This paper describes and develops a trade off model of optimal capital structure by Bradley et al. (1984). The model is then tested to examine how changes in corporate tax rates affect the optimal capital structure of firms. Based on theoretical implications of the model, four hypotheses are derived stating that firms? optimal debt-to-value ratio is (1) negatively related to financial distress costs, (2) negatively related to non-debt tax shields, (3) negatively related to firm volatility and (4) positively related to the corporate tax rate.

The Swedish Tax Agency is a government authority whose mission is to collect taxes and fees for financing the public sector and welfare in Sweden. Under the last decade the tax gap in Sweden has been constant and small businesses with a max turnover of 25 millions Swedish crowns are the biggest group in the tax gap. In the government inquiry about abolishment of statutory audit for small businesses (2008) there has been laid some proposals that the Swedish Tax Agency should get new control tools and increased rights to control small businesses tax accounts. In the science some controversies exists about tax authority?s ability to get taxpayers to pay taxes and fees to the society through using deterrence and compellence control methods versus more service? This ground has guided us to our presentation of a problem: ?How the Swedish Tax Agency works with influencing small businesses behaviour through preventive actions and controls?? The purpose of this study is to research and understand how the Swedish Tax Agency works in their control activities to influence small businesses behaviours regarding taxes and fees.

The last few decades largeincreases in institutional and foreign ownershipin Swedish listed companies have created a concernthat the traditionalSwedish ownership model are disappearing.With increasing globalizationand ever morecapital-intensive markets, so have great owners forced to admitcapital fuelled institutionaland foreign investors into their companies. By from an agency theoryperspective examine how different ownershiptypes and ownershipconstellations affects the cost ofequity, we want to see if there is reason for concern. Is the change in ownership structure affecting theSwedish listed firms?Our results show that the owneridentity or ownership constellations don?t affect the cost of equity that much.The only owner-identity that shows a significant correlation with the cost ofequity is the institutions and they relate to a lower cost of equity. Theresults show that companies with two controlling shareholders relates to lowercost of equity which can show that ownership structure affects the cost.

The essay examines managers reflection after attending a leader development program. When examining their thoughts the author starts out from the assumption that leader development programs with reflecting elements can create reflection on management/leadership and the organisations management behaviour. The examination is done whit help of a case study on a company in the paint industry. To test the assumption the author uses a combination of questioners and interviews on eight managers who has finished a leader development program. The result is analysed by bringing forward the managers general assumptions an by finding relations between opinions on needs, existing norms and preferred management/leadership.

This case study examined what impact the neurological disorder Asperger?s syndrome has on the line of reasoning about religion and spirituality. Also, the question of whether the four informants showed any tendency to use the cognitive tools calledtheory of mind (ToM), existential theory of mind (EToM) and hypersensitive agency detection device (HADD) or not was put forth. From the interviews five themes were extracted: a stereoscopical view upon the world, thoughts on physical causality, prayer used as one-way communication, spiritual agency and intentionality, as well as existential and social questions. These themes were subsequently matched with theories on ToM, EToM and HADD.

The aim of this Bachelor?s thesis is to find out what librarians think about the public libraries? collections. How do they want to develop their collection and what do they want the collection to offer society?Sanna Talja has developed a theory about different attitudes regarding collection development. These are named ?the general education repertoire?, ?the alternative repertoire? and ?the demand repertoire?.

This is a Minor Field Study (MFS) which is a scholarship financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). The study was held in 2007 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia and is based upon retrospective qualitative interviews with five Bachelor nurses who experienced the disaster work during the earthquake 27th of May, 2006. The aim of the study is to explore the experiences, feelings and thoughts of Bachelor nurses who were involved in this natural disaster. The interview, transcription and analyse work were made one year after the earthquake were a qualitative content analysis method was used. Two group interviews were held at the University of Gadjah Mada.

