<p>Introduction</p><p>Boarders are shrinking, the world becomes more internationalized and the globalization of society has resulted in increasing demands on universities to adjust their education to the labor market. A growing interest among Swedish students to study abroad and receive an international experience has increased as well. The changes in the environment have affected organizations’ recruitment processes and how they manage their human resources.</p><p>Problem</p><p>Today an ordinary education is not enough, you need to have something unique, something that makes you stand out in the crowd. As a student you are encouraged to study abroad, and many view this as a possibility to broaden their competence. However, it is not known how future employers value and compensate this experience.</p><p>Purpose</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to examine how university studies abroad are valued when recruiting white-collar workers. The ambition is to provide prospective and current stu-dents with an understanding of the employers’ view of the subject.</p><p>Method</p><p>The empirical data have been gathered by using a qualitative approach and face-to-face interviews have been conducted with the human resource manager at eleven medium- and large-sized organizations, located in Norrköping, Linköping, and Jönköping.</p><p>Conclusions</p><p>We have come to the conclusion that it is difficult to determine specific competences that are preferable in the selection of white-collar workers, however the candidate’s unique competences are somehow reflected in the personality. Organizations view the study abroad experience as rewarding for the candidates personal development and ma-turity. The university study abroad experience might not be valued higher in the future, but the more knowledge and information available, the larger are the benefits for both the organizations and the candidates.</p>

Abstract  Background:   The main aim of the research is to focus on the market potential of the cosmetic brands in the market of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao (ABC islands). These islands are located in the Caribbean Sea in front of the coast of South-America. Before starting to expand, international companies first search for potential suitable markets to invest in. This thesis attempts to find out if there is a potential market for the cosmetic products of the companies on the ABCislands. 　 Purpose: The purpose of the Master thesis is to find out if there is a potential market for new cosmetic products on the ABC islands. To achieve the purpose, the research addresses the market potential analysis.  Conclusion:   The market of Aruba and Curacao offer a great number of potential clients and a good future prospect. These findings are also supported by research that was conducted in 2007 by the Icongrouponline.  Majority of the consumers on the islands are willing to try new professional cosmetics products. Additionally, the tourism industry plays an important role when assessing the market potential on these islands for professional cosmetics products.  Key words:   Internationalization, market selection, market potential and development, entry mode, cosmetics products, Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao

SEW refers to the stock of affect-related values that an owning family derives from its family business. As a promising theoretical concept, the SEW has been used widely to explain the diverse strategic choices of family firms compared to non-family firms. However, little study has been done to measure SEW directly and to measure the effect of SEW on family firms’ strategic choices.     Within the context of family-owned Hidden Champions, this thesis study replicates the five-dimension model proposed by Berrone et al. in an empirical study to verify the psychometric measurement on the degree of SEW. Furthermore, internationalization has been chosen as an example to demonstrate the effects of SEW on family firms’ strategic choices and outcomes.   This study has verified the reliability and validity of the SEW scale and SEW’s five subscales constructed. Furthermore, the measurement on SEW and its five dimensions has been applied to examine the effects of SEW and its five dimensions on the internationalization of family firms. The findings reveal that SEW has a negative effect on the internationalization of family firms, which is mainly due to the negative effect of Family Control and Influence.

Due to the recent phenomenon of globalization, the mobility of people has increased significantly. In a world where national and cultural borders are getting more blurred and undefinable, people from different parts of the world encounter individuals with different cultural backgrounds. Due to these different worldviews, perceptions and experiences, misunderstandings may arise when people engage in cross-cultural communication. This is true for recreational as well as professional cross-cultural communication. An individual who successfully interacts and communicates with people from other cultures possesses what has come to be known as cultural intelligence. In order to get a deeper understanding for how people perceive cross-cultural communication in the professional field, this study investigates how managers in the forestry based industry in Västerbotten have experienced communication with their international business partners. The investigation was conducted through personal interviews and a self-completion questionnaire was also distributed to make an attempt to measure the respondents’ cultural intelligence. The results point in the direction that cross-cultural communication is vital for organizations that operate on the global market. Both verbal communication and non-verbal communication do affect the collaboration, but there is no general answer to how. Every situation has to be dealt with in a unique way. This implies that the process of cultural learning and understanding is ongoing and dynamic.

