In recent years, menstruation and menstruation hygiene products has had an increased interest, which has resulted in the topic being debated in many parts of the world. Change has been encouraged and some countries have acted to facilitate women's consumption of menstrual hygiene products. Sweden is not one of those countries, which means that menstrual hygiene products are neither free nor have reduced prices in the stores. Therefore, new business models such as online subscriptions need to be explored to increase the availability of menstrual hygiene products in the Swedish society. It can facilitate the buying process for women who consume the products, as the alternatives increase. The purpose of this thesis is to gain knowledge on how subscription-based business models influence the customer experience for women who consume menstrual hygiene products. New research is required to provide a perception of how subscriptions affect customers’ expectations and experience, which can result in a greater understanding of women's customer experience in this area. An interview guide was designed based on previous research and theories to be implemented in the focus groups which constituted the empirical findings. The findings were conducted by using a qualitative exploratory study of four focus groups with four participants in each. The thesis has used the conceptual framework when analyzing the empirical datawith the previous research to be able to identify patterns, similarities and differences. The conclusion of this thesis is that subscriptions to menstrual hygiene products can generate benefits that differ from one-time purchases. Menstruation and menstrual hygiene products is a sensitive topic that requires greater availability on the swedish market and subscriptions are one option. Identified touchpoints are flexibility, convenience, simplicity and time savings, which has a positive effect on the customer experience. Although, customer experience is defined differently and has individual meanings depending on the person. Therefore, it is challenging to measure the customer experience as the influencing factors vary between different people. Though, preferences for what affects the customer experience differ tosome extent between the age groups. Some barriers have been identified and the most prominent is irregular menstruationwhich can make subscriptions more complicated.

This dissertation contains four essays and is focused on evaluating, and to a lesser degree, extending, theories on monopoly and oligopoly pricing. The data in all of the essays originates from the Swedish daily newspaper markets."Pricing Contracts With Different Duration: The Role of Switching Costs" analyzes how prices of contracts with different duration are affected by the degree of "lock-in". We extend a model by Glazer and Hassin (1982) by adding switching cost. We use the daily newspaper data to test propositions from the model. The essay also analyzes the use of second-degree price discrimination, in the form of different contract durations, by newspapers, and finds that more competition yields more  discrimination. "Prices, Margins and Liquidity Constraints: Swedish Newspapers 1990-1996" analyzes an example of how the financial situation of firms may affect their product market pricing decisions. When consumers have switching costs, they are to some extent "locked in" and can be exploited. If a firm finds itself in financial distress it may have to resort to raising prices to cover short run expenses, thus sacrificing long run profits. This effect is found in subscription markets but not in advertising markets where consumers do not have switching costs. "Pricing Pre-Announcements and Price Leadership in the Swedish Daily Newspaper Industry" analyzes the publication of prices and price-setting behavior in the advertising markets. We find that large price increases and price cuts are published earlier. Duopolies exhibit publication behavior that differs from monopolies. Price leadership is prevalent in many of the duopoly markets and the price leadership observed in these markets is likely to be barometric. "Third-Degree Price Discrimination in Oligopoly: Evidence from Swedish Newspapers" addresses the question of how competition affects the use of third-degree price discrimination. We study the discounting behavior in subscription markets and find that duopolies and firms with weak market positions use more third-degree price discrimination. There is some indication that large immigration to the market and the firm being present in a large number of markets increases the use of discounts. / <p>Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2001</p>

Usage statistics for electronic resources are needed, and highly desirable, for many reasons. It is encouraging to see the beginnings of quality, reliable usage data. This data can form the basis of economic decisions (selection and cancellation) that make a great deal of sense in the context of the individual library. However, the cumulative effects of such decisions could have serious implications for scholarly communications. For example, the journals of small research communities could easily be vulnerable to mass cancellations, and might fold. Fortunately, open access provides an alternative. The question of whether the impact of local decisions on scholarly communications as a whole should be taken into account in collection development policies is raised. The possibility that usage statistics could form the basis for a usage-based pricing system is discussed, and found to be highly inadvisable, as usage-based pricing tends to discourage usage.

Bakgrund: Det har skett stora förändringar i tidningsbranschen vad gäller flerkanalspublicering och omstruktureringar. Tidningarnas huvudsakliga intäktskällor är från prenumerationer och annonsförsäljning. På grund av flerkanalspubliceringen råder en trend av vikande läsning i den tryckta tidningen. Forskningsfråga: Hur har intäktskällorna hos lokala tidningar i Västra Götaland påverkats av de förändringar som skett i branschen angående flerkanalspubliceringen samt nya ägarförhållanden? Syfte: Syftet är att genom en kvalitativ metod redogöra för hur lokala tidningar i Västra Götaland har påverkats av flerkanalspublicering och omstruktureringar i organisationerna vad gäller intäkter från annonser och prenumerationer. Metod: Vår studie är gjord genom en kvalitativ metod bestående av semistrukturerade intervjuer som har genomförts med åtta representanter från fyra olika tidningsorganisationer i Västra Götaland. Teoretisk referensram: Vår teoretiska referensram består av förändringar av arbetsprocesser inom organisationer, kopplat samman med en modell av mediekonvergens. Empiri: Här presenteras den empiri våra åtta intervjuer har gett oss under rubrikerna intäkter, flerkanalspublicering, mediekonvergens samt framgångsfaktorer. Analys: Analysen består av vår tolkning av det empiriska materialet från våra intervjuer med hjälp av vår teoretiska referensram, och är uppbyggt med samma rubriker som empirikapitlet. Slutsats: Här för vi en diskussion kring hur den lokala tidningsbranschens intäktskällor påverkats av digitaliseringen av nyheter. En viktig slutsats är; för att generera intäkter krävs att de satsar på de lokala nyheterna, som andra större konkurrerande kanaler inte fokuserar på. / Background: There have been major changes in the newspaper industry in terms of multi-channel publishing and restructuring. Their main sources of income are from subscriptions and advertising sales. Because of the multi-channel publishing there is a trend of declining reading the printed newspaper. Research question: How has the income sources of local newspapers in Västra Götaland been affected by the changes in the branch regarding multi-channel publishing and new ownership? Purpose: The purpose is, through a qualitative approach to explain how local newspapers in Västra Götaland have been affected by the multi-channel publishing and restructuring of organizations in terms of revenues from ads and subscriptions. Method: Our study is made through a qualitative approach consisting of semi-structured interviews that have been conducted with eight representatives from four different newspaper organizations in Västra Götaland. Theory: Our theoretical framework consists of changes in the newspaper branch, linked together with a model of media convergence. Empiricism: Here we present the empirical results our eight interviews have given us under the titles income, multi-channel publishing, media convergence and factors for success. Analysis: The analysis involves our interpretation of the empirical material from our interviews with the help of our theoretical framework, and is built with the same titles as the empirical chapter. Conclusion: Here we discuss how the revenue sources of the local newspaper industry are affected by the digitalization of the news. An important conclusion is that in order to generate revenue it’s needed to invest in the local news that other major competing channels are not focusing on.

