<p>Background</p><p>In 2006 the audit duty for SME’s was abolished in Denmark, and January 1st 2007 Finland decided to do the same. The subject is now under investigation in Sweden since the government has appointed an</p><p>investigation dealing with the future of the audit duty for small companies. The report will not only investigate whether an abolishment needs to be done but also if compliments are needed in order to prevent companies from breaking the rules, intentionally or unintentionally due to lack of knowledge.</p><p>Purpose</p><p>To investigate how a possible abolishment of the auditing duty for small companies will affect the creditors’ ability to assess the company’s creditworthiness.</p><p>Method</p><p>The selected sample of this study contained interviews with five organisations that would be affected differently of an abolishment of the audit duty. The authors wanted to interview organisations with different perceptions of the audit duty although the or-ganisations have in common that they all possess knowledge which is important to the banks in the credit rating process. The sample consists of representatives from; FAR SRS, Företagarna, Handelsbanken, Nordea and Upplysningscentralen.</p><p>Conclusion</p><p>All the different organisations in the study showed different views in the value of having audited financial statements. FAR SRS and Företagarna were, as could be expected, most and least in favour of having audited financial statements. UC did not predict to be affected by an abolishment, but did see a value in it. Interesting conclusions could be seen between the banks. It showed that depending on the organisational structure dif-ferent value was seen in the audit duty. This addresses how important a bank’s routines are in the process of valuing a company’s creditworthiness. The study showed that an abolishment will probably turn the focus in the credit process from the information that figures generates. The information used to assess a company’s creditworthiness would to a larger extent be on analysing the business concept, the environment and the re-sources that a company posses.</p>

Background In 2006 the audit duty for SME’s was abolished in Denmark, and January 1st 2007 Finland decided to do the same. The subject is now under investigation in Sweden since the government has appointed an investigation dealing with the future of the audit duty for small companies. The report will not only investigate whether an abolishment needs to be done but also if compliments are needed in order to prevent companies from breaking the rules, intentionally or unintentionally due to lack of knowledge. Purpose To investigate how a possible abolishment of the auditing duty for small companies will affect the creditors’ ability to assess the company’s creditworthiness. Method The selected sample of this study contained interviews with five organisations that would be affected differently of an abolishment of the audit duty. The authors wanted to interview organisations with different perceptions of the audit duty although the or-ganisations have in common that they all possess knowledge which is important to the banks in the credit rating process. The sample consists of representatives from; FAR SRS, Företagarna, Handelsbanken, Nordea and Upplysningscentralen. Conclusion All the different organisations in the study showed different views in the value of having audited financial statements. FAR SRS and Företagarna were, as could be expected, most and least in favour of having audited financial statements. UC did not predict to be affected by an abolishment, but did see a value in it. Interesting conclusions could be seen between the banks. It showed that depending on the organisational structure dif-ferent value was seen in the audit duty. This addresses how important a bank’s routines are in the process of valuing a company’s creditworthiness. The study showed that an abolishment will probably turn the focus in the credit process from the information that figures generates. The information used to assess a company’s creditworthiness would to a larger extent be on analysing the business concept, the environment and the re-sources that a company posses.

<p>This dissertation focuses on the challenges that arise when the SMEs enter into an international market (Internationalization) and adopting international product strategy to survive in foreign market. To be able to gain better understanding of the subject, research questions concerning the challenges faced during internationalization by SMEs from product adaptation and standardization perspective. Challenges in internationalization have been categorized into internal and external challenges. Internal challenges deals with firm specific while external challenges arise from country and industry specific factors. At the same time international product strategy counting product adaptation and standardization has been discussed. The empirical data includes case study of one Swedish company manufacturing assistive listening devices (hearing equipment for hearing impaired people) situated in Halmstad, Sweden. </p><p>Findings shows that the main challenges in internationalization are socio cultural differences and inadequate knowledge about the foreign market while laws and regulations regarding frequency standards issues are most challenging in international product strategy.</p>

This dissertation focuses on the challenges that arise when the SMEs enter into an international market (Internationalization) and adopting international product strategy to survive in foreign market. To be able to gain better understanding of the subject, research questions concerning the challenges faced during internationalization by SMEs from product adaptation and standardization perspective. Challenges in internationalization have been categorized into internal and external challenges. Internal challenges deals with firm specific while external challenges arise from country and industry specific factors. At the same time international product strategy counting product adaptation and standardization has been discussed. The empirical data includes case study of one Swedish company manufacturing assistive listening devices (hearing equipment for hearing impaired people) situated in Halmstad, Sweden. Findings shows that the main challenges in internationalization are socio cultural differences and inadequate knowledge about the foreign market while laws and regulations regarding frequency standards issues are most challenging in international product strategy.

