<p><strong>Problem/frågeställningar: </strong>När företagsledare runt om i världen ska ta beslut uppgår 40% av dessa beslut till att baseras på magkänslan. Ett påstående kring konkurrensfördelar och magkänsla är att ”<em>ett av de största hindren för konkurrensfördelar är att agera enbart på magkänsla eller intuition</em>”. Denna uppsats tar fasta på det påståendet och granskar hur BI, ett verktyg som stödjer företagsledarna i sina beslut, spelar in. Ett synsätt för att studera konkurrensfördelar är det resursbaserade synsättet, där resurser följaktligen är grunden i det som skapar konkurrensfördelar. Kombinationen mellan hur BI stödjer med information för att underlätta beslut och faktumet att magkänsla eller intuition hindrar konkurrensfördelar gör att den här uppsatsen ställer sig frågan ”<strong>Hur och varför kan BI ur ett resursbaserat synsätt stödja skapandet av konkurrensfördelar på kort samt lång sikt inom stora företag?”</strong></p><p><strong>Syfte: </strong>Att beskriva samt förklara hur och varför BI ur ett resursbaserat synsätt kan stödja skapandet av konkurrensfördelar på kort samt lång sikt inom stora företag.</p><p><strong>Teori/modell och metod: </strong>Inom den teoretiska referensramen presenteras och diskuteras först definitionen av BI och dess användning. Därefter följer en presentation av det resursbaserade synsättet utifrån en modell byggd av Hart, vilken kompletteras med annan forskning inom det resursbaserade synsättet. Det genererar sedan en egen modell, som därefter byggs på med en BI-del för att utgöra en undersökningsmodell som används vidare i uppsatsen.</p><p><strong>Tillvägagångssätt: </strong>För den här uppsatsen har 18 st företag som har någon form av BI på företaget intervjuats. Utöver att företagen är bland Sveriges 120 största har inga vidare urval sett, vilket har resulterat i respondenter från branscher så som media, teleoperatörer och försäkring. På dessa företag har intervjuer skett med den person som ansetts vara BI-ansvarig. Vissa företag har Controllers som är de som har övergripande ansvaret för BI, medan det på andra företag är IT-chefer eller specifikt BI-ansvariga. Inom metodavsnittet förs även en genomgång kring de intervjufrågor som framtagits.</p><p><strong>Huvudsakliga resultat/slutsatser:</strong> I slutsatserna fastslås bland annat att BI kan stödja och driva på en så kallad patchningsförmåga, vilket innebär att företag är snabba i anpassningen mot marknaden. Därutöver konstateras att en av anledningarna till att BI stöttar skapandet av konkurrensfördelar är dess förmåga att stödja effektivisering, optimering och processinnovation i olika förmågor som senare kan leda till konkurrensfördelar. Dock visar det sig också att BI är sämre på att stödja skapandet av konkurrensfördelar på lång sikt, tack vare avsaknaden av stöttandet till faktorer som gör resurser svåra att imitera.</p> / <p><strong>Problem: </strong>When business leaders around the world are about to take a decision, 40% of these decisions are based on gut rather than any rational information. This, together with the claim that “<em>one of the biggest hinders for competitive advantage is acting solely on gut or intuition</em>” leads to the combination of the decision support tool Business Intelligence and competitive advantage. Competitive advantage can be seen from numerous perspectives; one of these is the resource-based view, where the resources are the basic pillar for competitive advantage. From this the thesis study question is formulated; “<strong>How and why can BI, seen from a resource-based perspective, support the creation of competitive advantage, on short and long term, in large companies?</strong>”</p><p><strong>Purpose</strong>: To explain and describe how and why BI, seen from a resource-based perspective, can support the creation of competitive advantage, on short and long term, in large companies.</p><p><strong>Theory: </strong>The theoretical foundation is based upon definitions on BI and what BI really is, together with a presentation and discussion on the resource-based view. Following the BI and resource-based view parts, the research model for this thesis is presented, where a modified resource-based view model for competitive advantage, and a definition collection for BI, is combined.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>For this thesis, 18 companies where they have some sort of BI solution implemented, has been interviewed. The companies have been selected based from their size, where the 120 largest companies first were contacted with an interview proposal. The companies are based in industries such as media, telephone communications and insurance. On these companies, the individual that is the “BI responsible” has been interviewed, which varies from company to company. BI responsibles could be Controllers, IT Managers or specific BI Managers.</p><p><strong>Conclusions:</strong> In the conclusions part of this thesis the research question is divided into a how part and a why part. One conclusion from the how part, is that BI can both support and drive a so-called patching capability, which means that a company can be faster and more agile in their market adaption. One of the reasons why BI can support competitive advantages from a resource-based view is that it can help to drive efficiency, optimization and process innovation in different capabilities that can lead to competitive advantage. Another conclusion is that despite its abilities to support what drives competitive advantage through the resource-based view, the term for this is mainly short-term, due to the fact that it is not hard to imitate the information, which constitutes the basic resources that BI supports.</p>

