Since 2005 all companies listed on a regulated stock exchange within the European Union are required to present their financial reports in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and International Accounting Standards (IAS). The purposes of these standards are to accomplish international harmonization of accounting rules to make financial reports more comparable. However, recent research has shown that some firms tend to use goodwill strategically in a business combination by manipulating the acquired assets and consciously allocate the intangible assets to goodwill to reduce the depreciation in the income and decrease costs. This phenomenon may reduce the comparability between financial reports and thus has an opposite effect on the purpose of IFRS and IAS.The aim of this study is to show how the companies involved in this study allocate goodwill strategically. Furthermore, the introduction of the new standards has contributed to that goodwill now is a subject for impairment test, therefore we want to show whether this affected the comparability of the companies in this study.An empirical study was conducted, based on interviews with four Swedish managers.

Vi har med hjälp av en kvalitativ metod undersökt vår problemformulering och vårt syfte, om revisorernas syn på slopandet av revisionsplikten.  Utifrån problemformuleringen har frågeställningar till undersökningen bildats och dessa försöker vi att besvara i uppsatsen. Revisionen tillkom för första gången i 1895 års lag om aktiebolag, men revisionsplikten kom inte till förrän år 1988. Utvecklingen av revisionen har fortsatt till att bli mer omfattande. Revisionsplikten har medfört administrativa kostnader för de små företagen och EU vill minska bördan för dem. I Sverige har en utredning gjorts angående huruvida revisionsplikten ska slopas eller inte.

International expansion has long been associated with a positive trend that many companies, regardless of industry, choosing to realize mainly to expand its market share and hence its profitability. Various theories describe differentiated strategies to promote corporate expansion. Either they shall be financed by internal funds, or balancing equity with debt, or only increase leverage in order to achieve the desired results. This study focuses on the Swedish fashion market and its degree of internationalization. The purpose is to attempt to discern whether there exists a correlation between the degree of internationalization and its financial performance.The study was based on a quantitative approach where secondary data was collected so that we then would be able to perform regression calculations.

Purpose: The purpose of the investigation is to give an insight to hot the EU legal environment in the field of vertical relationships influences the competitiveness of the 2nd tier of the automobile industry. Conclusion:It follows that European legislation has succeedded in raising the competitiveness by breaking down the powers of the predominantly more powerful companies that the 2nd tier players do business with and by giving companies sufficient leeway to act. The comment must be made here that serious problems due to a power misbalance might still exist yet are not uncovered. In the course of my research I have found a lack of issues in my subject field. These problems however would have a more structural and economical cause, dealing with these problems would fall outside the boundaries of the competence of European competition legislation.

Purpose: In order to curb the prevalence of undeclared work and to improve competi-tion within the building and construction business, reversed charge audit will from July 1, 2007 onwards be applied within the building sector. The new rules entail a consider-able amount of delimiting problems as regards both businesses and services.The aim of this essay is to study the rules as well as direct the light upon various consequen-tial delimiting problems. Furthermore, we will investigate what the effects are on the busi-nesses, as well as their view regarding this. Apart from this, we will also investigate who will benefit and who will be disfavourably affected, respectively, by the new lawMethod: The investigation has been conducted with a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Firstly, an opinion poll was carried out, directed towards Swedish construction companies, and this was then deepened using three interviews.Result & Conclusions: The essay demonstrates that the new rules have entailed more work to a varying degree for the companies.

Calculations of net present value are based on a discount rate, which requires knowledge about the company?s cost of debt. A common way to do this is by observing the company?s credit rating, when no credit rating is given it?s possible to use a synthetic rating model based on quantitative data to estimate a credit rating. Thus, the aim of this study is to increase the understanding of which quantitative data, in terms of key figures, that can be used to explain the given credit ratings for companies from the Nordic countries.In developing the model, key figures found significant in previous studies are being tested for whether or not they are applicable for companies from the Nordic countries.

Since 2005 all companies listed on a regulated stock exchange within the European Union are required to present their financial reports in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and International Accounting Standards (IAS). The purposes of these standards are to accomplish international harmonization of accounting rules to make financial reports more comparable. However, recent research has shown that some firms tend to use goodwill strategically in a business combination by manipulating the acquired assets and consciously allocate the intangible assets to goodwill to reduce the depreciation in the income and decrease costs. This phenomenon may reduce the comparability between financial reports and thus has an opposite effect on the purpose of IFRS and IAS.The aim of this study is to show how the companies involved in this study allocate goodwill strategically. Furthermore, the introduction of the new standards has contributed to that goodwill now is a subject for impairment test, therefore we want to show whether this affected the comparability of the companies in this study.An empirical study was conducted, based on interviews with four Swedish managers.

