Aim: The purpose of this study is to examine and analyze how insurance companies work to create value and confidence in their brands and then compare whether consumers perceive brands as companies seek.Method: The study is a gap analysis of both qualitative and quantitative in nature containing both interviews with insurance companies and a survey carried out on consumers. The study has been developed by analytical induction.Data: Consists of interviews with representatives from the insurance companies and survey responses from 99 consumers.Conclusion: From the study it can be concluded that the insurance industry is unique in its kind as a difficulty and complexity is obviously applicable to convey an overall impression to the consumer, which in turn will produce a brand value to the company. Creating a high brand value through good marketing where it maintained a good congruence between firms striving and consumer perception, is according to the scientists complicated because the lack of perceived quality affects the the big picture..

Syftet med den här studien är att utreda hur redovisningsmarknaden skulle kunna påverkas av högre gränsvärden för frivillig revision samt vilka effekter det skulle medföra. För att undersöka detta har vi valt att utforma en kvalitativ intervjustudie där respondenterna har bestått av auktoriserade revisorer, auktoriserade redovisningskonsulter samt tjänstemän inom Upplysningscentralen, Bolagsverket samt Skatteverket.Studien har inspirerats av de gränsvärden som presenterades i det nya EU-direktivet som kom år 2013. Vi har diskuterat en eventuell höjning av gränsvärdena med respondenterna för att se hur detta skulle kunna påverka den svenska redovisningen.Studien har inspirerats av grounded theory som innebär att jämförelser sker löpande under undersökningens gång och studien har analyserats utifrån ett principal- och agent förhållande. I studien har vi kommit fram till att för kort tid har gått för att det ska synas några tydliga resultat men samtliga respondenter är över lag positiva mot högre gränsvärden och de tror att gränsvärdena kommer att höjas på sikt..

Background: The difference between the market value and the book value of the companies has dramatically increased. One explanation is that the inflow of capital on the market has increased. Another explanation is that companies have a larger share of intellectual capital. The question is how this has influenced the company-valuator's use of valuation-models? Purpose: The purpose of this study is to find out what relevance the substance valuation model has, the DCF-model has, and also discover new valuation-models, among company-valuators.

The aim of the study was to describe how nurses experience to handle the alcohol issues among young people and how they can identify young people?s alcohol problems, abuse and dependence. Empirical articles were searched in the databases Cinahl, Medline(Pubmed) and Discovery and resulted in the inclusion of 14 scientific articles. The results showed that nurses find it difficult to raise the issues of alcohol with young people, this partly because they feel that they have too little knowledge and that it is an emotional issue to raise. There is help instruments available that nursing staff can use to raise this issues and to identify alcohol problems, abuse and dependence.

Revision används som ett medel för att utomstående intressenter, exempelvis aktieägare, ska få en kvalitetsstämpel på den information som förmedlas av ett företags ledning. Om revisorerna vill påpeka någonting angående företagets redovisning eller förvaltning utfärdar de en så kallad oren revisionsberättelse. I denna studie undersöker vi om denna orena revisionsberättelse får någon effekt på företagets aktiekurs. Den problemformulering som besvaras är:Har en oren revisionsberättelse någon effekt på svenska publika företags aktiekurser?Tidigare forskning på området har nästan enbart genomförts i utlandet.

The aim of this small thesis is to investigate if the probability of business failure is higher at the time of divestment than at the time of acquisition for portfolio companies that have been subject to private equity ownership. The background for this thesis is the widespread critique aimed at private equity firms, claiming that they increase the risk in their portfolio companies. We have performed a study of 53 buyout transactions, involving Swedish manufacturing companies, covering a time span of 13 years, from 1995 to 2007. We find evidence of an increased risk of business failure for the portfolio companies with a short forecasting horizon (within one year). The absolute increase in the sample is however small.

Innovation has been identified as one of the key factors for economic growth long ago. However, the emergence of ?knowledge century? further strengthened the role of the concept since proper management of the knowledge is essential to make the best out of the innovative capacity of the companies as well as the countries. This necessitates a balanced intellectual property rights (IPR) systems, since these rights provide the basis to solve the market failures faced by innovating firms by creating property rights over knowledge. There is an inherent dilemma between invention and diffusion.