Submitted by Rafaela Matta (rafaelapalma@bancobbm.com.br) on 2010-07-12T18:26:33Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Rafaela_Palma.pdf: 1106983 bytes, checksum: 519020f19f7c7270b30d2af1449989f3 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Vitor Souza(vitor.souza@fgv.br) on 2010-07-12T18:47:52Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Rafaela_Palma.pdf: 1106983 bytes, checksum: 519020f19f7c7270b30d2af1449989f3 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2010-07-13T13:12:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_Rafaela_Palma.pdf: 1106983 bytes, checksum: 519020f19f7c7270b30d2af1449989f3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-05-31 / This paper aims to evaluate how a fund's return is related to its size, total assets under management of the fund’s manager institution among other factors. For the proposed tests, we used the panel data regression model. The analysis covers all the available information of the last five years (May 2005 to April 2010) for two funds categories: Multimarket and Equities. Another investigated poin t is the factors that may explain the fund’s subscriptions. In this case, the fund’s return and its Sharpe Ratio over the last six months were used as possible independent variables. / O presente trabalho tem como objetivo avaliar a relação existente entre o retorno de um fundo, o seu tamanho, o total de recursos sob gestão da instituição gestora, entre outros fatores. Para a realização dos testes propostos, utilizamos o modelo de regressão com dados em painel. Consideramos para a análise os últimos cinco anos de informações disponíveis (maio de 2005 a abril de 2010) para duas categorias de fundos: Multimercados e Renda Variável. Outro ponto que buscamos investigar neste trabalho são os fatores que explicam a captação dos fundos. Neste caso, como possíveis variáveis explicativas, utilizamos, por exemplo, o retorno do fundo e seu Índice de Sharpe nos últimos 6 meses.

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The aim of my thesis is to study the release and the project of Litografiskt Allehanda, an art magazine covering contemporary Swedish art and artists, published from 1859 to 1865. My purpose is to look at the choice of the published material for Litografiskt Allehanda, the influence the contributing artists, how the work with advertisement and subscriptions was made and if it fulfilled its own purpose. Through a social and communicative perspective I am studying the relations between the different actors like the publicists, the artists, the subscribers and also the interaction between the lithographs and the texts.  Litografiskt Allehanda was the first successful lithographic work produced in Sweden, and the release lasted for six years. The printer and lithographer Axel Jacob Salmson, who was the founder of the magazine, led the printing work for two years before Sigfrid Flodin, a bookseller, took over and continued the work for another four years. The idea with Litografiskt Allehanda was to reach out to people all over Sweden and give everyone an opportunity to enjoy art, something that usually was exclusively for the upper class in the big cities. The analysis shows that there were people in smaller cities that subscribed to the magazine and also that the amount increased every year. Every volume contained 48 lithographic posters with a diversity of genres, from portraits and landscapes to some with more ethnographic character and ancient Nordic motives. The content became more Swedish with every year and letters show that the participating artists had quite a big influence over the published material. Every poster was accompanied by a text, which didn’t necessary had anything to do with the image, but was meant to create some entertainment for the reader. Some of these essays were written by special authors, while some were written by the artists themselves. Even if Litografiskt Allehanda is mentioned in almost every reference as being of great importance for the development of lithography and its proliferation in Sweden, there is nothing written that is just about the magazine.

The integration of heterogeneous data sources is one of the main challenges within the area of data engineering. Due to the absence of an independent and universal benchmark for data-intensive integration processes, we propose a scalable benchmark, called DIPBench (Data intensive integration Process Benchmark), for evaluating the performance of integration systems. This benchmark could be used for subscription systems, like replication servers, distributed and federated DBMS or message-oriented middleware platforms like Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) servers and Extraction Transformation Loading (ETL) tools. In order to reach the mentioned universal view for integration processes, the benchmark is designed in a conceptual, process-driven way. The benchmark comprises 15 integration process types. We specify the source and target data schemas and provide a toolsuite for the initialization of the external systems, the execution of the benchmark and the monitoring of the integration system's performance. The core benchmark execution may be influenced by three scale factors. Finally, we discuss a metric unit used for evaluating the measured integration system's performance, and we illustrate our reference benchmark implementation for federated DBMS.