<p>In the past years Väderstad Verken has been developing rapidly and expanding the sales of its machines in new markets, in particular in Eastern Europe. Due to the growing sales and some risks related to possible increases in the import duties on some agricultural equipment the company is considering the possibility of building a factory in the Eastern Europe to serve that market.</p><p>For this reason the company was interested in a pre-study on the important factors for the factory start-up in Eastern Europe, in particular, Russia and Ukraine. Thus the scope of the thesis included the research and identification of the factors important particularly for Väderstad Verken as well as identifying some general steps necessary for the factory start-up. In order to identify and analyse location factors critical for Väderstad Verken, literature on location analysis was analysed in order to identify a list of possible factors as well as tools which could be used to evaluate them.</p><p>Center of Gravity and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) have been selected to evaluate the performance of several regions on these factors to identify the suitable location of the factory. Expert Choice software was applied in order to simplify the comparison of various factors following the AHP steps.</p><p>A specification for the potential factory has been defined given the desired production capacity and requirements. Two factory layouts have been suggested taking into consideration the possibility of the factory expansion.</p><p>In some way this master thesis could be used as a guideline for the selection of suitable manufacturing location as well as factory start-up.</p>

<p>In the majority of cases students are short of money and have problems to finance their low standard subsistence. An additional financial burden for students is purchasing the costly literature for their courses and studies. Universities often support their students by providing a library but a library can never cover all the books that are demanded. Students often do not need or use their purchased books longer than they have to; with the closure of a course or a semester books become useless for the owner. To get back some money after having used a book it is common to resell the book in various ways. Regularly students’ organisations or universities established some sort of platform for example a bill-board in their facilities or on the internet. But the existence of these platforms made trading the used literature not easier because there are no rules and no regulations. The store <em>Campusbokhandeln</em> took this problem and started a business to make it easier for students to sell and buy used books with fair regulations so every participator profits. <em>Campusbokhandeln</em> has a main store at <em>Örebro</em><em> University</em> and one at <em>Karlstad</em><em> University</em>. The purpose of the study is to find out whether <em>Campusbokhandeln</em> is able to expand their actions to another university in Sweden and if yes to which university. The results of the research show that the demand for a platform like <em>Campusbokhandeln</em> if very high and that the owners can take the chance to expand. After a SWOT-analysis we were able to point out chances and give suggestions about the future of the business.</p>

Kura clover (Trifolium ambiguum) is a perennial legume species that has been found to have exceptional persistence in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. There are two challenges that impede the incorporation of Kura clover into pasture mixtures in Alberta. The first is the lack of available seed, and the second is poor establishment success in mixtures with highly competitive grass species. A series of experiments were conducted to (i) address the potential for seed production in a central Alberta environment and (ii) to determine alternative strategies for establishment in mixtures. Kura clover successfully flowered and produced seed under central Alberta growing conditions. Seed production was greater from the cultivar Endura than Cossack. Kura clover seed production was not affected by row spacing however, yield was greater when clover was planted at 3 or 6 kg/ha versus 9 or 12 kg/ha. Seed yield ranged from 80 kg/ha to 350 kg/ha. Establishing Kura clover with a cover crop reduced flowering and seed production. Corn (Zea mays) was the least competitive cover crop, followed by faba bean (Vicia faba L.). Canola (Brassica napus), peas (Pisum sativum L.), barley (Hordeum vulgare) and triticale (X Tritosecale) reduced Kura clover seed yield and are not recommended as cover crops. Comparison of above and below ground competition between Kura clover and meadow bromegrass (Bromus biebersteinii), indicated that below ground competition has the greatest impact on Kura clover seedling growth. Altering seeding rate and delaying introduction of the grass species by up to two months significantly improved Kura clover establishment in mixtures. Kura clover survival in established pastures was higher with physical than chemical sod suppression of the standing forage. Dry matter yield of Kura clover was greatest when defoliated at 6 week intervals. Challenges still remain regarding seed production and establishment of Kura clover. However, we successfully addressed the major concerns regarding the potential of Kura clover in Alberta. / Plant Science

