Umeå University's logo

nternational market entry strategies gained increasing importance due to globalisation. Companies became multinationals. Therefore, new challenges arose due to different market and customer requirements. One topic, which gained importance in B2B context, is customer value. Customer value can be defined as the perceived benefits a company delivers its customers in comparison to the perceived expenses. Nevertheless, no uniform definition exist. In addition to that, if there is a direct connection between B2B customer value and international market entry strategies have not been investigated yet. Therefore, this thesisprojectdeals with the influence of B2B customer value on international market entry strategies. To determine the link, following research question guides this thesis: How does B2B customer value influence international market entry strategies in Northern Europe?The research isnot only focused on Northern Europe but also on the data centre segment. The investigated countries are Norway, Ireland, UK and Finland. These countries are highly interesting for the commission partnerdue to market developments and mega trends. Furthermore, the commission partneris represented by local subsidiaries in the four countries of interest. In order to answer the research question, deep insights are generated via semi-structured interviews. Three customer groups are investigated: Data centre operator as well as owner, constructors including panel builder and system integrators as well as design consultants. The interviews are conducted either face-to-face or if necessary via telephone in the four countries of interest. The interviews include questions about B2B relationships, brand and marketing.If culture influences B2B customer value is investigated indirectly bythe questions on B2B relationship.Market intelligence questions are added in order to create a deeper understanding of the market.Furthermore, these insights also help to interpret the answers of customers. Due to the interviews, a picture of the B2B customer value in Northern Europe is created. Northern European customers value reliable suppliers who can offer quality products as well as solutions. In addition to that, the importance of global brands andmarketing of competences is determined. Due to combining the findings with the cultural dimensions of Hofstede, it is concluded that customer value differs between other countries.Hence, customer value influences international market strategies, as different customer value require distinct international market entry strategies.

Det här examensarbetet utforskar hur covid-19 har förändrat sättet för industriföretag i norra Sverige att arbeta med supply chain risk management, där fokus ligger på de två processerna riskidentifiering och begränsningsstrategier. Supply chain risk management är ett växande ämne som fått allt mer uppmärksamhet hos forskare. Fortsättningsvis har existerande litteratur visat att covid-19 fick stora effekter på företags försörjningskedjor i form av störningar och att förändringar inom arbetet med risker tagit sin början. Däremot saknas forskning på hur förändringarna fortsatt utvecklas fram till idag som en konsekvens av pandemin. Därav saknas ett helhetsperspektiv över vilka förändringar som har skett från innan covid-19 fram tills idag. Vidare har existerande litteratur framhållit riskidentifiering och begränsningsstrategier som de två mest kritiska processerna i supply chain risk management och därför valde vi att rikta in studien på just dem. Fortsättningsvis har norra Sverige valts som geografisk kontext för studien eftersom det hittills varit ett outforskat område. Dessutom har industriföretag varit föremål för studien då de ofta har globala och komplexa försörjningskedjor. Syftet med den här studien är att undersöka och skapa en djupare förståelse för hur industriföretag belägna i norra Sverige har förändrat arbetet med riskidentifiering och riskbegränsning inom processen supply chain risk management från tidsperioden innan covid-19, under covid-19 och tiden efter covid-19. I studien genomfördes 6 semi-strukturerade intervjuer med respondenter från olika industriföretag i norra Sverige. En kvalitativ metod valdes för den här studien, tillsammans med ett induktivt synsätt, vilket har gett oss flera insikter om hur industriföretag förändrat sitt sätt att arbeta med risker från innan covid-19 till efter. 

För det första indikerar våra resultat att en förändring som har skett är att förståelsen har ökat under covid-19, för hur pandemier fungerar och vilka konsekvenser en pandemi kan orsaka för företagens verksamhet, från att knappt ha existerat innan covid-19. Det här medförde att företagen implementerade en mer strukturerad riskidentifiering och började arbeta mer konsekvent med riskidentifiering under covid-19. För det andra observerades en förändring där en övergång skett från fysiska riskidentifierings möten till digitala riskidentifierings möten, vilket berodde på social distansering. Samtidigt som mötensfrekvensen ökade för att kunna identifiera kritiska komponenter för verksamheten. För det tredje kunde resultatet visa att det har skett en förändring från att företag haft liten kunskap om leverantörer och avancerade datasystem under covid-19, till att de efter covid-19 införde verktyg för att förstå leverantörer tillsammans med avancerade datasystem. För det fjärde visar resultatet att företagen arbetade med leverantörer utifrån just-in-time innan covid-19, vilket förändrades under covid-19 då företagen blev medvetna om just-in-times utsatthet. För det femte påvisar resultatet att företag arbetade med endast en eller ett fåtal leverantörer innan covid-19 vilket förändrades under covid-19 då second sourcing infördes som begränsningsstrategi. För det sjätte användes inte strategin säkerhetslager under covid-19, men infördes efter covid-19. Slutligen bidrar studien med praktiska bidrag till industriföretag och personal. För det första, framkommer vikten av att ha kunskap och struktur för riskidentifiering och begränsningsstrategier hos industriföretag. För det andra, behöver företag arbeta mer med samarbeten och öka sin förståelse för olika intressenter för att hantera risker. För det tredje bör industriföretag införa säkerhetslager och second-sourcing för att hantera risker. För det fjärde, bör industriföretags personal få ökad möjlighet till information och kunskap om risker och hur dessa hanteras. Vårt teoretiska bidrag skapar en helhetsbild för hur riskidentifiering och begränsningsstrategier har förändrats på grund av covid-19 inom geografiska kontexten norra Sverige. Därutöver har studien bidragit med kvalitativ forskning på ämnet och gett en ökad förståelse för att det behövs mer forskning gällande makro-riskers påverkan på företags verksamhet och försörjningskedja. 

During the period of 2013-2022, there have been many interesting developments in the football industry in Europe. From accumulation of debt to disregarding the regulatory framework put in place by UEFA, football clubs have changed their capital structures to accommodate their financing needs.

There has been previous research that has found a relationship between ownership structure and financial performance, but none that has explored how ownership structure affects debt and liquidity given current circumstances. The scope of this study was to ultimately determine how the capital structure and the liquidity is affected. This is a broad topic and the authors have covered several aspects within the field. However, there have been suggestions on further research regarding how one could go about valuating a football club as most of the football clubs in Europe have private ownership structures. In the end, the sample consists of 8,588 firm-year observations and adapts a longitudinal methodology. The tests carried out consist of OLS regressions as well as a multivariate regression. To be able to compare the different ownership structures, several regressions were made to put each ownership structure as the reference group.

The authors of this thesis found that ownership affects debt and liquidity both individually and collectively. Therefore, answering the research question “What is the effect of ownership structure of football clubs in Europe on debt and liquidity?”. Football clubs in Europe have experienced low profitability, but rather high liquidity. The capital structures of said football clubs contain more debt than equity, where equity is negative in some cases. By comparing ownership structures, their effects on both debt and liquidity differentiate. This thesis contributes to already existing literature by contradicting Modigliani and Millers' assumption regarding bankruptcy costs. It also contributes practically to managers, investors, stakeholders, and regulators by providing context to different key financial metrics.

The present study investigates the role of the Front-End phase within the context of Innovative Small and Medium-sized Enterprises through the project management lens, focusing on what practitioners can do to manage this phase. Taking a cue from the assumption that the Front-End phase of a project is a very critical and important stage, this study begins with a literature review on innovation and on its role among the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, and moves to the identification of the main challengesthat an Innovative Italian Small and Medium Enterprise has to face in the Front-End phase. Particularly, the research focuses on the strategies that a project manager can implement to deal with the fuzzy nature of the Front-End phase, originated by uncertainty, equivocality and complexity. The study has an inductive approach and a cross-sectional time-horizon. A case study strategy has been employed, together with semi-structured interviews as data collection technique, involving six Italian Innovative Small and Medium-sized Enterprises identified through the framework of legal requirements provided by the European Union. Although literature poses on the same level all three elements, results show that there is a general consensus about the main role played by uncertainty. Practitioners identify several strategies to employ in order to deal with uncertainty, while the number of strategies identified to reduce equivocality and complexity is limited. Furthermore, this study identifies a correlation between the size of a company and the type of strategies employed to deal with the fuzziness. The more resource a company allocates on a project, the wider is the range of possible strategies project managers can adapt.

Entrepreneurial ecosystem is made up of multiple participants, components, and actors. The entrepreneurial ecosystem in Sweden consists of various components, all of which contribute to the creation and enhancement of entrepreneurial experiences for novice entrepreneurs. Research on immigrants has been carried and published, emphasizing men as the primary group within the immigrant population. The contradictory point about women remaining in the shadows is still vital and valid. This research tries to describe and explain the inclusion of these novice immigrant female entrepreneurs into the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Based on a literature review on the entrepreneurial ecosystem, women's motives for starting a new venture, and the breakthrough process, a qualitative approach was deemed appropriate to understand the flow and dynamics of this inclusion process. The case study method was used as the research strategy for two different groups of actors in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with two groups of people: The first group, business coaches, business developers, business consultants, and general managers who work on consulting and support projects for entrepreneurs. The second group consisted of foreign-born novice female entrepreneurs. The findings indicate that the obstacles to inclusion are more than just road paves. The most frequently addressed obstacles were those related to communication, cultural backgrounds, knowledge and training. Communication barriers prevent these entrepreneurs from engaging with other entrepreneurial ecosystem actors, resulting in exclusion. Another obstacle was the cultural background, which included social factors, language, norms, and beliefs. The final barrier was knowledge and training, which facilitated network building and provided entrepreneurs with the necessary information to establish and run their businesses. The analysis identified that obstacles and road pavers for the inclusion process are extending to all the actors included in this research; novice entrepreneurs must identify and build multiple ties that connect them to the other ecosystem actors, and the other actors must do the same to include these novice foreign born female entrepreneurs in the ecosystem. Communication for novice foreign-born female entrepreneurs, on the other hand, is to establish ties with other ecosystem actors, which will promote access to financing, consultancy, government rules and regulations, and training sessions. However, it was noted that ecosystem actors play an important role in the communication process and can turn it into a road paver. Another obstacle found through the study is the social and cultural influences that impede the communication process. For example, the paper identified language as a significant obstacle and the beliefs and norms that form these women's attitudes, and one of the significant attitudes is a lack of trust in government rules and regulations. Finally, knowledge and training are regarded as a communication tool that connects these novice immigrant female entrepreneurs to the other ecosystem actors, besides introducing them to the components of the entrepreneurial ecosystem like financing and funding. Since the paper focused on a small number of actors and ecosystem components, it was not easy to thoroughly define and justify the inclusion process. Further research could investigate the steps of the process and the participants, including other actors and ecosystem components not covered in this paper.

