Abstract Title: Closing the gap between frugal and reverse innovation – Lessons learned from the case of the Tata Nano Authors: Martin Aschmoneit (martin.aschmoneit@gmail.com) Dijana Janevska (dijana.janevska@gmail.com) Supervisor: Malin Tillmar Date: May 27, 2013 Background: Emerging markets are growing and have become increasingly important for the global economy, while the growth of developed markets has slowed down. Emerging economies are the home of a new type of innovation that can help multinationals (both Western and local) to achieve further growth. Reverse innovation is a new approach that entails developing frugal products in emerging markets that are later introduced in advanced economies. Aim: To develop a framework of reverse innovation, and to use this framework to find critical issues necessary for the Tata Nano to enter developed economies. Hence, we develop our own definition and a model of reverse innovation that will be used in the analysis of the Nano, with a specific focus on: the search for reverse innovation features present in the case and the problems/obstacles in the reverse innovation process. Methodology: Qualitative approach using a single-case study based on predominantly secondary data. The case study of the Tata Nano was chosen due to its compatibility with our research aims. Completion and results: The case of the Tata Nano fulfills all but one of the requirements for a reverse innovation: the last step of the process or the transition of the innovation to a developed market. Several critical issues regarding the reversal process were identified and discussed. Keywords: reverse innovation, frugal innovation, emerging markets, multinational companies, Tata Nano.

Capital structure and companies’ performance are important to corporate finance. Therefore, firms take different strategies to adjust capital structure to get a better firm performance. However still the studies mostly conducted in one country setting or neglect the angle from listed companies across countries. This thesis encompasses 2 developed countries (Germany and Sweden) and a developing country (China) to test the impact from capital structure to firm performance of period 2003-2012 with more than 1200 listed companies in Germany and Sweden and more than 1000 listed companies in China. The result shows capital structure has a significant negative effect to firm performance in China, whereas, significant positive effect in 2 European countries before financial crisis happened in 2008. I also find institutional factors and economic crisis will affect this relationship too.

Energy efficiency is important – but an energy saving potential has yet to reach its full range. Energy services are means to reach that potential and energy companies are stressed as important actors into creating an established market for energy services. Energy services are tools that include providing in-direct services such as energy statistics, audits, declarations, consultations and analysis. It also includes a number of more complex and direct services, for example energy efficiency measurements or service contracts. This report is a result of a study on Danish and Swedish energy companies offering energy services, based on the market they act upon. It aims to find their driving forces for providing energy services. It also looks closer into whether publically and privately owned energy companies differ and if there exist contradictions to both supply energy and energy services at the same time. It also looks into how energy companies are affected and feel about national regulatory instruments. Energy companies in both countries offering energy services are reaching a wide spectrum of client segments and energy services. They often have the possibility to combine and package energy supply with energy services and they can reduce many of the theoretical barriers to energy efficiency by offering energy services. They are driven by a client demand and a closer client relationship, both leading to a decreased supply client fluctuation. A new business opportunity and a green profile strategy are also driving factors. Energy services also help energy companies to decrease heavy investment on existing equipment by having more control over their clients’ energy use and reducing energy utilization tops. Danish energy companies are tied to an energy saving obligation scheme, providing them with conditions, which their market is based, whilst Swedish energy companies offering energy services act on a market that is created by them and their competitors derive from different business backgrounds. There exist an assertive regulatory instrument in Denmark affecting driving factors for public and private energy companies and clients. In Sweden regulatory instruments, such as energy efficiency programmes, subsidises for energy audits and voluntary agreements for industries affect energy companies in a less way than in Denmark, mostly increasing a client demand for energy services. The regulatory instruments in Denmark increase a trust for energy companies as energy service providers as in Sweden they are trusted upon their existing substantial role on the energy market, a reputation of knowledge and experience and a strategy aiming towards visualisation, motivation and education for the clients. Public energy companies feel a responsibility towards their public owners to offer an efficient energy supply and by having a local connection to the municipality they are able to increase competiveness in the region by offering energy services. Private companies are substantially larger than public companies and have a great potential to reach out to a larger number of clients through their existing supply client stock. This is of substantial higher relevance in Sweden than Denmark.

