This thesis concerns the control of outsourced interorganizational Buyer-supplier relationships in the low-price fashion industry. A qualitative case study has been performed on two supplier relationships of a low-price fashion company. By identifying specificities of the industry and relating them to control problems and their implications on control solutions, the thesis has established a relation between industry specific characteristics and the way companies in the industry control their supplier relationships. The analysis is based on a theoretical framework created by Dekker (2004). Amongst other factors, the difficulty to define, quantify and measure the design variables of a fashion good, the high heterogeneity between individual products and the difficulty to predict the trend based demand, create high coordination requirements as well as appropriation concerns solved through extensive formal control.

Researchers and practitioners have recognized the need for ?transforming? every policy of the company into a competitive advantage tool. Thus, both the pricing approach and the supply chain practices of the firm have emerged as an important determinant of success. In this study, however, we are not only interested in these two aspects, but also in a third one-namely cultural conflicts as an obstacle and challenge. The interaction of the tree factors is extensively presented against the backdrop of Skanska and four of their closest Polish suppliers.

Background: Critical conditions to become an attractive supplier of knowledge based IT-services in the B2B market are many. Besides the fact of supplying a service of high quality one must as a supplier communicate values which are understandable and desirable for a new buyer. Buying a knowledge based IT-service involves several risks; the consultant might not have sufficient knowledge or have difficulties understanding the corporate culture and collaborating with other staff within the client?s organization. Since services are intangible offers and it can be intricate to put right price level for something which can only be evaluated when the project is finished, puts severe strain on suppliers competing with other companies in the same market when looking for new clients.

A large part of the agricultural products that are sold in Sweden are imported because Sweden cannot meet the consumers agriculture products demand all year around. One problem that can occur and become problematic when trading across boarders is if there are errors in the delivered agricultural products. What must the Swedish buyer do, for example, make for it to be considered complained fault in the goods against the seller? Another problem in international trade is that the buyer may need to apply complaint rules they have not previously been in contact with since their domestic law is not always applicable to the contract. To avoid getting into this situation, the buyer should try to negotiate with the seller that the contracting parties shall use compensation claim rules that the buyer is familiar with, or which is even more advantageous than to the seller.

The purpose of this study is to improve the understanding of the dynamics behind Chinese-Western Buyer-supplier relationships. The study takes on a partially inductive approach by commencing with exploratory in-depth interviews. The main body of the study consists of a cross-sectional survey. Data has been collected through an on-line questionnaire. The theoretical review consists of industrial relationships with specific accounts on the role of adaptation, trust and commitment; a stream of literature in cross-cultural relationships deriving from Hofstede?s culturalist legacy with specific reference to Chinese-Western relationships, including studies on relationship bonding, and the role of guanxi.

The aim of this thesis is to describe the customer?s attitudes toward the contracting for availability, i.e., which factors are from the customer?s perspective necessary for the fulfilment of a supplier-customer agreement? Furthermore, the objective is to describe and analyse a supplier-customer relation in the Defence Industrial sphere.The present study has been carried out as a case study using an abductive approach. The thesis is based on a practical problem, i.e. which factors will be important to the customer when a contractor in the Defence Industry wants to increase its commitment of service, and how will their relationship change? The thesis is above all focused on generating knowledge that can lead to rapid and concrete measures and that can be used in the analysis of an increased industrial commitment but also as a case study of a problem of a more general nature in the Defence Industry.

The aim of this study is to describe the market for Digital Signage in Sweden and give the reader an increased insight and understanding of the problems that suppliers and buyers of Digital Signage may encounter. The study is abductive and based on a number of qualitative interviews with representatives from potential buyers, an existing user, a supplier and a number of companies with insight into Digital Signage. Our findings show that the companies in this study have not yet reached the stage of being ready to invest in a system for Digital Signage, since the effects on for instance increased sales and potential savings on marketing communication have not yet been clearly proven. Furthermore the study shows that it is important that a supplier has a fundamental understanding of the business model of the buyer. In addition to this, service, support and IT-related issues are of great importance for the potential buyers.