The fast-growing economy in China attracts the world’s interests, which includes the Chinese stock markets. The market efficiency of Chinese stock markets is widely discussed by researchers in different approaches. The involvement of government in stock markets is a unique case in the financial world.

By this paper, we are answering the question that is the degree of market efficiency of stat-owned companies different from that of private companies in Chinese stock markets. This will bring us knowledge about Chinese stock markets as well as the impact from ownership, market value and management styles on market efficiency.

To clarify the influence from government involvement in stock markets, we select 938 stocks distinguished by ownership structure. This quantitative study is preceded on daily data from 2007 to 2011. We use auto correlation, Chi-square test, and linear regression together with Spearman’s correlation to test our hypothesis. The degree of market efficiency of each ownership group is examined and compared to each other. Market efficiency related to ownership and market capitalization are inspected if they are anomaly factors in Chinese markets.

The empirical results indicate that the degree of market efficiency of state-owned companies is significantly different from the degree of market efficiency of private-owned companies in China. The market capitalization is one of the existing anomaly factors in Chinese stock markets, as well as it is correlated with degree of market efficiency to some extent. For state-owned enterprises, active management on stock market does not provide a better market efficiency compared to passively managed companies.

Today, mergers and acquisitions often grab headlines due to the large sums of money involved, and the number of stakeholders affected by it. Still, the increase in merger and acquisition activities, the capital involved, and the pervasiveness of these activities stand in sharp contrast to their high rates of failures. Scholars have attributed the failure of mergers and acquisitions to management failure when it comes to dealing with human aspects during the integration phase.

The purpose of this paper was to examine how individual’s identities change overtime in a merger. More specifically, it examines the process of post-merger organizational identification in merger contexts through the lens of social identity theory. From this purpose, we formulated the following research question and two sub-questions:

• • How can post-merger identification be managed and integrated in an organization?
• o How can organizational identities transit from a pre-merger state to a post-merger state successfully?
• o What is the outcome of the post-merger identification process?

The method used in this study was qualitative with an interpretive approach, which allowed us to gain a deeper understanding regarding the purpose and to answer our research question. Primary data came from purposive sampling, where 14 semi-structured interviews with individuals with various managerial positions in post-merger integrations were conducted to gain an understanding of how they tackled the integration process. The secondary data used resulted from previous research, literature, articles and other internet sources. The interviews were qualitatively analyzed through a thematic coding procedure.

The backbone of our theory consists of perspectives on mergers and acquisitions from the lens of social identity theory. Particularly, it was used to understand the post-merger organizational identification process. The theoretical components were used to understand group formations and intra- and intergroup relationships, the effects mergers have on individuals, and what the effects of the outcomes of post-merger identification have on group and organizational identity.

Our findings disclose that organizational identities are exclusive by nature and that they remain in this state unless managerial actions are taken which triggers commitment from groups to change. These actions must combine communication efforts with managerial interventions which promote intergroup cooperation, prototypical norms and values. Depending on the actions and the goal of the merger, the nature of the post-merger identity is a combination of two identities which forms an overarching one, or an assimilation of one identity into another.

The contributions from this study come in two forms: theoretical and managerial. The theoretical contributions come through our findings showing how organizational identity emerge, change and how they are formed. The managerial contributions provide recommendations on how practitioners should facilitate the process, the vital role the manager has in the process and approaches they could take based on our findings.

Stories have always been present in the life of people as a part of their culture, it is a rather ancient narrative technique. The message delivered in a form of a story is specifically appealing to listeners, which makes it a powerful communication tool. The thesis explores storytelling practices in project management by answering the question: “How project managers use storytelling in new business process implementation in ICT projects?” The choice of the topic was driven by the gap in the literature and the choice of context was chosen by the level of maturity of project management in ICT industry. Within the framework of interpretivist research paradigm, the data was collected by interviewing ten project managers of new business process implementation in ICT projects.

The thesis findings suggest that storytelling in implementation of new business processes in ICT projects is used in formal and informal forums in written and verbal format. Project managers use storytelling to pursue several goals: making sense of ICT projects, human resource management, promoting adaptation to new business processes, knowledge management and attracting new customers and investments into ICT projects. Storytelling in ICT projects is also limited by storytelling conditions, such as organizational culture, extent of change, governance structure. Storytelling in projects is subject to challenges, such as logistics and timeliness of practices.

From the practical point of view, the thesis explores storytelling as an effective communication tool that can be used for multiple goals in project management. It allows adding storytelling to the requirement list of new soft competences of project managers. The thesis has bridged a literature gap between storytelling and project management, which opens new theoretical perspective of interpreting the reality in projects and creates space for further research.

The main objective of this thesis is to identify the impact management accounting has on the human resources. Management accounting on all the business practices such as human resource, marketing and customer relation, cost management and production is a current trend in the business world today. With evaluation of the cost management; Management accounting plays a major role by inter relating to all the above-mentioned areas in an organization. Since it is a broad subject to explore, in this paper it has been discussed the impact of the management accounting to the human resource management (HR) and HR department. The data were gathered by conducting a questionnaire with open ended and close ended questionnaire form by delivering to the employees who work in human resource management, accounting and finance and administration departments on a global level. The main objective of the questionnaire form is to identify the budgeting process, employee recruitment process, rewarding process, sustainability activity and employee’s opinion on the sustainability activities in the organization and overall view which employees have on their companies which they work in. Data gathered from participants who is working in Sri Lanka, Sweden, Pakistan and UAE. By collecting information from the questionnaire, research has been done by using both qualitative and quantitate analysis (Since we used both open and close ended question). Through the research we could identify that; there is a positive relationship between the human resource department and managerial accounting; managerial accounting act as mediator of information provider, decision maker, analysists and resource allocation planner.

This qualitative study delves into the effects of Computer Assisted Audit Tools (CAAT) onthe quality of audits in Sri Lanka. Recognizing the lack of a universal definition for auditquality, this research draws upon established frameworks by Knechel et al. (2013) and theInternational Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) from 2014 to explore auditquality indicators within the domains of input, process, context, and outcome. The researchadopts an Interpretivism paradigm to appreciate subjective viewpoints and humanisticaspects within its methodology. In order to gain an in-depth understanding, semi-structuredinterviews were conducted with auditors from the big four, private firms, and large localaudit firms in Sri Lanka.Selection criteria ensured a diverse sample size of seven participants from each firmcategory. Findings reveal that not only does the use of audit software contribute to enhancedaudit quality in Sri Lanka, but motivated auditors armed with effective tools are also morelikely to produce reports devoid of misstatements.Furthermore, the study observes a discrepancy in technology adoption for auditing purposeswith larger firms utilizing more advanced systems compared to smaller local entities anddiscusses how this dichotomy impacts overall audit practices. The research ultimatelyunderscores the significance of technological innovation and auditor motivation in elevatingaudit quality within the Sri Lankan context and offers valuable insights for practitioners,regulators, and academics aiming to bridge practices with global standards.

Due to the rapid technological development in information technologies, and mobile phone industry the usage of smart phone became a new trend consequently leading to more than one billion Smartphone users in the world. One of the most significant characteristic of those users is their growing need to be always connected to the Internet. Desire to do not miss important conversation, news, favorite TV series or result of sports events leads them to subsribe for mobile broad band or else use internet-on-the-go. Consequently telecommunication service providers witnessed increasing trend in mobile broad band subscription over the past five years outnumbering access to the Internet via desktop or other fixed broad band alternatives. Telecommunication providers are not the only one who experienced those changes. The crowd of smart phone users is constantly growing, thus on one hand it represents a compelling group of customers to target yet on the other hand due to its novelty it represents an obstacle for marketers and advertisers when executing communication with customers via a new channel, mobile advertising.

Based on market research firms’ predictions of future trends in marketing, mobile advertising represent a one of the most effective communication channels due to its measurability, individual targeting via personalised messages and geo-location targeting.

Therefore, in this thesis paper we identified research gap in form of lack of knowledge, that prevents both marketers and advertisers from leveraging the potential of mobile advertising. Designated purpose of this theis is to investigate role of attitudes and flow experience in mobile advertising. Research question to be answered is: What is the impact of advertising message personalisation, permission, and flow experience on attitude towards mobile advertising? And consequently examine what is the effect of attitude towards mobile advertising and flow experience on purchase intention of Swedish customers?

In order to address such an issue we developed theoretical framework and conducted survey among Umeå inhabitants to find out their preferences and experiences with mobile advertising. Collected information were analysed in regards to the theoretical framework consisting of theory of flow experience and theory of reasoned action.

However the data analysis did prove flow of experience theory as well as theory of reasoned action not all aspects did stand. Through our work we found out that flow experience and attitude towards mobile advertising were supported for purchase intention. While permission, personalisation, infotainment and incentives were supported for attitudes towards mobile advertising.

Abstract

Customers are the main reason behind every companies’ survival in the market. And winning their interest has now become the concern for company owners and managers as well. However, many factors can affect the customer's satisfaction in the marketing environment. Among the determinants, service quality takes the most substantial part. Many Scholars have also identified the underlying relationships between these two constructs. Notably, the perception-expectation gap is a useful cue to determine their link. Thus, this research mainly relies on uncovering the customer's perception of service quality. As a result, the study is conducted in one of the biggest chain restaurant named Pizza Hut. And the author chooses the research location to be in Uppsala.

Purpose

This study has a two-fold research purpose in that it aims at measuring the perception of customers in the restaurant industry and examining the validity of DINESERV in Sweden's cultural context.

