Every firm in the world in one way or another is touched by the prevailing globalization trend. In order to survive in the 21st century businesses in every industry are taking steps to expand through trade outside their home markets.  Thus this global expansion evokes stimulus by firms to internationalize. The internationalization process of firms has been studied extensively among various business scholars with the main focus on the growth or positive development of firms. However, an area which has received fairly limited attention is the de-internationalization process. In this field the role of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) under non-crisis conditions, where this phenomenon is seen as a strategic decision of firms or subsequence of internationalization process rather than a market failure, has been underestimated. This paper aims to contribute to the theoretical understanding of cross-border activities of small firms by looking into business relationships as a new perspective on analyzing de-internationalization motives. This was studied through a qualitative case study of Swedish SMEs operating globally. Interviews with sales and marketing directors of the companies together with secondary data compose the gathered empirical data for analyzing de-internationalization process. The study sheds light on business relationship constructs - dependence, bond, investment, and atmosphere - and their influence on the key factors for internationalization - trust, knowledge and commitment - which in turn determine the strategic decision by firms to reduce their market involvement in foreign markets. It has been found out that these key factors of internationalization were affected by the relationship constructs mostly negatively: the market knowledge in majority of cases was lacking due to the weak bond, the commitment determined by unbalanced dependence and reduced investment has gradually decreased along the time and the level of trust influenced by a negative atmosphere was not sufficient enough which played a decisive role on the reduced level of market involvement by firms. Thus the results of the study indicate that unfortunate business relationships influenced the decision of three case companies to de-internationalize through the key factors of internationalization.

Since the mid-eighties, progress in European economic integration has contributed to changing conditions for the conduct of business in many sectors of the economies. Such is the case in Sweden, whose commitment to the formal integration process also has changed in recent years, from a free trade arrangement (EFTA) via the European Economic Area (The EFTA states' affiliation to the European Union's Internal Market), to membership in the European Union. A theoretical point of departure for this thesis was the finding that although economic integration entails strategic consequences for firms, studies treating economic integration with a general business strategy perspective were rare. Hence, the main purpose has been to achieve knowledge about the European Internal Market's strategic consequences for Swedish firms, with the focus on manufacturing SMEs. Empirically, it is examined how integration has been experienced in firms through two questionnaires, sent in earlier and later stages of the formal integration process. Although the responses indicate a limited impact from the Internal Market, they present some arguments for an increased internationalisation. There are, however, reasons to believe that factors other than political initiatives were behind such a development. In the theoretical part of this thesis, obstacles to international competition, and the corresponding competitive advantages, are seen as being central for understanding integration effects as well as for the possibilities to respond to them. An essential distinction is made between different types of obstacles, based on origin or main causes. One or other of these categories may be crucial for a firm when defending a strategic market position, or may hinder the firm from competing in other markets. Furthermore, obstacles in the different categories are in principle influenced by integration measures to a varying degree, and the survey indicated that the type of obstacle that is primarily influenced by integration measures is the one with the least perceived influence on firms' competitive strength. In the last part of the thesis, and with several different points of departure - trade and integration theory, international business, strategic management, and the Internal Market's institutional framework - a model for analysis of integration effects in business strategy terminology is developed and presented. The model is constituted by a geographic dimension and a dimension concerning the product and distribution in a broad sense. For firms with strategic positions which are affected according to the analysis, two principal strategic responses are discussed: to re-establish former competitive advantages or to adapt to the new situation by re-orienting the business. / digitalisering@umu