The purpose of this study is to examine and explain why three Swedish public libraries failedin their ambition to act as information services for small and medium-sized firms (SMF). To support this purpose two major assumptions are made:1) Public libraries who plan to run this kind of "business" must act with the same means as "professional" services.2) The service must be adjusted to the information needs of the customer.Based on these assumptions sixteen factors which are crucial to the "success" for this kind of service are presented.Applied to the information services of Lidkoping, Sölvesborg and Västervik, these factors reveal a number of shortcomings and mistakes made by the libraries.To understand this result these information services are seen as parts of a traditional Swedish public "library-thought". It is shown that, fundamental ideas in the way the public libraries are defined, like the responsibility to act in a neutral and democratic way, also characterised the three information services.These ideas together with the opinion of SMF as a "rational" information-consumer resulted in information services who did not meet the information-needs and information-behaviour of SMF..

The objective of this work was to introduce measures to reduce energy and water demand at Gävle Söder 17:10. To succeed, this energy audit has been made. The work is based on collected statistics from the property owner Norrporten, measurements, literature review and through consultation with experts in the field. Two models, one for each building, have been created in the simulation program BV2 to estimate the potential of energy measures based on the collected information. The models in BV2 have been verified against the statistics of the energy consumption.With the help of calculations and simulations, seven cost-effective measures have been identified.

 IAS 40 allows two methods of valuation for investment properties, fair value model and cost model. The purpose of this paper is to investigate what drive property companies to disclose their investment properties at fair value. In order to understand their choice, we use accounting choice theory and the three factors this theory describes, information asymmetry, allowing opportunism and agency costs. To answer our purpose, we have from a qualitative approach performed semi-structured interviews with respondents from five of the largest listed property companies in Sweden. The results suggest that firms have chosen the method that is most effective in the valuation of investment properties.

Law and regulations regulate the auditors? independence. An auditor should not only be independent in general, but independence in fact and independence in appearance. However, the regulations do not specifically describe how to act independence. It is the concerns of the auditor were he puts his limit for the independence.

This thesis is based on an investigation to find out in what way 40 Swedish public librarieskeep and preserve their library materials. The investigation is based on inquiries sent outto the libraries. It deals with the keeping of books with regard to external factors which havedestructive effects on library materials as well as the safety at the library buildings. It is, aswell, about the preserving work being done at the libraries.Comparisons are made with literature and accounts about preserving measures and recommendationsregarding appropriate environment in premises and depositories. The resultsshow great differences between the libraries as to the library environment, i.e.

En lagändring har gjorts i Sverige vars syfte är att små och medelstora företag har frivillig revision om de ligger under eller endast uppfyller ett av följande tre gränsvärden: (1) 3 miljoner kronor i nettoomsättning, (2) 1,5 miljoner kronor i balansomslutning eller (3) fler än tre anställda. Eftersom lagändringen är relativt ny, medför det att företag i dagsläget precis har avslutat eller är inne i en beslutsprocess angående den frivilliga revisionen.Beslutsfattande är något som ständigt pågår i alla former av organiserad mänsklig verksamhet och dagligen förekommer det i alla organisationer ett beslutsfattande både när det gäller rutinfrågor till mer komplexa beslut. Genom mänsklighetens historia har människan strävat efter att få kontroll över resultaten av sina beslut, öka förutsägbarheten samt minska riskerna. När beslut fattas i företag måste även hänsyn tas till en rad förhållanden som är direkt kopplat till den organisatoriska kontexten för handlandet.Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur och på vilka grunder företagen har fattat beslut vid valet av att anlita en revisor eller inte, samt analysera beslutsprocessen ur ett beslutsteoretiskt perspektiv. Följande problemformulering ligger till grund för denna studie:Vad kännetecknar ett företag som anser sig ha behov av revision trots att kravet på revision inte är tvingande?På vilka grunder är beslutet fattat?Undersökningen ska bidra till en djupare kunskap och förståelse om hur besluten fattats och hur beslutsprocessen gått till.

Graphic profiles are a part of companies? brand expressions. The graphical values reflect the brand values the business wants to convey. They consist of different graphic elements such as logo, company sign, colour schemes, templates, rules, fonts, pictograms, formats and references to how different graphic elements should look, for example, business cards, signs and materials for websites. This thesis aims to examine why firms choose to replace their graphic profiles by studying their underlying motivations.

A webpage can be perfectly usable but if users are unable to find the webpage it will remain unused. Nine out of ten Swedes use a search engine and the most popular one is Google, amongst other search engines. In this report I seek to answer which ranking factors that should be included in an SEO-audit of an existing webpage and also how to optimize a webpage for search engines. Applying the method heuristic evaluation normally used to discover usability issues in an existing interface, on TT News Agency?s campaign site I found issues having a negative impact on the visibility in Search Engines Page Results.