Design/Methodology/approach

The author has employed a convenience sampling technique to conduct the research and pre-developed questionnaires from the so-called DINESERV instrument. Additionally, factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha were used to check the validity and reliability of the model, respectively. The gap score was also computed using the means. Then finally, a spearman's correlation coefficient was calculated to test the strength of the relationship between the customer's satisfaction and service quality dimensions.

Finding

The analysis carried out proved that DINESERV is a valid instrument to measure customer's perception of service quality in Sweden's cultural context. Besides, the correlation between service quality dimension and customer satisfaction were validated using a spearman's rho. Lastly, the result from the gap score indicates that the two dimensions (i.e., responsiveness & reliability) were perceived as inferior by the customers.

Research implications

The theoretical finding suggests that DINESERV is the right instrument to measure the service quality of restaurants in Sweden's context. And the practical implication approves that pizza hut in Uppsala has two inferior dimensions that need continuous improvement. Lastly, the demographic characteristics of the respondents show that most of the customers are categorized under the younger age group (i.e., 18-36), and this information can be used for marketing purposes by the company.

Key Words – DINESERV, Service quality, Customer satisfaction, Restaurant

Living Labs (LLs) are now well-recognized in the development and commercialization of science—that is taking emerging discoveries from research labs to the industry. Whereas their widespread interest seems encouraging, it has been complicated by some inconsistencies regarding what LLs actually are, what types of activities they (should) support, and under what conditions. We conduct a meta-synthesis of 41 LL application patterns, supplemented by an in-depth empirical case study—the application of a MedTech LL in healthcare—to examine effective practices for organizing collaborative innovation within the science-industry nexus. By studying what worked best and under what conditions, we present a typology of eight design elements that underlie four unique LL models. Our analysis reveals that although these different models do fit under the same umbrella concept, they vary in the roles they serve in the collaborative innovation process. Most notably, we find that organizations need to navigate between these models as the collaboration moves from idea inception into impact. Our results offer relevant insights for understanding new forms of organizations for science-industry relations. We discuss practical implications for LL managers, researchers, and sponsoring institutions and conclude by outlining promising areas for future research.

Innovation intermediaries have emerged as prominent forms of intervention for supporting technological changes and driving sociotechnical transitions. In this paper, we draw on an in-depth case study tracing the emergence and evolution of an intermediary organization created specifically to address innovation-related challenges and spur digital transformation in the healthcare sector in Montreal, Canada. We analyze data from 85 interviews with leading actors in the healthcare ecosystem, coupled with supplementary material, meetings, and follow-ups to theorize how intermediaries help facilitate the diffusion of emerging digital technologies in this sector. Our analysis reveals two interrelated processes: (1) "technology-focused intermediation" to help co-create the technology in accordance with existing demands; and (2) "ecosystem-focused intermediation" to help reinforce ecosystem components for enabling effective deployment. Each of these processes is driven by sourcing, mobilizing, and scaling activities intended to align the technology development trajectory with envisioned sociotechnical requirements.

Folkfinansiering via Internet har på senare tid växt fram som en finansieringskanal förnya projekt och företagsidéer som har svårt att bli finansierade genom de traditionellafinansieringskanalerna. Det har emellertid varit okänt hur småföretagare ser på dennafinansieringskanal och vad de upplever som dess för- och nackdelar. Syftet med dennauppsats är att skapa förståelse för småföretagares uppfattning och inställning till deolika finansieringskanalerna banklån, riskkapital, kapital från affärsänglar ochfolkfinansiering. Studien har ett särskilt fokus på hur folkfinansiering står sig ursmåföretagarens perspektiv.För att skapa oss en förståelse för småföretagares finansieringssituation har vi samlatteorier som berör finansiering av just småföretag. Den teoretiska referensramenbehandlar därför traditionella finansieringsalternativ som banklån, riskkapital ochaffärsänglar men innehåller även vad som är känt om finansieringsformenfolkfinansiering. Vårt arbete är en kvalitativ studie där vi har intervjuat småföretagare iUmeå om hur de ser på de olika finansieringsformerna samt deras tankar kringfolkfinansiering.Resultatet visar att folkfinansiering kan fungera både som ett komplement och substituttill traditionell finansiering. Respondenterna hade generellt sett en positiv inställning tillfolkfinansiering men hade ändå vissa farhågor om att en folkfinansieringskampanjkunde ta onödigt mycket tid i anspråk och inte ge samma avlastning till entreprenörensom de andra finansieringsalternativen gav. Våra resultat visar även att banklån är enväldigt oattraktiv finansieringsform för denna kategori av företagare. Däremot sesaffärsänglar och riskkapitalister som ett bättre alternativ om det får ske påentreprenörens egna villkor. Fördelarna med affärsänglar och riskkapital jämfört medfolkfinansiering upplever respondenterna är att de utöver kapital även får tillgång tillvärdefull kunskap och viss avlastning i sitt företagande. Detta upplevdes intefolkfinansiering kunna bidra med.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to increase the knowledge about technology based services affection of the ability of retail banks to build customer based brand equity among students.

Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual model has been developed from theories regarding customer based brand equity, switching barriers and choice criteria. Based on this conceptual model, seven in depth interviews including several brand elicitation techniques were conducted.

Findings – The findings show that students perceive the target banks to be rather similar, especially regarding technologies. In addition, the students are satisfied with their bank, however; the technology based services have difficulties in creating true customer based brand equity. Behind this difficulties are the special character of financial service combined with the student role. Together, these results suggest that the banks need to do something besides the actual services in order to build customer based brand equity and keep the customers for a long term relationship. These strategies must be developed and implemented carefully in order to keep the current image of credibility.

Research limitations/implications – The paper has not included comprehensive eliciting techniques and this must be taken into account when reflecting about unconscious brand associations. 

Practical implications – The findings include good insights and advices that bank managers can use to create meaningful differentiations in the future and attract and keep students as customers for a long time. 

Originality/value - The paper combines customer based brand equity with switching barriers, which give valuable insights to both banks and researchers. Moreover, the time period of the study related to the technological innovation provides the brand equity research in the financial sector with updated knowledge.

Sverige förändras allt mer mot ett kontantlöst samhälle och det kontanta betalningsalternativet har försvunnit på bussar, parkeringsautomater och offentliga toaletter. Anmärkningsvärt är att förändringen även nått banksektorn, en sektor starkt förknippad med kontanter. Kunderna hos dessa banker blir därmed tvungna att använda Self Service Technologies (SST:s) i form av automater för att uträtta sina kontantärenden. Samtidigt som bankkundernas valmöjlighet minskar så går Handelsbanken  mot strömmen och fortsätter erbjuda manuell kontanthantering på sina kontor.

En undersökning gjord av Svenskt Kvalitetsindex visade att bankernas kundnöjdhet (tjänstekvalité) har försämrats på grund av förändringen. För att mäta tjänstekvalitén hos de olika tjänsterna kan man dela upp dessa i mindre beståndsdelar, dimensioner, vilka är olika för SST:s och traditionella tjänster. Vår promblematisering ledde därmed till följande frågeställning:

Vilka dimensioner i tjänstekvalitén, sett utifrån SST- och traditionella tjänster, ger förklaringar till bankernas försämrade tjänstekvalité?

Huvudsyftet med studien var främst att kartlägga vilka dimensioner som förklarar bankernas försämrade tjänstekvalité. Utifrån detta ville vi även bidra med praktiska råd till bankerna för att förbättra tjänsterna och således förbättra kundernas upplevda tjänstekvalité. Dessutom ville vi studera om det finns skillnader mellan äldre och yngre kunder angående deras åskter kring de två olika kontanthanteringstjänsterna. Vi ville även kartlägga skillnader mellan kundernas ålder, teknologiska mognadsgrad och behov av mänsklig interaktion.

Studien genomfördes genom en enkätundersökning på bankkunder i ålder 18-85 år bosatta i  Umeå kommun. Studien använde sig av ett kvoturval bestående av tre kvoter:  åldersgrupp 18-35, åldersgrupp 36-59 och åldersgrupp 60-85. Insamlat material sammanställdes i en importance-performance analys och användes vid hypotesprövningar.

Vår studie visade att dimensionerna säkerhet och användarvänlighet för SST:s kan förklara bankernas försämrade tjänstekvalité. Främst uppfattar de äldre kunderna att uttagsautomaternas säkerhet är bristfällig. Samtidigt kan detta även förklaras av att kundernas valmöjligheter minskat och att vissa kunder blivit så nöjda med tjänsten manuell kontanthantering att de blir missnöjda i och med förändringen.

Vår förhoppning är att bankerna skall använda de praktiska råden och där igenom förbättra tjänstekvalitén. Vårt teoretiska bidrag är främst att ge en ökad kunskap rörande SST:s dimensioner och skillnader i åldergrupperna.

The notion of International New Ventures, or INVs, emerged in academia in the early-to-mid 1990s and generally refers to entrepreneurial firms that tend to internationalize very early in their life-cycle, and whose expansion into foreign markets occurs much more quickly than predicted by earlier theories of the incremental internationalization process. Previous literature proposes effective networking with market partners and, more recently, internationally viable business model among key distinguishing features of INVs that allow for such early and rapid entry into international markets. Nevertheless, little is yet known regarding how these younger firms develop over time and how they could sustain international growth. With the purpose of filling this gap, this doctoral dissertation scrutinizes business models and business model innovation of INVs beyond their early internationalization, with a particular emphasis on INVs’ external relationships configurations.

The dissertation consists of four self-contained essays that represent a methodological mixture of qualitative and quantitative approaches and incorporate longitudinal case studies, surveys and register-based data encompassing nine years of Swedish INVs’ development. The findings highlight the importance of the business model as an initial market entry tool, and of business model innovation as a potential growth vehicle over time. Findings also display that INVs work with a broader range of external partners compared to other firms for innovative purposes, and that INVs have different business model innovation patterns compared to other types of internationalized firms. Moreover, INVs focus more heavily on value capture innovations in their business models as they mature and seek to obtain a more centralized position in their industry ecosystem by re-configuring the parameters of existing external relationships or developing new ones.

