<p><strong><strong><p>Abstract</p></strong></strong></p><p>The Luxury Sailing Yacht industry has been severely affected by the global economic crisis</p><p>since several Luxury Sailing Yacht companies have experienced significant downturn. There</p><p>is an increasing number of companies, which are moving the world into a more innovationbased</p><p>economy since it offers more opportunities. Therefore, there is a growing interest for</p><p>innovation since it can be used for keeping a strong position in the fast growing Luxury</p><p>Sailing Yacht market.</p><p>This Master’s thesis explores how Luxury Sailing Yacht producers within the Luxury Sailing</p><p>Yacht industry can create, reach, and sustain the position of innovation leadership in order to</p><p>gain further growth and success. Furthermore, it shows to the Luxury Sailing Yacht industry</p><p>how value innovations can be used to open up new growth opportunities in new-found</p><p>markets.</p><p>In specific, this thesis explores the creation of new market within the LSY industry through</p><p>the usage of value innovation. Therefore, an understanding of the Luxury Sailing Yacht</p><p>market’s perception of innovation is necessary, which shows differences and similarities</p><p>between Luxury Sailing Yacht producers and users.</p><p>The theoretical basis for the research is constituted by developing new markets through value</p><p>innovation and the blue ocean strategy. Thereafter, the research empirical findings are</p><p>collected in numerous steps. First the perception of innovation on both the users and</p><p>producers is collected through a survey so as to compare their opinions and create value</p><p>curves. Based on the user survey the most innovative Luxury Sailing Yacht producers are</p><p>selected for our multiple-case study in order to get their various views on how innovation can</p><p>be used in the Luxury Sailing Yacht industry.</p><p><strong><strong><p>Key Words</p>: blue ocean strategy, customers-as-innovators, first mover, growth through</strong></strong></p><p>innovation, innovation network, lead-users, networking, new product development, perception</p><p>of innovation, value curves, value innovation, value network</p>

<p>This thesis will analyze what companies main motives have been regarding their decision to offshore; either their whole production or only parts of it. The emphasis will be put on the following motives: enter new markets, cost-efficiency and closeness to markets, since they are the most commonly used in the literature. To be able to answer our purpose we have chosen to use a qualitative method by interviewing three companies within Jönköpings County, namely; Becker-Acroma, Sapa Profiles AB and Nefab.</p><p>The basic structure of the world economic map consisted of a core and a periphery, where the raw materials were provided by the periphery to the core, which in turn produced the final consumption goods. However, trade patterns have changed and the international structure of today’s business environment combined with advanced communication systems has created an environment where offshore markets have become more accessible.</p><p>After conducting the qualitative research, we have seen that the motive for offshoring differs in the long- and short run. A general pattern is evident in the short run as the interviewed companies have offshored, in order to follow their customers as they have moved their production abroad. The reason why companies follow their customer is in order to supply them more efficiently at the foreign market, rather than exporting the goods from Sweden. However, in the long run cost-efficiency becomes more important for a company, since the investigated companies will not stay in a market that does not generate any profit.</p>

<p> Operational risk is the risk of losses arising from the failure of people, processes, and systems, and from external events. A general opinion is that, unlike market risk and credit risk, operational risk is idiosyncratic in the sense that when it manifests in one firm, it does not spread to other firms. This view implies the absence of contagion and that operational risk is firm-specific, not systemic, but there is some new evidence from the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) that suggests frequencies track both firm and macro variables. </p><p> Until the emergence of the &ldquo;Basel 2&rdquo; reforms to banking supervision in the mid to late 90s, operational risk was largely an afterthought because these uncertainties were difficult to quantify, insure against, and manage in traditional ways. The last 15 years have witnessed the rapid emergence of operational risk from this low status to its institutionalization as a key component of enterprise risk management and global banking regulation. Some authors find it tempting to regard Nick Leeson, the &ldquo;rogue&rdquo; trader attributed with the destruction of the legendary Barings bank in 1995, as the true inventor of &ldquo;operational risk.&rdquo; </p><p> The magnitude of loss and the impact of operational risk and losses to date are difficult to ignore. We have seen an increase in the number of large operational losses during times of economic stress. The times of market and economic stress magnify the severity of the large operational losses and lead to the eventual unraveling of the losses in the public eye. </p><p> The research reveals a significant number of similarities between the cases of rogue trading. These results support the hypothesis that failures both internal and external to the companies analyzed facilitated the emergence of rogue trading activities, specially driven by fragmented control environments and incentive schemes undermining financial institutions&rsquo; risk culture. </p>

