The aim of this thesis is to examine the need for a more open and sustainable business approach that centers on social responsibility in creating sustainable solutions for the smallholder, specifically with contributions from stakeholders in the value network and others like Non Government Organizations (NGOs). This approach is to create sustainable competitive markets and business network. The concepts of CSR stakeholders value network is applied to a case study of a real business development initiative from Ethiopia, Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperatives Union (OCFCU). The thesis reveals the role of farmer’s cooperative in the stakeholders’ value network and CSR thinking as an active tool for advancing smallholder by integrating them in to a global value network that create inclusive capital which leads to sustainable development, and poverty reduction. It will also explore how the farmer’s cooperative is playing a role in eliminating intermediaries, who has been taking much of the profit from the age old free market coffee chain, which enables OCFCU to create a cooperative coffee chain. Farmers’ problem was the driving factors for the formation of OCFCU. The two problems were: (1) The New York C market is trading coffee as a commodity (2) Technological advancement in countries where coffee grow in large scale, which in turn result the price to remain low, has made it even worse for small holders like OCFCU to make realistic business. Therefore, in order to achieve the cooperative farm’s greatest aim, bringing more money to the coffee growers’ pocket, the cooperative farm has to find a market place where consumers are willing to pay premium price. This continues search for a better market for their quality coffee has brought OCFCU from value chain to value network that we have related it with the stakeholders’ values network. This bold move from value chain to value network is the new business model in the stakeholders’ value network, where commodity market leaves the way to specialty market. This is the contribution of the thesis. To conclude, the role of OCFCU is to keep an eye on the high quality standards of buyers in the developed world and focus on continuously training farmers so that they growing high quality coffee that consumers are willing to pay premium price.

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<p>The foundation of OPEC (Organization of Oil Exporting Countries) was laid in the early 1960‟s by the five major oil exporters, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, in Baghdad, Iraq. OPEC is supposed to allocate its production level among its member countries based on cartel- dominant firm model, for profit maximization.</p>

The foundation of OPEC (Organization of Oil Exporting Countries) was laid in the early 1960‟s by the five major oil exporters, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, in Baghdad, Iraq. OPEC is supposed to allocate its production level among its member countries based on cartel- dominant firm model, for profit maximization.

The present study focuses on the financing and provision of health services in Italy and in Sweden. The purpose is to compare Italian and Swedish health system with respect to theseaspects. The intention is to provide new insights to how the financing and provision health care system in Italy and Sweden are organized and make a comparison analyzing different quantitative data. The study is organized in two part: one " qualitative, based on literature review, and one" statistical" based on critical analysis of data. In the theoretical part the financing flow of Italianand Sweden public health care system, which incentives are awarded to providers and which health services are provided, are reviewed. The statistical part shows how many resources (human and technological) are involved in the delivery process. The main findings, discussed in the conclusion section, suggest the need to improve the fairness in the financial contribution for the Sweden and the need for Italy to undertake cost-control and rationalization measures. Further research and especially greater availability of data remains to be done in order to make more complete the comparison.

The aim of this research is to check whether the Taylor rule in its simple linear form can be viewed as an appropriate description of the monetary policy pursued by Norway’s central bank – Norges Bank, and whether this rule can be used for forecasting purposes. Not only does this research focus on the original Taylor rule, but it also deals with its extended version designed for small open economies such as Norway. A conclusion about whether regressions can produce reliable coefficient estimates is drawn on the basis of time series’ properties tests and cointegration tests. The performance of the simple-form Taylor equation is compared to its alternative forms through forecasting exercises. The study has shown that the extended version of the Taylor rule with interest rate smoothing and augmented with the real exchange rate, the policy rate of the EU and oil prices can be viewed as a close approximation of Norges Bank’s monetary policy and can be used for forecasting purposes.

This thesis analyzes the effect of the two Debt Financing policies: Monetary and Bond Issuing, on the Dynamics Development. Economic variables, like GDP growth, interest rate and inflation are discussed, as the key determinants in the Debt Dynamics process development. The proposition of countries EMU members having higher Debt Dynam-ics level is suggested. This proposition is based on the fact that EMU member countries cannot use their Monetary policy to the extend it is needed in hard times. Due to this lack of choice EMU members can only intensively use Bond financing. The empirical findings of the paper indicate that the difference in Debt Dynamics between the euro us-ing and non-using countries exists. The difference indicates that the EMU member countries tend to have higher Debt Dynamics than the rest of the EU countries. These findings are discussed from different sides, concluding that Monetary Policy does mat-ter in certain cases. At the same time a quite high level of Debt Dynamics in both groups is discovered, which is also an interesting issue to address.

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This study investigates the digital presence of cultural centers in three regions of Germany taking into account the theoretical framework of knowledge age. In order to find out if the adaption of online tools has a positive influence on visitor reach, i.e. on the success of the centers, the thesis attempts to gather information on online tool usage of individual institutions via questionnaires. Taking into consideration the overall context three factors referring to traditional economic concepts namely industry Size, institutions size and program diversity are proposed as additional success factors. The research results indicate that digital presence, together with the other measured factors, have a positive impact on the success of the centers. Moreover, the cultural infrastructure appears to have a direct positive impact on the industry size and, consequently, an indirect impact on the success of cultural centers.