According to Nosti (2012) banks target youths to find new customers by giving them special offers such as debit cards from a relatively early age. However, Moschis and Churchill (1979) point out that age can affect the level of knowledge in the consumer. Therefore, this essay focuses on youths as consumers. Specifically, youths’ awareness of security risks in using bank tools such as debit cards or internet banks was studied. The study was conducted by using four methods: a survey, a focus group, interviews with representatives from four banks on Gotland and a study of banks’ webpages. The participants of the survey and focus group where 16-19 years of age. According to Proença, Silva and Fernandes (2010), relationship marketing, or customer relationship management, is a strategy practiced by banks in which they sometimes use technology as a tool. However, a lack of awareness and knowledge among the customers can lead to misuse of the tools. Among other things, according to Harr (2012) it can lead to financial loss. The results that emerged from the study in this essay show that youths seem to have awareness within some areas, but further knowledge may be required in others, for example, in internet security. In addition, the results indicate that youths in some cases behave as if they do not believe anything harmful might happen to them, even though they are aware of the risks. Possible contributing factors to their actions may be group pressure, family influence and/or lack of knowledge.

Background: Companies and organizations of today spend large amounts of money on IT-based business solutions. Such business solutions normally include business- consulting and software-creation (IT-related services). Due to the rapid development of the technology within this field of business the IT-customers find it difficult to select among potential suppliers on objective grounds. Purpose: To increase the understanding for the professionl approach of the people involved in the sales- and purchase process of IT-related services in a business-to-business context. The study is taking the buyers'as well as the sellers'perspective into account when analyzing the process. Method: The empirical findings were collected from eight companies in Linköping and Stockholm. The method used was a qualitative interview survey. Delimitation: The study treats business-to-business relationships. The study focuses on IT-services aimed at business development. The study do not include the influence of purely technical apects of IT-related services. Conclusions: It appears to exist a"knowledge gap"between the IT-suppliers and the IT-customers concerning how to make use of the opportunities stemming from the newest IT-applications. The customers find it difficult to select among potential IT-suppliers on objective grounds. Trust in the supplier becomes very important. Trust can be achieved by means of personal contacts, the ability to speak the same language, reference projects and general knowledge about the customer's field of business.

The purpose of this thesis was to gain an understanding of how the use of social media can build customer relationships and how interactions in these communication channels can be managed and optimized. A qualitative and deductive method was chosen for a deeper, more detailed and descriptive explanation of the considered topic. Three case studies have been implemented since this method was optimal to the purpose. Creating customer relationships through social media demands an understanding from a company perspective regarding how to treat customers well, encourage interactions and offer valued information. There are challenges working with social media and it is essential to consider the risks because the word-of-web can spread quickly.

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The purpose of this thesis is to explain how satisfaction, trust and commitment impacts customer retention and word-of-mouth communication within the industry of Speciality Stores. The study takes off from a historical perspective where the development of marketing is presented, which ultimately leads to customer relationship management (CRM). The study raises the components of customer loyalty and the difficulties of how to build successful customer relationships within the industry of Speciality Stores. A survey questionnaire is conducted and distributed digitally to respondents that are customers of an anonymous company within the industry under investigation. The main findings in this study are that companies within the industry of Speciality Stores can achieve word-of-mouth communication through customer satisfaction and trust. The study also finds that the features of customer satisfaction have a stronger impact on word-of-mouth communication than the features of trust. This means that it is these features of the ones treated in this study that companies within the industry of Speciality Stores should enact in order to best achieve word-of-mouth communication among its customers.