<p> Political processes, particularly democratic policies of the United States (U.S) presidents, have played significant role in investment strategies of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) since the 1970s. This study used quantitative multiple regression analysis to estimate the correlational relationships between the U.S. net foreign direct investment (FDI) and the presidential policies, real long-term interest rates, and the weighted dollar values from the period 1975 to 2011. The sample variables, including the net foreign direct investment, the real interest rates (30-year Treasury bond rates minus inflation rates), and the weighted value of the U.S. dollar with major industrial trading countries using 1973 as the constant year were collected from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis public databases and archival tables with numerical data. The presidential party politics (dummy variable) was suitable for determining the correlational impact on FDI in the United States in the observed period. The first major result in the study was that the political party of the president had significant correlational relationship with the U.S. net FDI in the observed period. U.S. political stability attracts foreign financial flows. Sound political policies drive foreign investments (Jakobsen and De Soysa, 2006). Moreover, there was a significant correlation relationship between real interest rates and U.S. net FDI at the five percent level. This result lends support to the Fisher effect which argues that investors are real interest rate conscious. However, there was no correlational relationship between the weighted value of the U.S. dollar and U.S. net FDI in the observed period. Finally, the combined influence of the presidential policies and the Federal Reserve policies (long-term interest rates) was statistically significant on the level of U.S. net foreign investments.</p>

<p> A rational long-horizon stock investment decision is a complex process due to uncertainty in supply and demand, competitive advantage, macroeconomic parameters and various perspectives of investors. Today, the &lsquo;non-tangible assets&rsquo; (NTA) that include goodwill and intangible assets are a significant part of corporate assets, but their role in stock performance has not well studied. The purpose of this research is to empirically analyze the implications of NTA and of gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States on the stock price. According to the efficient market hypothesis, stock price reflects all relevant information. The research question focused on the extent to which NTA and the GDP reflected in the stock price. To determine the extent to which NTA and GDP reflected on the stock price, regression analysis and other statistical tests were used. The sample for the empirical study was 56 corporations listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation (NASDAQ). The required data from October 2007 to September 2018 were collected from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the United States Bureau of Economics (BEA). The key findings of the study are: the NTA and stock price of 45 corporations have a statistically significant correlation as opposed to 11 corporations. The combined NTA of these 11 corporations for the third quarter of 2018 was $531.64 billion. Furthermore, the GDP and stock price of 53 corporations have a statistically significant correlation, but no evidence for three corporations was found. The significance for positive social change is knowledge from this research about the implications of NTA and GDP on stock performance that the investors, policymakers, and other stakeholders could use for preserving the limited resources and creating wealth.</p><p>

<p>This research work analyses the impact of exchange rate fluctuations on firm value. It is based on a sample of 10 Swedish multinational companies selected from two market capitalization segments (Mid and Large Cap) according to the OMX index classification. A multiple linear regression model is used to explore the dependency of the log returns (continuously compounded returns) of each of the sampled companies to the percentage changes in the spot exchange rates for the SEK/U.S. Dollar and SEK/Euro being the explanatory or independent variables. The results show that the impact of fluctuations in the SEK/euro and SEK/Dollar exchange rates on the value of a firm is not statistically significant at the 5% level of significance for 17 of the 20 exchange rate scenarios analyzed for the 10 firms under study. It also shows that firms in the Financial Industry are the most sensitive to movements in the USD and EURO while those in the Health sector were the least exposed to both currencies. Thus total systematic risk is mainly accounted for by other explanatory variables such as fluctuations in interest rates, fluctuations in inflation rates, economic growth rate variability, supply chain risks, political instability, natural catastrophes just to name a few.</p>