Business profits constitute the main part of income derived through international business and these profits are only to be taxed in the home state of the enterprise. However, if the enterprise conducts business in a host state through a PE, the profits attributable to the PE are taxable in the host state. Article 7 of the OECD Model Tax determines the profits attributable to the PE. Nevertheless, Member States have interpreted Article 7 of the OECD Model Tax Convention in various ways. In order to provide consensus the OECD adopted an authorised OECD approach for attributing profits to PEs. The first part of the purpose of this thesis is to study the Swedish approach for attributing profits to dependent agent PEs in relation to the authorised OECD approach. An enterprise from the home state can be considered to have a dependent agent PE in the host state if it conducts business in the host state through a dependent agent located therein. This is provided that the agent has the authority to conclude contracts in the name of the enterprise and exercises this authority regularly. Under the authorised OECD approach for profit attribution to dependent agent PEs it is possible to allocate profits to the PE in excess of the arm’s length remuneration paid to the dependent agent. Thereby, the OECD has adopted the dual taxpayer approach as the authorised OECD approach. According to the author’s opinion the Swedish perspective regarding profit attribution to dependent agent PEs differs from the authorised OECD approach as the dual taxpayer approach so far has not been applied in Sweden. Furthermore, it differs as the attribution of capital to PEs is not allowed according to case law and as far as the recognition of internal dealings is concerned. When the OECD adopted the dual taxpayer approach as the authorised OECD approach another method was available; the single taxpayer approach. In line with this approach no further profits in excess of the arm’s length remuneration to the dependent agent can be attributed to the dependent agent PE. However, the single taxpayer approach was rejected as the authorised OECD approach, which has lead to disagreement within the international tax community. Therefore, the second part of the purpose of this thesis is to study to what extent the authorised OECD approach is sustained. This is done by analysing reactions to the single and dual taxpayer approach among business and academic circles. The author believes that reactions against the dual taxpayer approach mainly arise in situations when an enterprise in the host state gives rise to a dependent agent PE. Therefore, the authorised OECD approach should have recognised that different types of dependent agent PEs might arise and the approach is only sustained to the extent that a person belonging to the foreign enterprise leads to the existence of a dependent agent PE.

Malaysia is one of the developing countries in the world that is on the verge to become de-veloped (Internationella Programkontoret, 2003). In 2004, Malaysia had a growth rate around 7% (United Nation Statistic Division, 2005) and it is implied that the Malaysian market is continuously growing. One factor that can increase the growth rate in Malaysia is foreign direct investments (FDI), which is, according to Chino (2004), one factor of sus-tainable growth. It has been noticed that the world is getting smaller and more companies are looking for opportunities outside the country boarders and in this situation Malaysia is an attractive alternative for establishment. The purpose of this study is to investigate and deepen the understanding of cultural factors affecting the establishing process for Swedish companies in Malaysia, and through that cre-ate an awareness that can simplify the establishing process. To answer the purpose of this study, a qualitative research has been used. Interviews with Swedish companies newly established in Malaysia have been performed. The respondents have been asked about the establishing process in Malaysia and the Malaysian culture. Ad-ditional interviews with the Swedish Trade Council and the Swedish Embassy have also been performed. The interview guides have been based on theories about FDI, the estab-lishment process and culture. Hollensen’s market entry strategies, Hollensen’s network model and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are the main theories used throughout this study. The authors have found through this study that the different ethnic groups in Malaysia are highly influential on the business environment and that foreign companies establishing in Malaysia have to be aware of this situation. The multicultural society is an advantage for Malaysia, through the locals’ ability to adapt to different cultures and the many different languages in the country. However, foreigners moving to Malaysia need to be aware of the special treatment of the Malays and how that affects the business environment. Two main problems have been found by the authors; the Malaysian bureaucracy and the locals unwill-ingness to let foreigners into their networks. This can be problematic for foreign compa-nies, but can be handled through the help of governmental functions such as MIDA or MSC, or through a company secretary or auditor. Through this visualization of the cultural factors that affect the establishing process of Swedish companies in Malaysia, the authors hope to minimize the risk of them running into the same problems and obstacles.

In the majority of cases students are short of money and have problems to finance their low standard subsistence. An additional financial burden for students is purchasing the costly literature for their courses and studies. Universities often support their students by providing a library but a library can never cover all the books that are demanded. Students often do not need or use their purchased books longer than they have to; with the closure of a course or a semester books become useless for the owner. To get back some money after having used a book it is common to resell the book in various ways. Regularly students’ organisations or universities established some sort of platform for example a bill-board in their facilities or on the internet. But the existence of these platforms made trading the used literature not easier because there are no rules and no regulations. The store Campusbokhandeln took this problem and started a business to make it easier for students to sell and buy used books with fair regulations so every participator profits. Campusbokhandeln has a main store at Örebro University and one at Karlstad University. The purpose of the study is to find out whether Campusbokhandeln is able to expand their actions to another university in Sweden and if yes to which university. The results of the research show that the demand for a platform like Campusbokhandeln if very high and that the owners can take the chance to expand. After a SWOT-analysis we were able to point out chances and give suggestions about the future of the business.