Word-of-mouth is positive or negative communication between customers. Word-of-mouth has been recognized as an effectiveand credible marketing source but stillrecognizedas the least understood marketing strategy. The, for companies actuable, elements of quality, interaction and service recovery are argued to influence satisfaction and word-of-mouthin general while their effect onword-of-mouth onsocial mediais not known. Facebook is the biggest social media today and itfacilitates communicationbetween users.  The messages are spread among friends and thus perceived by the receiver as trustworthysince it is not of commercial nature. The reasons whyword-of-mouth are spread on social media were investigated throughFacebook. Bymappingthe antecedents of positive word-of-mouthon social mediaitis also possible to guideline relationship marketingsince satisfaction is connected to both relationship marketing and word-of-mouth. Hence, the purpose of this study wasto examinethe impact of the relationship marketing elements quality, interaction and service recovery for triggering positiveword-of-mouth on social media. 272 respondents, who historically had written positive comments about companies on Facebook, answered a questionnaire. The results showed that qualityhad the highest impact on satisfaction. The relationship marketing element qualitywas confirmed to have an impact onword-of-mouth on social media. It wasalso shown that interaction has the highest potential to be a word-of-mouth trigger on social media if the customer perceivedthat it was performed at a good or better than expected level of the elementstested. The relationship marketing element interaction can therefore be seen as a very important aspect fortriggeringword-of-mouth on social media. The relationship marketing element service recovery is supported as an important aspect for triggering word-of-mouth on social mediaas well.The better relationship marketing is performed the more satisfaction will be triggered,which in turn will lead to word-of-mouth on social media.

The study is based on the pragmatic question whether one can apply the theoretical perspectives priming, experience space and relationship marketing in a practical context. The authors visualize how these concepts appear practical and what advantages and disadvantages can be discerned in the particular case of HV71. The method used is a hypothetico-deductive approach, which is not entirely conventional in the humanistic and social scientific context. Consequently, it has been proven to be particularly suitable as it could expose the theoretical perspectives for a difficult scientific test. The result of the study demonstrated that a marketer could benefit from using the theoretical perspectives when exercising the profession. It also showed that the object of study applied these perspectives. Furthermore, the study contributes with new knowledge in two areas. First, it was shown that researchers could use the hypothetico-deductive method as tool for humanistic and social scientific studies such as this. Also, the study answered the fundamental questions whether the theoretical perspectives could be identified in practice and how the object of study benefited from applying them. / Studien vilar på den pragmatiska frågan huruvida man kan tillämpa de teoretiska utgångspunkterna priming, upplevelserummet och relationsmarknadsföring i en praktisk kontext. Författarna åskådliggör hur dessa begrepp visar sig rent praktiskt och vilka fördelar och nackdelar som kan urskiljas i det specifika fallet HV71. Som metod används ett hypotetisk-deduktivt angreppssätt som inte är helt konventionellt i humanistiska och samhällsvetenskapliga sammanhang, men som visade sig vara ytterst lämplig då den kunde utsätta de teoretiska utgångspunkterna för hård vetenskaplig prövning. Resultatet av studien visade att man som marknadsförare kan ha nytta av att använda teoretiska utgångspunkter i sin praktiska yrkesutövning, samt att de tillämpades av studieobjektet. Studien bidrar vidare med ny kunskap på två områden. Dels bevisas att forskare hantverksmässigt kan använda hypotetisk-deduktiv metod för studier inom humanistiska och samhällsvetenskapliga områden som detta, dels besvaras studiens fundamentala frågor huruvida de teoretiska utgångspunkterna kunde identifieras i praktiken och hur studieobjektet dragit fördel av att tillämpa dem.

<p>The Internet has opened up new opportunities for companies to market and sell their products online. In the early days of internet marketing and still some of the more widely used methods are Pop-ups and Banners. Earlier research and academic studies have proven these methods of being perceived as irritating and more or less ignored. With this in mind, marketers have been searching to find new and alternative ways of marketing, in addition to the traditional methods. Eventually, when the trend of blogs and communities began growing, so did the companies interests towards them. Because of the new possible forms of marketing online, and due to the companies increasing effort of receiving better value regarding their advertisement budget, the purpose of this thesis is to examine if marketing on sites such as blogs and communities are more positively perceived upon among internet users. In some cases, this has been examined in relation to the more traditional means of online marketing. Furthermore, we examined whether or not the tailoring of advertisements had more effect on users, and if there were any differences in the general perception of blog- and community advertisements among male and female consumers.</p><p>The empirical data needed was gathered quantitatively through an online survey, based on the consumer point of view of this matter. As it became difficult to attain any response from users of internet blogs, the study became more focused on communities and forums. The survey was placed on three communities within current areas of interest; Home electronics, Sports and training, and Family life. Furthermore, a conceptualization was made out of the theoretical chapter, and was used for the analyzing of the data.</p><p>The results indicate that a majority of the respondents are more positive towards advertisements on blogs and communities, as well as customized advertisements within these mediums. It was further found that these advertisements did not disrupt the surfer’s flow as much as traditional mediums. The findings also show that a majority of the respondents are aware of online advertisements in general, and just as many have developed a dislike towards them. However, the male respondents have a more positive view of advertisements on blogs and communities, than the female. The same finding appeared in regard to tailored ads; while male consumers consider these as more acceptable, the female respondents have an indifferent opinion. To the question of why advertisement on these mediums were more regarded upon, the most common response was due to these ads being considered as more related to their interests. Conclusively, tailored ads that are developed and placed in relation to the website and its content have a larger effect on internet users, than do random advertisements.</p>

