Background: Knowledge management is a concept that is considered of increasing importance in the developing knowledge society. Previous research in the area has to a large extent been based on large multinational companies. Purpose: The thesis aims to clarify how middle-sized Swedish management consultancy companies work with knowledge management. The thesis intends to use existing theories about knowledge management to explain the effect of size and area of operation on management consultancy companies? knowledge management.

This thesis will through the use of various approaches determine the key drivers for dividend payouts for A-listed Swedish firm. The time frame reaches from 1997 to 2003 an the thesis covers 48 companies..

Title:Changes in the auditing work of asset management companies.Advisor:Bengt BengtssonExaminer:Stig SörlingAuthors: Mattias Skog & Andrea CyganikPurpose:The purpose is to examine how the work of auditing asset management companies has changed since the crisis 2008.Methodology:The study is based on an adductive approach using a quantitative method.Theoretical framework:The theoretical framework includes previous studies and literature concerning the auditing business, the financial crisis, principal agent theory and stewardship theory.Empirical findings:The empirical material is based on answers from 22 auditors in 6 different auditing firms, and it was conducted by sending them a survey.Conclusion:The study showed that the major changes were changes in laws and regulations controlling the auditing business. New guidelines and laws were set to try and improve the quality of the auditing business while trying to restore stained reputation. New regulations were also set to increase the control the government have of inspecting the business through finansinspektionen..

The aim of this study is to investigate which management control mechanisms evolve in companies that receive funding from Venture Capital companies and why the management control systems evolve in the way that they do. A case study was performed on three Swedish high technology companies, that all received funding from Venture Capital companies for the first time in 2006. Merchant?s framework, defining all management control mechanisms as either, results control, action control or personnel control, was used to structure the study. Results show that the companies that received Venture Capital all increased the use of management control mechanisms within results control, action control and personnel control.

Over the last decade, the private insurance market has undergone a stable growth in turnover and growing demand for insurance products in all Member States of the European Union. Therefore, the creation of a single market in insurance will enable consumers to have access to wider choice of insurance products, and insurance companies to gain access to markets in various Member States and compete effectively. The EU legal framework for the insurance industry embraces the Treaty freedoms of services, establishment and capital, the EC Directives and the ECJ case-law. The present thesis identifies numerous factors that hinder the Community insurance market integration and offers possible remedies. The summary of the market obstacles is all-inclusive and reflects the responses to the questionnaires and the Commission surveys.

In the light of the criticism from the Swedish Consumers? Association towards the actions of modern fund managers on the Swedish Sustainable and Responsible Investment (SRI) market, discussions of change has increased. The reasons underlying a change and communication process are scarcely focused on. Thus, grounded on theories in the fields of Critical Management Studies (CSR), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), change and communication, this study analyses how a change of implementing revised SRI communication is carried out at Handelsbanken Asset Management, existing motives for the change in communication, and how key actors can affect the process. A participant observation and in-depth interviews were carried out enfolding a discussion that contributed with a critical analysis and discussion, concluding external motives to be dominant and that key actors of the change process are influential to a various extent.

Leverage buyout?s is an opportunity for companies, who can strengthen its market position by expanding its operations, and it add?s value to the company. At every LBO, copmanies make different values of the target company to finally come upp to a final bid. The final bid may in many cases be made of a surplus value, which is the differens between the value of the net-assets and the final bid. This we call goodwill and it has been a target in many discussions.

Construction projects are generally designed as a general contract or a complete contract. In a general contract the commercial contract that is being used is AB 04 and related advice and instructions, AMA AF 07. In AB 04 there is an insurance requirement that stipulates that the contractor shall take all risks and liability insurance for the contract where the client must be co-insured.Construction law is almost exclusively regulated by the various standard contracts, one of those is AB 04. The Construction Contracts Committe is an organization that has published the standard contracts in this area of law and also the advice and instructions to help the parties to understand the agreements. The insurance requirement occurs in an area of law that is complex and the meaning of the concept is not entirely clear, nor which of the parties? interests and responsibilities that are covered by the types of insurances that are provided by the insurance requirement.

