Introduction: The concept of CSR was first coined in the 1950?s and refers to corporate vol-untary work to contribute to a sustainable society. In Sweden, companies within the finance sector are among the worst when it comes to implementing CSR in their daily work. The debate on whether companies should engage in CSR activities or not, is extremely relevant nowadays. Right now we are facing a time where the demand on companies to take their social responsi-bility becomes more intensified.

Background: Operating on the stock market is associated with risks. If a particular asset is not traded with the same frequency as the average market asset, this particular asset is exposed to a liquidity risk. It means that the investor might not be able to sell the asset at a desired time without incurring expensive transaction costs. The query is whether or not the investor is compensated with a liquidity premium for bearing the extra risk. Earlier studies on the Stockholm Stock Exchange have failed to prove that there is a relation between stock return and liquidity.

BackgroundToday a common approach to solve a complicated problem is to assemble a temporary workforce in order to solve the problem by working together within a project. One of the difficulties with working in projects is to maintain the planned budget. Working hours and costs are often exceeded. Many companies presume that any certain project will succeed, a presumption that leads companies not to anticipate risks involved in a project. In companies today there is seldom time for evaluation or moderation of a project, in order to have time for evaluation there is a great need for an adequate planning of the project.IntentThe intention with this study is to create a model for planning, budgeting and evaluation of projects within consultancy companies.MethodWith the help of interviews and discussions within the group Hamnar och Byggkonstruktioner at Sweco has evidence to present a proposal on planning, budgeting and monitoring been developed.ResultsA model has been developed to ease for consultancy companies to plan, budget, monitor and evaluate projects.

The study aims to investigate Swedish fitness companies positioning and strategic choices when internationalising in the Scandinavian countries and what has influenced this choice. Furthermore, the corporate risk and what obstacles they encountered will be examined.The study was conducted as a qualitative study with a deductive approach. The results are based mainly on primary data from interviews, as well as secondary data.The fitness companies? choice of strategy in internationalisation depends largely on its concept and positioning. The main obstacles in the internationalisation process are lack of communication, language difficulties and regulations.

Background: Sweden has, since 1983, had a statutory audit for all joint-stock companies. However, according to EG?s fourth corporation directive, member countries can decide on their own if this applies for small joint-stock companies. An investigation was launched in the fall of 2006 to form an opinion on the importance of the audit reporting by law and what an abolishment of this rule would mean for small joint-stock companies. Critics are claiming that the cost of audit for small companies is exceeding the cause in these micro companies.Audit is regulated by Swedish translation (RS) of International Standards on Auditing (ISA) and is to be applied in all companies comprised by the statutory audit.

The financial result of a transfer of ownership or external sale is to a great extent depend-ent on how the transfer is implemented and how the tax rules apply. The applicability of the Swedish tax rules regarding transfer of ownership in closely held companies largely de-pends on the interpretation of the prerequisite, equal or similar activity, which can be found in section 57, clause 4 of the Swedish Income Tax Act.The ruling made by the Supreme Administrative Court in RÅ 2010 ref. 11 changed the concept of equal or similar activity. The ruling lead to that the shares in a closely held com-pany was qualified due to that the capital from the original company had been transferred to the operating company. According to the ruling the original company had been split into several companies, thus was the companies considered to carry out equal or similar activity.

Background: The strategic importance of purchasing departments is increasing, yet supply risks are rather uncharted. The procurement of coffee involves supply risks and the purchaser needs to be able to handle these to enable the roasting-house to produce coffee as specified. Purpose: To chart risks in connection with the procurement of coffee as well as the possibilities of handling these. The thesis also examines if general risk management theories are applicable on the supply risk present within Swedish roasting-houses and can become an integral partof the purchasing process. Method: A qualitative case study of the purchasing process of Swedish roasting- houses.

