The tool due diligence is used to analyze different aspects in a potential investment. Due diligence started to apply in connection to real estate investments in Sweden twenty five years ago. Gradually the connection between real estate investments and due diligence became more frequent. Today is due diligence performed ordinary in connection with real estate investments. The designated purpose with a due diligence is to analyze relevant aspects who is connected to the success of the investment. In a due diligence process several actors are involved to perform a specific due diligence. Professionals who are involved in the process can be accountants, lawyers, technical consultants with targeted knowledge of specific areas of property investments. The purpose of this study is to describe how the part who attempts to acquire a residential property applies due diligence and the expectations connected to the tool. Totally the study contains five interviews with actors who are connected to property investments. The theoretical part of the study is connected to due diligence and aspects who applies in property investments.The results of the study indicates that due diligence in connection to residential acquisition is object adapted after the properties characteristics and opportunities. The study also indicates that the due diligence isn’t a predetermined process who applies a regular pattern. Instead the process in reality is applied after the client’s preferences. / <p>Validerat; 20160621 (global_studentproject_submitter)</p>

This article investigates the practical application of open innovation principles within industrial new product development (NPD). Previous research on open innovation has primarily focused on the notion as such and not yet on how to integrating the principles of open innovation with well- established models for NPD. We aim to help close this knowledge gap. The purpose of this study is to explore how firms can benefit from opening up the NPD process by integrating the principles of open innovation with the well-known and widespread Stage-Gate model. To do this, previous literature is studied in combination with case study data investigating the existing occurrences and potential opportunities of employing the principles of open innovation within NPD at a firm within the upstream Oil &amp;amp; Gas business. Our empirical study shows that there are great virtues in the systematization of the already occasionally occurring open innovation practices. Additionally, a noticeable desire to pursue a more open approach to NPD was identified among the respondents. The results of this study allowed the enactment of a practitioner-oriented work model which exploits the advantages of “openness” while simultaneously capturing the benefits deriving from the systematic and structured approach implied by the Stage- Gate model. Furthermore, by opening up the Stage-Gate model, yet another opportunity is exposed: to allow the work model to facilitate a systematic adjustment of the way value is created and captured within the company (I.e. its business model and its underlying core capabilities) to the external environmental dynamics. This aspect is further included in the new work model. The main implications of this study are that is indicates great opportunities and possibilities in opening up the NPD process. It further introduces an easy applicable work model that facilitates the opening. Moreover, our results apply not only to firms within the Oil &amp;amp; Gas industry, but to all NPD processes where a Stage-Gate methodology is employed. / <p>Validerat; 20101217 (root)</p>

The purpose of this thesis is to explain the paradox of high employee turnover in an attractive industry and how management control can reconcile the tensions that occur as a consequence of the paradox. To achieve the purpose the study will use the accounting industry where this paradoxical situation occurs. A theoretical analytical model is developed with support from previous research. The model and its hypotheses are tested through a theoretically designed electronic survey. A total of 408 respondents participated, of which 221 people are active public accountants, 52 former public accountants and 135 potential candidates in public accounting. The analysis is based on a multivariate statistical analysis and a qualitative post hoc analysis. The result offers an indication that inadequate management control explain why employee turnover remain high despite the attractiveness of the industry. Personnel and action controls are proven to have positive effects on job satisfaction, commitment, the intention to stay and exhaustion. Reward systems are currently being used with the purpose of motivating staff and making sure they stay with the company. Despite this, and the attractiveness the accounting industry holds, the employee turnover is high. The results show that personnel and action controls strengthen the effects of rewards and expectations. In accordance with the results this mean the likelihood of voluntarily termination decreases, and the intention to stay increases. By reforming the management practices to include personnel and action controls in a larger scale, accounting firms can contribute to resolving the identified paradox. For the knowledge intensive accounting profession, this would lead to valuable cost savings. / <p>Validerat; 20160603 (global_studentproject_submitter)</p>

