It is important that organizations today focus on continuous improvements in order to face the growing competition in the world. A company needs a corporate culture that supports and encourages the employees to be creative and innovative in their work. This is necessary for the company if they are striving towards continuous learning and development within their organization.The main purpose of this paper is to investigate how the culture differences between Sweden and China affect Sandvik AB. We will also study how the company manages continuous improvements and what consequences culture differences have on their work.Our paper is a single case study at Sandvik AB in Sweden and China. We have visited Sandvik in Sandviken to conduct a series of interviews with employees of different position within the company and with dissimilar work tasks.

In this study, I will discuss Hegel?s words on the death of God as they are stated in his Phenomenology of Spirit and Faith and Knowledge. I will present a reading of what I consider to be the two different usages of these words, and relate their meanings to each other. Focus lies on what Hegel refers to as the ?unhappy consciousness? and its experience of a disenchantment of the world, and on Christianity as the answer to this position.

Denna rapport beskriver arbetet med att designa och utveckla en plattform för simulering ochutvärdering av olika tradingsystem.Det viktigaste kravet som sattes upp i examenarbetets förstudie var att åstakomma en flexibel ochutbyggbar grunddesign för att man vid senare tillfälle ska kunna uttöka systemet vartefter behov avmer funktionalitet uppstår i en snabbt föränderlig finansiell värld. Vidare skulle Microsofts allrasenaste teknik användas.Resultatet blev systemet Trader som är en modulbaserad applikation med tydliga riktlinjer för hurmoduler ska laddas, skapas, initieras samt hur de kommunicerar med varandra utan överflödigaberoenden. Vägen dit gick via inlärning av diverse designmönster och designprinciper. Omfattandeanvändning av händelser och kommandon för kommunikation mellan olika moduler samtprogrammerandet mot interface istället för konkreta objekt i alla lägen gav få beroenden och enflexibel och utbyggbar grunddesign.Trader kan koppla upp sig mot börsen för att hämta kursdata. Denna data kan sedan användas för attutvärdera hur olika tradingsystem skulle ha presterat i olika tidsintervall.

Ever since Internet revolutionized the world, e-stores and e-commerce has grown into becoming a natural part of consumer's everyday life. Much thanks to it's facilitative and time saving characteristics. Online, consumers are provided with a huge assortment and the opportunity to shop any time they like. Yet, the absolute greatness of e-stores is the possibility to push prices below the physical store price, which seems to be most appreciated to a large extent by consumers worldwide. The fact that e-store sales in Sweden grew 14% last year verifies this.As more players step into the virtual world of e-commerce the competition gets tougher.

The aim of this thesis is to create an understanding of the incentives for forest companies to invest in reducing carbon dioxide emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, which is termed REDD. The Brazilian Amazonas was chosen as the base for the investment case. Brazil has the largest area of rainforest in the world, and also the biggest problem with deforestation. The Amazon region of Brazil comprises rainforest which is largely intact and unexploited. Accordingly, there is significant potential scope for prospective investments in a REDD-project, and so have a noteworthy impact in preventing deforestation.The research approach used the United Nation?s Clean Development Mechanism concept was used as a framework for ascertaining the investment costs in potential REDD-projects.

The purpose of this essay is to critically review Pierre Bourdieus contribution to agency ? structure debate. I will do this with help from the thinking of George Herbert Mead. My aim is to show that Mead can provide valuable knowledge to Bourdieus theory.Pierre Bourdieus notion of habitus is his solution to the dilemma between agency and structure. It is in the habitus that the objective structures meet the inner, subjective structures and this results in various actions.

In this report the two authors, and project contributors alike, describe their work withdeveloping a solar cooker intended for usage in the developing countries of the world.Specifically, the work aims at developing a new, solar heat driven cooking device, possiblybased upon the current product. This should, in comparison to the current product, be lighter,easier to transport and to produce. Also, the new product?s production mustn?t be more costlythan today and the included materials and components must be obtainable from within theBolivian national borders where the product is currently produced. During the project, certainadvantages with a more efficient, and, above all, a more moderately priced product, werediscovered.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, is described in Swedish mass media. The research question of the paper is "How was president Hugo Chávez portrayed in Swedish newspapers in the 2004 Venezuelan referendum?". The answer of this question provides information about how the mass media form the image of current political events which is an important aspect of power. The applied method and theory in the study is the critical discourse analysis.