In April 2010 Vägverket (the Swedish National Road Agency) andBanverket (the Swedish National Railway Agency) will merge intoTrafikverket (the Swedish National Traffic Agency). Trafikverket willassume unified responsibility for the risk management that atpresent is responsibility of Vägverket and Banverket separately. Atpresent, as it will be shown in this thesis, Vägverket and Banverketshare the same theoretical background for risk management but usedifferent implementations often within the same agency. The use ofdifferent implementations results in a reduced transparency of therisk management both within and outside the agencies: this willbecome even more problematic when they will be fused intoTrafikverket.The aim of this thesis is to review the current risk managementmethodologies used at Vägverket and Banverket and to suggest aunified tool for the risk management at Trafikverket. This will bedone by focusing in particular on construction projects, one fromVägverket (Partihallsförbindelsen) and one from Banverket(Nynäsbanan).

Body esteem is the affective aspect of body image, which is shaped by social experience. Compared with men, women have a more negative body image, which is more frequently correlated with depression and dysfunctional thoughts, especially in the case of eating disorders. The purpose of the present study was to examine gender differences in body esteem and its subcategories, and to find out whether there exists a stronger link between negative body esteem and higher levels of dysfunctional thoughts in women. The relationship between body esteem, dysfunctional thoughts and mental illness was examined. Participants were 73 college students doing social sciences and sports training educations.

AbstractThe use of temporary agency workers has increased significantly during the last decades. Due to considerable differences in the legal status and working conditions of temporary agency workers within the EU, the directive 2008/104/EC on temporary agency work was adopted in 2008. The current directive has a two folded purpose, first and foremost to improve the employment and working conditions for temporary agency workers, by establishing the principle of equal treatment. The second purpose is to create greater acceptance for the temporary work agencies, and also to review and remove any unjustified restrictions or prohibitions against them.There are several different models for labour market regulation represented within the EU. The Swedish and Nordic model has through history relied heavily on regulation via collective agreements, entered into by the social partners, with a minimal amount of state interference and regulation.For Sweden there is a potential problem in the implementation of the directive on temporary agency work, since it follows from case law by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

In scientific investigations on how organizations can learn from their mistakes the perspective is usually that of the social engineer; the object is to prevent human errors through modeling the system in a certain way. The aim of this paper is to explore the learning process from a different standpoint than those usually applied in organizational learning and error theory. By studying the learning process in Swedish health care I seek to discover how theoretical presumptions affect the outcome in terms of what we actually learn. The theoretical framework draws on two major discussions in contemporary political science; the question of structure and agency and the question of whether to focus on formal or informal structures when explaining organizational behavior.The investigation shows that Swedish health care tend to understand human errors as a result of formal organizational structure. Such a view leads to insufficient explanations to why errors occur but is useful in producing preventative measures.

Örebro UniversityDepartment of Social SciencesSociology and social psychology, Continuation course, 61-90 p.Essay 15 p, Spring -08.Title: ?Youth (work)seekers?Author: Karolina LindellAbstractThis essay focuses on young people?s social background when they apply for their first job. I have interviewed four young people from a small town in Sweden, to see how social background and identity affects their vital conditions in general. I?m interested understanding the relationship between structure and agency.

A common phenomena in descriptions of Western mission initiatives to the South is theoverrepresentation of depictions of the missionaries and underrepresentation of theindigenous people. It is fair to say that there is a need for new perspectives. This thesisinvestigates the agency of the indigenous people in the Scandinavian Pentecostal mission inTanganyika 1932-1945. It highlights roles and areas of their participation which seldomoccur in western mission biographies, but were tanganyikan people played a crucial part,such as evangelisation, church planting and the forming of contextualized theology. Thepentecostal theology and mission praxis contributed to a large degree to shape that agency..

In this Bachelor essay I will discuss my thoughts about choir intonation and especially with an amateur choir, Stämbanden, who has little experience when it comes to work with choir intonation. I describe my thoughts as I am working with Stämbanden. I will discuss a few choir intonation exercises that focus on working with intonation while singing that I have put together from other exercises and made adjustable to fit Stämbandens? needs. I will later evaluate the process and discuss further ideas and thoughts on how to work with improving any choir?s intonation..

During the last part of the 20th century many companies has started to build their organizations on knowledge and information instead of manufacturing of products.  Today it is easier to communicate and spread information. At the same time the numbers of untraditional employments like temporary employments and workers from staffing agencies are increasing. Many organizations have higher employee turnover now than before. This allows more people to have access to confidential information, whose spreading might cause great damage for the employer.