This thesis treats the information the insurance company is going to give the policyholders just before the insurance is to be concluded and soon thereafter. The purpose for the essay is to investigate whether the mentioned information can be considered to meet the purpose referred to its establishment. The investigation will also show if the penalty for not upholding this obligation is reasonable in relation to the aim the duty to inform the policyholders is meant to uphold.Information to be provided before the contract is concluded should facilitate the choice of insurance. The information to be given to the policyholders as soon as possible after the contract is concluded should be given as a form of confirmation and information on conditions that has not been stated before. The purposes that have been mentioned is for both the information to consumers and companies.The conclusion that can be made after the analysis is that the information is of great importance for the policyholder, both for consumers and companies.

Who has the ownership of a company´s long-term strategy, and who should have it? Is it the board of directors or the senior management? Swedish law and regulations seemingly point in one direction, whereas the findings of studying the relationship between CEO and chairman of the board in eleven Swedish listed large- and mid-cap companies, point the other way. In a majority of the companies the senior management have the ownership of the long term strategy whilst the board of directors merely hold a control function. The possible effects on the companies managed as well as the rules and regulations they are managed according to, are analyzed..

This paper examines how companies in a transparent industry work to satisfy the customer in an extended way, to offer value added products that in the end enables the customer to be loyal to the company. We have studied the insurance industry in Sweden and have focused on five different insurance companies. Four of them, Folksam, Länsförsäkringar, Trygg-Hansa and Dina Försäkringar, where we have focused on Ölands Försäkringar which is part of the Dina Försäkringar group, are some of the largest insurance companies in Sweden. The fourth company is Swedbank which is a bank that has started to offer insurances.Our results demonstrate that it is important for the company to see the customer not only in a profitability aspect; the company has to find out what the customer gets in return. In that case the possibility for the customer to change company decreases and the chance that the customer becomes loyal increases.

Previous work by researchers as Eugene F. Fama and Kenneth R. French, show that average return on stocks are related to a firms characteristics like size and book-to-market ratio. These kinds of patterns in average return is not explained by The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), and are therefore seen as anomalies. Fama and French have proposed a three-factor model, which captures patterns observed in U.S average returns associated with size and value.

This is an examination of the Swedish unemployment insurance system and the effects it has on the Swedish long-term unemployment. A search model is explained to give an understanding to the incentives of the unemployed. Different mechanisms that create unemployment and that could create long-term unemployment are investigated, but primarily the unemployment insurance is in focus.The Swedish unemployment insurance has undergone several changes the last fifteen years that have improved its efficiency. The introduction of a finite duration of unemployment insurance entitlement was an important step and so was the decrease in the replacement ratio. Even so, I assess that there is still room for improvements of the incentives to search for work among the unemployed.

Through the rulings RÅ 2010 ref. 11, HFD 2011 ref. 75 and HFD 2011 not 88 the Swedish Supreme Administrative Court have extended the concept of same or similar activities which can be found in section 57, clause 4 of the Swedish Income Tax Act. Through the ruling the Court has partly clarified the application area of the regulation but question marks still remains.In the statutory text there is no definition of what shall be regarded as same or similar activity and the preparatory work does not give any further direction on how the concept should be interpreted. Ever since the amendment in 1995 the general view has been that activities can be transferred between different companies without affecting the waiting period in the company of origin.

Over the last decade, the private insurance market has undergone a stable growth in turnover and growing demand for insurance products in all Member States of the European Union. Therefore, the creation of a single market in insurance will enable consumers to have access to wider choice of insurance products, and insurance companies to gain access to markets in various Member States and compete effectively. The EU legal framework for the insurance industry embraces the Treaty freedoms of services, establishment and capital, the EC Directives and the ECJ case-law. The present thesis identifies numerous factors that hinder the Community insurance market integration and offers possible remedies. The summary of the market obstacles is all-inclusive and reflects the responses to the questionnaires and the Commission surveys.