Around the world, companies are rapidly moving towards outsourcing to enhance their competitive position in the market through reduction in product development cycle times (costs), demands for better quality, improvement in supply chain management and higher expectations from more discriminating and demanding customers (Lyons and Krachenberg, 1990). An outsourcing mechanism consists of two parties, buyer and supplier. Hence, the success of the buyer and supplier relationship is the main factor to achieve successful outsourcing operations. This research studies the buyer and supplier relationship in each relationship type in the Saudi Arabian market; market exchange, captive buyer, strategic partnership and captive supplier. The main objective of this research was to study in depth buyer and supplier relationships (outsourcing) by discovering which problems exist in each type of relationship, how they can be controlled and what are their effects. It examines and tests certain factors associated with the relationships, such as incentives for their creation, relationship problems, cause of problems, problem control mechanisms and finally the effects of these problems on the buyer, the relationship and the market. The methodology used in this study was as follows: an interpretative research philosophy, an inductive research approach and an exploratory research strategy. Semi-structured interviews were found to be the most appropriate method of data collection because they enabled the researcher to gather valid and reliable data. The research model involved all the components affecting the buyer and supplier relationship. These components were categorized and classified in a meaningful way, describing the flow of the relationship from the research perspective in terms of testing the effect of each component in the relationship between buyer and supplier in general and its effect on the category to which it belongs. The data was collected from purchasing employees on the buyers’ side and sales employees on the suppliers’ side. The total number of participating buyer and supplier firms was 57, distributed across manufacturing and service industries. The first data collection phase involved all the buyer data and the second following up, reviewing and completing the data that the researcher thought had been missed during the first phase of interviews, and which needed to be explained more fully by the interviewees. This phase also involved collecting all the supplier data. 40 interviews were conducted to collect buyer data within three months. The 40 interviews involved 88 recorded hours, and each buyer discussed 4 relationships (not necessarily 4 different types of relationship), resulting in a total of 64 market exchange, 30 captive buyer, 22 strategic relationship and 44 captive supplier relationships, accounting for the total of 160 different types of relationships across the 40 different buyers. Supplier data was collected by conducting 17 interviews within 27 days. The 17 interviews involved 34 recorded hours. While the researcher was analyzing the data collected, a special case in market exchange relationship was found. In this case, buyers preferred to deal with suppliers under a captive buyer relationship though the relationship characteristics were market exchange relationship because of their interests. The researcher also found that Saudi firms are the same as other firms in the rest of the world. They are trying to maximize their competitiveness in the market by improving product or service quality and speed of delivery, reducing product or service costs and enhancing decision making efficiency. Additionally, it was found that relationship incentives, arising from buyer wishes or compulsory reasons, create any one of the buyer and supplier relationship types, which were other than what has been mentioned in the outsourcing reasons in the literature. In addition, the researcher also found that relationship incentives might cause problems, so the buyer should be more careful with them. Additionally, there are also other causes that might create agency problems than those mentioned in previous studies. At the same time, it was observed that there are new control mechanisms, not previously discussed in the literature. The study found that the outsourcing relationship is affected negatively, and there are other effects than those mentioned in the literature by Tezuka (1997). In addition, the researcher found that because of the ‘agency’ system in Saudi Arabia its economy is affected negatively. Finally, the original research conceptual model was found applicable to all types of relationship.