There is a shift of values in the Western society of today from material to immaterial values Löhman and Steinholtz (2003). This changes together with the interest among people in Sweden and in the rest of the Western world to travel and experience new cultures the developing world has come closer. This has raised the awareness of the role of companies re-garding social responsibility since most companies have suppliers, producers or some other kind of involvement in developing countries. Today several companies are engaged in corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues. However, the topic of CSR has to a large extent divided a large part of the Swedish business world due to the strong opinions regarding this topic. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the concept of CSR is perceived by Swedish corporations and what implications it yields. This will be done by comparing the views of three different groups: managers in Swedish small and medium sized enterprises (SME’s) and managers of Swedish large sized enterprises (LSE’s), responsible for CSR implementation, supplemented with the view of independent thinkers. To perform the study a qualitative method has been used. Eleven interviews have been conducted with company representatives as well as independent thinkers that are involved in or have a great knowledge in the field of CSR. The respondents have been divided into three groups: ethically driven SME’s, LSE’s working with CSR and independent thinkers. The concept of corporate social responsibility is perceived very differently in between the three groups. The views are split regarding their fundamental understanding of CSR, which is reflected in their relation to stakeholders as well as their thoughts about the future development of CSR. The motives, ideological and commercial, for working with CSR also dif-fers and some external thinkers believe that there are no motives for engage in CSR at all. The ethically driven SME’s have built their core business on social responsibility and is therefore the backbone of the companies. The LSE’s core business is not built on social responsibility, but rather on demands from the customers, who they regard as a critical stakeholder group. Some of the independent thinkers instead adhere to the shareholder approach and reject the concept of CSR. Nevertheless, all of the respondents agree on why CSR has developed, which is due to globalisation.

Due to the rapid changing environment many organizations are striving to achieve agility and flexibility in internal and external environments. In order for an enterprise to be able to respond to this changing environment, it must integrate the business functions into a distinct system that is capable of exploiting information technology competently. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) mainly focused on integrating internal business functions and implementing an ERP system requires a significant amount of time and financial resources. Moreover, ERP systems are complex, non-flexible and are not capable of collaborating with autonomous application leading to difficulty in integration and customization [3]. Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is an alternate technology to ERP where the integration process is automated without much effort. This research work mainly focuses on designing an order processing system using the concepts of EAI for Intra Organization in any small and medium enterprises (SME’s). As a result of this research work, a five layered architecture has been designed which can be integrated in any enterprise without affecting the existing business workflow. This architecture is categorized into Data Layer, Middleware Layer, Event Generation Layer, Translation Layer and Interface layer. Further to actually test the extent and reliability of this architecture a prototype system implementation is built at Hyundai Mobis Parts- Sweden, using the concepts of EAI. In addition the evaluation of the prototype system is performed to check the above defined layers of the architecture.

<p>There is a shift of values in the Western society of today from material to immaterial values Löhman and Steinholtz (2003). This changes together with the interest among people in Sweden and in the rest of the Western world to travel and experience new cultures the developing world has come closer. This has raised the awareness of the role of companies re-garding social responsibility since most companies have suppliers, producers or some other kind of involvement in developing countries. Today several companies are engaged in corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues. However, the topic of CSR has to a large extent divided a large part of the Swedish business world due to the strong opinions regarding this topic.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the concept of CSR is perceived by Swedish corporations and what implications it yields. This will be done by comparing the views of three different groups: managers in Swedish small and medium sized enterprises (SME’s) and managers of Swedish large sized enterprises (LSE’s), responsible for CSR implementation, supplemented with the view of independent thinkers.</p><p>To perform the study a qualitative method has been used. Eleven interviews have been conducted with company representatives as well as independent thinkers that are involved in or have a great knowledge in the field of CSR. The respondents have been divided into three groups: ethically driven SME’s, LSE’s working with CSR and independent thinkers.</p><p>The concept of corporate social responsibility is perceived very differently in between the three groups. The views are split regarding their fundamental understanding of CSR, which is reflected in their relation to stakeholders as well as their thoughts about the future development of CSR. The motives, ideological and commercial, for working with CSR also dif-fers and some external thinkers believe that there are no motives for engage in CSR at all. The ethically driven SME’s have built their core business on social responsibility and is therefore the backbone of the companies. The LSE’s core business is not built on social responsibility, but rather on demands from the customers, who they regard as a critical stakeholder group. Some of the independent thinkers instead adhere to the shareholder approach and reject the concept of CSR. Nevertheless, all of the respondents agree on why CSR has developed, which is due to globalisation.</p>

