Som en spindel i nätet leder inköpare i fast fashion-företag sitt team mot uppsatta mål. Då inköpare ständigt står inför att ta snabba beslut och hantera tuffa förhandlingar, är det en spännande och komplex ledarroll som vi har valt att studera närmare. Dock finns det motstridigheter om hur ledarrollen bör skildras. Det saknas dessutom forskning som belyser inköpares ledande roll, i synnerhet i fast fashion-företag. Syftet med studien är därför att tydliggöra hur inköpares ledarroll ser ut i fast fashion-företag och för att fylla det gap som finns i forskningen. Vi har därför valt att studera hur inköpare betraktar sin roll som ledare i fast fashion-företag. Eftersom forskning visar att den kontext som inköpare verkar i har påverkan på ledarrollen har vi även studerat detta närmare. För att uppnå syftet med studien valdes en kvalitativ ansats med en tvärsnittsdesign. Med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer med sju kvinnliga inköpare från fyra svenska fast fashion-företag och skuggning av en inköpares arbete under tre arbetsdagar besvarades studiens frågeställningar. Empirin analyseras med stöd av Mintzbergs (1971) teori om tio olika ledarroller samt en fördjupning Mintzbergs (1971) teori med hjälp av senare forskning som stöd för att identifiera relevanta infallsvinklar. Resultatet från studien visar att inköpare inte intar en specifik ledarroll, utan intar flera som roller som de ständigt skiftar mellan. Den komplexa och dynamiska kontext som inköpare verkar i har stor påverkan på ledarrollerna, vilket är helt avgörande för vilka roller som blir dominerande. De mest framträdande ledarrollerna i studien, oberoende av kontextuella påverkansfaktorer, är kopplade till beslutsfattande. Detta eftersom beslut är den mest centrala delen av inköpsarbetet.

<p>Competition in the market of interior design during the last several years has drastically increased. The consumers of today are very conscious about what the market can offer and therefore they have high demands on the products. It is not only the function of the product that matters but also the design that makes a difference. Companies are becoming more aware of this and as a result they have to find a way to set themselves apart in order to attract customers. This realization has led designers and economists to cooperate in a different way than before. It is important that they are able to communicate with each other to reach a successful goal.</p><p>The purpose of this study is to deeply analyze a product development process within a large departement store and to look into how the different parts cooperate and communicate with each other. The exam has been done through a qualitative method. Three personal interviews where held within the departement store with the design director, purchaser staff and designer. The theories of communication, design process as well as the value theory aim to serve as tools in the analysis of the evaluation problem. The study focused on cooperation, communication and feedback in the product development process.</p><p>The conclusion we came to is that there is a conflict in communication between the purchasing staff and designers to company X because the communication has only been one way. The designer believes that communication is inadequate because it is not sufficiently structured and collaborative. The designer would like more feedback to be given. Having shared communication where the parties exchange ideas and being able to understand each other provides a more effective communication which can influence the collaboration between them in a positive way. Our conclusion is that feedback is a very important factor in communication and cooperation between the parties. Work in the product development process would be even more effective if they would make use of project planning.</p>

Competition in the market of interior design during the last several years has drastically increased. The consumers of today are very conscious about what the market can offer and therefore they have high demands on the products. It is not only the function of the product that matters but also the design that makes a difference. Companies are becoming more aware of this and as a result they have to find a way to set themselves apart in order to attract customers. This realization has led designers and economists to cooperate in a different way than before. It is important that they are able to communicate with each other to reach a successful goal. The purpose of this study is to deeply analyze a product development process within a large departement store and to look into how the different parts cooperate and communicate with each other. The exam has been done through a qualitative method. Three personal interviews where held within the departement store with the design director, purchaser staff and designer. The theories of communication, design process as well as the value theory aim to serve as tools in the analysis of the evaluation problem. The study focused on cooperation, communication and feedback in the product development process. The conclusion we came to is that there is a conflict in communication between the purchasing staff and designers to company X because the communication has only been one way. The designer believes that communication is inadequate because it is not sufficiently structured and collaborative. The designer would like more feedback to be given. Having shared communication where the parties exchange ideas and being able to understand each other provides a more effective communication which can influence the collaboration between them in a positive way. Our conclusion is that feedback is a very important factor in communication and cooperation between the parties. Work in the product development process would be even more effective if they would make use of project planning.