Studien behandlar vad som hänt efter den 1 november 2010 då revisionsplikten avskaffades för små aktiebolag i Sverige. I april 2010 lade regeringen fram en proposition om en frivillig revision till riksdagen som trädde i kraft 1 november samma år. Konsekvensen blev att privata aktiebolag som uppfyller två av tre kriterier inte längre behöver ha någon revision: (1) max tre anställda, (2) max 1,5 miljoner SEK i balansomslutning och (3) max 3 miljoner SEK i nettoomsättning. Det var runt 250 000 svenska aktiebolag som berördes och dessa beräknas årligen bespara cirka 15 000 SEK vardera på revisionskostnader.Studiens forskningsfråga lyder: Hur har avskaffandet av revisionsplikten för små aktiebolag i Sverige påverkat mindre revisionsbyråer?Syftet med studien är att studera hur avskaffandet av revisionsplikten för små aktiebolag i Sverige har påverkat mindre revisionsbyråer. I studien användes en kvalitativ metod med en abduktiv ansats, där åtta semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes hos revisionsbyråer i Borås, Alingsås, Kinna och Länghem.Studiens slutsatser är att revisorns roll inte har förändrats sedan avskaffandet av revisionsplikten för små aktiebolag men att revisorernas arbete har fått mer inslag av fristående rådgivning nu jämfört med före avskaffandet av revisionsplikten för små aktiebolag. Revisorns oberoende har inte heller påverkats, däremot anses gränsdragningen om vad som är ett oberoende och inte vara svår. Konkurrensen har inte påverkats sedan avskaffandet av revisionsplikten för små aktiebolag. En annan slutsats är att revisorers kundbas inte har påverkats av avskaffandet av revisionsplikten för små aktiebolag dock är det inte lika många kunder som har revision längre utan köper istället andra tjänster och på så sätt påverkas inte kundbasen. Däremot finns en oro inom revisionsbranschen om vad som händer om gränsvärdena för att ha lagstadgad revision eventuellt höjs. Hur uppvaktande av potentiella kunder sker eller hur revisionsbyråerna bedriver marknadsföring har inte påverkats sedan avskaffandet av revisionsplikten för små aktiebolag. Nya kundrelationer skapas genom rekommendationer från befintliga kunder. Prissättningen har inte heller förändrats sedan avskaffandet av revisionsplikten för små aktiebolag. Revisorer agerar i kundens intresse i sitt arbete vilket inte har förändrat sedan avskaffandet av revisionsplikten för små aktiebolag då det finns lagar, regelverk samt förordningar som revisorer måste förhålla sig till i sitt arbete. Det verkar inte skett en stor förändring inom revisionsbranschen sedan avskaffandet av revisionsplikten för små aktiebolag. Däremot håller attityder och revisorers förhållningssätt till sin egen bransch generellt på att förändras. / The study deals with what happened after 1 November 2010, when the audit requirement was abolished for small firms in Sweden. In April 2010, the government presented a proposition about a voluntary audit to the Parliament which came into effect on 1 November the same year. The consequence was that small firms that fulfill two of the three criteria no longer need to have an audit: (1) maximum three employees, (2) maximum of 1.5 million SEK in total assets. (3) Maximum of 3 million SEK in net sales. It was around 250 000 Swedish companies that was affected and their calculated annual saving is about 15 000 SEK each in audit costs.The study's research question is: How has the abolition of the audit requirement for small companies in Sweden affected the smaller accounting firms?The purpose of this study is to investigate how the abolition of the audit requirement for small companies in Sweden have affected smaller accounting firms. The study used a qualitative method with a abductive approach. Eight semistructured interviews with smaller accounting firms in Borås, Alingsås, Kinna and Länghem were conducted.The study's conclusions is that the auditor's role has not changed since the abolition of the audit requirement for small companies but that the auditors' work has received more hints of independent advice now compared to before the abolition of the audit requirement for small companies. Auditor independence has not been affected, however, considered the boundary of what is independence and not may be difficult. The competition has not been affected since the abolition of the audit requirement for small companies. Another conclusion is that the auditor's client base has not been affected by the abolition of the audit requirement for small companies, however, there are not as many clients who have audit anymore, but instead buys other services and thus will not affected the customer base. However, there is a concern within the accounting profession about what happens if the limit values may be increased. How recruitment of potential customers is done or how accounting firms engaged in marketing has not been affected since the abolition of the audit requirement for small companies. New customer relationships are created through recommendations from existing customers. Pricing has not changed since the abolition of the audit requirement for small companies. Auditors act in the client's interest in their work, which has not changed since the abolition of the audit requirement for small companies where there are laws, rules and regulations that auditors must relate to in their work. It seems not been a big change in the auditing industry since the abolition of the audit requirement for small companies. In contrast, attitudes and auditors' approach to its own industry in general is changing.