<p>Den historiska utvecklingen av redovisningen kännetecknas av två olika traditioner, den anglosaxiska och den kontinentala. De har utvecklats åt olika håll eftersom de bygger på två olika civilrättsliga system. I syfte att harmonisera redovisningen i medlemsstaterna har EU utfärdat ett antal bolagsrättsliga direktiv. Det mest grundläggande av dessa, det fjärde, innehåller ett krav på att årsredovisningen skall ge en rättvisande bild av företagets ställning och resultat. Eftersom det inte finns någon definition på vad en rättvisande bild innebär har begreppet fått en varierande tolkning i de olika länderna. Då Sverige blev medlem i EU skrevs begreppet ”rättvisande bild” in i den nya årsredovisningslagen. Syftet med vårt arbete har varit att mot bakgrund av de olika redovisningstraditionerna beskriva och analysera hur begreppet rättvisande bild tolkas och tillämpas i svenska företag. Vi har valt att använda oss av en kvalitativ metodansats. Det empiriska materialet har samlats in genom en intervju-undersökning bland företag och en intervju med en revisor. Resultatet av undersökningen visar bland annat att företagen och revisorn tolkar rättvisande bild samstämmigt trots avsaknaden av en definition och att deras tolkning av begreppet stämmer bra överens med hur det är beskrivet i ÅRL och i förarbetena till denna. Vi kan se ”rättvisande bild” som ett mål för årsredovisningen som kan uppnås med hjälp av lagar, rekommendationer och god redovisningssed.</p> / <p>The development of accounting is distinguished by two different accounting traditions, the Anglo-Saxon and the Continental European tradition. They have taken different directions since they are founded on different legal systems. In order to harmonize accounting between the member states the EU has issued a number of Directives on Company Law. The most fundamental is the Fourth Directive. It contains a requirement that the annual accounts shall give a true and fair view of the company's assets, liabilities, financial position and profit or loss. Since there is no definition of the meaning of ”a true and fair view”, the interpretation has come to vary among the member states. As Sweden entered the EU, the requirement of a “true and fair view” was implemented in Årsredovisningslagen (the Annual Accounts Act). The purpose of this thesis has been to, in the light of the different accounting traditions, describe and analyze how the concept of ”a true and fair view” is interpreted and applied by Swedish companies. To do this a qualitative method has been used. We have conducted a survey among companies and an interview with an auditor. The results show, among other things, that the companies and the auditor interpret “true and fair view” unanimously, despite the lack of a definition. The interpretation corresponds well to how the requirement is described in Årsredovisningslagen. We can see ”true and fair view” as an objective for the annual accounts which can be achieved by complying with laws, recommendations and “good accounting practice”.</p>

<p>The development that the Swedish society has experienced during the last four decades and the higher part of the population coming from foreign countries calls for a more intensive research on the situation of these groups. The purpose of this study is to find explanations of the differences in the share of immigrant politicians in Linköping and Norrköping. The starting point of the study is a model of factors assumed to affect the representation of immigrants in the municipality assemblies. The immigrant composition, the municipality organization and the view of democracy of the politicians, are all assumed to affect the civic participation. The civic participation is then assumed to affect the representation of immigrants in the municipality. The model stipulates that in a municipality with a low representation of immigrants you can expect an immigrant composition of low participating immigrant groups. Furthermore the model stipulates that in such a municipality you will also find a more participationhostile organization and politicians with a less participationfriendly view of democracy. The opposite is true for a municipality with a high level of representation of immigrants. When tested on Linköping and Norrköping the model well seemed to explain the differences in the level of representation of immigrants in the two municipalities.</p>

