This thesis investigates, with an actor-network-theory framework, how small businesses implements new technology by using a case study approach. This is something that until now has not been investigated thoroughly. The methods used includes participant observation, semi- structured interviews, and document reviews. By looking at what course of action individuals as well as the technology takes during the process, the study paints a detailed picture of what happens and what kind of problems a project of this kind develops and experience. The study shows that there can be both a local and a global network in place. The global network includes governmental agencies, large interest organizations as well as small customers and subcontractors that bring important resources for the project. The local network, where the actual implementation process is happening, includes individuals and technology working together towards a common goal. The study also showed that the interessement of the project participants loosened due to factors such as lack of time. There is usually an obligatory passage point in a network which was found in the global network of this study. However, even though there was both opportunity and more important desire to have that in the local network, nobody took on the role.

The Swedish government states that the security policy situation in the region has changed in the last decade, mainly due to Russia's increasingly aggressive actions in Europe. In this study liberalism and realism are used to investigate how Sweden has chosen to safeguard its state security in this period. The study focuses on the Swedish defence bills from 2009 (2008/09:15) and 2015 (2014/15:109). To collect data, a qualitative text analysis was used with indicators derived from liberalism and realism. The result shows that the Swedish defence bill from 2009 is characterized by a liberal security policy where cooperation, integration and interdependence were considered to be factors that promote security. The defence bill from 2015 reflects an increase of the realistic security perspective where territorial integrity, sovereignty, independence and military defence have a higher value. The realistic view of security has thus gone from almost non-existent in the former bill to being equivalent to the liberal view of security in the latter. It is a remarkable shift that suggests that Sweden has changed its view of security in the last decade.

Background Industry 4.0 is the next industrial revolution. By connecting the industry with the IT development, cloud base solutions and in the end be able to monitor and act before implications occur. Implementing Industry 4.0 in the manufacturing industry will require changes to the way the production operates. There are many articles discussing what this new technology is and what it means for each industry, but few have studied how these technologies should be implemented and the barriers(a structure that prevents to move forward) concerning technology and employee behaviour that pose challenges to the implementation. Furthermore, how a change strategy could be developed to suit a production industry that attempts to implement advanced technology.  Objective Identify barriers towards Industry 4.0 and present suggestions for how managers can overcome these barriers by considering success factors and utilizing effective change management to increase the chance of successful implementation of Industry 4.0.  Method Qualitative interviews conducted with 11 technology experts and change leaders at one global manufacturing conglomerate. Employees that operated in complex production facilities in many parts of the world that has started their journey towards Industry 4.0. The findings from the interviews were analysed towards the research questions and coded into main categories. These categories were later on compared toward literature to find gaps or similarities between them.  Findings and discussion There are numerous barriers and success factors to consider while implementing Industry 4.0 at a manufacturing firm. The study confirmed findings from previous research such that employee resistance is a barrier and that communication, collaboration, participation are success factors. In addition, this study indicates that trust among employees and managers is a major success factor for Industry 4.0 and perhaps technology shifts in general, which has been unexplored in previous research. This aspect would be interesting to study quantitatively in future research, but even if this research focused on Industry 4.0 many barriers and the suggested action to be included in a strategy could probably be adapted to technology shifts. To succeed with the change a strategy for the implementation of Industry 4.0 needs to be developed. Key aspects such as good information, including the right employees and that the change is in line with overall goals and vision of the company were both found in the literature of classic change management and during the interviews. An interesting finding was that the change strategy could be influenced by an IT development process but also where the change will be managed. This study suggests that this requires further research before any general recommendation can be made.

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Digitalization has changed the ways business operates nowadays, and because of the change, many startups are creating many services to help customers enhance their business. However, the customers are becoming more aware of companies and their approach to creating value for them. The development of various technologies has caused this tide to shift. So firms cannot create a service without understanding what the customer expects from firms.   LocalDeals is a startup company that provides business owners services to enhance their reach for gaining more customers. The company created a marketing channel in the form of a website. The startup is in its early stages, and they want to understand the perspective of the shop owners in Uppsala. This research aims to understand how value can be co-created for small business owners in Uppsala. To understand how value can be co-created, three theoretical perspectives were chosen Digitalization, Value, Value co-creation.  The research was carried out as a qualitative study. A purposive sampling method was carried out to select the shops in Uppsala. To understand the shop owners, 12 interviews and an interview with the founder of LocalDeals were carried out. The data was analyzed by thematic analysis and Identified eight themes – Price & Quality, Trust, Interactions Marketing, Knowledge gap, Open to collaboration, Customers, and Promises not delivered.  The study found out that the shop owners in Uppsala have trust issues with digital service providers approaching them. If the case company can establish trust and have the resources to help small buissness, only then Value can be co-created for the small buissness owners in Uppsala.

