<p>This paper explores and analyses the development of Diversity Management and workforce diversity (in terms of ethnic background) in Swedish large-sized enterprises. Primarily, this paper aims to make the concept of Diversity Management well-known and useful in the managerial practices. The theoretical framework discussion is based on a literature review about culture, diverse workforce and Diversity Management. It includes positive and negative influences of Diversity Management and the theoretical implementation process in general. The authors of this dissertation chose a survey via e-mail questionnaires addressed to 235 companies in Sweden. The results were analysed in details combined with the research questions and the literature as well as with propositions and conjectures of the authors of this paper. The paper concludes with the criticism and authors’ reflections</p>

<p>This dissertation is written within the marketing area. From the beginning we wanted the whole dissertation to be about invisible quality, but the time and the amount written about the subject was too little, so we decided to write the dissertation around brand loyalty and factors that may influence. The factors are price, country of origin, invisible quality and experienced knowledge. </p><p>One of the main problems is to find out how important invisible quality is for brand loyalty and the active choice of brand in frozen vegetables for the consumers. And the other problem is which factors will influence brand loyalty.</p><p>The dissertation is written from a deductive point of view which means that we have proceeded from existing theories and developed a model that has brand loyalty as the core and the four factors that may influence brand loyalty. The purpose of the model is to research if the factors influence brand loyalty.</p><p>The primary data have been collected through a research we made with one hundred end-consumers. We interviewed the respondents at the frozen food-counter in three big supermarkets, Domus, Willy’s and Maxi, in Kristianstad. We wanted to research their attitudes and behaviours towards frozen vegetables.</p><p>This study shows that consumers do not have knowledge about the concept invisible quality but know what the factor invisible quality contains. The factor invisible quality means for example nutrition, cultivation process and pesticide. The companies need to find a way to communicate the invisible quality factor to end-consumers and not the concept. We could not indicate any association between brand loyalty and the four factors. </p>

<p>Syftet med vår uppsats är att undersöka om det finns ett hot för revisorn vid självgranskningen av en apportemission att hamna i en beroendeställning. Samtidigt vill vi undersöka hur revisorns oberoende upplevs och uppfattas i olika situationer vid apportemission, samt om detta kan leda till en exploateringsrisk för nyägare och minoriteten. För att uppnå vårt syfte genomförde vi intervjuer med revisorer, gamla ägare, nya ägare och minoriteter.</p><p>Ur agentteori härleds våra tre modeller. Vi tittar på revisorn dels som agent åt principalen och dels som en oberoende yrkesutövare. Dessa modeller är: självgranskningshot, nyägarexploateringsrisk och minoritetexploateringsrisk.</p><p>Empirisk fakta från de tio intervjuerna analyserades och vi fann att det kan finnas en risk för självgranskningshot då revisorn granskar sin egen granskning vid årsbokslutet. Analysen tyder även på att det kan finnas en risk för exploatering för både nyägare och minoritet. </p><p>Vår slutsats är att en lagändring skulle lösa problemen med självgranskningshotet och minska risken för nyägar- och minoritetsexploatering. </p>

<p>The purpose of this essay was to identify the primary stakeholder in aid organisations, by which we mean whom they make their annual report for, and to analyse if there were any differences considering the design of their annual reports depending on which their primary stakeholder is. The method we used to explain the choice of primary stakeholder and the differences in the annual reports was a multiple case study. The collected data came from telephone interviews with 23 representatives from aid organisations and a review of annual reports. The results were analysed through pattern matching. We found that aid organisations do not have a primary stakeholder as in incorporated organisations. There are some differences, when comparing the annual reports of the aid organisations, depending on which stakeholder they consider as their primary. </p><p>This report is written in Swedish. </p>

<p>The purpose of this essay is to identify the costs of illness in different organizations, and compare the calculated result with the actual result in their annual reports.</p><p>We collected information thru interviews with the personnel manager in the selected organizations, and used the annual reports to add necessary information.</p><p>When we applied our model, we found that the selected organizations, in some cases, have a cost of illnes which is up to seven times higher than shown in their annual reports. It’s, in general, the costs that aren’t related to the salary (additional costs), which are much higher than shown.</p><p>The absence of a model that calculates the costs of illnes can result in wrongful decisions. If a model would be applied in an organization, it should increase the awearness of the actual costs of illnes, which can lead to better decisions througout the whole organization.</p><p>This report is written in Swedish.</p>

<p>70 % of all implementations of Balanced Scorecard fail. In this essay, we look into which difficulties that exist when implementing a Balanced Scorecard. We have chosen the general hospital of Ängelholm for our case and we have made qualitative interviews with key persons in the organization to explain these difficulties. The most difficult problem the hospital faced was to make the employees motivated for the change. </p><p>It is important that the management is encouraging and is taking an active interest in the implementation as well as experience, patience and having a long term focus. If the organization would have been allowed to work with the implementation of the Balanced Scorecard for several periods of time, maybe the outcome had been different.</p><p>The dissertation is written in Swedish.</p>

