No description available.

This study aims to understand and explain how small sized entrepreneurship currently uses social networking sites through out the process of launching and marketing their products. This also includes the use of word of mouth, which features social networking technology. Lastly, we intended to give recommendations to problems that small sized entrepreneurship is facing in order to make the best use of social networking channels and to ensure that these channels are used in the most effective way.

Problem: There has been a limited amount of study in procurement within SMEs (Quayle, 2002). In general, for all sizes of organizations, the procurement function has often been regarded as a transactional based function and plays a supporting department to the value-adding process. These organizations view procurement as a simple function of the entire firm (Hutchins, 1992). It is more commonly found that procurement in SMEs tend to be fragmented and non-strategic (Zheng et al., 2007). Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate innovation in procurement in small and medium-sized enterprises Method: A qualitative research method with an abductive approach was used to conduct this research. A primary and secondary material was gathered from Sensys Traffic AB which was used as a case study in investigating into the innovation in procurement within small and medium-sized enterprises. Theories: The theoretical framework that was utilized in this investigation consisted of procurement processes, strategies, roles, and innovation. Conclusion: An organization can compete for the present and the future by placing more emphasis and priority within procurement in SMEs, developing the procurement department and employment skills, coordinating and collaborating within both internal and external members, forming 'win-win' relationships with suppliers, and proactively looking for ways to innovate. Furthermore, by specifically looking to innovate within these areas the procurement function can leverage itself and its firm to be able to achieve reduced total cost of ownership and higher quality products/services. These special areas which were outlined by Spray (2009) are new sourcing ideas, new insights, new partnerships and new technologies.

For youths leisure activity the organized sport is vital. Young people become increasingly sedentary and the healths of young people are the various municipalities responsibility. In Eskilstuna, the handball is very popular but there are only three grounds that meet the standards of the dimensions of a handball pitch, 40x20 meters. The same dimensions are used by floorball. Eskilstuna municipality owns one of these, the other two is privately built and owned and the municipality rents time in the halls. IF Guif and HK Eskil are two handballclubs in the central part of Eskilstuna. They have access to only one 40x20 meters pitch that they have to share between their 45 teams. Hence forth the handball player’s in Eskilstuna rarely has the opportunity to practise at full-size pitches before they reach junior age. In the part of Eskilstuna called Torshälla, the situations for another handballclubb is much better. Gökstens BK uses the full-sized Ellfolkarenan together with Torshälla IBK, a floorballclub. The new built Ellfolkarenan has been a big boast for Gökstens BK and they are now pleased white their access to practice areas. Floorballclubs in Eskilstuna have, due to private construction, access to two full-sized halls. In addition, they are practising in halls which are just below the authorized dimensions. Despite this, they have difficulties to get access to the new hall times to expand their club by starting up new teams with practise at attractive times of the day. With only three full-sized halls, Eskilstuna is among the big-sized municipalities in Sweden with most people per full-sized hall. If a new multipurposearena with three pitches would be built in Eskilstuna, the municipality would count themselves by those of the big-seized municipalities that are below average of people per full-sized hall.

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

Abstract A novel process of combining electrokinetic remediation and nano-sized iron wall was used for studying its effectiveness of treating nitrate-containing soil. Nitrates and nitrites are commonly found in surface water and groundwater. These substances, in general, could pose a threat to both organisms in the water bodies and human health. Traditionally, nitrogen oxides in various water bodies are treated by biological denitrification processes. However, it would take a longer time to yield a satisfactory result as compared with physicochemical processes. In recent years, permeable reactive barriers (PRBs) using zero-valent iron have been successfully used for degradation of various compounds including nitrates. Electrokinetic processing (EK) also is considered as an effective in-situ technology for removing both inorganic and organic substances from the treatment zone. In this work, the synthesized nano-scale iron particles were incorporated into a PRB, which was further combined with EK to form a novel process for the degradation of nitrates. Various operating parameters were studied in this work. The nano-sized iron particles were determined to be ranging from 50-80nm in size and having specific surface area of 37.83m2. The isoelctric point of these nanoparticles was found to be at pH 7.3. Experimental results have shown that the best location of the iron wall was 5cm from the anode reservoir. Also, the optimal treatment time would be six days in this study. The treatment efficiency was found to increase with increasing dose of nano-sized iron particles in the PRB. Operating with the polarity reverse would slightly increase the overall treatment efficiency as compared with the case of no polarity reverse (92.38% versus 88.34%). An electric gradient of 1.5V/cm was determined to be the optimal electric field strength in this study. In this work, it was also found that 2.5g nano-scale iron particles outperformed 20g micro-scale iron particles (75-150µm) in terms of nitrate degradation. In a study of using an extended treatment time up to 20 days, the black colored iron wall would fade away becoming a rusty plume toward the cathode as the treatment time elapsed. Furthermore, the Fe2+ concentration was elevated throughout the soil column after the 20-day treatment. Therefore, it is evident that nano-sized iron particles would migrate when they are subjected to EK. Based on the research findings obtained, the novel process employed in this study was found to be an effective one for in-situ treatment of nitrate-containing soil.