Overall, this dissertation contributes to the international entrepreneurship and business model literature by explicating how maturing INVs need to operate under different business model configurations as compared to emerging INVs, as the original business model might lack scalability after a certain point in time. Furthermore, the dissertation suggests how INVs can pursue a dynamic business model approach and utilize dynamic capabilities to design business models that put the focal firm more in control of the surrounding ecosystem, and reduce constraints that can limit the value capturing potential and thus the growth and development of INVs.

Addressing International New Venture development over time and acknowledging INVs’ high degree of reliance on external relationships coupled with limited business model control, this study explores the interplay of INVs’ reconfiguration of relationship patterns and business model innovation over time. The study builds upon longitudinal case studies of three Swedish INVs beyond early internationalization stage, conducted over a period of four years. The results indicate that maturing INVs strive towards eco-system centrality to increase business model control and to capture more value from their business model portfolio. This study also suggests that coopetitive business model configurations could impair growth of maturing INVs and that engaging with new external partners could yield a more dynamic business model portfolio and expand INV’s international presence

Business model innovation (BMI) is receiving increased academic attention as a tool for gaining new or retaining existing firms' competitive advantages. This paper investigates value delivery and value capture dimensions of BMI utilized by international new ventures (INVs) and shows how this category of firms differs from other internationalized firms in Sweden. Our findings indicate that INVs tend to innovate value delivery and value capture dimensions in the form of sales channels and logistical methods more frequently than other internationalized firms and reconfigure their external relationships more intensively as well. By utilizing longitudinal data, we show that these aspects continue to differentiate INVs and constitute a unique characteristic of INVs over time. Hence, this study enhances the academic debate on business models of INVs as well as on their long-term development past early internationalization efforts. From a managerial perspective, the study highlights where to focus BMI initiatives for sustained international presence and growth.

In this study we examine the scope and pattern of innovation cooperation of international new ventures (INVs) of different age, size and formation type. Using longitudinal micro-matched database and Swedish Community Innovation Survey results for the years 1998–2009, we show that INVs are more likely to be involved in international cooperation than other firms, and that INVs are also more likely to have a broader scope of international partnerships in terms of number of partners and geographic location of these partners. We further show how age of a firm that originated as an INV and its formation type – greenfield, spin-off or merger – affect patterns of international cooperation for innovation.

Purpose: In this study, we empirically investigate the link between business model innovation and stock market performance, as measured by volatility, accumulated growth, exponential growth and earnings per share, in 147 US stock market listed technology companies between 2014 and 2016. As such, the purpose of the study is to examine how business model innovation behavior is received by stock market investors and consequently reflected in their stock market performance. We also propose that multiple business model innovations have a more positive stock market impact than a single business model innovation.

Design/methodology/approach: This paper employs a quantitative research design, utilizing stock market data from Bloomberg together with secondary data gathered for assessing business model innovations. To test the hypotheses, we specify and estimate a set of similarly unrelated regressions (SUR) with market indicators as dependent variables (DVs) and business model innovation as core independent variable (IV), controlling for market capitalization and industry affiliation of the firm. As market performance indicators are likely to be affected by the same unobservables, SUR is a preferred specification as it allows accounting for contemporaneous correlations (Greene, 2012).

Findings: The results yielded significant and positive results, by conventional measures, regarding two out of four of the dependent variables, namely exponential growth and cumulative growth regarding multiple business model innovations. However, for the other two dependent variables, volatility and earnings per share, the results were positive for multiple business model innovations and more so than single business model innovation. Although, not quite statistically significant by conventional measurements.

Research limitations/implications: Limitations of this study include a single country-focus, relatively few firms and a single industry. Further research in this area might do well to mitigate all these factors, by looking, for example, at cross-country samples across a few or several different industries. Another limitation to our research is the limited information regarding the precise number of BMIs within the companies, which did not allow us to assign continuous values to the BMI variable; nevertheless, it can be done in the future studies.

Regardless of the study’s limitations, it contributes to recent academic debates with regard to business model innovation and the effects of different types of performance that business model innovation can have. Few studies have looked at BMI in conjunction with stock market data before and more studies of this type are likely needed to solidify results for more generalized conclusions

Practical implications: The study gives the signal to managers in high-technology listed firms that business model portfolios and multiple business model innovation, while each being smaller “bets” is looked upon favorably by stock market investors in the short term and can, therefore, also be good for the focal company in the shorter term. Hence, the study provides empirical support to the notion that listed firms should dare to be innovative and experiment with several concurrent business models to pursue new growth opportunities, as the stock market rewards such behavior.

Originality/value: Few studies have previously looked at business model innovation and stock market performance across different performance metrics. In addition, this study argues that portfolios of business model innovations are driving stock market performance and therefore offer insight into how listed companies can manage their business model innovation efforts in alignment with stock market expectations.

This paper scrutinises how and for what purpose international new ventures (INVs), of various formation types and at different development stages, innovate organisational structures and routines in comparison to other internationally active firms in Sweden. We show that INVs place more emphasis on reorganising their external relationships and primarily aim their reorganisation efforts at furthering their ability to enhance innovative output. Coupled with the fact that INVs report higher rates of new-to-market innovations than other internationalised firms, we conclude that INVs retain their innovative focus over time and, irrespective of their formation type, continuously advance their networking capabilities. We propose that dynamic innovation-advancing relational capability is a characteristic that is unique to the INVs as a group of firms.

This paper scrutinizes how and for what purposeinternational new ventures (INVs), of various formation types and at different developmentstages, innovate organizational structures and routines in comparison to otherinternationally active firms in Sweden. We show that INVs place more emphasison reorganizing their external relationships and primarily aim theirreorganization efforts at furthering their ability to enhance innovativeoutput. Coupled with the fact that INV report higher rate of new-to-marketinnovations than other internationalized firms, we conclude that INVs retaintheir innovative focus over time and, irrespective of their formation type,continuously advance their networking capabilities. We propose that dynamicinnovation-advancing relational capability as a characteristic that is uniqueto the INVs as a group of firms.

Under en längre tid har diskussioner förts huruvida en förändring behövs inom revisionsbranschen med ändring av revisorns arbetsuppgifter och den tillhörande revisionsberättelsen. Dessa diskussioner har lett till förändringar i form av förordningar från EU samt att förändringar i ISA standarder från IFAC har utformats gällande bland annat revisionsberättelsen. Dessa kommer främst påverka börsnoterade företag genom den nya ISA standarden 701 gällande ”Key Audit Matters” men även onoterade företag kommer påverkas genom tillägg i övriga ISAs. Förändringarna på internationell nivå har stått som grund för FARs förändringar av svenska lagar och rekommendationer för hur revisionsberättelsen ska utformas samt vilken information den skall förmedla till företagets intressenter. Dessa förändringar är vad vi i denna studie kommer att undersöka.

Vi undersöker huruvida förändringarna kommer leda till en bättre revisionsberättelse, både enligt revisorer och intressenter till det granskade företaget, närmare bestämt företagsrådgivare anställd på bank och investeringsrådgivare, samt om dessa förändringar antas leda till ett minskat förväntningsgap i revisionsbranschen som helhet. Studien utförs med en kvantitativ metod genom en enkätundersökning som sänds ut till urvalet med frågor om respondenternas åsikter kring förändringarna i revisionsberättelsen som snart träder i kraft samt frågor med syfte att utreda huruvida förändringarna antas minska förväntningsgapet. Totalt erhölls 54 fullständigt besvarade enkäter från revisorer samt 57 fullständigt besvarade enkäter från rådgivare. Dessa svar kopplas sedan med utvalda teorier i form av agentteorin och förväntningsgapet samt med tidigare studier inom området.

Studiens problemformulering lyder; Anser revisorer samt företags- och investeringsrådgivare att de kommande förändringarna i revisionsberättelsen genererar ett ökat informationsvärde samt minskar förväntningsgapet? Resultatet studien gav visade att både revisorer och rådgivare anser att förändringarna i revisionsberättelsen är positiva och kommer att leda till ett ökat informationsinnehåll i berättelsen. Vi kunde även utläsa att längden på respondenternas arbetslivserfarenhet var den främst förklarande variabeln till attityder mot förändringarna med ett resultat som visade att revisorer med kortare arbetslivserfarenhet och rådgivare med längre arbetslivserfarenhet såg mer positivt på förändringarna. Indikationer erhölls även på att förväntningsgapet antas minskas i framtiden i och med förändringarna i revisionsberättelsen då rådgivares förväntningar på revisorer idag överstiger dess faktiska arbetsuppgiften men att förändringarna revisionsberättelsen genomgår får intressenters förväntningar att närma sig vad revisorns faktiska arbetsuppgift är. 

På senare år har det varit många skandaler exempelvis Enron och Worldcom vilka skakat den finansiella marknaden. Den gemensamma nämnaren var revisorer vilka ej varit oberoende i sitt agerande mot företagen och intressenterna. Dessa skandaler har lett till en ökad diskussion om revisorsyrket samt vad som påverkar revisorernas oberoende. Då intressenterna är beroende av att informationen är kvalitetssäkrad av revisorerna har dessa felaktigheter slagit hårt mot dem som grupp.

I Sverige skall revisorer följa de lagar och regler som gäller för aktiebolag i samband med en revision. En av dessa regler är uttalandet om ett företags fortsatta drift, vilket påvisas i samband med revisionsberättelsen. Denna anmärkning skall följa direktiven i ISA 570. I denna studie har vi valt att definiera revisorns oberoende som förmågan att korrekt utfärda en anmärkning om fortsatt drift enligt ISA 570. Det har även utförts tester utifrån en bredare proxyvariabel för revisorns oberoende nämligen anmärkning om ekonomisk svårighet.

Då intressenterna är en grupp vilket felaktigheter från revisorn slår hård mot har denna studie valt att undersöka revisorernas oberoende ur intressenternas perspektiv. För att kunna mäta revisorernas oberoende genom att studera samma information vilket intressenterna får (årsredovisningarna), utfördes en kvantitativ undersökning av företag vilket avslutat konkursen under de sista fyra månaderna av år 2010. Studien grundades på en deduktiv forskningsansats och använde 943 observationer av företag vilket avslutat konkursen år 2010.