<p>Today, security strategy has a crucial role in society, which does not imply only to large companies, but also and especially to Small Medium Enterprises (SME’s).</p><p>The intention of this thesis is to provide instructions and help enterprises that need assistance in applying proper security strategy. This thesis comprises the most crucial areas of security within an enterprise. Its aim is to study more deeply the situation of the current security strategy, of a telecom and a software development enterprise, by which the enterprise can extract enough information to provide a proper system. The purpose is to study, analyze, explore and bring some conclusions with new ideas on how to improve and propose a new security strategy that can fit and that can be appropriate for this enterprise.</p><p>Regarding the exploration and research for the enterprise, “fragile assets” are the target to be taken in consideration such as “software”, “databases” and “important data”.</p><p>The method which is used in this thesis, is the case study method, which has best suited the purpose of this thesis by covering the logic of design, data collection techniques and data analysis. As a theory the OCTAVE-sm approach was applied. This approach has three phases which each contains its own processes. These processes were followed and used for the evaluation of the current state in one Small Medium Enterprise (SME) called InterAdria. The use of OCTAVE-sm approach in this thesis can be a guide to all other Small Medium Enterprises (SME’s) that struggle with their security strategy same as the enterprise mentioned above. The conclusion was based on the entire data gathering that was done by following the steps of the Octave-sm approach.</p>

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / Peru’s pomegranate productivity is 10.3 tons, which is almost a third of that produced by Turkey (27.5 tons) and almost half of that produced by Spain (20 tons). In this sense, it is necessary that the organizations know the importance of quality management to monitor and maintain product quality. It is important to consider the appropriate methods to adopt and implement quality management so that MSEs may develop a better understanding of how quality management systems should be implemented and the significant, positive impact they generate. This document proposes a model based on quality management and good practices, which frames a series of activities and criteria to provide an objective diagnosis. This model was developed based on information gathered from SMEs in the district of Santiago de Ica.