In relation to the development of IT-products it is very important that the software supplier is aware not only of the target group but also the field of application. Usability should characterize the whole IT-design process as, in relation to this context, design includes more than merely those aspects which are visible to and thus can be interpreted by the naked eye. The study examines the specific qualities and properties that substantiate the usability and the demands that a customer rightfully expects from an IT-product. The user and the customer are highlighted in the same context in order to demonstrate that it is through the customer that an IT-product is defined as being useful. Thus, from this perspective, the user and customer can be considered as being the same person.

Purpose/Aim: The purpose of this thesis is to study the interaction between seller and buyer in a mobile phone store. The specific research questions under investigation are:Are there any underlying factors behind mobile purchase, and if so, what are they? Are mobile purchases driven by lifestyle factors and do customers try and create identities when purchasing new mobile phones?Material/Method: The study employs an ethnographic method when trying to answer the posed research questions. I have under a period of two weeks studied the seller-buyer interaction in a mobile phone store. In order to further increase the accuracy of my findings, I have complemented my observations with a sample of buyer and seller interviews.Main results: The observations and interviews were initially studied in isolation, resulting in different themes.

There are two groups of haulage contractors in roundwood transport , those who are contracted direct by the transport buyer and those who are connected to a freight company which in its turn is contracted by the transport buyer. Today the roundwood haulage is dominated by contractors with one to two lorries. The effort of coordinating transportation for a transport buyer is dependent on how many communication contacts that must be managed (how many individual haulage contractors the transport buyer has to work with). A structural change in the sector that leads to a decrease in the number of haulage contractors but an increase in the capacity of each contractor, makes it possible for a transport buyer to coordinate transports with fewer communication contacts. The reason why a company reaches a certain size can be explained by the number of contracts it makes and manages.

Thesis purpose: The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the expectations of roles between supplier sales representatives and retailer store personnel in relation to in-store campaigns, this in order to enhance effectiveness of these functions creating an increase in consumer response. Methodology: The researchers believe that social phenomenon and their meanings are continually being accomplished by social actors, hence a study of individuals? expectations must have a point of departure in these people?s social reality. Store personnel and supplier sales representatives are to a certain degree affected by the structural power relationships within the organizational network, thus the researchers combine an interpretative and radical structuralist paradigm. Theoretical perspective: The researchers investigate expectations of roles through examining interaction between parties involved.

Study objects: JM, Folkhem and ABB.Purpose: The purpose with this study are to examine how the supplier relations are in the construction branch and compare that result with how the supplier relations are for ABB a production company.Theoretical: The theoretical chapter illustrates important and relevant parts of supplier relations, purchasing and supplier strategies to give good overview. The theoretical review will combine information from different fields to consent with the research problem.Method: A case study has been made on three different companies, one of the companies was active in the production industry the other two were active in the construction industry. Data was mainly collected through semi structured interviews on each of the three companies.Conclusions: The size of the company decided which point of view the company had on purchasing, traditional or modern view. All three companies had a centralized purchasing organization but the construction firms were more decentralized than the production company. The reason was that the construction firms were dependent with more flexibility when every construction project is unique..

This report explores how organizations act when they are choosing an Outsourcing supplier. The study was conducted through multiple interviews with managers of different organizations. The data from those interviews was then analyzed through the use of two theoretical models. Our findings indicate that most organizations share the same base factors (qualifiers) when selecting an Outsourcing supplier. What therefore become crucial are the key factors that the Organizations see as Order winning factors.

To implement an ERP-system is not an easy process. The success of the implementation depend on many different variables. The most important one is perhaps the requirement process, to define what the organization wants and expects from the system. In this study, the advantages of a process mapping are examined, in relation to the phase where the requirements are expressed in an ERP-implementation. The conclusion is that a process mapping generates an increased communication with the supplier of the ERP-system, hence the business knows their processes and thereby what they want from the system.

Purpose: To explore the purchasing function, mainly the supplier selection activities, in the fast fashion apparel industry. The purpose is 1) to explore the criteria associated with supplier selection for fashion products, and 2) to analyze the purchasing activities in order to find characteristics and trends which are considered to be strategic for the buying company. Method: The empirics consist of qualitative interviews with employees with responsibility for the companies' purchasing activities, as well as information gathered from articles, annual reports, and company websites. Result: The study indicates that qualitative criterias have increased in importance, and have become an important part of supplier selection for fashion goods. A number of characteristics where identified as important for purchasing fashion goods, which can affect choice of supplier; examples are increased collaboration, increased re-buys and increased use of logistics services.