<p>Teenagers are the group that spends most money on clothing. When choosing clothes, the so called internal and external signals could affect the perceived quality of the teenagers. The external signals are for example price, brand and place of purchase while the internal signals are the physical composition of the product as for example garment and size. The perceived quality is the attributes that the teenagers perceive that the specific article of clothing has. Today’s marketing, within the fashion line, is mostly to present the design of the product and aim the marketing for curtain segments and to keep a distance to others that are not within the segment group. To understand what the teenagers perceived as quality is therefore of high importance, which leads us to the following problem:</p><p>What factors affect high school student’s perception of quality when buying clothes?</p><p>The survey was conducted with a questionnaire at two different high schools in the city of Umeå. The survey was carried out with 187 respondents of which 105 were female and 82 were male students.</p><p>What we found in our survey was that there are differences between male and female concerning the perceived quality and that affects there choice of clothing. We also found that female has a higher interest of fashion and clothing which could be a reason that there are differences in perceived quality and choice of clothes between the genders. The internal signal had the highest influence on perceived quality when buying clothes and are highly valued among the respondents. The external signals that influenced the respondents the most are the place of purchase and that the brand of clothing fits with their personality.</p>

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<p>Debatten kring bonus och andra former av belöningsprogram som svenska företag ger ut till sina verkställande direktörer och andra chefer har på senare tid fått allt större plats i media. Syftet med denna uppsats är att kartlägga hur uppbyggnaden av bonusar ser ut i dagens företag. Vi skall även analysera om det finns samvariation mellan bonusprogram och företagens resultat.</p><p>Uppsatsen bygger på en skrivbordsundersökning där vi studerat nitton företag på Large Cap listan. Då möjligheten att studera samtliga företag på Lage Cap listan är för omfattande, valde vi att hålla oss till finanssektorn. Vi valde att studera företagen under en femårsperiod för att på så vis få en större förståelse om hur det ser ut över tiden.</p><p>Vi har valt att använda oss av teorier som är inriktade på att besvara hur en ledare motiveras av bonus. Initialt har vi beskrivit bakgrunden och olika former av belöningssystem samt varför man använder sig av dessa. Genom att titta på Agentteorin och Stewardshipteorin behandlar vi motivationen hos ledare. Vi använder oss även av Herzbergs arbetsmotivationsteori, förväntansteorin och drivkraftsteorier, för att på så sätt få en större förståelse. Vi för även en diskussion om de etiska och moraliska aspekterna i denna fråga samt omvärldens påverkan och i synnerhet konjunkturens effekt på företagens resultat.</p><p>Efter genomförd kartläggning och analys har vi i uppsatsen kunnat dra slutsatsen att bonus används av de flesta företag. Hos våra studerade företag är det bara fem företag som inte använder sig av bonus. I kartläggningen av bonusens uppbyggnad, kan vi se att de flesta företagen baserar sin bonus på resultatet. På frågan om det finns samvariation mellan bolagens resultat och bonus blir svaret i de flesta fall givet, då bonusen baseras på resultatet finns givetvis också en samvariation dem emellan. Hos de företag som inte använder sig av resultatbaserad bonus har vi sett att bonusen också där har följt resultatutvecklingen väl.</p>

<p>Problem: Arbetsprocessen vid traditionella kassasystem är långsam och slitsam.</p><p>Introduktionen av självscanning förändrar situationen genom att fördela arbete till kunden, denna nya relation för med sig påverkan på butikerna.</p><p>Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att ur butikens synvinkel visa vinster som uppkommer, samt undersöka hur man agerat, vid implementeringen av ett rationaliserande betalningssystem. Uppsatsen vill även påvisa skillnader mellan två stora dagligvarukedjor.</p><p>Metod: Vi har valt att studera Coop Forum i Eskilstuna och i Västerås samt Ica Maxi i Eskilstuna. I respektive butik har huvudansvariga personer för självscanningssystemet intervjuats med hjälp av semistrukturerade frågor. Data har samlats in och sammanställts på ett kvalitativt sätt.</p><p>Slutsats: Butikerna har satsat på att få kunderna som användare av självscanningen för att frigöra personal och öka sin produktivitet. För att det ska fungera påvisar butikerna fördelar för de involverade. Kunden tar över arbete och kortar ner processen med personalen, vilket gör att deras insats ökar effektiviteten och produktiviteten. Personalen kan då få bättre arbetsförhållanden vid kassorna och mer skiftande arbete med flera uppgifter.</p>