Studien undersökte revisorernas oberoende med undersökningsvariablerna revisionsarvode, konsultarvode och storleken på staden där revisorn var verksam i. Städerna delades upp i liten, mellanstor och stor stad. Dessa undersöktes genom användandet av binära logistiska regressioner med anmärkning om fortsatt drift, samt anmärkning om ekonomisk svårighet som beroende variabel. I studien inkluderade vi kontrollavariabler vilka visats påverka revisorns oberoende utifrån tidigare studier.

Då tidigare studier mest undersökt revisionsbolagen på antingen koncernnivå eller kontorsnivå valdes att undersöka revisionsbolagen på en stadsnivå. Att välja ett stadsperspektiv ledde till en djupare insikt om det skiljer i oberoendet mellan olika storlekar på städer.

Resultatet av denna studie uppvisar ej något signifikant samband mellan städernas storlek och revisorns oberoende. Även revisionsarvodet och konsultarvodet uppvisade ej ett signifikant samband med revisorns förmåga att korrekt utfärda en anmärkning om fortsatt drift eller förmåga att anmärka om ekonomiska svårigheter. Det leder till att revisorns oberoende enligt denna studies resultat ej kan antas påverkas av dessa faktorer.

Purpose – This research aims to explore the effectiveness of utilising Benefits Realisation Management (BRM) as part of comprehensive success measures, emphasising the stage in-between appraisal and evaluation of projects in the UK public sector.

Design/methodology/approach – The study is constructed as a qualitative case study. Semi-structured interviews are used as part of the inductive, exploratory approach to achieve the study's objectives. It employs an approach based on grounded theory for its analysis.

Findings – This paper suggests that Benefits Realisation Management is not used effectively in the UK public sector during projects lifetime to control and monitor projects and ensure their success. The current reviews of projects and programmes, through their execution, may not be sufficient.

Research limitations/implications – This study offers contributions to the project success literature and benefits management literature by adding empirically supported insights about BM utilisation during project reviews. The research may be limited primarily by the research method – predominantly the snow-balling data collection. The assumptions made about the UK public sector may limit the broader generalisation of the findings.

Practical implications – This research may be used to advise the practising managers of the need to maintain benefits orientation after appraisal throughout a project's lifetime and after delivery. Project governance structures are advised to update and improve their current project review practices. The study additionally identifies possible obstacles to the process and biases.

Originality/value – This paper attempts to fill a literature gap by providing empirical results that explore the success definition and measures and the effectiveness of BRM during project execution and gate reviews.

Keywords: Benefits Management; Project Success; Project Performance; Performance Measurement; Public Sector.

Paper type: Research Thesis

While finance has been studied for several years, behavioural finance, an area that studies how psychological influences can affect market outcomes, is still relatively new, and this subject remains wide open for greater exploration.

Social media, which has experienced rapid growth and is now a fundamental part of everyday life, is recognized as key to predicting future outcomes, leading to several studies exploring this subject. Despite this, there is not a great deal of research on how the content on social media affects other real-life time-dependent events. This study addresses that concern while it also explores the field of behavioural finance.

The research aims to study the impact of social media on investment decisions, focusing on the Swedish stock market. The study uses a quantitative method, and the data is collected from questionnaires designed through Google Forms, followed by an analysis using Microsoft Excel software.

To have an improved grasp of the extent to which social media influences investment decisions and understand the elements of online social media and the depth of their involvement, we will break down this area into three dimensions, which will be assessed.

The three dimensions of social media that will be examined are information from social media, online community behaviour, and firm image.

This study's findings established a relationship between social media and investment decision, and these three independent variables positively correlate with the dependent variable (investment decision). In other words, the results of this study have proven that social media does have an impact on investment decisions.

This study aims to contribute to literature for future financial research on a relevant topic that examines the effect of social networks on movement in capital markets.

Mandated collaboration networks are an overly studied topic in the field of public administration and management, with the emphasis on these studies however focused on the failures to accomplish its collaborative aims. The role that mandated collaboration networks play today in enabling societies and governments alike,  to realize insurmountable challenges through their  collaborative efforts is however not being paid as much attention as it should be, yet through it, huge socio and economic benefits are derived. 

This study recognizes the part mandated collaboration network plays by seeking to further investigate the role, power and trust play in influencing managers towards attaining efficiency. Data was collected from 7 managers from the public sector, with some public managers, tasked with the responsibility of playing oversight role and disbursing funds and other public managers tasked with implementing the services, all working towards achieving a regional goal within Västerbotten region. By conducting semi-structured interviews with them, the aim was to find out the daily encounters they faced in implementing their activities and achieving their goals.

In order to analyze this study adequately, theories were derived from governance, principal agency, structuration theory, Long & Sitkin integrated trust and control framework  that enabled me to come up with a conceptual framework. The findings of this framework were particularly insightful in regards to how managers in mandated collaboration network can use trust in ensuring that they achieve their desired efficiency goals. The findings show both power and trust in mandated collaboration network play a coordinative and regulative role in ensuring that the goals are realized. Calculative trust alongside formal controls can be used to address challenges that managers encounter in realizing their goals. Relational trust can also be nurtured, however at an interpersonal level or with peers that perform the same activities but not at an institutional level such as the mandated collaboration network. Attaining efficiency in the mandated collaboration network is however also further compounded by contextual matters both internal and external that hamper its attainment. 

This research studies the competencies of International Development (ID) project managers from their perspectives, taking into consideration the contextual factors and the challenges that they face when managing ID projects.

The study adopts a constructionist ontological viewpoint and an interpretivist epistemological philosophical assumption. The nature of the research is exploratory with an inductive approach, using qualitative research method. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews with experienced project managers in International Development projects. Template analysis strategy was used to analyse the data.

The findings show that contextual factors have a significant influence on the challenges that ID project managers face when managing projects. Contextual factors are operating environment, large network of stakeholders and intangible goals of ID projects. Five challenges were identified as the results of the context, namely stakeholder management challenge, beneficiary needs analysis challenge, the challenge of balancing strategic and operational views, capacity building and training challenge and sustainable funding challenge. To overcome these challenges, seven ID project manager competencies were identified management skills, personal qualities, interpersonal skills, stakeholder engagement skills, capacity building skills, and change management skills. These competencies are found to be interrelated and complementary. While the role and responsibilities of ID project managers were also uncovered during the research, the findings on contextual factors, challenges and competencies help to better understand the ID project manager role and responsibilities.

This study makes the contributions from both theoretical and practical point of view. With regards to theoretical contribution, our findings expanded on ID project manager competencies as well as relating them to the context and challenges in ID projects. The role and responsibilities of ID project manager is another theoretical contribution in this study. From a practical point of view, this thesis’s findings would be useful for various organizations who deliver ID projects, particularly human resources management. In addition, it can act as knowledge sharing with ID project managers and help in designing and enhancing educational programmes in ID project management. Overall, this could result in better delivery and overcoming the challenges of International Development projects.

Revisionsberättelsen och dess roll att förmedla trovärdig och väsentlig information har länge varit uppe för diskussion. Kritiker menar att revisionsberättelsen har utvecklats till en alltför standardiserad rapport där det råder brist på transparens i revisionen samt att kommunikationen med intressenter är bristfällig. Detta resulterade i att IAASB, parallellt med EU, utvecklade den nya utökade revisionsberättelsen i syfte att höja dess kommunikativa värde, relevans och kvalitet. De nya direktiven trädde i kraft den 15:e december 2016 i form av sex reviderade och en helt ny standard. Den mest signifikanta förändringen är den nya standarden ISA 701 som handlar om Särskilt Betydelsefull Områden (SBO). SBO omfattar de områden som i revisorns professionella bedömning är av särskilt betydande karaktär för det reviderade företaget. Dessa områden ska vidare vara specifika för varje enskilt företag och även behandla vad som har varit mest problematiskt i revisionen. Den ytterligare informationen ska ge användarna mer insyn i revisionsprocessen och öka förståelsen för de områden som krävt betydande bedömningar. 

Denna studie syftar därmed att ge en bild av hur den nya standarden gällande SBO fungerar i praktiken, vilken utformning de SBO som rapporterats har och om införandet av SBO har förändrat revisionsberättelsen sett till räkenskapsåren 2015 och 2017. För att få en bredare bild kompletteras detta med att undersöka och jämföra om revisionskvaliteten förändrats i och med den utökade revisionsberättelsen. 

Med utgångspunkt i teorierna om informationsgapet och förväntningsgapet samt agentteorin undersöktes studiens syfte genom en kvantitativ innehållsanalys, där revisionsberättelser från svenska börsnoterade bolag kodats och analyserats efter framtagna kategorier. Denna information har sammanställts som deskriptiv statistik för att konkret se förändringarna mellan åren sett till bland annat längd, antal SBO och utvalda nyckelord. För att mäta revisionskvaliteten prövades istället en huvud- och tre delhypoteser genom en multipel regressionsanalys. Den data som användes som grund för både innehållsanalysen och hypotesprövningen kommer från databasen Orbis Europe och är ett register på 394 svenska börsnoterade företag. 

Resultatet visar att det skett märkbara förändringar från ett år innan till ett år efter implementeringen av den utökade revisionsberättelsen. Detta i form av en längre rapport, där olika typer av SBO rapporteras i majoriteten av företagen, och där rapporten frångått sin standardiserade mall genom en större spridning på valda nyckelord. Resultatet finner däremot inte stöd för att det finns en negativ, signifikant effekt mellan den utökade revisionsberättelsen och revisionskvalitet som följd av lägre oväntade periodiseringar. Det finns dock ett stöd för att rapporteringen av SBO har en negativ, signifikant effekt på oväntade periodiseringar vilket således betyder en högre revisionskvalitet.

