there are plans to expand further in the commercialmarket. GD-tryck is of the opinion that they need to secure the quality of their production to be ableto do such expansion, which is the reason why a quality system of some kind may be appropriate. Howeverthere are no plans to certify such a quality system according to ISO 9001:2000.In this exam report the present methods of working have been analysed from a quality perspective.Suggestions on how GD-tryck should be working with quality development is presented in the fields whereshortage of quality has been discovered. The suggestions taken together do not form a quality system butcan be looked at as ideas of approach to quality fields that have to be developed if a working quality systemshall be accomplished.Many of the quality fields that have been discussed do not have anything to do with technical qualitydirectly but are in some degree requirements for a working quality system.

Sigill Quality Systems has been certifying beef since the autumn of 2006 using the brand name label Swedish Sigill. IP Sigill (the certifying system for integrated production) encompasses the values: animal ethics, food safety, free range and environmental concerns. Product quality is not yet one of these values, and there is a variation in the quality of Swedish beef. Swedish Sigill wanted to investigate the factors that influence product quality, review which of the present regulations that have an influence on product quality and formulate new regulations with the purpose of enhancing the product quality (sensorial, technological and nutritional quality). A survey of quality parameters and factors that influence product quality was done in order to establish a scientific foundation to work from.

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.

Many studies have shown that unethical acting can affect the share price of the company negatively. However, this is not always the case. The aim of this thesis is therefore to examine what it is that can cause the share price to be affected negatively by unethical acting exposed in media. This qualitative study is primarily based on interviews with institutional investors, but also with economic journalists and investor relations managers. Our conclusion is that there are three main reasons why the share price can be affected by unethical acting, namely economic consequences, the management's behaviour and psychological factors.

Background: Low Price-Earnings ratio, low Book-to market ratio and low stock prices can give the impression that a stock is ?cheap?. Is it through systematic use of these portfolio strategies possible to beat the market index ? in other words does financial illusions exist? Purpose: To examine if the Stockholm Stock Exchange is an efficient market. Limitations: The efficiency is tested solely through the chosen portfolio strategies: low Price-Earnings ratio, low Book-to-market ratio and low stock prices.

How capital structure influences corporate performance and value has been in the interest of researchers and scholars for more than half a century, but an answer is yet to be found. The main objective of the present paper is to contribute with data for this cause and hopefully help to clarify this mystery. The method that was used was by analyzing the impact of debt on profitability and market valuation through linear regression. The study examined 17 Swedish property companies listed on Nasdaq OMX Large Mid and Small Cap over a 6 year period (2007-2012). The authors found a slightly negative relationship between debt-to-equity and profitability measured by return on equity (ROE) as well as by return on assets (ROA).

Quality Assurance in Service Procurement --- Total Quality and Total Quality Management refer to popular management philosophies in organizations these days. The purchasing department has an important part in the strive for organizational quality as several studies show corporate spend is significant and increasing. In this master thesis I study the actions companies take to ensure quality in service procurement. I argue that managing quality when sourcing services is particularly tricky, because of the special characteristics that belong to services. The purpose of the study is to examine whether different actions are taken to ensure the quality of different kinds of services.

The care for the elderly in the municipalities has recently seen the need for a formalized system for quality assurance. Under increasing demands for monetary efficiency while bound by law to retain acceptable standards in health care, there is need for efficient and at the same time quality-assured management. The municipalities often solve this puzzle by introducing systems and standards influenced by theory-clusters such as NPM (New Public Management), TQM (Total Quality Management) or other quality management theories.This essay focuses on how the public administration in the municipalities defines quality and designs and implements system for formalized quality assurance. Our basic view of organizations is institutionalist and our theoretical framework includes theories about quality, NPM and TQM..

Systematic quality work in preschool ? How preschool teachers thinking and working with systematic quality work The purpose of this study was to investigate how Swedish preschool teachers thinking and working with systematic quality work. All Swedish preschools are required to work systematically with quality. This involves several steps that follow each other in a specific order. It includes following up, documenting and evaluating preschool activities.

Title: Strategies for competition ? a study of the Swedish contact lenses market.Authors: Pernilla AArskog and Annika Lange.Background: As a market gets more mature and the competition increases, it is more important for a company to apply the right strategic perspective. There are four fundamental strategic perspectives for a service-oriented business: a core product-, a price-, an image- and a service perspective. This study is a about service management and take its point from the theories from the Nordic School about strategies for competition, customer value, perceived customer quality and customer loyalty.Purpose: The main purpose with this study is to analyze and evaluate how the actors at the Swedish market of contact lenses should compete to gain further competitive advantages.Method: The study includes four qualitative interviews with two traditional opticians and two Internet based businesses, but also a survey with 106 contact lens users is included.Analysis: In the analyse part of this thesis it was concluded that the traditional opticians conception about their customer not agrees with what the customer evaluate as important. Many of the customers have thought about changing their optician, and besides that do not recommend their optician, and can there for not be categorize as loyal customers.

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze how auditors are affected by quality controls and if audit practice changes because of quality controls. To fulfill the purpose of this study there has been interviews made with five auditors. The conclusion by this study is that the interviewed auditors work practices are affected by quality controls and that the extent and effect depends on the auditor and the office that the auditor works in. The auditors who worked as quality reviewers at the agencies where they are employed at, we felt that they were more secured in the response towards quality controls. This may be because they are quality reviewers themselves and they know what the quality control requires and what must be met to be approved.