When patrolling grocery stores, customers engage in a purchase situation where they face great amounts of information, whereof price is one. This paper intends to shed light on the price information search behavior that customer's exhibit before choosing their products in grocery stores. In order to do so two studies have been conducted, one quantitative and one qualitative, to assemble the data needed to provide statistically significant results. The objective of the quantitative study is to gather data on customer's external price information search, and it is based on the most recent eye-tracking technology. The second qualitative study is complementary and based on interviews with randomly chosen customers that have responded to several questions regarding their price information search, shopping knowledge and experiences.

This thesis is based on a case study of the City of Stockholm. The study aims to explore the effects on the city's large investments caused by the public reform. Furthermore, the question concerns the character of the impact and if it will affect what type of investments that will be prioritized. The theoretical background is based on Brunsson's ideas about political organizations shifting towards corporate nature, and Almqvist's interpretation of New Public Management (NPM). Moreover, models explaining public management reform, and the main components of corporate shifting, are used.

AbstractTitle: Communications through Social media ? new challenges for organizations Kommunikation i sociala medier ? nya utmaningar för organisationerAuthor: Jenny Lilius Location: University of Kalmar Language: Swedish Number of pages: 46 (62 including appendix) Level: BA Thesis in media and Communications StudiesAim: The main purpose of this thesis was to explore what kind of challenges organizations face when communicating through social media. Because social media is a new phenomenon the thesis also examined how organizations active in Sweden today looks upon, defines, monitoring what is said about them and uses social media today.Method: The thesis was based upon the qualitative gathering of empirical facts. Through deep interviews with five organizations and literature studies the author was able to gather the results.Theories The analysis is primarily based upon theories about organizational communications such as PR, Rogers?s diffusions of innovations and the marketing mix.

On November 1st 2010 the obligatory audit was removed in Sweden for small companies. What factors influence such companies to have their financial reports audited, and what factors exert the strongest influence. Purpose: The authors would like to investigate factors that affect companies with voluntary audits in Skåne län to continue with the audit. The authors also wish to examine the factors that have the strongest impact on the choice to adopt auditing. Method: A quantitative study has been conducted in which aquestionnaire was sent to companies in Skåne Län Conclusion: The factors that affect smaller companies to continue with audit are as follows: Accounting quality, cost, creditors (loans), suppliers / customers, the tax office and distort competition.

The new Swedish Companies Act allows Swedish companies to issue two instruments that were previously prohibited: mandatory convertibles and participating debentures. The aim of the thesis is to conduct a cross sectional study of Swedish corporate hybrid securities, especially in the light of the new Companies Act. The cross sectional study also includes areas such as credit rating, accounting and tax. The thesis concludes that it is possible, under Swedish law, to issue corporate hybrid securities that qualify for both high equity credit and tax deductible interest payments. The use of certain hybrid provisions are, however, restrained by Swedish company law.

Mergers and acquisitions are a phenomenon which can occur for a variety of reasons. It may for example be that the organizations want to gain larger market shares or to complement and learn from each other and thus become more competitive. After the completion of an acquisition or merger, a process is initiated to create an affiliation between the two companies' employees. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether there is something that management can do to make the integration process as efficient as possible. The empirical research in this paper consisted of interviews and surveys with respondents from two accounting firms that recently completed a merger.

Within the Swedish school and the public library communities it is generally held as a truth that reading of fiction develops the empathic ability of the reader. This opinion is also expressed in political guiding documents for the school system and cultural sector. This paper's main hypothesis is that there is no assembled theoretic ground for the statement that reading of fiction develops the empathic ability. The investigation consists of two parts, the first being theoretical and the second empirical. Definitions of what empathy and reading is, are reviewed in the first part.

Background: In the martial art of Muay Thai, techniques are used with hands, elbows, knees and kicks. The contestants are divided into different weight classes and experience levels. The Swedish martial arts association has decided that techniques with elbow are not allowed in B-class. Why is it so?Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate whether the martial arts delegation decision to restrict techniques with elbows to the head in the B-class is justified.

