Thailand is a leading rice exporting country that exports rice for one-third of world‟s export volume. Rice from Thailand is exported to markets in every part of the world including Sweden. Thai rice products are available to be accessed by Swedish consumers in supermarket generally. The purposes of this study are to analyze the entire chain of rice starting from farm in Thailand to consumers in Sweden. Stakeholders in the chain are examined and value-added by each stakeholder is defined. Role of governance in the chain is analyzed to underline the governance relationships and interaction of actors. Moreover, roles of government institution are examined to describe its impact on the chain. Data for the analyses are collected through two activities which include a review of relevant literature and gathering from government offices of Thailand and international institutes.The results of the study reveal that there are at least twelve actors involving in the value chain of rice exported from Thailand to Sweden which include farmers, local collectors, farmer‟s organization, central market, millers, brokers, wholesalers, retailers, exporters, International rice traders and brokers, Associated Marketing Services (AMS), Swedish importers and Swedish consumers. Rice from producers is taken through numbers of path before it‟s reached to consumers. Value of rice is raised along the chain it is taken through according to the costs incurred and marketing margin of each stakeholders. Profits are shared largely to stakeholders who have high bargaining power which are millers and exporters. The governance in domestic rice market goes forth and back along the chain. Prices of rice are influenced by local supply and demand of both local and international consumption.The policy measures adopted by Thai government create affects to the rice value chain to some extent; anyhow the chain typically adjusts itself by the market mechanism of demand and supply. Swedish government applies EU legislation in the country since Sweden has become the member of the European Union in 1995. Further to EU legislation, there are non-legislative requirements developed by market itself that rice exporters must be aware. / Program: Magisterutbildning i företagsekonomi

<p><strong><p>Problem:</p></strong></p><p>Palaseja is considering Sweden as a prospect market to enter and operate so, a study of Swedish</p><p>business environment and its uncontrollable elements is required for Palaseja to serve this purpose</p><p>effectively.</p><p><strong><p>Method:</p></strong></p><p>Thesis has followed a combination of exploratory & descriptive research and a qualitative approach</p><p>has been applied. Both primary and secondary data have been gathered, primary data was gathered</p><p>through interviews from retail stores' officials and Palaseja's sales manager.</p><p><strong><p>Conclusion:</p></strong></p><p>In this study, different environmental uncontrollable elements of Swedish market have been explored</p><p>to find out how they can influence a new entrant Palaseja in Sweden. There are a few legal</p><p>requirements for Palaseja to enter in food market of Sweden. Economic forces are facing a little slow</p><p>down effect due to recent global economic slump but are quite encouraging for any new company</p><p>entering Sweden in the long run. Breakfast cereal products that Palaseja produces have found to be a</p><p>common part of cultural breakfast habits and huge consumption of breakfast cereal per capita also</p><p>seems to be encouraging for new comers in this industry. Competitive forces have been found to be</p><p>extremely challenging and quite discouraging in some way. The country of origin effect seems to be</p><p>not so strong in Sweden although brand recognition of Palaseja is likely to cause some trouble to</p><p>Palaseja's success.</p>

Problem: Palaseja is considering Sweden as a prospect market to enter and operate so, a study of Swedish business environment and its uncontrollable elements is required for Palaseja to serve this purpose effectively. Method: Thesis has followed a combination of exploratory &amp; descriptive research and a qualitative approach has been applied. Both primary and secondary data have been gathered, primary data was gathered through interviews from retail stores' officials and Palaseja's sales manager. Conclusion: In this study, different environmental uncontrollable elements of Swedish market have been explored to find out how they can influence a new entrant Palaseja in Sweden. There are a few legal requirements for Palaseja to enter in food market of Sweden. Economic forces are facing a little slow down effect due to recent global economic slump but are quite encouraging for any new company entering Sweden in the long run. Breakfast cereal products that Palaseja produces have found to be a common part of cultural breakfast habits and huge consumption of breakfast cereal per capita also seems to be encouraging for new comers in this industry. Competitive forces have been found to be extremely challenging and quite discouraging in some way. The country of origin effect seems to be not so strong in Sweden although brand recognition of Palaseja is likely to cause some trouble to Palaseja's success.