In the past years Väderstad Verken has been developing rapidly and expanding the sales of its machines in new markets, in particular in Eastern Europe. Due to the growing sales and some risks related to possible increases in the import duties on some agricultural equipment the company is considering the possibility of building a factory in the Eastern Europe to serve that market. For this reason the company was interested in a pre-study on the important factors for the factory start-up in Eastern Europe, in particular, Russia and Ukraine. Thus the scope of the thesis included the research and identification of the factors important particularly for Väderstad Verken as well as identifying some general steps necessary for the factory start-up. In order to identify and analyse location factors critical for Väderstad Verken, literature on location analysis was analysed in order to identify a list of possible factors as well as tools which could be used to evaluate them. Center of Gravity and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) have been selected to evaluate the performance of several regions on these factors to identify the suitable location of the factory. Expert Choice software was applied in order to simplify the comparison of various factors following the AHP steps. A specification for the potential factory has been defined given the desired production capacity and requirements. Two factory layouts have been suggested taking into consideration the possibility of the factory expansion. In some way this master thesis could be used as a guideline for the selection of suitable manufacturing location as well as factory start-up.

New firms are crucial for economic growth and development, especially in the knowledge-intensive service and manufacturing industries that compose an increasing portion of developed economies. As many new firms fail and performance varies widely for surviving firms, studying new firm entry and pre-formation processes is necessary but not sufficient to create increased understanding of the important contribution of new firms to economic growth. In order to better understand and possibly predict economic development we must also understand the drivers and dynamic of new firm survival and performance. Absorptive capacity is an established firm-level capability theory that explains sustained firm performance through the interaction of internal capabilities and competencies and the access and assimilation of external knowledge and information. However, absorptive capacity was mainly developed by studying established firms. In this dissertation I develop new measures of absorptive capacity suitable for empirical research on new micro firms; specifically using human capital as a proxy for the knowledge acquisition component and organizational tenure to represent the knowledge assimilation and exploitation component of absorptive capacity. Developing and testing a conceptual model of new firm performance including these measures on a panel dataset of knowledge-intensive new firms in Sweden 1995-2002, I find that absorptive capacity is a useful theory to explain several aspects of new firm terminations, acquisitions, and profitability. In developing and testing these new measures, this dissertation provides theoretical and methodological contributions to the empirical entrepreneurship literature for the benefit of researchers, policy-makers, and industry practitioners with an interest in new firm survival and performance. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2009</p>

Key establishment is the process whereby two or more parties derive a shared secret, typically used for subsequent confidential communication. However, identifying the exact security requirements for key establishment protocols is a non-trivial task. This thesis compares, extends and merges existing security definitions and models for key establishment protocols. The primary focus is on two-party key agreement schemes in the public-key setting. On one hand new protocols are proposed and analyzed in the existing Canetti-Krawzcyk model. On the other hand the thesis develops a security model and novel definition that capture the essential security attributes of the standardized Unified Model key agreement protocol. These analyses lead to the development of a new security model and related definitions that combine and extend the Canetti-Krawzcyk pre- and post- specified peer models in terms of provided security assurances. The thesis also provides a complete analysis of a one-pass key establishment scheme. There are security goals that no one-pass key establishment scheme can achieve, and hence the two-pass security models and definitions need to be adapted for one-pass protocols. The analysis provided here includes the description of the required modification to the underlying security model. Finally, a complete security argument meeting these altered conditions is presented as evidence supporting the security of the one-pass scheme. Lastly, validation and reusing short lived key pairs are related to efficiency, which is a major objective in practice. The thesis considers the formal implication of omitting validation steps and reusing short lived key pairs. The conclusions reached support the generally accepted cryptographic conventions that incoming messages should not be blindly trusted and extra care should be taken when key pairs are reused.

The main goal of cryptography is to enable secure communication over a public channel; often a secret shared among the communicating parties is used to achieve this. The process by which these parties agree on such a shared secret is called key agreement. In this thesis, we focus on two-party key agreement protocols in the public-key setting and study the various methods used to establish and validate public keys. We pay particular attention to certificateless key agreement schemes and attempt to formalize a relevant notion of security. To that end, we give a possible extension of the existing extended Canetti-Krawzcyk security model applicable to the certificateless setting. We observe that none of the certificateless protocols we have seen in the literature are secure in this model; it is an open question whether such schemes exist. We analyze several published certificateless key agreement protocols, demonstrating the existence of key compromise impersonation attacks and even a man-in-the-middle attack in one case, contrary to the claims of the authors. We also briefly describe weaknesses exhibited by these protocols in the context of our suggested security model.