HR är ett ämnesområde som traditionellt fått mycket uppmärksamhet inom akademisk forskning där fokus varit på HR som stödjande funktion i form av personalförsörjning. I början av 1990-talet bildades en ny forskningsinriktning som berör HR som en strategiskt viktigt affärsenhet och i takt med den ökade konkurrensen på den Svenska arbetsmarknaden har HR blivit en mer prioriterad funktion för företag. Vi har valt att utifrån ett företagsekonomiskt perspektiv applicera teorier kring strategisk HR, arbetsgivarvarumärke samt talanghantering på svenska organisationer. Tidigare forskning har främst haft fokus på att enbart undersöka HR-avdelningen. Således har vi i den här studien försökt skapa en förståelse för om det finns en skillnad i uppfattningen av HR-funktionen som värdeskapande genom att intervjua specialister samt generalister. Historiskt finns det en problematik i att HR-funktionen enligt tidigare forskning haft svårt att synliggöra värdeskapande då den ofta ses som en ren stödjande funktion. Genom att undersöka Svenska företag inom flera olika branscher, och som uttalat arbetar strategiskt med HR är syftet med studien att undersöka om det finns en skillnad i uppfattningen av HR-funktionens värdeskapande mellan personer som arbetar med HR som generalister gentemot personer som är specialister. Vidare vill vi genom att undersöka hur organisationers strategiska arbete skiljer sig med fokus på strategisk HRM, talanghantering samt arbetsgivarvarumärke öka kunskapsbildningen inom det vetenskapliga ämnesområdet.

Den övergripande slutsatsen i studien är att den interna kommunikationen mellan specialister och generalister bör förbättras för att synliggöra HR-funktionens värdeskapande roll. Med en tydligare kommunikation kommer även det strategiska arbetet med arbetsgivarvarumärket och talanghantering förbättras. Även utvärdering av strategierna har visat sig vara en central faktor för att öka förståelsen för vilket värdeskapande strategierna ger. Utvärdering blir således ett viktigt verktyg för HR-specialister att skapa större uppskattning av funktionen. 

Vuxna bör följa uppmaningen från ungdomarna i Fridays for future-rörelsen och protestera eftersom det politiska ledarskapet är otillräckligt. Omfattande och långvariga påtryckningar från hela samhället behövs för att få de politiskt ansvariga att utöva det ledarskap som klimatkrisen kräver, skriver 171 forskare i samhällsvetenskap och humaniora.

Sustainability has become a subject of much interest in recent years, due to the deterioration of the natural environment. In response there has been increasing public pressure on businesses to provide environmentally friendly product alternatives for consumers. However, the demand for said products is surprisingly low, which constitutes a challenge for marketers; how can the demand for sustainable products be increased? In order to answer this question, a deeper understanding of the green consumer profile is needed. As such, the purpose of this study is to:

Increase the understanding of the green consumer profile by exploring drivers of, and barriers to, green purchasing behaviour.

In order to fulfil this purpose within the chosen context of sustainable foods, the subsequent main research questions were formulated:

1. What do consumers perceive to be drivers motivating them to purchase sustainable foods?
2. What do consumers perceive to be barriers preventing them from purchasing sustainable foods?

The study adopts a qualitative and exploratory approach and utilizes semi-structured focus groups to accumulate empirical material. The questions for these focus groups stem from an integrative model created through synthesis of existing theory related to marketing of sustainable products, while adopting a consumer perspective.

Three focus groups were subsequently held, with a total of 12 participants. Data display and analysis was used to produce insights related to the purpose and research questions of the study. Among these, the most important insights include the lack of specific knowledge relating to the benefits of sustainable food products, and the social factors that influence consumers’ purchasing behaviour of sustainable foods. Moreover, the findings suggest that the confusion regarding the definition of sustainable foods has implications that call into question contemporary theory on the matter.

Investors and fund managers have, since the start of financial markets, always been on the lookout for new ways of beating the market. However, researchers of the Efficient Market Hypothesis have shown that markets are usually highly efficient, implying that there are few possibilities of earning returns that are higher than the market returns, on a risk adjusted basis. Prevailing theories, such as the Capital Asset Pricing Model, has shown that increased return must stem from taking on higher risk. Though, this model’s explanatory power has been challenged by numerous researchers who propose different factors, other than market risk, which could hold explanatory power when it comes to returns in the stock market. This area of research is called factor investing, and has shown that factors such as momentum, size, and value, all can lead to outperforming the market.This study examines how a model based on two common factors, quality and value, would have performed on the Swedish stock market. The study is based on five portfolios chosen by the quality and value factors, each one held for 5 years, examined over a 25-year time span and uses the capital asset pricing model as a tool to measure whether or not the selected factors outperform the market. The study has taken a quantitative approach to examining the research question, using a positivistic and objectivistic view.The results of the study show evidence that the quality and value factors can lead to significant outperformance relative to the market index. Both total returns and risk adjusted returns were higher than the market index for some of the portfolios created using the quality and value factors. Furthermore, statistical evidence was found of that CAPM not fully explains all returns, and thus, that the returns are in part explained by the quality and value factors. The findings led to the conclusion that the quality and value factors does, in fact, hold explanatory power beyond that of CAPM. Purchasing quality companies at a reasonable price is shown to be a sound investment strategy, and that a portfolio created using the quality and value factors has good chances of outperforming the market index.

Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) have played a crucial role in moving socially responsibility considerations up on the private equity industry’s agenda. DFIs add a development impact criterion to traditional financial performance goals in the investment industry and play a catalytic role by mobilizing other investors. The gap in research regarding DFIs implications and significance in the investment community from a SRI perspective is evident. The development impact objective introduced by the DFIs is examined to understand its effects on fund managers’ decision-making and if it exists a trade-off between this objective and financial performance. An understanding of how DFIs control fund managers to act in accordance to their objective as well as how they determine compensation schemes to incentivize them to pursue high return on investments, is discussed in relation to the agency theory. Furthermore, stakeholder/shareholder consideration is examined in relation to the subject. The aim of this study is to examine how the behavior of fund managers is affected by the involvement of a DFI investor and try to add to the understanding of their significance as institutional investors in developing markets. Previous studies have been more focused on determining the financial performance of socially responsible investments by using very similar quantitative data collection methods. This thesis undertakes an in-depth approach with the purpose to understand the fund manager’s drives as well as how a DFI involvement affects the behavior and decision-making process.

This thesis undertook a qualitative research strategy and semi-structured interviews were used as the tool to understand the fund managers’ personals beliefs and perceptions of how the relationship with DFIs affect them. The selection criteria for the fund managers was that they needed to work in a fund in which a DFIs has invested. We also included DFI investors in order to understand their point of view. The interview was recorded, transcribed and later divided into themes in accordance with the thematic approach, following six steps. Our findings show that Development Finance Institutions plays an important role in emerging markets and affect fund manager behavior to a certain extent. They did not perceive a trade-off between financial performance goals and development impact objectives. We conclude that DFIs increase fund manager focus on ESG/SEE elements in the investment process. DFIs requirements and reporting obligations is used as a tool to ensure that the fund manager act in accordance to DFI objective. The fund managers were neither willing to sacrifice commercial return in favor of development impact. Lastly, the interest among the DFIs and commercial investors is fairly similar, hence reducing the conflict of interest between investors.

A brand can be a valuable asset for a company in two ways: On the one hand the brand can have an influence on the perceptions and preferences of the consumer and therebypositively influence the performance and success of a product, which can lead to acompetitive advantage. On the other hand, a brand can even be an asset of significantfinancial value. For the actual building of a strong brand, several theoretical modelsexist. Car modification companies offer modifications for and modified versions of cars ofother brands. The thereof resulting connection between the two brands and itsconsequences for the brand of the modification company cannot be depicted with theexisting theoretical brand and brand building models. In addition to that, carmodification companies touch upon the field of luxury cars. This factor has to be takeninto consideration when dealing with the brand building of car modification companies. In addition to the lack of applicability of existing brand building models for the carmodification industry, this special industry has not been covered by research yet ingeneral. In this thesis, a theoretical framework for brand building, the model of customer basedbrand equity as well as the characteristics of luxury branding will be lined out. In orderto examine how the special factors of the car modification industry, namely theconnection between the modification company and the base brand and luxury brandingcan be integrated into this model, six representatives from the car modification industryhave been interviewed. The results and analysis of these interviews show that through the assessment of thecustomer based brand equity of the base brand, the modification company can identifystrong and favorable aspects of the base brand that it can build upon, emphasize and/orexpand with the modification as well as weaknesses and flaws of the base brand that itcan make up for with the modification. Furthermore, the examination shows that byassessing the model of customer based brand equity of the modification brand and arelevant special brand factor, in the case of this thesis luxury branding, for commonfeatures and similarities, this special factor can also be integrated into the theoreticalmodel. Through these findings, the thesis is able to present a revised model of customer basedbrand equity that incorporates both the connection between the modification brand andthe base brand as well as the special factor luxury branding.

In this study, the main topic which we tried to study and understand is the qualitative study balance between employees’ productivity and loyalty in case of working from home during the period of Covid-19 pandemic in which both companies and employees are facing many restrictions and lockdown situations to follow only to keep themselves safe and others as well along with keeping their work going as well. As employees are integral part of any of the organization which are also the back bone of any of the company for its process, development and achieving its goal but at the same time when they are providing their efforts into work, they also consider themselves to be treated as rear commodity and they want their work to be appreciated well in the form of promotion, benefits (both financial and non-financial) and provide professional development opportunities for them.

During this current pandemic environment in which all the organizations are fighting the battle of their survival have to be more concerned about them to keep themselves alive and running one way or the other, the same is true for the employees where they are only concerned about themselves and are not having the same motivation towards the organization and its goal, because of many factors which are the results of their such behavior. This thesis deal with these factors, we look at the synergy between employees and organizations, which is the integral part of any business organization, which is being affected by this pandemic, how much and to what extent is the basis of this thesis. The tools, which we are using to conduct this study, are questionnaire and face-to-face interview and personal observation. During the face-to-face interview which are done with the participants, the study sample which is selected for this study are very much diversified, and the basis of this diversification is in the form of different types and forms of organization from food industry, study institutions, non-profit organization to national and multinational organizations. The same is true for the employees that are the participants for the questionnaire and face-to-face interview. Our study samples consist of from managerial staff to low level of production line employees. Their responses are presented in the form of graphs and the discussion done is based on the results of their responses and later conclusion is based on this discussion.

