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.

To which extent elderly people at nursing homes have an influence on their daily living is currently debated. Studies have shown that they have limited influence due to restricting routines associated with nursing homes. Therefore the aim of this study was to examine how elderly people experience the ability to influence their daily living at nursing homes and how limited influence is revealed in the daily care. Five elderly people, from four different nursing homes, underwent a structured interview. The outcome of the interviews was analyzed in relation to established theories related to geriatric care.

In this essay, I interview six users from the website darkside.se, which is an internet community for BDSM practitioners. I?m using Judith Butlers theorys about performativity and heteronormativity, Gayle Rubins model the charmed circle; of which sexualities is regarded as approved and which is not, and Fanny Ambjörnssons explenation of queer theory. With the interviews as my material, I investigate how sex and gender is produced and used in BDSM and at Darkside. I discuss trans, heteronormativity, sexism and hierarchies of power related to sex and gender, in BDSM and at Darkside.

Blekinge Hospital suffers from a budget shortage of 100 million SEK, while the government now requires that hospitals will no longer be running a deficit. Blekinge Hospital will then use their limited resources to survive in the future and the activity must be enhanced in order to keep costs low without having to lay off personnel. The idea is that the organisation should be more efficient with a more efficient resource usage. Performance measurement systems are important tools for achieving the policies set out within an organization, measuring and evaluating performance is a way to see where improvements in efficiency may be necessary in the business. Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is one of several measuring systems, where the focus is on measuring non-financial performances.

The waste of material is a big expense for manufacture companies caused by lack of quality. The cost by lack of quality often totaled to a big percentage share of the turnover when all cost related to lack of quality is included. New manufacturing systems like Lean production or Just In Time demands better internal quality for the manufacturer. To make those manufacturing system with small and none buffer stock successful the quality improvement continuously have to be developed.Measuring of waste of material in Bubs Candy?s factory where not simple due to the products does not have a permanent weight during the manufacturing process.

In theory, the management control of maintenance functions is described as problematic due to the nature of the work performed in the unit. The purpose of this thesis is to examine these predicted problems in practice. Further,the thesis aims at identifying how these control problems may affect the relationships between the maintenance department and its internal customers. A case study has been conducted in one of Sweden?s largest industrial companies to investigate the said control problems in practice.

There are many children in Sweden today, approximately 200 000, who have parents or a parent that abuses alcohol or other drugs. The aim of this study was to investigate how group leaders in support groups for children with addicted parents relate to this sort of support groups. What are their advantages and disadvantages, according to the group leaders?The method used was qualitative and the empirical material was collected through group interviews. We have interviewed eight persons who are social workers and the interviews were carried out at three work places.

The main purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse how social worker on a specific Social Service Agency describe their experiences. My focus has been to concentrate on social worker, whose task is related to young people. The paper is presented from three different themes; work assignments, professional roles and projects in life. The central questions are; Which are the socialworker´s main tasks? How does the social worker see himself in his professional role? Have their expectations been fulfilled? Where do they get their motivation from? Which are the reasons why the job as social worker is so strenuous? I have interviewed four social workers (semi-structured interviews), and a qualitative method is used.

I have done a comparative gender study of Library of Congress Classification from 1900 and 2001. I have also used a hermeneutic method and ideological critics to find out what picture of women the both systems shows. In my comparative study of the both systems I have found low update of classes which relates to women in the new classification system. Men seem to be a norm in the system, because men are not defined in classes related to both men and women. But many classes related to women are named Women as and Women in The study also shows that women are more related to subjects about family and marriage than men are.

The aim of this study was to explore the social background of the people convicted of drunkenness offence in the town of Ljungby between 1936 and 1947. Drunkenness offense was sentenced to those found drunk in public but also societys attempt to control the s subclass. This view was in contrast to the ideal of the well-behaved worker who also spread during the end of the last century. Based on information found in index cards for drunkenness offenses provided by Ljungbys temperance board this studie explores whether alcohol use changes in different social classes. By mapping the offender's profession, age, gender and housing situation, the study shows clear overrepresentation of working class men.

After the orange revolution in Ukraine, hope was given to achieve fullydemocracy in the whole society. However, this has not been the outcome; theUkrainian public administration still has problems to deliver what the societydemands. By answering the question: ?Which problems have the publicadministration to become democratic and how can we explain them??, we analyzethe failures within the public administration to accomplish democratic procedures.The empirical material in this thesis is mainly obtained from interviews andresearch during a field study in Ukraine. The problems for the civil servants inUkraine to act as guardians of the society are strongly connected to an inadequateprofessional knowledge.

Today?s farmers are constantly affected by the fluctuating world market prices on grain and thereby the price risk that comes with the price fluctuations. The volatile prices of grain increase the price risk within the business, which in turn affects the profitability of the business. The fluctuating prices together with the increased price risk within the farm business have opened up the market for hedging instruments. In this master thesis project, the aim is to identify the underlying end-values of 30 Swedish farmers? related to their choice of using hedging and the product; forward contract.

In this thesis an explorative study was undertaken with the aim to study how a number of private care providers, as well as politicians and officials from councils in and around the Stockholm and Uppsala counties, think about the future of the Swedish elderly care from a property perspective, i.e. homes for the elderly. The analysis shows that there is a demand for capacity in 6 out of 16 municipalities, and that the property is an important part of this capacity, and the fulfillment of it. This was mainly due to the cost of capital, but also because of several other factors such as lack of land, a wish to guide the design, ideology, and in many cases a wish to use the property as an instrument of domination to control private health care providers.Also, the property was show to be connected to economic competition, to freedom of choice, and to quality. The problems related to the property in the market for elderly care still remains to be solved.

The purpose of our study was to give girls who are victims of honor related violence a chance to express their needs experienced after the breakup from their families. Furthermore, the study aimed to examine in what extent the girls' needs have been met, how and by whom? The focus was the girls' own experiences thru the breakup from their families and beyond. The issues we wanted to answer were: What needs of help and support does these girls feel that they have? What are the needs immediately after the breakup and how do they look in the longer term? To what extent do the girls have their needs met, how and by whom? What needs experience the girls have not been satisfied? In order to answer our questions, we used semi-structured life-world interviews.

Very often the interesting variables are explained by several underlying variables and in statistical analyses it is common to study the relationship between variables and groups of variables. Because of this multivariate analysis is commonly used in both science and industry. There are two problem with both univariate and multivariate analyses. One is when the variables are correlated. The other is when the number variables of exceeds the number of observations which makes the matrices algebra used in the analysis impossible to execute.