Risk is something intrinsic to business, and something firms are exposed to on a daily basis. This means that there exists a great deal of pressure on the Top Management of a firm to successfully navigate the different risks to which they are exposed. The CEO holds a unique position in the firm, as she is ultimately responsible for deciding which strategies to employ in order to properly respond to these risks. But what influenced the CEO when making such decisions? The Upper Echelon Theory suggests that decisions made by the Top Management Team of a firm are influenced by their values and their cognitive base, which is formed throughout their upbringing. Researchers on Upper Echelon Theory suggest that these two abstract constructs can be difficult to measure and analyse, and should therefore be approximated using specific and observable characteristics of the Top Management Team. In our study, this theory has applied to Swedish CEOs as they are the ultimate decision-maker in a firm. The specific characteristics observed and analysed in our investigation into the relationship between the CEO and risk are; gender, age, nationality, and tenure. Thus, the purpose of this study is formulated as follows: “The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between CEO characteristics, specifically age, gender, tenure, and nationality, and firm risk-taking, as measured by the leverage ratio, stock return volatility, cash holdings, and R&amp;D expenditure, on the Swedish market. As a sub-purpose, we intend to investigate whether there is a nonlinear relationship between CEO tenure and risk-taking.” By collecting data from the databases, Thomson Reuters Eikon and Amadeus, a dataset of 284 firms and their CEOs was collected and used in the cross-sectional analysis. Multiple linear regression analysis was employed to determine the relationships between the previously mentioned CEO characteristics and the proxies for firm risk-taking. The majority of the relationships found were of a non-significant nature, indicating that the relationship between Swedish CEO characteristics and the strategies they employ when running their firms is weak and differs from relationships found in earlier studies, using data from different markets. The significant relationships found were between cash holdings and age, long tenures and leverage ratio, and short tenures and stock return volatility. This indicates that older CEOs are more risk-averse, while longer seated CEOs maintain less debt, and shorter seated CEOs are perceived as more risky by the market. However, as these results only entail 15% of our observed results, none of the hypotheses constructed for this study were verified. Therefore, our conclusion is that the previously observed relationships between the characteristics of CEOs and their risk-taking is not present within our sample of firms listed on the Swedish market. Some tendencies that align with previous results have been found but are not generalisable and as a result, we cannot recommend that private actors act on these results.

Increasing awareness of sustainable issues is just one of the ways how modern society has evolved. Due to the growing challenges faced by climate change and societal issues, our world has grown to be more innovative in the fight and support towards initiatives that will contribute to the long-term of the world we live in. Capitalists have exploited the resources, and as such, it is the economy where we can make the most significant changes to reverse the negative consequences. Responsible investment has incorporated various financial tools oriented towards the support of environmental, societal, and governance practices to revert the adverse effects brought on by capitalism. Sustainable bonds are a type of fixed income financial tool to support responsible investment practices. Their motive is to drive the financing of projects oriented towards positively contributing to the environment, society, and governance.   Previous studies on the field of responsible investment have covered the topic of green bonds and, most recently, social bonds. Although this field is relatively new, much of the literature developed has focused on the financial returns of such fixed-income assets. This thesis is the first to attempt the study of a self-created Swedish Sustainable Bond index consisting of 156 sustainable bonds issued in the Swedish market in correlation to three other asset classes. General interests and a lack of research due to its contemporary issuance in this context brought us to study such relation of return characteristics with its conventional bond counterpart, the equity market, and the energy stock section all within the Swedish market. The objective, as such, was to determine whether such an instrument could be used as a diversification tool.   For us to be able to conduct this study, we utilized the returns of each category’s indices. We applied different statistical models and tests, including correlation, univariate, and multivariate GARCH models, to be able to ensure robust results that could yield thought-provoking results for us to analyze. In conjunction with the Modern Portfolio Theory, we were able to determine that sustainable bonds provide investors with some diversification benefit by a positive correlation with the conventional bond and negative correlations with the equity and energy stock market. Volatility clustering and spillover effects within the Swedish sustainable bonds and the identified markets were also present.   We went a step ahead and curious to explore whether the conventional bond market was better off than the sustainable bond market. Such results indicate that the conventional bond is still a better tool for diversification purposes with the other two asset classes selected in comparison to the Swedish Sustainable Bond. As such, we are still wishful that sustainable bonds could potentially change their behavior in the future as a diversification tool, as more regulations and standardization of such asset classes are implemented.