The conclusion is the presentation of the correlation between variables, which are used for the development of this questionnaire, and how they represent the main topic of this thesis. The conclusion which came out from our study is very much a combination which depend on may factor such as type of the organizational field of work, type of employees, organizational business field, restrictions imposed by the country in which these organization are doing their business. Keeps in mind these factors the conclusion which came to be is combination as in some scenarios manages managers of organizations said covid-19 has not affected their business at all and it is running at it was before Covid-19, some organizations see an increase in their business, businesses as IT industry, in which employees are not bound with the location of work. But organizations which are production based for example home appliances production organization are being affected very much and their employees are effect same as. Our hypothesis, “Pandemic has effect on production and loyalty of employees in a firm/organization in case of working from home” is accepted as Covid-19 has weakened the production of the firm/organization and loyalty of the employees towards their job and firm/organization.

Sustainability performance of a firm is gaining equal importance as the economic performance in today’s world. Sustainability scores or ESG ratings have successfully emerged to be popular sustainability performance measurements for firms across the globe. Therefore, many studies have been done focusing on relating the firms’ sustainability performance with the financial performance from different aspects in different regions. Other studies have also looked at the relationship between sustainability performance/CSR/ESG and the risks related to the firms. But no study has been found that consider the relationship between ESG/CSR and more extreme stock price movements, i.e., so called stock price jumps, which is an important part of the total risk. To fill this knowledge gap, this study aims to investigate the relationship between firms ESG score, as well as how separate E, S and G scores, relate to stock price jumps.The Nordic countries are chosen as the research area as the four Nordic countries, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Norway are ranked among the top five countries in terms of ESG ratings for the last two years. Logically, the investors in these countries should be interested in the firms ESG score as well. Data source for this study is mainly the Thomson Reuters Eikon database. In total 105 companies listed in the Nordic Stock Exchanges have been selected as the sample within the time frame 2008-2017. The findings of this study indicate that, there is no statistically proven significant relationship between firms’ overall sustainability performance or the ESG score and the number of stock price jumps. However, some significantresults have been found at the country levelandforindividual E, S and G scores however. Therefore, individual environmental, social and governance scores have been recommended to be studied by investors before taking any investment decision if they want to reduce the probable stock price jump risk.

This research studies the eight principles of sustainability applied in Project Management. To be more precise the research fulfils four objectives which are: firstly, to review and identify key principles of sustainability in project management from existing literature; secondly, to adopt a multiple case study method to assess the applicability of the principles in project management; thirdly, to determine the barriers that impede certain principles to be applied in projects and the resulting trade-offs; and lastly, to refine the concept of sustainability in project management.The study adopts a subjectivist ontological viewpoint and an interpretivist epistemological outlook. The paper deductively studies the research question and adopts a qualitative mono-method research design, with a multiple case study strategy. The project case studies analysed belong to six different industries namely Pharmaceutical, Information Technology (IT), Automotive, Transportation, Furniture and Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG). All case studies fulfil the criteria of being multinational organisations, operating in the private sector, having sustainability as a strategic pillar and projects executed in developed countries with a similar macroeconomic climate. The data has been collected through the semi-structured interview technique and examined using a thematic analysis. The results show that not all eight principles of sustainability are implemented in project management despite of multiple proactive endeavours of engaging in social and environmentally focused business practices. The two principles that show a limited applicability in project management are values and ethics as well as consuming income and not capital.The theoretical contribution of the research is realised through the first collective analysis of the eight principles of sustainability and their implementation in project management through empirical case studies. An additional contribution is through the selection of case studies from industries that have not been examined before. The practical implication of the research is to offer guidance to organisations on what principles they need to build their sustainability project management practices on and to point out the commonly faced barriers and trade-offs.

This study will aim to explore how the framework of Corporate Social Responsibility (henceforth, CSR) can serve as an influencing factor that is correlated to organisations business operations. Departing from research in the area of CSR to broaden the current knowledge, the main purpose of the study is to elaborate on the understandings of CSR and how practices are implemented into organisations.The gaps that will be addressed in this upcoming thesis pertains to how previous studies do not consider unique characteristics that influence the understanding of CSR. There is a lack of empirical findings to support the existing theories in current research. Furthermore, the gaps addressed are derived from the enumerated CSR models that exist to be adapted towards societal development. CSR has become a major topic of discussion in today's society. As a result, the concept has developed into an essential element that companies include into their strategic frameworks, whether it addresses ethical behaviours, treatment of employees, working conditions or geopolitical concerns etc. In today's globalised world, information is more readily available, organisations are assumed to take precautions by acting responsible to gain benefits in the heightened competitive global market.The methods used in this study is regarded as a qualitative study, i.e the data was collected through semi-structured interviews with participants carrying insights of the industry. The data collected in this study will be interpreted and analysed, detailed as an interpretivist paradigm in the forthcoming method chapters. This case study was conducted as an inductive analysis where current theories are explored to support the empirical findings and theoretical framework. The methods selected provide the means of CSR to be explored. CSR in gaming can be considered obsolete at times, where initiatives to consider business ethics, sustainability, consumer interests, and employees well-being are ambiguous. There are many gaming companies that exist globally, hence the reason for selecting Sweden as the area of focus in this case study is based on the accessibility to some of the most successful companies within the industry. The findings of this study shows that the understanding of corporate responsibility is influenced by the decision-makers’ values and beliefs, about what is considered as right or wrong which is influencing the implementation process. Furthermore, the empirical findings provided us to generate an inductive theory regarding how organisations understand their responsibilities. In conclusion, there is a widespread understanding of CSR which is derived from human beliefs. The understanding of CSR among organisations is determining how organisations are implementing responsible practices.

När ett företag importerar eller exporterar varor och tjänster i utländsk valuta kan de exponera sig mot valutakursrisker. Värdet på en valuta idag är kanske inte densamma imorgon vilket kan både gynna och missgynna företag verksamma inom handel. Världsekonomin utsattes för chocker och en av de värsta finansiella kriser upplevdes under 2009/2010. Eftereffekterna kan fortfarande ses av länder exempelvis lokaliserade i Euroområdet. Valutakurser påverkas av makrorelaterad information vilket kan orsaka stora volatila fluktuationer av kurser som kan leda till enorm ekonomisk skada eller stor ekonomisk vinst för företag. För att studera detta närmare genomfördes en enkätstudie på 100 stycken företag i Sverige som var noterade på stockholmsbörsen och/eller onoterade. Genom de kvantitativa data som samlades in kördes en regressionsanalys i SPSS utifrån en OLS funktion. Modellen hade användande av finansiella instrument som beroende variabel. De oberoende variablerna var; policy för hantering av valutakursrisker, kompetens om finansiella instrument i företaget, extern hjälp, övriga valutakursriskminimeringsstrategier, företagets förhållande till risk, skuldkrisen i Europa, beräkning av kostnader och intäkter, procentuell andel av intäkter i utländskvaluta samt procentuell andel kostnader i utländskvaluta. Sedan kontrollerades materialet för att uppfylla vitala antaganden i modellen. Resultatet testades sedan genom ett t-test. Regressionsanalysen visade vid 5 procents signifikants nivå positiva samband mellan användandet av finansiella instrument vid valutakursriskhantering och att ha en utformad policy för hantering av utländsk valuta. Vidare kunde det även härledas positiva samband vid användande av finansiella instrument samt företagets förhållande till risk. Riskaverta förtag tenderar att använda instrument för att minimera valutakursrisker. Analysen kunde även med 10 procents signifikants nivå härleda negativa samband mellan användandet av finansiella instrument samt hantering av övriga valutakursriskminimeringsstrategier. Studien visar likheter med tidigare forskning och finansiell teori.

I takt med att samhällsekonomin har blivit mer kunskapsbaserad har ett företags immateriella tillgångar fått en allt mer betydelsefull roll. Immateriella tillgångar medför dock flera aspekter av osäkerhet, bland annat hur äganderätten ska bestämmas, hur ett tillförlitligt värde ska beräknas samt vilka kriterier som ska gälla för att få ta upp den till redovisning. Svårigheten och komplexiteten detta innebär har gjort att företagens finansiella rapporter har i vissa avseenden tappat sin relevans, exempelvis användbarheten kopplat till externa parters beslutsfattande. Syftet med vår studie är att undersöka om det finns ett samband mellan ett företags tillgångsstruktur och den skuldränta företaget betalar till kreditgivare för sina lån, men även hur tillgångsstrukturen påverkar företagens finansieringsmöjligheter.

Vetenskapliga utgångspunkter för vår studie är en ontologisk verklighetssyn, en positivistisk vetenskapssyn, en deduktiv forskningsansats samt en kvantitativ metod där hypotesprövning är i fokus. Undersökningen är uppbyggd utifrån ett företagsperspektiv då det är framförallt företag vi vänder oss till. Baserat på studiens teoretiska ramverk tog vi fram två hypoteser att undersöka under en femårsperiod. Studiens huvudhypotes syftar till att undersöka sambandet mellan immateriella tillgångar och skuldränta medan bihypotesen fokuserar på sambandet mellan immateriella tillgångar och företagens andel lån. Vi testade dessa hypoteser genom två olika undersökningar, först genom en totalundersökning då vi undersökte om existensen av upptagna immateriella tillgångar hade någon inverkan på responsvariablerna, och sedan genom en klusterundersökning då vi undersökte hur mängden immateriella tillgångar inverkar på responsvariablerna.