This thesis aims to investigate if there are any differences in the value relevance of yearly earnings announcements before (2000-2004) and after (2005-2009) IFRS were implemented for listed companies in the European Union. To assess the value relevance of earnings, an earnings response coefficient (ERC) is estimated using a linear OLS-regression model. The regression model uses accounting earnings per share as the explaining variable, with the corresponding return starting from (but not including) the previous year's earnings announcement date, ending at (and including) the current earnings announcement date, as the dependent variable. This study finds that there is no statistically significant difference between the estimated ERCs for the two periods. Although no statistically significant difference is found, data shows that the R2-values, which measure the explanatory power of the regressions, are higher for the period before IFRS.

Research and Development-costs constitutes an important part in contemporary companies. R&D are treated differently depending on their definition and how the historic value is decided. The main goal for this essay is to bring clarity to how the definiton of the term R&D is decided in accounting as well as in tax law. Another goal is to decide how the historic value is calculated. It is also interesting to examine under which circumstances the costs can be activated in the balance sheet, and under which circumstances deduction for the R&D-costs may be allowed.

The purpose of our essay is to study the institutional-, demographic and accounting theoretical factors that influence an organisations actuarial commitment.The research was performed through a web based survey, with complimentary telephone interviews, directed to companies listed on Stockholm Stock Exchange A- and O-list on the 30 of November, 2003.Our data was analysed with a Median test, Kolomogorov-Smirnov test, T-test and a Mann-Whitney test. The purpose of the Mann-Whitney test was the low number of respondents that took part in the research. The Kolomogorov-Smirnov test was done to determine whether the population variances was equal or not. The data showed that organisations with a majority of female employees assume a lower salary increase, and a higher average age than other companies with a male majority. Only 2 of 11 hypothesis can be accepted as temporary truths but several other visible relations are indicated in our research, but can not be statistically proved.We think that the major problem with our is the time it was performed.

Much attention has been directed to Charity Foundations and how they use the donations given to them. Donators and external organisations put pressure on and evaluate the performance of Charity Foundations. The purpose of this thesis is to increase the understanding of how Charity Foundations handle the pressure from external parties through a qualitative case study of one Swedish Charity Foundation. The most important external factors have been identified and the accountability relationships between each party and the Charity Foundation have been examined. The empirical material was collected through semi-structured interviews and from written sources.

Ofta fokuseras det på större företag i undervisningen, men verkligheten är den att de flesta företag i Sverige är små eller medelstora. Det finns olika definitioner av vad ett småföretag är, men ingen är mer rätt än någon annan och i denna uppsats kommer EU:s definition att användas. Alla företag, stora som små, har någon/några som vill ta del av företagets ekonomiska information. De små företagen har oftast inte lika många intressenter som de stora företagen, och därför är det sannolikt att de inte behöver en lika komplicerad och detaljerad redovisning. Dessa mindre företag har under en längre tid haft samma regelverk som de större, men BFN, IASB och lagstiftare har påbörjat ett förenklingsarbete av redovisningsreglerna.För att kunna vara säker på att de nya reglerna verkligen fyller sitt syfte är det viktigt att de uppfyller de krav som företagen och användarna av redovisningsinformationen har.

Ofta fokuseras det på större företag i undervisningen, men verkligheten är den att de flesta företag i Sverige är små eller medelstora. Det finns olika definitioner av vad ett småföretag är, men ingen är mer rätt än någon annan och i denna uppsats kommer EU:s definition att användas. Alla företag, stora som små, har någon/några som vill ta del av företagets ekonomiska information. De små företagen har oftast inte lika många intressenter som de stora företagen, och därför är det sannolikt att de inte behöver en lika komplicerad och detaljerad redovisning. Dessa mindre företag har under en längre tid haft samma regelverk som de större, men BFN, IASB och lagstiftare har påbörjat ett förenklingsarbete av redovisningsreglerna.För att kunna vara säker på att de nya reglerna verkligen fyller sitt syfte är det viktigt att de uppfyller de krav som företagen och användarna av redovisningsinformationen har.

The objective of this thesis is to examine the capital structure of Swedish small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Accounting data from Swedish game developers, combined with the result from a survey, is used to examine their financial conditions and capital structure decisions. We find that non-debt tax shield, firm size, growth opportunities and age are, to various extents, the determinants of capital structure in the game industry, while effective tax rate and asset structure have marginal effects. Our study also implicates that most of the existing capital structure theories can explain SMEs leverage decisions to some extent; however, some adaptation is needed to fit these theories into the SME context. Additionally, we find the existence of a financial gap in the game industry which might need efforts from both demand side and supply side to eliminate..