Previous research from environmental psychology shows that human well-being suffers in windowless environments in many ways and a window view of nature is psychologically and physiologically beneficial to humans. Current window substitutes, still images and video, lack three dimensional properties necessary for a realistic viewing experience – primarily motion parallax. We present a new system using a head-coupled display and image-based rendering to simulate a photorealistic artificial window view of nature with motion parallax. Evaluation data obtained from human subjects suggest that the system prototype is a better window substitute than a static image and has significantly more positive effects on observers’ moods. The test subjects judged the system prototype as a good simulation of, and acceptable replacement for, a real window, and accorded it much higher ratings for realism and preference than a static image.

The object of this dissertation is to describe the opinions about the limits of natural science in their social and cultural context There exist two antagonistic positions to this matter restrictionism and expansionism. Restrictionism assumes that the natural sciences have no influence on metaphysics. Expansionism, on die other hand, argues that the natural sciences can legitimise the positions of beliefs and values. During the 1870b a restrictionist attitude on scientific knowledge established itself among influential German and British scientists. Emil Du Bois-Reymond, Rudolf Virchow, Hermann von Helmholtz and Thomas Henry Huxley were some of the famous scientists who rejected attempts to adduce science in religious and metaphysical matter. This restrictionism was rejected by other scientists and philosophers who believed that the modern natural sciences constituted a complete Weltanschauung, hostile to obsolete Christianity and philosophy. The thesis primarily deals with the debate on the limits of scientific knowledge in Sweden. We follow the development of the discussion from the 1870's to the years after the First World War. At the end of the 19th century Swedish scientists freed themselves from dominant natural philosophy and natural theology. Restrictionism was later on supported, in different ways, by recognized scientists, theologians, conservative critics, and philosophers. At the turn of the centuiy the restrictionist view of science was turned against metaphysical materialism, monism, naturalism, and an emergent, radical counter-culture. The controversies continued as long as the mechanical world picture dominated the natural sciences. With social and cultural changes, and the new physics of Rutherford, Einstein, Bohr, and Heisenberg, the debate slowly faded. / digitalisering@umu

Free and Open Source Software has not only increased researchers’ interest about community-driven software development, but lately, interest from commercial actors increased as well. In addition, some scientists have claimed that Open Source Software has entered a new phase: OSS 2.0. Even so, a coherent way of analyzing commercial Open Source ventures is still missing. Commercial Open Source firms’ strategies are often described using the term “business models”. However, these models often lack stringent structures and have been used primarily to describe the firms’ offerings and methods to earn revenue. Through the adaptation of an existing, firmly theoretically-based analytical business model framework, this thesis suggests a new analysis model for studying for-profit Open Source companies. In addition, the framework is generically constructed, ensuring its usability for other industries as well. The model consists of three elements: market positions, operational platform and offering. This particular study concerned four software product vendors, all of which base their products on Open Source Software. When analyzing their business, insights were made about how these firms operated. The result show that there are certain key elements and factors that determine if a company has a sustainable business or not. From the analysis framework, three elements were refined. The main Open Source Software project connects the market positions and the operational platform; and from the offering, the product and service and the revenue model were very important. The study identified eight key factors which influenced the elements: brand for the product, the company and the Open Source Software project; community, that is the sum of the non-paying users and developers connected to Open Source Software projects; resources, which are community-based resources such as development and testing; legitimacy, the perceived legitimacy regarding licenses and the revenue models; control, i.e. the control the firm has of the software; ability to charge, or how the company can charge for its services; customers, the paying users; and finally volume, which is the number of paying customers. The findings also indicate that companies interested in working with the open-source community have to be able to balance the demands from both their customers and the community in order to benefit and gain competitive advantage. / Report code: LiU-TEK-LIC 2008:26.