Over the years so many academic literatures has revealed that increased number of firms have seen internationalization as a means to gain and sustain competitive advantage and even increase economic of scale, and this has led many western companies to emerging markets. In this paper we discovered that among the pool of Swedish firms, only the MNEs have seen Nigerian market attractive to internationalize to, but just a few of the Swedish SMEs has expanded to the Nigerian market. This research was conducted by doing a qualitative study with the use of phenomenological research approach, during our investigation on the functions of intermediaries in Swedish SMEs internationalization to Nigeria market.Furthermore, we were able to understand the importance and functions of the different marketing intermediaries’ in Swedish SMEs internationalization to Nigeria market. These intermediaries equip the Swedish firms with the required objective knowledge of the Nigerian market, updating them with recent development of the opportunities and threats involved in the Nigerian marketing environment, and linking these Swedish firms to the required government departments, distributors, agent/broker, customers, middle men etc, thereby impacting them with the experiential knowledge. Moreover, it is important for firms to have objective or pre-market knowledge of a particular market before entering that market, but this knowledge is regarded as non-helpful knowledge to firms. But the experiential knowledge is acquired over time in the market, which is regarded as the helpful knowledge. It is evident that the intermediaries equip these firms with both objective and experiential knowledge.Although the opportunities in some emerging markets are very attractive, but the threats in these markets are other factors firms also put into consideration before internationalizing to these markets. This is why thorough market research has to be done so that firms can create effective marketing strategies when they want to expand their marketing activities to emerging markets. Despite the risk and uncertainties involved in doing business in foreign countries, still yet companies selling global products do not have any choice than to internationalize their marketing operations.

The overall purpose of this thesis is to gain a better understanding of the internationalization readiness process of firms, by identifying and describing and its components. In order to reach the purpose of this thesis a case study of four Swedish SMEs has been conducted, namely: MaxiGrip AB, Playsay AB, Flano Design AB and KOTP. Face-to-face interviews were carried out with the main decision makers within the firms. The theoretical framework involves a description of different internationalization theories, such as the transaction cost approach, the traditional “stage” model, the network approach and the international entrepreneurship approach. Based on these four internationalization theories has the traditional “stage” model been chosen to function as a theoretical foundation for the analysis. In the analysis the theoretical framework is related to the results of the empirical study. The barriers faced by firms prior to internationalization are discussed and analysed, as well as theimportance of each barrier, resulting in internal barriers being regarded of greater importance. The decision maker’s role and influence during the process is described as highly influential. The key success factors enabling the internationalization readiness process of firms are identified and discussed, namely: vision and international outlook of decision makers, having a unique offering, the availability of time and vast industry knowledge. It is concluded that a firm is able to achieve internationalization readiness by fulfilling a certain criteria, which has been the result of the combination of both theory and empirical data. Resulting in the decision maker being at the center of the process. While, the internal stimuli of industry knowledge and product uniqueness are the two main influencers combined with time  and commitment. At last, both theoretical and managerial implications are presented, ending this paper with the limitations and suggestions for further research.

This paper presents the feasibility study of setting up the new potting tray production line based on the two alternatives: partly outsource a process in the production line or wholly make all processes in-house. Both the qualitative and quantitative approaches have been exploited to analyze and compare between the make or buy decision. Also the nature of business, particularly SMEs, in Thailand has been presented, in which it has certain characteristics that influence the business doing and decision, especially to the supply chain management. The literature relating to the forecasting techniques, outsourcing decision framework, inventory management, and investment analysis have been reviewed and applied with the empirical findings. As this production line has not yet been in place, monthly sales volumes are forecasted within the five years time frame. Based on the forecasted sales volume, simulations are implemented to distribute the probability and project a certain demand required for each month. The projected demand is used as a baseline to determine required safety stock of materials, inventory cost, time between production runs and resources utilization for each option. Finally, in the quantitative analysis, the five years forecasted sales volume is used as a framework and several decision making-techniques such as break-even analysis, cash flow and decision trees are employed to come up with the results in financial aspects.

This research is a cross sectional study which is conducted as an email survey. Accordingly, 22 companies have been surveyed to investigate the tendency and barriers for SMEs in Sweden regarding implementation of lean production. For that, barriers are categorized into two categories. The first category includes the ones which prevent SMEs from starting lean production (introduction barriers). The second category encompasses the ones which SMEs face while they are implementing lean production (implementation barriers). Moreover, to obtain a better view about problematic areas in lean transformation for SMEs, improvements and achievements of the investigated companies in their lean implementation processes have been assessed. However, it was not a detailed or in depth analysis, since the main purpose of this research was not to assess SMEs progress, rather it was to identify the hindrances in SMEs’ path to become lean. The results from this survey showed that most of the lean principles are applicable in SMEs. However, SMEs have problem with lack of time, management support, finance, resistance to change, change process, and training.  In addition lack of skilled employees for implementation of lean production was found as the biggest introduction barrier for SMEs. Moreover, the result of this research shows that small companies do not show tendency to implement lean production.