Bakgrund: Småföretag i Sverige har fått en ökad betydelse i näringslivet. Bland annat kommer idag 60 procent av näringslivets bidrag till landet från småföretagare. För att underbygga framtida tillväxt och utveckling är det viktigt att företagen kan etablera sig även på internationella marknader. Detta är ett stort steg för kapitalbegränsade småföretag som därmed behöver vägledning både gällande internationalisering och val av etableringsform. I dagsläget är forskningen inom området begränsad gällande små teknikintensiva tjänsteföretag, vilket är den mest växande sektorn i det svenska näringslivet. Syfte: Studiens syfte är att analysera internationaliseringsprocessen och valet av etableringsform i utlandet för teknikintensiva småföretag som är verksamma inom den svenska tjänstesektorn. Metod: Studien har en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi samt en deduktiv forskningsansats. Den bygger på semistrukturerade intervjuer med tre tekniska småföretag inom tjänstesektorn och kan klassas som en komparativ flerfallstudie. Slutsats: Slutsatsen i studien är att det viktigaste verktyget för en lyckad utlandsetablering, är ett utpräglat kontaktnät. Studien visar också att den tekniska aspekten hos dessa företag, där tjänsten kan förmedlas via internet, medför att samarbete med en utländsk aktör är den minst risk- och kostnadsintensiva etableringsformen vid inledningen av en utlandsetablering, vilket motsäger och ifrågasätter den nuvarande forskningen inom ämnet. / Background: Small enterprises have become increasingly important in the Swedish business world. Among other things, 60 percent of the contribution to the country’s economy comes from small businesses. To support future growth and development it is important for companies to venture onto the international markets. This is a big step for small enterprises with constrained capital and guidance on the internationalization process and choice of entry mode is needed. Research on these two factors are limited in relation to small technology-focused enterprises in the service sector, which is the most rapidly growing sector in the Swedish economy. Aim: The aim of the study is to analyze the internationalization process and the choice of entry mode for small and technology-focused enterprises in the Swedish service sector. Methodology: The study has a qualitative research strategy and a deductive research approach. It is based on semi-structured interviews with three small technology-focused enterprises in the Swedish service sector and can be classified as a comparative case study. Conclusion: The conclusion of this study is that the most essential tool, for small technology-focused enterprises in the Swedish service sector when going abroad, is a distinct network of contacts. The study also reveals that the technical aspect of these types of companies implies that collaboration is the least risk and capital-intensive choice of entry mode at the beginning of a foreign establishment, which challenges the current research on the topic.

This qualitative dissertation explores the classroom experiences of international undergraduate students in the U.S. with a specific focus on perceptions of undergraduate Chinese international students. The study starts with a literature review of the field of study where I identify classroom practices that, instead of promoting integration of international students into classroom activities, facilitated exclusion and segregation of these students. Subsequently, I explore different classroom practices perceived by 15 Chinese international undergraduate students to be effective and those perceived to be ineffective. At the same time, perceived identity of these Chinese international students in a U.S. classroom setting and how these affect their experiences and sense of membership are also explored. The study concludes with a series of recommendations under a proposed critical pedagogy of internationalization that address some of the challenges identified in this dissertation and develop students' identities, critical thinking skills with a comparative perspective, intercultural communication, cultural competence, and social justice.

