Sweden possess the forth place as the most gender equal country in the world (World Economic Forum, 2013). But when it comes to women in higher-level positions, Sweden ends up below the European mean (European Commission, Justice, 2011). How can this be? And more importantly, how can Sweden work to attain gender equality in higher-level positions in the future? Why this gap exists in Sweden and how to reduce it is in need of further investigation and research. The thesis aims to investigate why men keep dominating higher- level positions within organisations in Sweden. A focus has been put on municipalities and their extensive work for gender equality. The thesis will address the extensive work Swedish municipalities have done within gender equality and why they are relatively equal when it comes to gender equality in higher- level positions. Further on it will provide a general understanding of their successful work and how it can be useful in other organisations. Additionally, it will be investigated how this extensive gender equality work, with a primary focus on gender equality policies and plans, and other regulations can help women reach and keep the higher-level positions in an organisation. A qualitative research approach has been used for this research. The primary data was collected through in-depth semi- structured interviews with five Swedish municipalities. The data was later analysed through qualitative data analysis. In conclusion, the most successful factors to include when working towards a gender equal workplace and encouraging more females to aim for higher-level positions are extensive work with gender equality policies and plans, including changes in the recruitment process together with providing options of how to allocate your working hours. This to open up for equal opportunities, excluding gender based prejudices, for those individuals who have the right competence and are interested in possessing a higher-level position in an organisation.

Background For ages people have commuted to work, or to other activities, located outside their home municipality. Statements found indicate that the basic decision for commuting are based on utility maximisation and no matter what the character of the benefit is; it should be higher than what can be found closer to the home location. This thesis aims to investigate if people are also commuting with the purpose of obtaining benefits from shopping. The shopping location will in this thesis be defined as a shopping mall. In order for shopping malls to attract customers and create awareness of which benefits they offer they must engage in branding. The authors of this thesis have chosen to investigate the terms; shopping, commuting and branding separately in order to find a definition for the term commuter shopping and to create understanding for what makes people engage in commuter shopping. Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to understand how the term commuter can be translated into the context of shopping. Moreover, the goal is also to identify the reasons for why people are willing to commute to a shopping destination not closest to their home location. The authors will also provide a definition for the term commuter shopping. Method In order to fulfil the purpose of this thesis, an abductive research approach was used. This includes a mixed method research, which allows both qualitative and quantitative data to be represented. The quantitative data in this research consist of a survey conducted at a shopping mall in Jönköping called A6 Center and used a sample of 402 customers as respondents. The qualitative part of the research includes an interview with A6 Center’s Centre Manager Kristoffer Krantz. The main source of information, however, is the collection of secondary data within the fields of commuting, shopping malls and branding which are combined in order to provide a definition of commuter shopping.   Conclusion The study contributes with understanding in the fields of research to the extent that means one can translate the term commuting into the context of shopping. Moreover, the thesis managed to identify the reasons for why people engage in commuter shopping and which attributes they value at a shopping location. As a result the thesis propose a definition: “Commuter shopping is when one or more people go to a shopping location, not closest to their home location, in order to obtain benefits satisfied by attributes offered.”

Background – Previous research has evaluated different distribution systems and chan-nels that companies operate through. However, research primarily has focused on the richness of online channels rather than the value of physical stores. The following report will examine the reasons and implications underlying the choice of channel strategy. Purpose – The purpose of this thesis is to examine the reason why companies within the fashion and apparel industry, operating in Sweden, choose to operate through a certain market channel strategy. The thesis aims to evaluate four types of market channel strat-egies with the help of case companies. Method – A qualitative approach to the research has been chosen which consists of a case study including four companies representing different channel strategies. Data col-lection for the analysis where conducted through interviews with persons having vital positions within one of the four companies. Results and Discussion – The case companies ASOS, Bubbleroom, Cubus and Dressmann each represent one of the chosen market channels. The interviews presented in the results section implied that the companies chosen channel was more appropriate for the market they operated in as well as the target group they were aiming to reach. Conclusion – Even though research states that today’s society is moving away from the physical store market channel, this study proved that one single strategy is not appropri-ate for all businesses. A company will have to research their target market before ap-propriately selecting a channel strategy.

