Dagens standardiserade revisionsberättelse har kritiserats för att den innehåller alltför knapphändig information. Dessutom presenterar den enbart att revisorn tagit ett passivt ansvar i sitt granskningsarbete och ger inte revisorn möjlighet att ta ett aktivt ansvar vid författandet av revisionsberättelsen. För att fo?rbättra detta har IAASB beslutat att införa ett nytt avsnitt, Key Audit Matters, där revisorn förväntas redogöra för väsentliga risker och svårigheter i revisionen. Genom att undersöka vilka områden som utgör Key Audit Matters idag och hur dessa kommuniceras bäst i revisionsberättelsen förväntas studien analysera relationen mellan revisorers ansvar och deras inställning till revisionsberättelsen.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the Dual-Effect hypothesis in Pritmani, Shome and Singal paper (2003), in order to analyze the exchange rate exposure on firms listed on the U.K. market. The study will examine if the foreign involvement of the firm will affect the share price of the firm.In addition to evaluating the Dual-Effect hypothesis in Pritmani et. al. (2003), we will evaluate the effect of foreign interest rates impact on U.K.

Management control systems are a popular area of research and a lot of new research has been done over the past years. This development has been looking into new situations and circumstances, and interdisciplinary studies are being made to further understand the connection between different fields of study. A new field of study that has grown significantly over the past few years is the connection between management control systems and entrepreneurship. Leading researchers have proposed a number of questions for further research and one of them is the board of directors? use of management control systems in entrepreneurial firms.The purpose of this study was to examine the differences and similarities in the board of directors? use of management control systems between entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial firms.The study was conducted as a deductive qualitative study through interviews with respondents from entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial firms.

The aim of this paper is to examine the capacity for ethical reasoning of Swedish certi-fied auditors in the five largest accounting firms in Stockholm, and also how ethics courses affect the auditors' ability to ethically statement. To calculate the auditors ability to ethical statement, questionnaire has been used. The questionnaire is based on a psychological instrument, the so-called Defining Issues Test. At the beginning of the questionnaire some questions are asked about the ethics courses. From the questionnaire a calculation was made of an average index called p-score (Principled score).

This thesis studies whether private equity owned firms within the Swedish welfare sector distinguish themselves in terms of tax planning and short-termism from a control group consisting of other privately owned welfare firms. For the first time, the comparison is made on the entire welfare sector, between 14 matched pairs within education, health care and elderly care. We use financial metrics associated with tax planning and short-termism in sign tests to examine whether the private equity owned firms differ from our control group. The financial metrics tested are actual and paid tax rates, level of interest, book-tax gap, investments, personnel expenses per employee, and cash earnings. We find that the private equity owned firms in terms of tax planning only differ in the level of interest, while no notable differences are found in terms of short-termism..

The aim of this masters thesis is to examine what political, social and ideological reasons that were the base for the establishment of the Swedish temperance movement. Which judgements within this movement that resulted in the decision to establish publishing firms, how these publishing businesses were organised and what function they had in the literary circuit. The questions are: What principal political, social, economical and ideological reasons were the bases for the establishment of the Swedish temperance movement? How has their need for publishing firms arisen? Which were the publishing firms and who were the publishers? What ideas, purposes, experiences, values and judgements led to the establishment of publishing firms? In the first part of the theory I have used the historical materialism of Karl Marx; in the second part the theory of middle class publicity by Jürgen Habermas; and in the third part I have made a presentation of the literary circuit and how it works according to Marx and Habermas. The method used is an analysis of ideas and ideologies in literature and documents.

Background: The environment and the design of auditing regulation can vary significantly between countries, which can affect the form, content and quality of the audit report. The purpose of the International Standards on Auditing, ISA, is to facilitate the work for auditors on an international basis. Sweden today follows the RS 600 which is based on ISA 600, which contains standards for when an auditor use work performed by other auditor. In October 2007, came a revised and redrafted version of ISA 600 that will be enforced in Sweden in the audit of the financial year beginning on 1 January 2011. To what degree the new requirements will affect the group audit is clearly dependent on how the reporting, evaluation and instructions between the group auditor and other auditor has been carried out previously.Aim: The aim with this paper is to explain the reporting between the group auditor and other auditor in an international corporate group.