What kinds of business environmental problems do Taiwan small and medium-sized enterprises that invested in Mainland China have faced? On the other hand, what kinds of factors influence the enterprises management in China¡¦s business environment? How do Taiwan small and medium-sized enterprises cope with business environmental problems in mainland China? In the past, many studies were mainly to investigate problems of the business environment in mainland China by the way of questionnaire which can only realize where the problem have existed, however, it is hard to understand the environmental states which impact on Taiwan enterprises clearly. Because of special culture and social background in China, a lot of problems interlock and coincide with each other, which can not solve the problem in a systematic way. Furthermore, the way of Taiwan small and medium-sized enterprises cope with the business environment in mainland China is related to the role of the owners and how long the owners stay in mainland China. In order to understand how the owners of small and medium-sized enterprises cope with the business environment in mainland China. This study has adapted case study method, a way of qualitative research to collect and analyze data. The propositions are as follows¡G Proposition 1: The basic influence of the business environment in mainland China on Taiwan small and medium-sized enterprises is unable to estimate a cost; therefore, it is difficult for the Taiwan enterprise to finance in mainland China, and cause the enterprise unable to plan its future development. Proposition 2: The owners of Taiwan enterprises are often limited to the experience of life and the way of management in the past, this phenomenon causes the misunderstanding of business environment in mainland China. Proposition 3: In mainland China, a lot of problems interlock and coincide with each other, Taiwan small and medium-sized enterprises can not solve the problem in a systematic way. Proposition 4: The role of the owners of Taiwan small and medium-sized enterprises is the person who solves problems; so it needs to depend on those owners to solve any problems of the business environment in mainland China. Proposition 5: The owners of enterprises must spend whole time and energy on the business, in order to cope with business environmental problems in mainland China. Proposition 6: If the owners of Taiwan small and medium-sized enterprises want to overcome environmental impact in mainland China, they need to keep establishing trusting Guanxi with stakeholders.

In recent years, the demand for portable radio communication has been increasing which requires low profile, light weight and small size antennas. Therefore, the size of the antenna is required to be as small as possible. In this thesis, some of the compact antennas will be analyzed and simulated. The early-stage PIFA antenna will be investigated first, and then the shorting pin characteristics to design compact and dual band antenna was utilized. Because the shorting pin will lead to the decrease of bandwidth, replacement of the shorting pin by using chip-resistor could improve this characteristic. The compactness of antennas will lead to the decrease of the gain. In order to improve the gain of antennas, the combination of substrate and superstrate configuration with very high permittivity material is used. For the consideration of Bluetooth system, we use the ACPS (Asymmetrical Co-planar Striplines) structure to design the antenna. Using this structure in the design will obtain a promotion in bandwidth compared with the conventional rectangular microstrip antenna. Because the size of the antenna is small, the time to simulate this structure by the FDTD (Finite Difference Time Domain) method is too long. In order to solve this problem, this thesis mainly study a new FDTD algorithm based on the Alternating-Direction Implicit method, and use this algorithm to simulate some simple structures.

No description available.

The Small- to Medium- Sized Enterprise (SME) has attracted the attention of researchers and governments because of the increasingly important role it is playing in national and international economies. The current research is directed towards understanding the internationalisation of this important economic unit, specifically the internationalisation of SMEs in the East Midlands region of the United Kingdom. The research adopts a critical realist philosophy, used by researchers to explain the decision-making process, and applies it in a different context to provide insights into the internationalisation process of the SME. A critical realist approach is used as it enables an understanding of the roles of structures and the contingent environment in facilitating differing levels of SME internationalisation. These are factors that are believed to operate at a level below that of the observable. The study adopts a mixed methodology (a questionnaire survey and two company case studies) that identifies three main issues, including, the international orientation of the industry, previous international experience of management, and the age of the firm. The survey also identified two other issues, perceptions of competition levels, and technology. All of these factors heavily influenced the differing internationalisation levels seen. The two case study companies were used to illustrate the issues at a real level, highlighting the effect of the structures of the capitalist mode of production and the supply chain. The roles of these structures were shown as not deterministic, as the affect of structure was only exhibited under particular contingent conditions in the external and internal environments