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Background: Today’s business environment is characterized by fast-changing technologies and shorter product life-cycles, well-educated customers and fierce competition. Within this context, agile manufacturing is praised in the literature as one of the solutions for achieving and maintaining a competitive advantage in turbulent times. Aim: The purpose of this master thesis is to fill in the identified theoretical and empirical gaps by exploring and scrutinizing the relevancy of the agile manufacturing concept in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the computer, electronic and optical manufacturing industry in Sweden. Furthermore, a model illustrating the agile manufacturing enablers applied in the selected industry will be developed. Definition: Agile manufacturing can be defined as a new production concept integrating employees, suppliers and customers, as well as units of production by using the support of software and communication systems. Methodology: Eight interviews with managers have been conducted in order to capture the big picture of how the SMEs in the chosen industry enable responsiveness to changes. A survey answered by 50 SMEs within the same industry was carried out in order to test the interview findings on a larger scale and to provide the basis for a further comparison with the existing agile manufacturing body of knowledge Results: Agile manufacturing is indeed relevant in the studied industry as it is driven by agility drivers and thus characterized by fast-changing technologies and well-educated customers. However, the agile manufacturing enablers partly differ from the ones praised in the literature and are more adjusted to the size and characteristics of SMEs. Nevertheless, a conscious awareness of the agile manufacturing concept itself was not found and the enablers identified were rather described as logical business thinking.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the life cycle stages of the chosen gazelles in Sweden and identify their effectiveness related to the stages. Furthermore, we study whether the given characteristic of the gazelle companies correspond to the suggested characteristics of the given theoretical framework. Gazelles, as the outstanding performers of both financial profits and job creators of our society, they are always struggling to sustain growth and satisfy market needs in order to maintain their prestigious status. Therefore, it is critical for them to access their abilities as well as constraints of the current organizational structures and we seek the solutions to these problems through the organizational life cycle theory perspective. Our study focuses on the Dagens Industri’s gazelle award winners that are carefully evaluated by the strict criteria it provides. Also, we revisit the various previous studies in the field of the organizational life cycle and effectiveness in order to provide the foundation for our analysis. In order to serve our purpose, we study 26 gazelles from Sweden in dept by reviewing their annual reports and official websites and provide the reader with quantities data research that are self-administrated concerning the different attributes of the life cycle stages and effectiveness. In conclusion, we find that the majority of the Swedish gazelle companies we have studied correspond to the second stage of the life cycle model which focuses on human relations model as an effectiveness area. However, these firms demonstrate unique effectiveness that genuine SMEs do not have, such as high focus on R&D and harmony between flexibility and control in their organizational structure.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe the behaviors that multinational corporations(MNCs) and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are taking for carrying outcorporate social responsibility (CSR) under the context of sustainable development.Besides, the factors which drive and influence the performance are further exploredand discussed.The thesis is to be analyzed by means of a literature review, qualitative case study,semi-structured interviews, within case study and cross case study.By adopting these methods, the thesis shows that both MNCs and SMEs are aware ofand actively shouldering CSR in spite of different contents and approaches. MNCs areable to integrate economic, environment and social values into CSR strategy whileSMEs focus more on economic values. Competitive pressures, social expectations andinternal governance system are the main drivers of MNCs. By contrast, owners’ desiregives rise to the performance of carrying out CSR strategy by SMEs.It is suggested that a new domain of CSR namely, political social responsibility isfound through the study. It demonstrates that MNCs with the state-owned nature haveparticular missions and responsibilities to serve the country and society, which is notcommon but exists in the world.