The purpose of this thesis is to look into the teaching methods and content in Zimbabwean biology education, and the possible influences that the teachers’ view of nature have on this education. The study was performed in and around Mutare in eastern Zimbabwe with eleven observations and six interviews in primary and secondary schools, corresponding to years four to nine in the Swedish compulsory school. My study shows that the teachers’ view of nature is in many parts similar to the Swedish view of nature, but differ in a closer connection to religiosity and in a more every-day-life relation to nature. This is reflected in several of the concepts that view of nature consist of. The view of nature is influencing the content in biology partly. Since science hold universal concepts which are the same all around the world, the view of nature does not influence the scientific parts of biology, but have influence on where the emphases in the education is put. The results show no direct influence of the view of nature on teaching methods, but indirectly influenced by the choice of content.

The purpose of this paper was to examine how young parenthood is represented by the professionals and their thoughts and experiences from meetings with the young parents, and how the professionals work with this group of parents. As professionals we refer to those who work with young parents, and the definition of young parents are parents in the ages 15-24. The paper also discusses what needs these parents have, and what kind of support the society offers, according to the professionals. The method we worked with was interviews and we interviewed six professionals to find out how the professionals looked upon the young parents and their situation. Earlier research has stated that young parenthood is associated with many risks and disadvantages for both the parents and their children. What we discovered was that young parenthood not necessarily has to be only about disadvantages. Many benefits were brought up during our interviews. Among others the professionals saw the young parents as more spontaneous and more to easy with their children, compared to older parents. The young parents also seemed less concerned than the older parents and their young age made them more biologically suited to have children. Some of the disadvantages we found were that many lacked higher education and trouble finding suitable accommodation because of lack of income. As a conclusion the professionals stated that a social network was of most importance for the young parents.

No description available.

Den historiska utvecklingen av redovisningen kännetecknas av två olika traditioner, den anglosaxiska och den kontinentala. De har utvecklats åt olika håll eftersom de bygger på två olika civilrättsliga system. I syfte att harmonisera redovisningen i medlemsstaterna har EU utfärdat ett antal bolagsrättsliga direktiv. Det mest grundläggande av dessa, det fjärde, innehåller ett krav på att årsredovisningen skall ge en rättvisande bild av företagets ställning och resultat. Eftersom det inte finns någon definition på vad en rättvisande bild innebär har begreppet fått en varierande tolkning i de olika länderna. Då Sverige blev medlem i EU skrevs begreppet ”rättvisande bild” in i den nya årsredovisningslagen. Syftet med vårt arbete har varit att mot bakgrund av de olika redovisningstraditionerna beskriva och analysera hur begreppet rättvisande bild tolkas och tillämpas i svenska företag. Vi har valt att använda oss av en kvalitativ metodansats. Det empiriska materialet har samlats in genom en intervju-undersökning bland företag och en intervju med en revisor. Resultatet av undersökningen visar bland annat att företagen och revisorn tolkar rättvisande bild samstämmigt trots avsaknaden av en definition och att deras tolkning av begreppet stämmer bra överens med hur det är beskrivet i ÅRL och i förarbetena till denna. Vi kan se ”rättvisande bild” som ett mål för årsredovisningen som kan uppnås med hjälp av lagar, rekommendationer och god redovisningssed. / The development of accounting is distinguished by two different accounting traditions, the Anglo-Saxon and the Continental European tradition. They have taken different directions since they are founded on different legal systems. In order to harmonize accounting between the member states the EU has issued a number of Directives on Company Law. The most fundamental is the Fourth Directive. It contains a requirement that the annual accounts shall give a true and fair view of the company's assets, liabilities, financial position and profit or loss. Since there is no definition of the meaning of ”a true and fair view”, the interpretation has come to vary among the member states. As Sweden entered the EU, the requirement of a “true and fair view” was implemented in Årsredovisningslagen (the Annual Accounts Act). The purpose of this thesis has been to, in the light of the different accounting traditions, describe and analyze how the concept of ”a true and fair view” is interpreted and applied by Swedish companies. To do this a qualitative method has been used. We have conducted a survey among companies and an interview with an auditor. The results show, among other things, that the companies and the auditor interpret “true and fair view” unanimously, despite the lack of a definition. The interpretation corresponds well to how the requirement is described in Årsredovisningslagen. We can see ”true and fair view” as an objective for the annual accounts which can be achieved by complying with laws, recommendations and “good accounting practice”.