This study was conducted to explore the external sources of knowledge that are present around the eco-innovation firms. Our study has focused on eco-innovations with the aim  to find sustainable solutions, leading the reduction in greenhouse gases, on the extraction of renewable energy sources, since studies have indicated a link between the industrialization and the impact on the climate.  The purpose formulated for this study was to explore the external sources of knowledge that are present around the eco-innovation firms. By conducting this exploratory study we will contribute to existing research by adding empirical evidence to identifying what the external sources of knowledge are and further explore what kind of knowledge eco-innovation firms gain from these external sources. The participating companies in the study was chosen since they represent Swedish firms in the development of eco-innovations with the goal to minimize the environmental impact.  We conducted the thesis with a qualitative approach and the empirical data was gathered from four different companies in the field of wave and tidal power. The four interviews were executed through telephone interviews with both the researches acting as interviewers. The respondents were either the CEO of the company or a board member, since these persons were most likely to possess the relevant information for this study.  In our study we have found the external sources of knowledge to be of significant importance to the eco-innovation firms. Based on our theoretical framework, we have identified the external assets as suppliers, customers, competitors, governmental actors and research institutions. These external sources have different importance depending on the character of the knowledge that is gained. The external sources showed to contribute with important knowledge in areas of R&D capabilities, technology development, market orientation and regulation. By assessing the external sources of knowledge firms will unlock great potential knowledge that would otherwise be very costly. A conclusion was that as eco-innovation firms acquire knowledge by their external assets in parallel there are signals, unconsciously communicated going out to the external environment. Since our study has shown that academic experience among the founders seemed to have been helping the firms in their contact with governmental actors in order to attract subsidies and in the approval process for test sites, this indicates that what seems to be communicated from within the eco-innovation firms to their external environment is certain legitimacy, credibility and reputation that strengthen the relationship with governmental actors. This study was performed as a multiple case study on four different eco-innovation firms working with development of technology to extract energy from renewable energy sources in terms of wave and tidal power. Our choice to only interview one person on each firm, due to a limited time frame and resources, might make it hard to generalize the findings since there is a possibility of biased data. Other limitations that make it hard to draw to much from the results are the fact of focusing on a limited area on eco-innovation in only one country, since regulations play an important role this might differ between different countries.

Automated theorem provers can be modified in order to use external sources of axioms. This was recently searched in combination with saturation based theorem prover SPASS-XDB. It sends queries to external sources and receives answers during its saturation loop. Lean theorem provers are based on semantic tableau calculus. That's why they need to use different approach. An idea that proving is separated from communication is beeing introduced by this work. Prover generetes so called schematic proof which is later checked if it can be filled with external data so the proof can be completed. This work demonstates this idea on modified version of LeanCoP.

Background – Leveraging external sources of innovation (ESI) is found to be vital for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) innovation work as they commonly suffer from a lack of resources to facilitate and execute this work. The interaction with the external environment does, in turn, enable access to knowledge and capabilities that SMEs currently not possess. Moreover, as collaborative software tools (CSTs) have proven to play a critical role in today’s innovation processes and have transformed the way of interacting with the external environment, it becomes obvious that research in this field must account for the usage of these tools. CSTs have a significant impact on communication, cooperation, and coordination and are, therefore, widely used to facilitate collaborations in intra-organizational groups. Thus, these tools can be beneficial for SMEs as it provides them with greater access and availability to the external environment. Purpose – This research aims to understand how SMEs can leverage external sources of innovation with the application of collaborative software tools and develop fruitful insights that can be used to facilitate innovation work for SMEs that typically lack internal resources.  Method – This study approaches the underlying philosophy of a relativist ontology, a social constructionist epistemology, and iterative grounded theory. For the methodology, empirical data was collected through 31 semi-structured interviews with participants from SMEs and their ESI in the region of Jönköping County following a purposive sampling method. The empirical data was further analyzed by conducting a grounded theory strategy for process analysis. Findings – We develop two processes illustrating how SMEs can leverage ESI with the application of CSTs. It was found that the application of CSTs in these processes enables SMEs to explore, acquire, and utilize information and knowledge from ESI in ways that previously have not been possible. By providing new ways of communicating and cooperating, CSTs facilitate the activity of sourcing knowledge and resources from ESI. Consequently, the SMEs are provided with new knowledge and resources that, in turn, improve and enhance the development of innovations. Thereby we contribute to an understanding of how SMEs can leverage ESI in the 21st century.

Master´s thesis concerns about financing of business activities of the selected company. Master´s thesis is divided into 3 main parts, theoretical, analytical and proposal part. The theoretical part focuses on financial analysis and available methods of financing business acitivites and analytical part contains theoretical knowledge applied to the selected company. The last part of the master´s thesis, proposal part contains solution increasing financial stability and leading to desirable development of business activities of the selected company.