Title:  The Situation of Digital Books’ Market in Spain. The acceptance by consumers and companies Authors: Amaia García Barberena and Leyre Díaz Pinillos Supervisor: Jean-Charles Languilaire. Level: Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration, Marketing Key words: digital books, electronic books, digitalization, Spain, consumers´ behavior, innovation, adaptation, publishers… Purpose: The purpose is to explore what the current situation of the electronic books’ market in Spain is, concerning the changes in consumer behavior and companies’ adaptation. Method: Our research method is an explorative and descriptive one.  Thus, we collected data from secondary resources such as books, studies, articles, journals and so on. We use also primary data in order to answer our purpose. We do two different questionnaires; one focused on consumers and the other one focused on publishers of different companies.  Theoretical framework: First, we define the consumer behaviour in a general context and then related to innovations and digital environment. Then, we explain the companies’ behaviour and adaptation to changes, and we finish with and interaction between both parties. Conclusion: We highlight and summarize the findings of our study, giving a clear image of the current situation of the digital books’ market in Spain. We also give our point of view towards this topic, and suggestions for further researches.

Risk disclosure is an important issue, firstly to prevent future unexpected bankruptcies and economic scandals, secondly to create trust between a company and its stakeholders. Given the importance of the issue, previous literature has mainly focused on quantity of risk disclosures. In this dissertation, both quality and quantity of risk disclosures in the annual reports of 65 companies listed on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm exchange are analyzed. The objectives are to describe the degree of risk disclosures and to understand whether the quality and quantity of this information can be explained by size, industry and/or performance of the company. By conducting a content analysis of the annual reports, we explored if the required risk information was disclosed (quantity) and how it was disclosed (quality). Afterwards, a statistical analysis was conducted in order to obtain a deeper understanding of the results from our content analysis. The findings of our study are that both quality and quantity of risk disclosures in our sample are only half as good as they should be according to requirements in the Swedish context. We found that there is a difference in quality and quantity of risk disclosures between two of the industry categories; Energy and Materials, where the first mentioned is the best and the second the worst. We did not find significant correlations between the quality and quantity of risk disclosure and the size or the performance for the whole sample. Still, we found some differences in both quality and quantity of risk disclosure information when looking at smaller parts of our sample. Size has a significant impact on both quality and quantity of risk disclosures within the Industrials and Information Technology companies. Among Information Technology companies, also performance has a significant impact on the quantity of risk disclosure.

The fashion industry has become an industry with high attention, and in recent years Swedish fashion has become a strong name internationally. At the same time, it is a competitive industry where smaller fashion companies are competing with big clothing chains. For these actors it is important to internationalise and enter foreign markets to be able to grow. This requires resources and capital that many of the smaller fashion companies today is missing; market knowledge, export knowledge and commercial knowledge.  This makes it interesting to see what factors are important for smaller Scandinavian fashion companies to succeed in establishing on the international market. The purpose of this dissertation is to evaluate and analyze conditions for three smaller Scandinavian fashion companies' internationalisation process. The study is based on case studies of these fashion companies. Theories have been chosen according to the background. These highlights the importance for companies to have knowledge of their market, and how internationalisation is a process of knowledge in which they learn something from each step. Furthermore, how companies in some cases follow a particular pattern and how the establishment can be done in specific steps. It may be important to develop relations with actors in their environment.  By different theories, the authors have designed an assumption about what is important for the smaller fashion companies.  In the dissertation we have found that the most significant and important factors are collaborations, available resources internally or externally, and to have knowledge of the market. The expansion of the business as a foreign establishment means that companies need to seek help outside their organization to succeed internationally.

Företag är idag under stor press och de måste ständigt öka effektivitetenför att kunna konkurrera. Lean är en filosofi som påstås öka kundvärdet och minskakostnaderna. Både akademiker och företag skapar ofta egna definitioner av lean vilkethar lett till många studier inom ämnet. Studier av vinsterna från lean är också ganskavanligt men det är inte många som har studerat delarna av lean och hur de påverkarresultatet. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka vad tillverkande företag uppfattar attarbetet med lean har gett för effekter. Vidare vill vi kartlägga om det går att dela inlean i olika delar samt om det är helheten som ger de eventuella effekterna eller omdet räcker att införa enskilda delar. Metod: Utgångspunkten i denna studie är i teorin. Empirin har samlats genomsemistrukturerade intervjuer som genomförts på sex olika företag. Vi har alltsågenomfört en multipel fallstudie. Resultat: Ökad produktivitet, högre kundvärde och ökat engagemang är de vanligasteeffekterna vi sett. Lean består av olika delar men delarna verkar i stor utsträckningvara beroende och förstärka varandra.Sökord: lean, effekter, delar, produktion, företag / Companies today are under a great deal of pressure and they have tofind ways to compete through increased effectiveness. Lean is a philosophy wichclaims to increase the customer value and reduce costs. Both academics andcompanies create their own definition of lean which has lead to many studies of thesubject. Studies of the gains from lean are also pretty common but there are not manywho have studied the parts of lean and how they affect the profit. Aim: The purpose of this study is to investigate what effects manufacturingcompanies perceive that lean leads to. Further, we like to identify whether it ispossible to divide lean in different parts and if it is the whole that gives the potentialimpact or if it is sufficient to introduce individual parts. Method: The starting point of this study is in the theories of lean. The design is amultipel case study. The empirical findings come from 6 semi–structured interviews. Result: Increased productivity, greater customer value and engagement are the mostcommon effects we have seen. Lean consists of different parts but the parts seem tobe largely dependent and reinforcing.Keywords: lean, effects, parts, production, companies