The purpose of this essay was to lay the foundations for a model in the form of a question battery that can help buyers compare the sustainability responsibilities of different suppliers, so that the buyer can choose the supplier that contributes most to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The model is designed as a question battery to enable the buyer to ask more comprehensive questions to the various suppliers regarding social, ecological and economic sustainability than they do today.   In order to find questions on an overall ethical level I have investigated how the global institutions intend us to navigate and prioritize between the SDGs, I have also applied the Aristotelian and Kantian ethics and Archie Carrol's model, the CSR pyramid, to broaden the ethical perspective in the questions to the companies.   The result is a question battery with questions about the company's vision and global goals, about the company's values ​​linked to all stakeholders, questions about whether the internal good and the external good are in harmony with society, questions about the company's value chain and business model and a larger stakeholder analysis.   How should a buyer then be able to evaluate a supplier's different answers? This essay aimed to create the first questionnaire with a broad question battery, the next step is to evaluate the different answers. / Syftet med den här uppsatsen var att lägga grunden till en modell i form av ett frågebatteri som kan hjälpa inköpare att jämföra olika leverantörers hållbarhetsansvar, så att inköparen ska kunna välja den leverantör som bidrar mest till de globala målen.  Modellen är utformad som ett frågebatteri för att inköparen ska kunna ställa mer omfattande frågor till de olika leverantörerna angående social, ekologisk och ekonomisk hållbarhet än vad de gör idag.   Mitt tillvägagångssätt har varit att undersöka hur de globala institutionerna tänker sig att vi ska navigera och prioritera mellan de globala målen, genom att övergripande backa tillbaks till de hållbarhetsdokument som togs fram redan på 1980-talet och sedan arbeta mig vidare till de globala mål som kom 2015 och fram till de guider som finns för ett hållbart näringsliv idag. För att hitta frågor på en övergripande etisk nivå har jag tagit hjälp av den aristoteliska och den kantianska etiken samt Archie Carrols modell, CSR pyramiden, för att bredda det etiska perspektivet i frågeställningarna till företagen.  Resultatet blev ett frågebatteri med frågor om företagets vision och de globala målen, om företagets värderingar kopplat till samtliga intressenter, om det internt goda och det externt goda är i samklang med samhället, frågor om företagets värdekedja och affärsmodell samt en större intressentanalys. Hur ska en inköpare kunna värdera en leverantörs olika svar? Den här uppsatsen syftade till att skapa det första frågeformuläret med ett brett frågebatteri, nästa steg är att värdera de olika svaren.

The author has applied an abductive research design and performed a case study which includes a survey and e-mail interviews of workers within the construction industry. The purpose of the survey and the interviews is to investigate what factors may be the most influential for individuals in establishing their apprehension of natural stones. The research has been made on commission of the case firm which is a natural stones importer located in Sweden and the survey is based on the 17-point CETSCALE originally created by Shimp and Sharma in 1987. The survey was sent to workers with different occupations (architects, contractors and purchasers) within the construction industry who encounter natural stones in their work. Therefore, the theoretical purpose of this study is to contribute to increase the knowledge of country-of-origin effects of imported low-involvement products. The research gap this study aims to fill is to outline what factors are influencing consumers' purchasing behavior on purchasing low-involvement products. The practical purpose of this study is to provide the case firm with more knowledge of the phenomenon of negative COO-effects. Theories on ethnocentrism have been included since ethnocentric tendencies among customers have been considered by previous researchers as one of the contributing factors of fostering negative country-of-origin perceptions. The case firm can implement this knowledge in creating a more effective marketing strategy and thereby develop their operation domestically as they wish to do. Empirical findings of this study demonstrate that cognitive influence is the factor with the largest influence on country-of-origin effects while factors such as familiarity and environmental concerns are less influencing. The author recommends future researchers to further investigate this phenomenon, especially to investigate its connection to cognitive- and other psychosocial factors in order to gain a more solid understanding for why problems related to this phenomenon arise and how they may be encountered. Since Corporate Social Responsibility was demonstrated to be the most influencing factor in consumers’ purchasing decisions of this study, it is suggested to future researchers to investigate the phenomenon of country-of-origin in relation to ethical- and moral standards of individuals.