We would like to learn more about how the restrictive policy against incentive programmes affects the board’s of Swedish state owned commercial firms ability to govern management in an efficient way. We also want to find out if there are different consequences in reference to this that are not directly linked to corporate governance issues. Our empiric observations have been made in order to profoundly explore the subject and examine it through the eyes of professional individuals, all expressing different views and standpoints. We conclude that the most efficient structure is when an active board is complemented by a well structured and individualised incentive programme. However, this thesis conclude that this structure is not possible given the current guidelines and policies employed by the state, which in turn might lead to sub optimizations in the governing..

Title: A study about conditions for leadership in knowledge-intensive firms.Authors: Cecilia Ekström and Niklas SandbergKeywords: Leadership, knowledge-intensive firm, hierarchies, followers.Background: Leadership is becoming one of our greatest social myths and is considered a total solution for many problems that occur in an organization. The view of leadership is usually from a top-down perspective, which contributes to an often underestimated view of the follower. Just as it is important to understand the leader's view of leadership, it is important to understand how employees view the structure from which the leader derives its legitimacy. The existing conditions in knowledge-intensive firms, such as autonomy, place special demands on the formal leadership.Purpose: The purpose of this study takes an employee perspective, to understand what the conditions are for formal leadership in knowledge-intensive firms.Method: A qualitative research method was used and empirical material was collected through interviews with employees in knowledge-intensive firms. The empirical material was analyzed by the respondents? mental images which were set against the theoretical framework of the thesis.Conclusions: The conditions for formal leadership in knowledge-intensive firms make it advantageous to have a leader with a withdrawn role.

This thesis studies private equity firms' implementation of management control systems in their portfolio companies and whether the systems are affected by cross-national differences. A comparative case study examines five different private equity firms to derive if there are any differences between the private equity firms' management control systems in the United States, Europe and China. The empirical observations are categorized according to the framework developed by Merchant (1985) and further developed by Merchant and Van der Stede (2003). Theory on the effect of multinationality on management control systems, also developed by Merchant and Van der Stede (2003), are used to explain possible findings. The applied theory includes the cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede (1984) and Hofstede and Bond (1988).

The professional football clubs can today be compared with company with profit aim, but the difference is that they also want to achieve sporting successes. In ten years, the Swedish Premier Division´s turnover has more than doubled and because of the strong economic development the license of elite was introduced. The license of elite´s criteria means that professional football clubs must have positively equity and requirements on approved or authorized auditor. Most of the professional football clubs are run as a non-profit association and legislations for these are relatively unclear compared with limited companies. The purpose of this study is to create understanding for how the audit process is implemented in professional football clubs compared with a limited company.

This study is a semi-­structured, qualitative depth-­interview study investigating Swedish institutional investors' perception of the fact that companies purchase non-­audit services from its signing auditor and if they see this as a threat to auditor independence. The study focuses on independence in appearance rather than independence in fact. The study is based on the current media debate on auditor independence and aims to provide a deeper insight to enlighten legislators how users of audited financial information look at the problem. The study builds on agency theory's notion that there is an information asymmetry between management and shareholders, which the auditor is to reduce. The results show that Swedish institutional investors perceive that there is a threat to auditor independence when companies buy non­-audit services from its signing auditor.

New Economy Firms (NEFs) are considered being important drivers of economic development and growth in Sweden. Also, entrepreneurship is a widely discussed topic that is considered being essential for firms that are making business in a fast moving landscape. Usually, the growth of companies is put in context of the life cycle. The life cycle further implies that as a company moves from the startup-stage along the curve, the organizational structure increases. Further, increased structure is claimed to impede the entrepreneurial culture within the firm.

This thesis seeks to explain the effect of private equity ownership on the amount of invest- ments made in a company. We use three capital expenditure based key ratios to determine if there is a tendency for private equity owned firms to invest more or less than comparable companies. Our dataset involve 27 Swedish buyout companies that were sold by a private equity fund between 2001 and 2009. Each buyout is assigned a peer group of two firms in similar size and in the same industry. Firstly, we compare the key ratios to determine potential differences in the level of investment.

BakgrundAlkoholkonsumtionen i Sverige har stigit under senare år och låg 2007 på 9,74 liter ren alkohol per invånare och år. 17% av männen och 9% av kvinnorna beräknas ha en alkoholkonsumtion som kan riskera att skada hälsan. Termen riskbruk syftar på en riskabelt hög alkoholkonsumtion utan beroende. Antalet ?riskbrukare? är mycket större än antalet alkoholberoende.