Interest in indirect (secondary) refrigeration systems has grown since the discovery of the negative effect of environmentally hazardous refrigerants and leakage problems from direct expansion systems. Among the positive effects of indirect systems are: decreased quantities of primary refrigerant, factory built units and confinement of refrigerant to the machine room. Ground source heat pumps, ice rink and indirect system solutions for supermarket refrigeration are examples where indirect refrigeration systems are being used in Sweden. The secondary fluids circulating in the secondary systems are of great interest as its choice can affect heat transfer process; the overall performance of system; corrosion problems and maintenance costs as well as acceptable risks for the environment in case of leakage from the secondary system. A secondary fluid should have low viscosity, high thermal conductivity, high volumetric heat capacity, low freezing point, be non-corrosive, non-explosive, non-flammable, environmentally friendly, non-toxic, give low pressure drop in the system, have good material compatibility, chemically stable and have low cost. The market for secondary fluids worldwide and in Sweden is complex and a comprehensive overview of the available secondary fluids has not been available. The purpose of this thesis is to compile most of the existing secondary fluids on the Swedish market and present them briefly in this report. Different brands of secondary fluids on the Swedish market based on ethylene and propylene glycol, ethyl alcohol, potassium formate, potassium acetate, calcium chloride and other blends are presented in the thesis. Some of the most common brands are: Eco MPG, Dowcal 200, Dowcal N, Zitrec FC, Zitrec LC, Antifrogen L, Frigogel Neo, Heliogel CS80, Brineol MPG, Glytherm 20, Zitre MC, Dowcal 100, Antifrogen N, Neutragel Neo, Brineol MEG, Glytherm 10, Antifrogen Sol HT, Freezium, Hycool, Antifrogen KF, Brine 25, Swedbrine 25, Brenntag KBS, Brineol Bioethanol, E-Therm KBS Bio, Thermol, Zitrec S, Temper, Pekasol 50, Pekasol 2000, Greenway RTU, Greenway Heat Pump -30, greenway Solar -30, Thermera R and Thermera AC. Additionally, it is important to underline that a permit for installation of ground source heat pumps in Sweden is required. Swedish laws and regulations regarding secondary fluids and ground source heat pumps are complex and difficult to overview on municipalities’ levels.

The diploma thesis is devoted to market entry strategies, afterwards it is focused on entry to swedish market of selected company.The first chapter theoretically describes market entry strategies. The second chapter is focused on swedish market, as a target market of chosen company. The main part of this chapter pursues description and analysis of swedish entrepreneurial environment. Therefore two reports are used: Doing Business Report and Global Competitivness Report. The third chapter describes market entry of selected company, the fourth part evaluetes its rate of success. The aim of this thesis is to analyze reasons and market entry strategies, evaluate swedish market from the perspective of the Czech company entering the swedish market and at the end to assess the rate of success of the market entry.

This diploma theses is focused on marketing mix of a selected company which operates in an international environment. .The diploma thesis consists of three parts. The theoretical part focuses on the description of basic characteristics and concepts which are related to given issue. The analytical part consists of analyses performed in both internal and external environment of the company WoodBag s. r. o. on the assumption of its future expansion to the Swedish market. Results that we achieved are stated in SWOT analysis. The final part is the draft part, in which recommendations and potential suggestions from perspective of marketing mix towards successful expansion of the company to the Swedish market with results from particular analyses and theoretical background are presented.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine if the sector of industrial investments has been transformed over the last decade and if so, in which ways this transformation has happened. Digitalization has changed the business environment in a revolutionary manner and this phenomenon needs to be explored since it is new and rapidly growing. The author will attempt to connect the industrial investments’ field with sustainability and find out in what ways sustainability is affected by the transformation mentioned above. The study was performed in Sweden and refers to the Swedish market. The research concludes that industrial investments have been significantly transformed and have become more opportunistic. Short-term profit drives the majority of investment decisions as the main decision makers are continuously being replaced by others while sustainability is not taken under consideration. This situation will likely change either by ambitious governmental initiatives or by a change in the masses’ everyday behavior towards consciously sustainable choices.

There are major challenges for Chinese firms that may jeopardise the creation of credibility when establishing in the Swedish market. It is therefore important for Chinese firms to implement efficient international branding strategies that contribute to the formation of credibility for Chinese companies. International branding strategies of brand positioning, brand awareness and brand image constitute a foundation that Chinese brands can adopt to obtain credibility among Swedish consumers. Abductive research in accordance with the topic of study has been conducted through qualitative means. Primary data collection through semi-structured interviews with participants contributed to the investigation of the theoretical framework presented in the second chapter: Literature Review, and analysed in chapter five: Analysis. Through the analysis of the data, along with the presented prerequisite knowledge, the authors have been able to identify international branding strategies Chinese firms can implement to gain credibility. The thesis presents a conclusion of positioning a brand in accordance with Westernisation, price setting, presenting the country of origin, and beneficial attributes, while establishing familiarity through brand awareness and finally, conveying trustworthiness and high quality through the brand image to gain credibility.