Background: Thanks to the globalization and the EU the international trade is growing faster than ever and companies are able to change ownership across the borders of the nations. Today one can talk about global marketplace with a deeper integration of the economies of the world. The rapidly growing list of mergers of Swedish companies since the last 10 years indicates that the global companies of today is using mergers as a strategic tool for continue their growth. However the number of unsuccessful mergers is big. The need of understanding and knowledge about different cultures is growing in the global business climate of today, since the collaborations across de national borders are increasing. Problem formulation: Which international strategies are fortunate in international mergers with Swedish companies? Purpose: The purpose is to analyze the integration of the three mergers; Vin&amp;Sprit – Pernod Ricard, Astra - Zeneca and Telia – Sonera. Method: This study is a case study with a qualitative approach. The method in this paper consists of interviews and written sources. For the most part primary data is used, but secondary data will also occur. Conclusion: The study doesn´t find any relation between strategy and successful merger. However there is an indication that one of the mergers in this study, who is using a long term development strategy and a short termexchange strategy, gets a better result than those two mergers solely using a short term exchange strategy. National culture affect the choice of strategy and the structure of the organization, and as the number of international mergers increases so does the need of

This thesis focuses on the internationalization process of SMEs, the strategies and methods they use. The major aim of this research was to gain a better understanding of the process by comparing and analyzing three main internationalization process theories: the Uppsala model, network theory and international entrepreneurship theory. An essential part of this study consisted of gathering empirical data from SMEs that has already been internationalized as well as from some of those who intend to internationalize in the near future. Our findings show the application and usefulness of the three theories to these SMEs, especially their heavy reliance on network relationships. The findings also indicate that firms use a combination of variables from all three theories and some aspects of the much criticized Uppsala model are still significant in describing the internationalization process behavior of SMEs.

A lot of research has been done concerning the internationalization process of companies. However, researchers have identified a new type of firm that is leapfrogging and is operating internationally right after inception. These companies are Born Globals. We are interested in this trend and the purpose of this research is to understand the strategic behaviour of Born Globals. Therefore, we have done qualitative research on these companies and we will focus on their pre-internationalization steps, their key drivers and their relation to the home market. We have found three case companies, who have helped us in our understandings and we have made several conclusions, regarding their strategic behaviour.

Owing to their gigantic participation in global economic growth, the phenomenon of SMEs internationalization has become the centre of attention for numerous researchers. Starting from Uppsala model (1977) to born-global approaches today, scholars have been coming up with several theories and models time to time. An in-depth study of literature concerning SMEs internationalization, however, reveals that extant literature has primarily focused on firms that are operating from metropolitan or core regions of the world. It has largely ignored the vast peripheral and non-metropolitan regions of the world from where a great number of SMEs are operating in foreign markets. Particularly increasing number of small high-tech firms with ‘low to no demand’ in domestic market coupled with higher returns available in global markets are induced to internationalize despite intimidating challenges of periphery. Consequently, internationalization phenomenon from said locations, even in face of daunting challenges that hinder SMEs growth, turns out to be an attention-grabbing area – hence worth-investigating! The purpose of this study is to investigate the phenomenon of internationalization that is being pursued by SMEs located in non-metropolitan regions that offer unique constraints and challenges. More specifically, the objective is to explore the kind of entrepreneurial skills and talent that is required to develop networking relations with key players and to eventually internationalize from a peripheral location. To carry out this research, eight semi-structured interviews were conducted informally with key individuals from five small high-tech international firms located in North region of Sweden – a non-metropolitan region. Based on the findings, a conceptual model is developed which underlines that an entrepreneur in non-metropolitan regions should: possess global mind-set, social and team formation skills, and, industry experience; develop social, business and incessant snowball networks by efficiently utilizing his social skills; understand the peripheral challenges like: lack of financial resources, scarcity of non-tech professionals, being far away from core markets, absence of agglomeration advantage and travelling time and cost; and on the same time exploit the peripheral advantages which include loyal, hardworking, less salaried and easily retained employees, and, easy life and exotic climate that exclusively prevail in non-metropolitan regions. Having possessed skills, developed networks, and exploited the opportunities, the entrepreneur is now able to build a pool of potential and strength which minimizes the effect of constraints that he has already understood . As a result he can successfully pursue internationalization from a non-metropolitan region. We believe that this study has contributed both theoretically and practically and will inspire future empirical or conceptual research regarding this important topic. / CiiR(Centre for Interorganizational Innovation Research)