The cereal couture company, [me] & goji, is the dream of three young entrepreneurs. They were the first online company ever to provide the U.S market with customized cereal mix. This case study finds that online companies with an innovative product such as [me] & goji may benefit from using Social Networks as a marketing channel to communicate their Value Proposition. Supported by Roger's Adoption theory, selected theories on, Value Proposition, Social Networks, and qualitative data gathered from, interviews and surveys several findings were made. The conclusion is that despite offering a relatively non complex product, with a high relative advantage the market may have difficulties with recognizing the value of the product. This is mainly due to the fact that products sold online cannot be tried by the customer until after purchase. This may be perceived as an uncertainty factor for some customers. The main benefit with viral marketing tools such as Social Networks is that they may increase the rate of the market adopting new products.

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:HyphenationZone>21</w:HyphenationZone> <w:PunctuationKerning /> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas /> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables /> <w:SnapToGridInCell /> <w:WrapTextWithPunct /> <w:UseAsianBreakRules /> <w:DontGrowAutofit /> <w:UseFELayout /> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]> <object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id=ieooui></object><mce:style><! st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } --> <!--[endif]--> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Garamond; panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin-top:0cm; margin-right:0cm; margin-bottom:9.0pt; margin-left:0cm; text-align:justify; text-justify:inter-ideograph; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Garamond; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:Garamond; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:70.85pt 70.85pt 70.85pt 70.85pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <mce:style><! /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Normal tabell"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} --> <!--[endif]--> Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine what attributes graduating students prefer when choosing their first employer after graduation. Background: To attract good employees are becoming more and more important. Since there are over 60 000 students graduating every year from universities in Sweden, it is crucial for organizations to know how to best attract these talents. It is generally small- and medium sized companies (SMC’s) that have problem since they don’t have the resources to find information and brand themselves as good employers, and hence, large multinational companies are being ranked as the most attractive employers. If these SMC’s would know what attributes the graduate students find most important, they would be able to focus on those and more successfully attract the students suitable for their organization. Method: In order to fulfill the purpose, an exploratory study had been made. Quantitative data was collected by a delivery and collection questionnaire, which was handed out in classes at Jönköping International Business School (JIBS) and Jönköping School of Engineering (JTH). The findings in this thesis are based on 124 graduating students preferred job attributes. Conclusion: When looking at JIBS and JTH in total, the students find attributes relating to responsibilities and involvement in decision making to be the most important. However, when only looking at JTH, the students value job security and good relationship at the workplace over other attributes. At JIBS, graduate students are attracted to jobs where they can take responsibility and make further career advancements.

The Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model is an innovation created in response to the Canadian Sport Policy (Canadian Heritage, 2007). The LTAD is an “athlete centered, coach driven, and administration, sport science, and sponsor supported” (Canadian Sport Centres, 2006, p. 33) athlete-development model. Since little research has been completed focusing on this model (viz., Black & Holt, 2009) this thesis had the purpose to better understand the adoption of the LTAD by cross-country ski (XCS) coaches. Two articles present a case study of three XCS club’s coaches, and a descriptive qualitative analysis of XCS coaches (N=13). Both analyses used Rogers’ (2003) Diffusion of Innovations theoretical framework to structure the narrative-interview guide, coding structure, and thematic analysis. Two key results of the thesis were an understanding of the link between a club’s characteristics and a coach’s perceived attributes of the LTAD, and secondly a proposed classification system for XCS coaches.

Despite the well-recognized importance of interpersonal relationships within the work environment, there is no comprehensive approach or set of studies that provide a complete picture. As a step towards providing a complete picture, this research presents a qualitative exploratory study of how people experience the work environment through task and work-social interactions and through policies and norms present in the work environment. The purpose of this study is to understand the overall work experience from purely work-social and purely task network perspective. A semi-structured question-based set of interviews were performed among professionals from a Canadian university alumni society. The transcripts of the interviews were then manually coded and analyzed using statistical methods. The study found an overall higher level of positive responses for co-workers in the work-social network, as well as a preference for work-social co-workers in building a team for a hypothetical company. The study also found a general willingness to select only the best ranked co-workers from task network, whereas a leniency towards the selection of co-workers from work-social network was observed despite their lower ranking. At the same time, the study identified some of the most desirable attributes of fellow co-workers both in the task and work-social networks from an employee’s perspective. The significance of the people and team was found more important to the employees than factors such as specific task performed or compensation. This exploratory study provided insights into how employees view their co-workers and their work environment.