Cette thèse examine l'impact de la structure du marché bancaire sur l’activité économique et les contraintes financières des petites et moyennes entreprises (PME) et l'efficacité des banques au niveau local. Il comprend trois chapitres empiriques. Le premier chapitre s’intéresse à l’impact du relationship banking sur les contraintes financières des PME et s'appuie sur deux indicateurs alternatifs pour saisir différentes dimensions de ces contraintes. Les résultats soulignent le rôle ambigu de la proximité bancaire et de la relation client face aux contraintes financières des PME. Sur la période 2005-2013, la présence accrue de banques régionales ou géographiquement concentrées contribue à atténuer les contraintes de crédit à court terme des PME françaises mais accroît leur sensibilité aux flux de trésorerie liés aux investissements. En outre, dans les deux cas, les contraintes financières des PME sont renforcées sur des marchés distants sur le plan fonctionnel. De plus, en période de crise, les avantages de la relation bancaire sur la contrainte de crédit à court terme demeurent et, dans certains cas, sont renforcés. Nous constatons également que la présence accrue des banques régionales facilite l'accès au crédit à court terme pour les entreprises plus rentables avant la crise financière mondiale et particulièrement pour celles qui ont connu une forte baisse de leur rentabilité en période de crise. Le deuxième chapitre analyse l’impact des relations de crédit via une plus grande proximité bancaire sur l’activité économique réelle, en s’appuyant à la fois sur des données individuelles de firmes et sur des données macroénomiques au niveau des départements. Il s’intéresse également à l’impact différencié de cette proximité en fonction du degré de dépendance au financement externe des PME françaises sur la période 2005-2013. Nos résultats révèlent que la relation de crédit via une plus grande proximité bancaire est bénéfique pour l'activité économique des PME en temps normal et en période de crise. De plus, parmi ces PME, les avantages de la proximité bancaire sont les plus importants pour les micro-entreprises. De plus, nos résultats montrent une forte hétérogénéité dans l’impact de la structure du marché bancaire local en fonction du degré de dépendance vis-à-vis du financement extérieur. Notre analyse macroéconomique montre également que une plus forte proximité bancaire a un impact positif sur l’emploi et stimule la croissance de l’activité économique. Le troisième chapitre analyse l’impact l'impact des caractéristiques des banques et des marchés locaux sur l'efficacité des succursales bancaires. Cette analyse s’appuie sur un ensemble données détaillé au niveau des succursales en Chine sur la période 2008-2011. Nos résultats suggèrent que les caractéristiques des marchés tant locaux que bancaires affectent l’efficacité des succursales bancaires. Les succursales de banques appartenant à l'État ont l’efficience-profit la plus forte mais l’efficience-coût la plus faible, tandis que les succursales de banques étrangères ont l’efficience-profit la plus élevée. En outre, la concurrence des banques et le développement économique sur le marché local contribuent à promouvoir l'efficacité des succursales. De plus, l’efficacité des banques et l’efficacité du marché bancaire local peuvent influer sur l’efficacité des succursales, l’impact de l’efficacité des banques étant économiquement plus important. Nos résultats suggèrent que la structure du marché bancaire local a un impact statistiquement et économiquement significatif sur l’activité économique et les contraintes financières des PME, l'activité économique réelle et l'efficacité des banques. Les superviseurs bancaires et les régulateurs doivent veiller à maintenir un environnement bancaire diversifié, garantissant la présence de banques locales et géographiquement concentrées, et à renforcer la concurrence des banques afin de stimuler la croissance économique. / This dissertation examines the impact of banking mar ket structure on SMEs financial constraints, real economic activity and bank efficiency at a local level. It comprises three empirical essays as three chapters, the first two chapters are on French banking market and the third one is on Chinese banking mar ket. The first chapter investigates the relevance of relationship lending for SMEs and continuation lending during crisisrelying on two alternative indicators to capture different dimensions of SMEs financial constraints. The findings emphasize the ambiguous role of banking proximity and of relationship banking on SMEs financial constraints. Over the 2005-2013 period, for French manufacturing SME s, higher presence of regional banks or of geographically-focused banks help to alle viate their short-term credit constraint, while lar germarket share of national banks or stronger presence of geographically-diversified banks is beneficial to reduce their investment cash-flow sensitivity. Moreover, in both cases, SMEs’ financial constraints are strengthened in functionally-distant mar kets. In addition, during crisis times, the benefits of relationship banking on short-term credit constraint remains and, insome cases, are reinforced. We also find that these benefits differ according to SMEs pre-crisis financial health, in line with pre vious findings of continuation lending during crisis.The second chapter analyzes the impact of relationship lending through a stronger banking proximity on real economic activity at both firm le vel and county (department) level and the heterogeneity of this impact based on SMEs external financial dependence in France over the 2005-2013 period. Our results confirm the benefits of elationship banking for SMEs as highlighted in the pre vious chapter. A stronger banking proximity is beneficial to SMEs’ economic activity in both ormal and crisis times, even after controlling for times, county, industry and firm level characteristics, and these benefits are stronger for micro firms, the smallest and more informationally-opaque SMEs. In addition, our results show a significant heterogeneity in the impact of local banking market structure among small firms depending on the le vel of dependence on external finance. Further, our macroeconomic analysis also provide evidence that local banking market structure has statistically and economically significant impact on economic activity. The third chapter analyzes the finance-growth nexus from a different perspective by investigating what drives bank branch efficiency. Three efficiency measures are adopted to estimate the impact of bank and local market characteristics on bank branch efficiency using a detailed branch-level dataset in China over the 2008-2011 period. Our findings suggest that both bank and local market characteristics affect bank branch efficiency. Branches of state-own banks are the most profit efficient and least cost efficient, while branches of foreign banks are the most cost efficient. In addition, bank competition and economic development in local market help promote branch efficiency. In addition, both bank efficiency and local banking market efficiency can affect branch efficiency, and the impact of bank efficiency is econ omically more significant. Our findings suggest that local banking market structure has a statistically and economically significant impact on small business lending, real economic activity and bank efficiency, bank supervisors and regulators should pay at tention to maintain a diversified banking environment, guaranty the presence of local and geographically-focused banks, and enhance bank competition to stimulate growth.