The past few year statistics show that more and more small companies are going bankrupt. Only in the year 2013 the figure increased by five percent over the prior year. Therefore, this study intends to highlight the problem of why failures occur and what underlying signals firms receive about a looming bankruptcy. It is not uncommon for firms for various reasons aside from the signals they receive about the company's financial position. The aim of this study is to increase the understanding of the signals at corporate failures.To answer this purpose, the study used a qualitative approach with quantitative elements. The qualitative method has been implemented in the form of personal interviews with the bankruptcy trustee and the quantitative method based on statistics from the district court in Lulea and data based on repertory grid. The quantitative data from the analysis program, Repertory grid, contributes a principal component analysis and factor analysis.With the help of the principal component analysis there could be four different typologies of insolvent companies identified. The dimensions that were found to have the highest variance were corporate structure and degree of external expertise. Based on these dimensions could every business be categorized. The factor analysis presents factor loadings which had the greatest explanation arising from or related construction.Key words: Repertory grid, institutional theory, signal theory, bankruptcy, small businesses, small enterprises. / <p>Validerat; 20140813 (global_studentproject_submitter)</p>

<p>Validerat; 20101217 (root)</p>

<p>Validerat; 20101217 (root)</p>

<p>Validerat; 20101217 (root)</p>

<p>Validerat; 20101217 (root)</p>

The increasing globalization has lead companies to venture into new areas of business, and thereby new markets. When entering a new market, it is important to gain market knowledge to be able to satisfy the customers’ needs. Companies are no longer competing only with products and services; they are also striving to increase their competitive advantage by improving the processes that ultimately deliver the result. In order to obtain competitive advantages, designing business processes to meet the needs of the customers is therefore vital for companies to succeed. Entries into new markets may therefore require adaption to new customers in order to sustain the purpose of the processes. For a telecommunications company venturing into the market of Public Safety, changing preconditions for customers are inevitable, why companies must be aware of changes in the customer’s needs and requirements. When preconditions are changed in this sense, adaptions to the supplier’s sales process might be necessary in order to enable building a relationship between the supplier and the customer. The aim of this study is therefore to establish how companies active in the telecommunications industry can adapt their sales process to new customer requirements and needs when entering the market of Public Safety. This to address the issues that may arise when the established sales process is no longer suited to new customers’ needs and requirements. The thesis is based on a case study at a global telecommunications company, which recently entered the Public Safety market. To create a greater understanding of subjects and findings presented in the report, a literature review touching on the structure of the sales process as well as the preconditions surrounding public procurement is presented. To further create an understanding of the case company’s sales process, nine in-depth interviews were conducted with employees active in the process. In order to draw conclusions on how the sales process should be adapted to Public Safety, five in-depth interviews with customers were conducted. Through analysis, seven underlying needs of the customers could be identified. Further analysis has focused on whether the case company fulfills these needs and aimed to identify gaps between the sales process and the customers’ procurement process. Based on the analysis, recommendations for companies who are entering markets where the customers have similar needs were formulated. One major conclusion of this thesis is that customers within the Public Safety market value traits in a supplier that are not specified as requirements in the formal tender documents. Furthermore, the conclusions expand on these traits and touches on their impact on the customer’s assessment of the supplier. The conclusions also connect the findings of the study to the theory presented, consequently emphasizing how companies should adapt their sales processes to better meet the customer needs. / <p>Validerat; 20160629 (global_studentproject_submitter)</p>

To be able to provide data collecting services to customers, service provides are required by law to design privacy policies and present their content to users as privacy notices that informs the user on privacy consequences and demonstrate that an explicit informed consent of the user has been collected before processing of the data. However, despite the increase in data collection by services and hence increase of privacy impact, yet privacy notices do not implement proper mechanisms that can assure that data subjects are well informed and their consent are provided with comprehension. The root of this problem is the fact that typically only theoretical description of what consent is and what it involves is offered by existing literature but no “practical” design guides are available for decision makers and practitioners on how to effectively integrate a targeted consent level in privacy notices. This thesis work addresses the need for explicit integration of consent in privacy notice designs by presenting the Extended Privacy Notice Design Space (XPNDS) construct that guides on explicitly incorporating different levels of consent in privacy notices. This thesis uses theories of eye movement in reading and technical references from computer vision for comprehension and attention determination to prove the feasibility of integrating higher level of consent in the design space that may guide to assured informed consent. The construct can be used by managers to communicate, practitioners to design, and regulators to analyze informed consent incorporation in privacy notice designs. Unlike most works available in the literature on consent which only provide theoretical opinion of what informed consent is, this work cast the conceptual consent guidelines in to a practical privacy notice design space to provide an XPNDS that guides to the practicality of achieving assured informed consent in privacy notices. It is the hope of the author that the XPNDS will be useful to both practitioners and academicians in incorporating informed consent in privacy notice designs to an assured level. / <p>Validerat; 20160622 (global_studentproject_submitter)</p>