Syftet med denna undersökning är att fastställa konsumenters uppfattning om SAS varumärkesattribut och utröna vilka av dessa som har påverkats av den ekonomiska kris som företaget genomgick under hösten 2012. Metoden utgjordes av en tvåstegsmodell med fokusgrupp som inledande stadie i studien i syfte att ta reda på vilka attribut konsumenter associerar med SAS, samt en enkätundersökning för att ta reda på huruvida det har skett en förändring i uppfattningen om dessa attribut tillhörande SAS. Teoretisk anknytning har tagit utgångspunkt i Aakers (2002) modell för varumärkeskapital samt teorier om attribut och konsumenters uppfattning. Resultatet visar att ingen stor förändring i uppfattningen har skett kring den övergripande uppfattningen om SAS, dock kunde tendenser till förändring i uppfattning anas om ett antal av SAS varumärkesattribut. I undersökningen framkom att lojala kunder hade en mer positiv uppfattning om SAS efter krisen i jämförelse mot icke-lojala kunder, att SAS EuroBonusklubbmedlemmar hade en mer positiv uppfattning om SAS efter krisen i jämförelse mot icke-medlemmar, samt att yngre respondenter i högre utsträckning upplevde att deras uppfattning om SAS var mer negativ efter SAS senaste kris jämfört mot äldre.

The Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model is an innovation created in response to the Canadian Sport Policy (Canadian Heritage, 2007). The LTAD is an “athlete centered, coach driven, and administration, sport science, and sponsor supported” (Canadian Sport Centres, 2006, p. 33) athlete-development model. Since little research has been completed focusing on this model (viz., Black & Holt, 2009) this thesis had the purpose to better understand the adoption of the LTAD by cross-country ski (XCS) coaches. Two articles present a case study of three XCS club’s coaches, and a descriptive qualitative analysis of XCS coaches (N=13). Both analyses used Rogers’ (2003) Diffusion of Innovations theoretical framework to structure the narrative-interview guide, coding structure, and thematic analysis. Two key results of the thesis were an understanding of the link between a club’s characteristics and a coach’s perceived attributes of the LTAD, and secondly a proposed classification system for XCS coaches.

Corporate social responsibility or CSR is a phenomenon that has steadily been growing for the past decade. CSR is generally considered as activities performed by a company in order to strengthen its positive image. Previous research has indicated that there is a connection between a company’s CSR actions and its consumer’s reactions towards the company and its different product/s. However, few studies have investigated university students’ attitudes towards CSR as well as different CSR initiatives. Therefor the aim of this dissertation is to study the knowledge, attitudes and the importance of CSR initiatives among young university business students. A second aim is to study the influence of CSR activities on the decision making process when in a buying situation.  In order to investigate this a quantitative survey was conducted among young business students at the University of Kristianstad. The survey consisted of 18 questions regarding CSR knowledge, attitudes and attributes. A total of 87 respondents participated and handed in the survey. The results demonstrated that even though the students were unsure as to what the abbreviation CSR stands for, when given examples the majority answered correctly. It also became evident that females considered CSR to be more important than the male respondents in many aspects. Especially the CSR initiative “Against animal testing” proved to be seen as much more important among the females than with the males. The results also reveled differences between the age groups. The age group 18-21 was the one that differed the most compared to the other three age groups (22-25, 26-30, 30+). In conclusion the students have a generally positive attitude towards CSR but it does not affect their purchasing decisions.

No description available.

This study aims to give an overview on young Chinese consumers’ car purchase behavior. The results show that car purchasing decision is an important decision for most of Chinese. Consumers get information from different channels. The results of this study also tells us that Chinese consumers take “safety” as the most important characteristic and take “value for money” as the second most important and “riding comfort” as the third important characteristic. Chinese consumers take “after-sale maintenance” and “exterior design/size” as the forth most important factors when making the purchase decision. For “exterior design/size”, it indicates that Chinese people are status-seeking and Chinese people prefer to choose a bigger car with a good appearance (Mian Zi Che) to show their good social status and want to get respects from others. Chinese consumers put the least importance on resale value that is because second hand car market is not well developed in China.

There is a common belief amongst those who are involved in projects that as project complexity increases the difficulty to manage a project increases and thus the probability to succeed in project completion considerably decreases. Perception of complexity in a project usually refers to common criteria from traditional project management thinking such as the scale of the project; cost; duration; and the degree of risk to its owner. However, whether a project is perceived to be complex or not may not be purely a product of the size of the project. It may also be derived from the person’s experience in projects. The aim of this study is to identify attributes of perception of project complexity and observe whether experience is also a determining factor in perceiving a project as complex. The research is based on the assumption that a complex project may exhibit behaviour similar to complex adaptive system. This study proposes a theoretical framework based on projects understood as complex adaptive systems. A project experience matrix is developed which will be useful to help link degree and type of experience to perceptions of project complexity. This study employs a comparative study between two cases to explore and compare the perception of complexity in each case. Qualitative and quantitative data were obtained through semi-structured interview and questionnaires, then analysed accordingly. The outcomes of this research attempted to find answers to the following questions: How do project managers and team members perceive a project as complex (project complexity)?” In answering this question we explored how project managers and team members perceived project complexity. The major question above was elaborated by some minor specific questions. These are: Which attributes of complex adaptive systems are attributed by project managers and team members to project complexity? Is project experience a determining factor to the perception of project complexity? Based on our sample we found no significant differences between attributes of complex adaptive systems and perception of project complexity; no significant association between depth and context of experience and perception of project complexity. We also found no significant differences between the Chinese and Indonesian samples.