<p>Problem</p><p> </p><p>Utgångspunkten för kvalitetskontrollen är EG-kommissionens rekommendation av den 15 november 2000 om kvalitetssäkring av lagstadgad revision i Europeiska unionen och tar sikte på alla kvalificerade revisorer som är ledamöter av FAR respektive SRS och deras tillämpning av god revisionssed och god revisorssed. De större byråerna har ofta ett byråinternt kvalitetskontrollsystem och FAR/SRS utför granskning av detta och substansgranskningen av enskilda revisorer görs av kollegiala kontrollanter. Hos en mindre revisionsbyrå finns sällan något internt kvalitetskontrollsystem utvecklat. FAR/SRS kontrollanter utför då substansgranskning av revisorns arbete genom hela revisionsprocessen. Efter utförd kvalitetskontroll avger kontrollanten en rapport till den aktuella byrån och till Kvalitetsnämnden medan en kollegial kontrollant rapporterar till kontorschefen. </p><p>Syfte </p><p>I denna uppsats har vi valt att undersöka om kvalitetskontrollen skiljer sig åt beroende på om man är föreningsintern kontrollant, dvs. oberoende, eller om man är en kollegial kontrollant.</p><p>Metod</p><p>Vi använde oss av intervjuer för att genomföra undersökningen. Intervjuerna genomfördes med åtta kollegiala och lika många företagsinterna kontrollanter och utfördes med hjälp av uppställda fall och fyra standardiserade frågor. Samtliga fall betraktades som allvarligt fel av Revisorsnämnden. Svaren vi fick ifrån de två grupperna av kvalitetskontrollanter jämfördes och analyserades statistiskt. </p><p>Slutsats </p><p>Vi har inte kunnat finna några skillnader mellan de kollegiala och företagsinterna kontrollanterna i bedömningen av underkännande eller godkännande vid en kvalitetskontroll. Trots detta anser vi att vi har kunnat märka tendenser till att det finns en viss skillnad mellan de två olika typerna av kontrollanter både vad det gäller egenintresset och styrningen.</p>

<p>It has become easier for companies to operate across the borders in Europe. From being a domestic market, the Swedish grocery market is now going through an internationalisation process. A trend today is that many retailers produce their own private label.</p><p>The purpose of this dissertation is to examine positioning strategies on the Swedish grocery market with focus on private label products and product range. We will compare Swedish grocery retailers with Lidl, a German grocery retailer on the Swedish market, to show the differences in their positioning strategies. The purpose is further to examine if the customers’ apprehension of the stores agrees with the observed positioning strategies. No research of the Swedish grocery market regarding positioning strategies has included Lidl before. </p><p>Primary data was collected through observations in the grocery stores and also through questionnaires that were handed out to the customers in the stores. The analysis, about the stores’ positioning strategies, shows that the largest difference is between the two Swedish stores and Lidl. </p><p>The Swedish stores offer large ranges with a small share of private label products, while Lidl offers small ranges with a very large share of private label products. The largest differences are Lidl’s customers’ apprehension of the stores’ share of private label products </p><p>The position is supposed to reflect benefits and advantages to the consumers. ICA Maxi’s and Willy:s’ have been able to attain a position in the consumers’ mind that agrees with the observed positioning strategies, but not Lidl.</p>

<p>In September 2003 Sweden had an election whether or not to have the euro. Sweden chose to stand outside the co-operation of the European Monetary Union, despite having joined the European Union several years before. We thought that this aspect made it interesting for us to examine what motives Swedish exporting companies have in their choice of currency. The group developed theories and factors of potential impacts on companies’ choice of currency. The model was named the L.I.K-model, which is short for Lasson, Isacsson and Kullberg, the surname of each group member. The model was tested on twenty companies through telephone interviews. The theories and factors were divided into internal and external factors. Overall the internal factors as the company loans, transaction cost, matching and policy has had the largest impact on the companies. The external factors as the political condition, industry and introduction of the euro have also had a large impact in their choice of currency. All theories and factors had an impact on some of the companies and we also concluded that there were no major factors left out in our model.</p>

<p>The suggested theory is based upon many vital concepts of prior models, especially that of the Uppsala model because of its use of a Stages approach. What separates the proposed model and that of Uppsala is the divergence from the concept of incremental movement through Stages. Instead, Stages are reached on a conditional basis, which allows for free movement between Stages based on certain factor conditions. The model was founded on an interaction between the degree of a firm's ability, and the degree of a firm's motivation, which in turn depicted a certain level of commitment as regards forein entry mode choice. Propositions were created to test the validity of the factors, as well as for testing how strategy also plays a role in entry mode choice. As this study was deductive, after the theory was developed with the help of existing literature, empirical testing was then able to take place on a sample of consumer product companies. Transaction Cost Analysis, the Eclectic Paradigm, and the Network theory was also instrumental in the development of this theory; therefore the paper includes an extensive literature review prior to the disussion of the theory. The results of empirical testing are then included, as well as an in depth analysis of those resuls. The analysis contains a detailed description of the findings from each specific proposition, and ends with a discussion of the combined results. Finally, the conclusions are presented to summarize the results, and to offer thoughts on practical implications as well as suggestions for further research.</p>