Ämnesord: Earnings management, loan loss provisions, konstaterad kreditförlust, Basel II,kapitaltäckning, bank, noterade, onoteradeBakgrund och problem: Justering av resultatposten loan loss provisions är ett vanligtförekommande verktyg för earnings management inom banksektorn. För att öka stabiliteten inombankväsendet så infördes kapitaltäckningsregleringarna Basel I år 1988 och år 2007 uppföljarenBasel II. Den senare antog en mer principbaserad roll och innebar en ökad kontroll och tillsyn avbanker. Det är därför intressant att studera huruvida Basel II har haft någon effekt på redovisningenskvalitet och därmed lett till reducerad earnings management.Syfte: Studiens övergripande syfte är att undersöka effekterna av genomförandet avkapitalregleringen Basel II på resultatposten loan loss provisions och earnings management inomdet svenska bankväsendet. Vidare studeras noterade samt onoterade banker för att utröna om detföreligger en skillnad i dess sätt att hantera loan loss provisions.Metod: För att uppnå syftet med studien så har en kvantitativ metod tillämpats.

 Problem   Are there any abnormal changes in the parent company's share price at the news of a spin?off.ObjectiveThe main purpose of the study is to investigate how the news of a spin-off affects the parent company's share price. In other words if the news of the Spin-off gives an abnormal return on the Stockholm Stock Exchange during the specific period of 1998?2008. In addressing this, the paper will also investigate the following sub sections: are there any differences in the abnormal returns in various sectors and what the reasons to perform a spin?off in the Swedish market are.MethodAn event study in which market data is used to measure specific events? impact on the value of the company and on the effects on the stock market.

The purpose of this study is to present a critical analysis of how certain themes of the Norse pagan religion are portrayed in ten selected textbooks used for Religious Science education in grades one through nine. The themes included in the analysis are; the description of the transition from the Norse Pagan religion to Christianity; Adam of Bremen?s portrayal of human sacrifice, and lastly Ibn Fadhlan?s characterization of widow burning. By using a critical knowledge text analysis, and applying a theoretical starting point that pedagogical material analyses and interprets events from a specific perspective; in this case from a Christian perspective, I have from the study concluded that the chapters covering the Norse pagan religion in these textbooks have a distinguished Christian bias seen as the norm. The themes analysed in this study all describe different phenomena in a similar way and make use of the same sources, even though these are often questioned.

This paper will attempt to analyze the rockcarving area in Släbro Nyköping, Södermanlands län within an phenomenological and time theoretical perspectiv with the help of a correspondensanalysis. The focus of the study is the images and their relation to one another and the landscape surrounding them. This and information about the place and the surrounding areas according to the ideas described by Christopher Tilley based on the earlier works within the post processual and phenomenological school. To interpret how variables like these could work I?ve chosen to use the information from more traditional societies such as the Aboriginals and the Sami and discuss their understanding of the world surrounding them in correlation to what kind of information Släbro can give us..

We are more aware than ever about our impact on the common environment and the world's population. Consumption awareness can be one way to take social and environmental responsibility. This study aims to examine young adults' (19-30 years) attitudes toward consumption awareness in Sweden. Consumption awareness is treated in this study as the consumption of environmental and fair-trade labeled products that have been certified of a third party. The study is limited to everyday commodities, which in this case is groceries, household consumables and clothing.

This is a discourse analysis concerning the visions for Malmö's future. Three concepts are studied to see which meaning these are given in the Malmö context. The studied concepts are ? development (utveckling), industry (näringsliv) and citizen (befolkning).The meanings of these concepts are studied against a backdrop of theories of inclusion/exclusion in general and inclusion/exclusion in the city more specific. Michael Foucault´s notion of a discourse which stigmatizes those not following a behaviour which is defined as being right and normal is central to this.

This study deals with the distinct difference in media attention the earthquake-disaster in Haiti and the flood-disaster in Pakistan got in 2010. There may be many reasons to this divergence, but this study focuses on how news articles can create compassion.   This study, with its critical perspective, examines how two daily papers in Sweden portray the suffering of the victims of the catastrophes in Haiti and Pakistan, and create compassion for them. Furthermore it asks the question who benefits from the newspaper?s description of human suffering in the third world.   The result shows that the manner of which Swedish daily newspapers report from the catastrophe in Haiti creates an emotional involvement, which most likely leads to compassion. Furthermore it shows potential to lead the readers to identify with the suffering people in Haiti.   The Swedish daily newspapers report of the catastrophe in Pakistan on the other hand, does not involve the reader on an emotional level, but gives them the role of a spectator.