Pirater är ett ämne som berör många med anknytning till sjöfarten. Det har tagits upp en del i media under de senaste åren då det har skickats ner militära fartyg till Adenviken för att bekämpa pirater.Syftet med undersökningen är att få fram vad Svenska rederier vidtar för åtgärder för att motverka piratattacker. Följer rederierna de gällande riktlinjer som finns? För att få svar på frågeställningen har vi använt oss av en kvalitativ metod. Den information som är till grund för resultatet har samlats in från fyra olika personer som ansvarat för säkerheten på respektive rederis fartyg. I sammanställningen av resultatet har vi jämfört gällande rekommendationer och hur rederierna i undersökningen agerar. Samtliga rederier i undersökningen är anonyma av säkerhetsskäl.Resultatet av undersökningen visar att samtliga rederi som medverkat vidtar åtgärder för att motverka eventuella piratattacker. / Piracy is a subject that concerns many people with connection to shipping. It has also been brought up in media lately because naval vessels have been sent down to Gulf of Aden for protection against pirate attacks.The purposes with this paper is to establish what measures the shipping companies are taking to prevent piracy attacks and if shipping companies are following existing guidelines? To answer the questions we have used a qualitative method. The information we used as a base for the results has been collected from four responsible officers working for Swedish shipping companies. In the summery of our results we have compared the guidelines and how the companies act. The shipping companies who have been surveyed for this paper is anonymous because of safety reasons.The result of the paper shows that all companies are taking measures to prevent piracy attack.

Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate the challenges faced by Pakistan Textiles industry as an emerging market from MNCs of Bangladesh, China and India and to find out the appropriate strategies which should adopted by the managers of this industry to counter these challenges. Method: In this research qualitative data is used that is gathered through unstructured interview and questioners have been used to have desirable results. Results & Conclusion: It is reflected from results that internal problems of Pakistan textiles industry such as energy crisis, high input cost, political instability, low return on investment are the main problems of this industry. To counter these challenges, their strategic approach should be Collaboration in product development and strategic alliance with attacking firms. Suggestion for Future Research: This research is focused on the Problems and challenges faced by Pakistan Textiles Industry. For the future studies research could be done to find out the strategies for the firms from Pakistan Textiles industry to do the business in international market and how these companies can compete in International Market with presence of other MNCs of the world. Contribution of the Thesis: This study provides action plans for the managers of Pakistan textiles industry to design and implement the strategies that build core competencies such as high quality products for their firms. It can also be helpful for researchers and students those are interested to develop the strategies for the firms from emerging markets.

Title: Micro sized retailers usage of e-CRM: A study about how far micro sized retailers have implemented e-CRM and exploration of what factors can describe the e-CRM adoption   Course code: 4FE03E   Authors:        Fredrik Fagerström               880107                   Linda Sjögren                      880805   Research question: The research explores what factors can explain e-CRM adoption of micro sized retailers through 6 hypotheses, derived from literature review.   Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe how far micro sized retailers have implemented e-CRM and explore what factors can describe their e-CRM adoption.   Methodology: The result of the study consists of the participation of 137 micro sized retailers on the Swedish market. A quantitative questionnaire has been developed out of theories and qualitative pilot-studies.   Conclusion: This research can conclude that micro sized retailers on the Swedish market have, in average, implemented 5 e-CRM features per company. This equals a 12% usage of the total e-CRM features explored for this research. The one proved factor that can describe how retailers have adopted e-CRM is their profitability rate. Companies with a profitability rate below market average are more likely to have implemented more e-CRM features than companies with higher profit rate than market average. The explanation to this might be that companies with a low profit rate implement e-CRM as a tool to cure their low profit rate, since e-CRM is supposed to bring benefits as lower costs and increased sales with the purpose to increase their profit in the future.   Key words; e-CRM, growth orientation, micro sized companies, retailers