Resultatet från studiens huvudhypotes visar att det finns ett positivt samband mellan existensen av upptagna immateriella tillgångar och skuldräntan, det innebär att om företaget har upptagna immateriella tillgångar får de betala en högre skuldränta. Detta kan bero på att immateriella tillgångar är osäkrare och därmed vill långivare ha en högre ränta som kompensation. Däremot är sambandet mellan andel upptagna immateriella tillgångar och skuldränta negativt samt har låga och varierande förklaringsgrader mellan åren. Detta kan bero på att de finansiella rapporterna har tappat i relevans och att kreditgivare lägger större vikt vid kvalitativa aspekter, vilka inte syns i balansräkning och som vår studie därmed inte fångar upp. Gällande resultaten från bihypotesen så kan vi inte uttala oss om sambandet mellan existensen av upptagna immateriella tillgångar och företagens andel lån. Däremot ser vi ett svagt och något instabilt positivt samband mellan andel upptagna immateriella tillgångar och andel lån, vilket kan bero på att företag med mycket immateriella värden har fler investeringstillfällen och därmed kräver mer extern finansiering för att kunna ta tillvara på dessa och vara konkurrenskraftiga.

Studien är upprättad utifrån etiska aspekter samt har överlag en god reliabilitet och validitet. Förslag på vidare forskning är framförallt att genomföra studien genom en kvalitativ metod för att få en djupare förståelse för kreditgivningens kvalitativa del vilket skulle komplettera denna studie. Praktiska rekommendationer till företag är att fortsätta kämpa för sina värdefulla immateriella tillgångar för att uppnå en mer jämställd kreditgivningsprocess vilket går i linje med världens kunskapsbaserade ekonomi.

Den nya EU-förordningen GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) tillämpades under 2018 och har orsakat en hel del förändringar på olika fronter. Främst har de företag och organisationer som hanterar större mängder med personuppgifter blivit påverkade och tvingats till organisationsförändringar för att anpassa sig. Detta dynamiska fenomen har undersökts från flera olika perspektiv under åren, men i och med nya tvingande krafter uppstår ny dynamik. Den externa påverkan som GDPR medför till interna organisationsförändringar är fortfarande ett frågetecken inom forskning och denna ovanliga kontext skapar en utmärkt möjlighet att undersöka samspelet mellan extern påverkan och planerad intern förändring.

Denna studie undersöker vilka interna förändringar GDPR har orsakat inom den enskilda organisationen och vilka effekter detta har medfört. Syftet är därmed att beskriva hur organisationen har påverkats av GDPR med fokus på de olika stadierna i förändringsprocessen. Detta utökas för att få en bredare syn genom att undersöka upplevelserna inom de olika befattningsgraderna inom företaget och därmed få en förståelse för eventuella konsekvenser och utmaningar som har uppstått. Med andra ord ligger övergripande fokus på de organisationsförändringar som uppstår i en tvingad planerad förändring till följd av den externa kraften GDPR.

För att uppnå detta på bästa sätt och kunna skapa en grundläggande förståelse har denna studie använt sig av kvalitativ metod. Med detta i åtanke har en fallstudie gjorts på företaget A3, innehållande en observation samt semi-strukturerade intervjuer inom de olika nivåerna i företaget. Utifrån dessa har den empiriska datan kunnat framställas och gett väga för studiens resultat. Resultatet innehåller bland annat de olika uppfattningarna av GDPR som har getts av ledningen, middle-managers och medarbetarna. I grunden har dessa varit relativt lika men med hänsyn till att olika nivåer uppmärksammar olika synsätt på processen och dess effekter. Vidare har resultaten kunnat analyseras utifrån det teoretiska ramverket, med stort fokus på den sammanfattande modellen som kombinerar externa teorier med interna för att skapa en helhetsbild.

Sammanfattningsvis har analysen funnit att företaget omedvetet har använt sig av flera teorier för en lyckad organisationsförändring, men det har även uppmärksammats en del avvikelser. Exempelvis har företaget använt sig av agilt arbetssätt för att lättare anpassa sig, men inte utnyttjat kommunikationsteorier som vill inkludera alla, utan de har valt att begränsa kommunikationen i olika stadier. I slutändan har författarna funnit att företaget saknar uppföljning på en helhetsnivå för att kontrollera att alla inom företaget förstår och efterlever direktiven. Detta kan även medföra att behövliga förändringar i processen inte upptäcks, utan faller mellan stolarna på grund av den saknade kunskapen av problemen. Utifrån detta har rekommendationer till möjliga anpassningar erbjudits för att skapa uppföljning på en helhetsnivå.

Konkurrensen mellan företag i Sverige är fortsatt hård, samtidigt som världen blir mer globaliserad och multinationella företag söker nya marknader. Mellan åren 2008 och 2013 försattes i snitt 6260 företag i konkurs per år. Konkurser påverkar företagsägare, leverantörer, anställda, staten och samhället negativt.

För företag nära konkurs finns möjlighet att försöka rädda företaget, genom företagsrekonstruktion. Det överordnade målet med företagsrekonstruktion är att rädda värdefulla affärsrörelser, undvika kapitalförstörelse samt att återställa livskraften i företag. Under perioden 2008-2013 genomförde 1045 företag rekonstruktion men endast 18 % överlevde. Därmed uppfattar författarna ett tydligt problem, att inte fler företag överlever efter företagsrekonstruktion. Författarna har funnit ett samband mellan de åtgärder som syftar till att skapa långsiktig överlevnad och organisationsdesign.  Den tidigare forskningen om företagsrekonstruktion har ett juridiskt perspektiv eller studerat det egna ägandet i företag. Utifrån det uppfattade problemet med få överlevande företag och det teoretiska gap författarna sett mellan företagsrekonstruktion och organisationsdesign, grundades en forskningsfråga: Hur har organisationsdesign beaktats av rekonstruktörer i fall med företag som är fortsatt verksamma efter avslutad företagsrekonstruktion?

Studiens syfte är att skapa en djupare förståelse för företagsrekonstruktion ur ett organisationsdesignsperspektiv, samt undersöka hur rekonstruktörer beaktat organisationsdesign för att uppnå långsiktig överlevnad. En kvalitativ studie utformades från en teoretisk referensram med utgångspunk i Star-modellen skapad av Jay R. Galbraith. Star-modellen är en organisationsdesign modell som är uppdelad i fem olika komponenter; strategi, struktur, process, belöning och kompetens, dessa fördjupades i den teoretiska referensramen med annan litteratur. Studien har undersökt rekonstruktörer i åtta rekonstruktionsfall och hur dessa rekonstruktörer beaktat organisationsdesign. Empirin samlades in genom åtta intervjuer med rekonstruktörer för de enskilda rekonstruktionsfallen, samt genom data från tillhörande rekonstruktionsplan.

Resultat av studien visade ett högt beaktande av organisationsdesign under företagsrekonstruktion, där företag är fortsatt verksam efter avslutad rekonstruktion. Komponenterna strategi, struktur, process och kompetens visades ha starkast koppling mot rekonstruktörens beaktande av organisationsdesign. Studien visade också att belöning inte beaktades i lika hög grad av rekonstruktören.

Författarna rekommenderar att rekonstruktörer bör inneha en särskild insikt och erfarenhet av organisationsdesign, samt ett förtydligande av rekonstruktörens roll. Författarna rekommenderar också att rekonstruktörer bör se organisationsdesign ur ett helhetsperspektiv, samt att rekonstruktören om denne genomför förändring i strategi, också bör beakta effekt på andra komponenter. Organisationens representanter rekommenderas att under rekonstruktion vara öppen för förändring, samt att det är fördelaktigt att det finns en bra dialog mellan rekonstruktör och organisationens representanter. 

Denna studie undersöker hur detaljhandelsföretaget Expo Stormarknad i Umeå AB kan använda olika komponenterför att stärka sin konkurrenskraft på marknaden i Umeå, i takt med att konkurrensen kommer att öka. Att konkurrensen kommer att öka beror på att Ikeainom en snar framtid slår upp sina dörrar i Umeå. För att ett litet företag som Expo ska kunna konkurrera med möbeljätten är det nödvändigt att Expo utvärderar hur de kan agera och vilka verktyg de kan använda sig av för att stå sig i konkurrensen. Den problemformulering som vi utformat och som ligger till grund för studien är:“Hur uppfattar Expos kunder företagets produkter och tjänster, och hur kan Expo utformafem av oss valda komponenter för att stärka sin konkurrenskraft i Umeå?”.Studiens syfte är därmed att med hjälp av enmarknadsundersökning undersöka den uppfattning om och attityder gentemot Expo företagets kunder har, för att ge Expo en nulägesrapport ochför attidentifiera eventuellaförbättringsområden. Marknadsundersökningen genomförde vi med hjälp av enkäter, vilket innebär att vi genomfört en kvantitativ studie. Vi beskriver hur Expos kunder uppfattar företaget, och vi gör därmed en deskriptiv studie, vilket går i linje med vår positivistiska kunskapssyn som utgår från att vetenskap är objektiv.Det angreppssätt vi har är av deduktiv karaktär, där vi med utgångspunkt i existerande teorier undersökt de data vi samlat in. De data vi samlade in bearbetades och sammanställdes i statistikprogrammet SPSS. Underlaget för vår resultatredovisning utgörs av enkätsvar från 114 respondenter, både kvinnor och män i åldrarna 20 till över 60år. I vår teoretiska referensram lyfter vi fram teorier som är relevanta för studiens ändamål och som dels behandlar allmänna teorier gällande konkurrenskraft och dels de fem komponentervår studie undersöker: Utbud, pris, miljö i butik, personal och annonsering. De teorier som utgör vår teoretiska referensram stödjer vår analys och följaktligen våra slutsatser.Resultaten vi fått fram visar att Exposkunder generellt sett är positivt inställda till fyra av de fem komponentersom studerats, där annonseringutgör den komponent som kunderna har svårast att uttala sig om ochhar en mer negativ inställning till. Vi konstaterar också att alla komponenterär av betydelse för kunderna när de handlar på Expo, men attannonsering är av minst betydelse. Vi anser att Expo bör ta alla fem erbjudanden i beaktning för att stärka sin konkurrenskraft. De slutsatser och rekommendationer vigerExpo är att inte förändra sitt utbud, butikens läge ellermiljön i butiken. Vidare råder vi Expo att behålla sina nuvarande priser och att fortsätta med deras goda kundbemötande. Annonseringen rekommenderar vi däremot Expo att öka, och vi lyfter även fram några aspekter för de övriga komponenternasom Expo måste ha i åtanke när konkurrensenblir tuffare.