This thesis explores the rapidly growing phenomenon of equity crowdfunding from the perspective of professional investors. The aim was to contribute to the relatively thin aca-demic field of equity crowdfunding, shedding light on why it is yet to be recognized as an important instrument for raising capital and provide suggestions for improvement. The data was collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews with Angel Investors that through their experience could identify benefits and constraints with equity crowd-funding not obvious to the crowd. Benefits of using equity crowdfunding platforms were outweighed by the identified constraints such as corporate governance issues, uncertainties concerning laws and regulations, high risk, and lack of intellectual capital. This eventually led to suggestions for improvements that included channelling the crowd investments through a mutual fund, and allowing the crowd to co-invest with Angel Investors to get around the constraints. Conclusively, the Angel Investors were positive towards the underlying ideology of equity crowdfunding of helping more entrepreneurial ventures reaching their full potential by tapping a previously unutilized source of capital, the crowd. However, there is scepticism to how the phenomenon is currently working in practice.

Entrepreneurial opportunities are found in literature to be discovered,recognized, and created by entrepreneurs. This thesis aims to explore andexplain the influences upon entrepreneurs in terms of knowledge, and knowledgesources, in the opportunity identification stage. However, even though it isfound in literature that knowledge is a main influencer in the first stage ofthe entrepreneurial process, the approaches to explain the influences onentrepreneurs for entrepreneurial opportunities are not consistent, whichcreates confusion about the sources of knowledge that influence entrepreneurs,in combination with the type of knowledge. In order to further explore andexplain the area, research is done, and cases are formed by interviewingentrepreneurs from eleven companies. The results from the interviews are thencompared, and related back to the literature findings. In the analysis it isfound that sources such as work-experience, education, hobbies, and role modelshelp entrepreneurs to gain knowledge in the industry where he or she havestarted a venture from an opportunity. These sources of knowledge havecontributed to market pull knowledge, and it is also found that there is arelationship between prior knowledge and alertness, which has to do with theability to find useful knowledge.

No description available.

Purpose This thesis aims to provide guidelines for cosmetic companies on how to use social media in times of crisis. Background In today’s society, cosmetic companies can face crises that can vary according to their level of impact and their level of controllability. These crises can go viral and reach a huge amount of stakeholders since social media can take on many different forms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. It is important to know how to manage these different com-   munication tools and it is even more crucial in times of crisis. However, social media and the cosmetic industry have not been combined in previous studies. Therefore, it is beneficial for cosmetic companies to have guidelines on how to use social media in times of crisis. Method The method is based on an inductive approach. Benchmarking case studies reflect crises that occurred in industries other than the cosmetic industry. The findings from the case studies are then complemented with a chosen company representative from the cosmetic industry. Finally, a semi-structured interview has been conducted to balance the research and add new valuable information to the investigation. Conclusion Based on the results of the analysis, the authors of the thesis have been able to provide guidelines to cosmetic companies on how to use social media in times of crisis. These guidelines are divided into two parts: the first part advises guidelines to follow while the second part recommends factors to avoid on social media.

No description available.

This paper tries to define the concept of Export Finance and establish if the Export Financing is cost-effective way to raise capital and how is it organized in the Russian Federation. In order to do so, several methods have been used: the related literature has been studied, numerical analysis of economic-efficience of export financing has been prepared based on the real example and three interviews with experts in Export Finance have been conducted. The findings suggests that Export Financing is an attractive way of financing in a current economic environment and there is no credible alternative to it on the Russian market. Moreover, the analysis show that despite of the number of advantages, that Export Financing have, there are still some gaps in Export Financing, but in general, Export Finance area is developing and becoming more and more popular among russian importers and exporters

The purpose of this research is to increase understanding about the influence of the family on internationalisation of family firms in the Swedish context, in terms of family human, social and financial capital. Multiple cases of four Swedish manufacturing family firms were studied by conducting interviews with the family members working in the family firm. A perspective of family capital and its three components of human, social and financial capital, was adopted to analyse the empirical findings. The findings identify several positive and negative influences of the family on internationalisation of the firm. Positive factors include: family members’ deep knowledge about the firm, commitment, long-term perspective, family values like honesty, trust. Negative factors include: family firms are slow-to-change, family’s strong commitment to local society and family’s goal of slow and steady growth. Most factors confirm existing theory, on other theories these findings shed critical lights and some new insights were made. Based on the findings, future research suggestions are made.