An accounting issue that has received attention is the issue of identification of intangible assets in acquisitions. This is because the company's result can be different depending on how much the company chooses to identify intangible assets separated from goodwill. As the practice for identification of intangible assets lacks clarity, companies are able to account for this in different ways. In this study, the manner in which identification of intangible assets are managed by companies listed on Swedish multilateral trading facilities and the manner in which companies distribute the purchase sum on net tangible assets, intangible assets and goodwill in comparison with listed companies is examined. The study emanates from a systems approach and is descriptive.

If Swedish companies are to compete with companies in low-cost countries they have to achieve a more efficient production. The purpose of Total Productivity Maintenance (TPM) is to increase the company's profitability by increasing the productivity. TPM is a method that involves all employees and aims to prevent failures in order to increase the availability of existing equipment.The aim of this paper is to evaluate the implementation process of TPM and give recommendations for the further implementation process. The conclusion and the analysis are based on a case study done at a production department at ABB Cewe-Controls facilities in Nyköping. The case study consists mainly of qualitative data from participation observations, surveys and interviews.Commitment of the management is a key factor in the implementation process of TPM.

?Death in the pot.? The Fruit and Vegetable Preserving industry in East Scania during the 20th centuryA Company History.At the end of the twentieth century, only one of the six companies previously active in the Fruit and Vegetable Preserving Industry in East Scania survived as an independent company: Kiviks Musterier AB. Actual production remains at two sites only. The aim of this study is to determine the reasons for this development. The companies included in the investigation are AB Bjäre industrier, Gustaf Bong AB, Kiviks Musterier AB, AB Ruuthsbo konservindustrier, Th.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the perception of value and risk in CSR as well as analyzing how financial institutions influence responsible behavior in business in order to create sustainable economic growth.Methodology: The study has a qualitative research method used by an abductive process. Data has been collected through semi-structured interviews with respondents from three venture capital companies and three banks. The sample of respondents was done through a convenience sample with respect to access and expertise in the research area.Conclusion: The most important meanings of the research results have shown that CSR holds an intrinsic value concerning contributing value as its conceptual meaning in terms of sustainable development. CSR can also be regarded as a dimension of risk management to reduce the risk of negative externalities on corporate activities. Investors and financiers contribute to sustainable companies through active ownership and improvements in the CSR dimensions.

Companies have in the past decades changed fromtraditional manufacturing organizations into serviceorganizations. For these service organizationsinformation and competence have become animportant resource. The traditional view oninformation is that an employee use and search forinformation to reduce uncertainty for their decisionmaking. Even though information is strategicallyimportant for organizations, information is not valuedin any way. Hence, this thesis aims to valueinformation in terms of the utility it brings to theorganization.The conclusion is that four factors are important whenvaluing information in terms of utility.

This qualitative study involves the implementation of Lean and Kaizen methods in a Swedish service industry. Lean philosophy is based on a method to achieve more with less. In practical terms this means that the use of an organization's resources is improved. The origin of Lean is the Toyota Production System. Now, Kaizen methods give managers and employees a better more efficient system to reach their goals within the organization or company.

The main purpose of this essay is to through theories about internal communication, channels to communicate through and change management study how these can be related to the processes at the Swedish Consumer Agency due to its future relocation. The main question within this essay is therefore:- How has the internal communication and the change management at the Swedish Consumer Agency developed in comparison with the prescribed theories?This essay is divided into three different parts (ideal, reality, ideal/reality) which can be derived to the essays theory, result and analysis chapters. The theories are the ideal while the result describes the internal communication and the change management during the process (the reality). In the analysis chapter, the ideal and the reality are compared to distinguish how the reality has been working in comparison to the ideal.The internal communication has mainly been distinguished through the authority?s intranet and the information communicated has comparatively been fast, open, objective and reliable.

Large companies in today?s business environment are to a great extent depending on their credit score by rating institutes like Moody?s and Standard & Poor?s. There is however indications that these big institutes are not always rating companies accurately. This is why this thesis aims at developing a new credit rating model, CRITA-Score, with the objective of determining a company?s financial health more accurately.