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Purpose: The purpose of the study is to explore manufacturer and omni-channel retailers last mile delivery in Sweden. Then to recognize the main customer demand and compare it with the last mile delivery setting of manufacturer and omni-channel retailers last mile delivery Method: To reach the purpose of the study, quantitative approach study and literature review have been conducted. Where the data has been collected through online search observation, document and record analysis and web survey. The companies (omni-channel retailers and manufacturers) that was chosen based on mix of micro, small, medium, and large size enterprise. The quantitative data was analyzed with the theoretical framework to reach the results. Then a web-survey was carried out in order to collect data about the customer demand on LMD. Findings: The findings display that omni-channel companies performed better in a lot of the last mile delivery settings such as velocity, free returns, offers more than one delivery mode, time slot, work with more than one delivery company. While manufacturers and omni-channel performed the same when it comes to last mile delivery mode. The only last mile delivery setting that manufacturer performed better in where the delivery prices towards customers. While overall the omni-channels performed better according to the customer demand than the manufacturers. But both types of companies did not perform well at all when it comes to environmentally sustainable deliveries. There was a high customer demand for freedom to choose last mile delivery mode, free delivery, free returns, and last environmentally sustainable deliveries.     Implications: The theoretical implications are towards the academic research about manufacturers last mile delivery practice in Sweden. Since it is one of the first large scale research for manufacturers e-commerce last mile delivery. It is also important to note that the framework developed in this research were evolved from existing research Hübner et al. (2016) and Marchet et al. (2018). The managerial implications are that manufacturers and omni-channels can benchmark themselves within the developed framework in order for them to make relevant decisions within their last mile delivery practice to be able to meet the customer demand.    Limitations: This research only focus on manufacturers e-commerce and omni-channel retailers operating in the Swedish market, it does not cover pure e-tailers. The study has not explored any fulfillment strategies or warehouse locations. Key words: Last mile delivery, omni-channel retailer, manufacturer, e-commerce, sustainability, customer demand on last mile delivery.

Counterinsurgency campaigns are usually seen as long and costly operations with no real end in sight. Examples of this are both the US and Soviet Union's campaigns in Afghanistan. There is a lot of other examples where a superpower has been stumped by guerilla war. This study will examine Executive Outcomes successful counterinsurgency campaign against União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA) in the Angolan civil war. David Kilcullens theory about success in counterinsurgency campaigns will be used as the theoretical framework. The results of the study show that Executive Outcomes followed four of the five parts of David Kilcullens theory. EOs success in Angola can be explained by Kilcullens theory but further study is needed. / COIN, Executive Outcome, Angola, Kilcullen

Risk management has been applied within projects in different industries and companies in the past years. However, the knowledge that was generated by literature is about industries such as construction or IT. But inside the waste management and energy recovery industry, there has not been a clear approach for managing, and many authors claim that this gap in literature should be studied and analyzed. Although, it is known that within traditional project management there are different models or approaches to consider. Nonetheless, these models do not analyze specific issues related to the industry, allowing this research to be carried out. Based on that, this project degree aims to facilitate the understanding and application of risk management, for both academia and industry through the design of a model that is applicable in any project within the energy recovery sector. Thus, a literature review was conducted to present what is currently known about risk management, presenting models that can be used for constructing a proposed model, in which a theoretical framework was developed.  Furthermore, this research presents a mixed strategy of qualitative and quantitative methods to gather empirical data which is needed to support or compare what is written by different authors. Thus, semi-structured interviews were performed to get perspectives and insights of domain experts in project, risk, waste management, and energy recovery. As this project was conducted with an external partner, snowball and convenience sampling tactics were applied due to the ease to reach consultants from the company and contacts in other parts of the world. However, due to the pandemic many of the candidates to interview could not join or declined the request what is a limitation for the study, Additionally, a matrix was sent to the participants to be quantified (rank risks) and suggest actions to minimize risks. As a result of this research are that experts claim that the proposed model can be applied in any project within the field, but it can be considered just as a base model because in some cases it will need some adaptations. Also, the respondents agreed that in the projects, size should not be a decision impediment to apply a model, however, the scope may influence the budget, number of people involved, and technology to be implemented. Finally, the political framework of the geographical location where the project will be held will highly influence the likelihood and impact of the risks. This master thesis opens the possibilities to conduct further research in different areas such as the influence of political issues, organizational behavior, and studies where the success rates of the base model can be quantified.