Bakgrund: I och med samhällets globalisering ökar möjligheterna för revisionsmedarbetare till internationell rörlighet länder emellan. En svensk revisionsmedarbetare har idag möjlighet att åka på en utbytesperiod för att tillägna sig ny kunskap; såväl professionell som privat, vilket det finns olika tillvägagångssätt för. Samhälleliga, privata och arbetsmässiga kulturkrockar är något som en revisionsmedarbetare kan uppleva genom ett utbyte. För revisionsmedarbetare bör det vara nyttigt att erfara sådana här skillnader för att skapa ny kunskap, utveckla sin egna samt kunna dela med sig av denna.Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka vilken utbyteskunskap en svensk revisionsmedarbetare har av ett utbyte till USA, hur denna tillägnas, samt om denna kunskap går att implementera i det fortsatta arbetet i Sverige.Definitioner: Utbyteskunskap definieras i denna uppsats som den typ av kunskap som tillägnas vid ett utbyte. Med kunskap avses sådan som kan användas inom revisionsyrket, vilket innefattar kunskap om arbetsmetoder, tillvägagångssätt, sociala förhållanden samt regelverkens uppbyggnad.Resultat och slutsatser: Resultatet av studien konstaterar att utbyteskunskapen består i privata--?, kulturella--? och arbetsmässiga områden, vilka tillägnas genom erfarenhetsbaserat lärande samt praktisk involvering i samhället..

Den 1 januari 1999 bildade elva länder (Belgien, Finland, Frankrike, Italien, Irland, Luxemburg, Nederländerna, Portugal, Spanien, Tyskland och Österrike) en europeisk valutaunion, det som också kallas euroområdet. Grekland anslöt sig, som en tolfte och ny deltagare, i januari 2001. Även om Sverige, Danmark och Storbritannien inte deltar från start har det varit klart att EMU kommer få konsekvenser för olika sektorer.Frågorna som behandlats i detta arbete är följande:Har EMU haft en effekt på de finansiella marknaderna i de länder som är med i valutaunionen?Har Sveriges, Storbritanniens och Danmarks finansiella marknader förändrats på samma sätt som i de länder som är med i EMU, fast dessa länder står utanför?Syftet med detta arbete är att analysera de finansiella marknaderna, genom beräkningar av vissa kända finansiella variabler, i de länder som deltar i valutaunionen och tre länder som står utanför (Sverige, Danmark och Storbritannien). Detta för att se om de finansiella marknaderna har påverkats av EMU och hur de har påverkats i och med inträdet.De variabler som behandlats är; ?-värdet, för att se om länderna går mot en gemensam marknadsrisk.

Background Swedish nurses are required by law to document nursing care. Studies have proved scarce in nursing documentation with regard to written language, the nursing process and the nurse´s caring perspective. Educating nurses in using the VIPS model have improved nursing documentation. Few studies have included nursing documentation of psychiatric care.Aim The aim of this study was to describe nursing documentation within psychiatric care of inpatient settings.Method A quantitative, retrospective descriptive research design was applied. A total of 60 nursing journals from a psychiatric department of six wards were studied.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the motives underlying the consumption of alcohol among college students and if the motives differ between genders. The study is based on the following questions: What are the motives underlying alcohol consumption among students? Do these motives differ between men and women? Is there any connection between the motives for alcohol consumption and consumption? The study is a quantitative, empirical comparison study and the data presented is mainly descriptive. The study group consists of students from a university in central Sweden. After an exclusion of five students a total of 81 students participated in the survey, of which 55 were female and 26 were male.

A great number of empirical researches show that hedging is associated with higher firm value, particularly hedging interest rate and exchange rate. However, there is no clear support for value-added risk management hypothesis in the case of producers of commodities. Moreover, according to Shrand and Unal (1997), there are two types of risks, core business risks (or core risk) and homogeneous risks (or non core risks), which are based on a firm's comparative advantages with respects to the source of risk. Firm can earn economic profits for bearing core risks in which it has a comparative information advantage. Firm earn a zero economic rents for bearing non-core risks, where it has no advantage information than its competitors.

Since Brand Management and Marketing in theory mainly been focusing on the consumer market, our main purpose of this essay is to analyze how a brand also can be appealing to the labour market, to attract and engage employees. Keywords attached to our essay are, brands, recruitment, Human Resource management, theories of motivation, corporate identity, employer branding and internal marketing. The study is based on a qualitative research. Our main reason for choosing this research was to get a closer insight for the phenomen and to establish a major understanding for the subject. To get a better knowledge and to answer and fulfil our purpose we have chosen to complete eight interviews, of whom six respondents representing Service firms.

The energy sector of modern time is currently faced with several challenges. These are both production oriented and environmental oriented in nature. The energy of the future is intended to support an increasing demand while at the same time reduce its environmental affection. This stresses a development towards production methods of renewable energy. Among the existing methods, biogas is presented as an attractive alternative.

Lean is one of the recent years most popular methods for organizations to use in order to increase efficiency, productivity and quality. Despite Lean's increased popularity, Lean is still difficult to define and can be explained and described in different ways. Previous studies have also shown that Lean is difficult to implement and challenging to maintain successfully. Knowledge of Lean is viewed as a necessity in the implementation of Lean, which leads to that organizations often chooses to bring in this knowledge through external consultants or other experts in order to implement Lean in their organization. Thus, it is interesting to examine the consultants view on Lean and the implementation process of Lean.