AbstractIntroduction: It has during the latest years occurred several large business scandals both abroad and in Sweden where auditors have been involved. The need for stabile conditions and well functioning professional codes of ethics for companies, especially Auditing firms have been growing during the latest years. FAR has seen it as their task to define the meaning of the Swedish term ?god revisorssed?. This is specified through FAR?s nine professional codes of ethics, which came out in a new edition in 2003.

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.

Revisionsplikten har under en längre tid varit ett väldiskuterat ämne i Europa där störst fokus har legat på huruvida revisionen ska vara frivillig eller inte. Idag har det gått mer än två år sedan lagen om avskaffad revisionsplikt trädde i kraft vilket gör det möjligt att studera avskaffandets effekter ur olika perspektiv som till exempel de små aktiebolagens perspektiv, skatteverkets perspektiv och kreditgivarnas perspektiv. Fokus för denna studie är revisorernas perspektiv och hur de har påverkats av lagändringen.Syftet med vårt examensarbete är att beskriva och analysera revisorers förväntningar kring avskaffandet av revisionsplikten för att sedan kunna jämföra hur dessa förväntningar stämmer överens med utfallet efter att lagen trätt i kraft. Syftet med uppsatsen är även att beskriva och analysera vilka faktorer som påverkar effekterna av utfallet.För att nå fram till ett resultat har en abduktiv ansats med en kvalitativ metod använts för denna studie. Studien utgår ifrån befintlig teori och vetenskapliga studier. Teorier som har använts är agentteorin, professionsteorin, komfortteorin, legitimitetsteorin och den institutionella teorin samt förväntningsgapet.Det empiriska materialet grundar sig på åtta intervjuer med revisorer från olika revisionsbyråer i Kristianstadsområdet med omnejd. Det empiriska materialet har analyserats utifrån en jämförelse mellan förväntningar och utfall av revisionspliktens avskaffande. Analysen påvisade att påverkansfaktorn byråstorlek hade den största påverkan på förväntningarna i förhållande till utfallet samt att endast en del av förväntningar stämde överens med det faktiska utfallet.  .

Human capital is professional service firms' most valuable resource and its quality is closely linked to the quality of its services. The purpose of this study is to investigate how professional service firms appraise their employees. A comparative study between an architecture firm and a management consulting firm is conducted with the aim to identify and explain similarities and differences in performance appraisal. Two qualitative case studies are performed and interviews as well as documents are used to explore the area. The thesis builds on a critical perspective and it has an explorative approach.

In the last couple of decades, corporate law firms have rapidly grown to become both influential and highly profitable corporations in the business world. Today, the largest law firms are assumed to bear far greater resemblance to large and often multinational public limited companies than the small businesses generally associated with legal services. However, one interesting specific set them apart from the majority of other companies; the partnership and its interrelated profit sharing. The aim of this study has therefore been to investigate partner compensation systems in corporate law firms and further examine what implications chosen compensation systems have on the organizations. Using a multiple case study, including 7 of Scandinavia?s largest and most well known law firms, the results show that partner compensation systems are highly individual and the critical question is whether to employ seniority based or performance based compensation systems.

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.

Over the past decade, the fashion industry has experienced a relatively high rate of consumption with material and clothing becoming increasingly subject to waste and disposal. As a result of the increased awareness within the industry the interest in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) amongst retailers has increased substantially in an attempt to shy away from the critically amplified media attention. In addition the underlying demand from external stakeholders has forced companies to ensure they focus and act upon each stage of the product life cycle.This study provides a further in depth analysis of the fashion industry and conveys the key messages and steps that firms are taking in response to the external pressures and requirements based on four different merged process areas. This research paper examines the impact of CSR on two Swedish fashion retailers Åhléns and JC and shows how accountability relates to the external expectations and norms that prevail in society. The result shows that the firms do meet the demands within each sub category as a response to market demands.

SammanfattningIntroduktionEtt antal skandaler hos företag som Enron och Parmalat har visat på ett behov av tydligare regler för revision. För EU men även internationellt är införandet av revisionsstandarder ett sätt att införa harmonisering och jämförbara regler inom revision. Resultatet har blivit att EU infört International Standards of Auditing (ISA) som gemensam grund. I Sverige har den anpassats och översatts men används under benämningen Revisionsstandard i Sverige, RS.Tidigare utfördes revision i Sverige under vad som då kallades revisionsprocessen.SyfteSyftet med studien är att visa vad införandet av RS inneburit och hur det påverkat revisorernas arbete, vilka skillnader det är mellan RS och RP. Den delstandard vi kommer att lägga mer fokus på är RS 570.MetodVi har utgått från att först studera gällande texter och regler, vad som fanns skrivet i RP och RS, samt debatter i branschtidningar.

We have performed a historical research, trying to establish the auditing conditions, in terms of adjustments over time. Our purpose with this essay was to demonstrate the facts behind the independence of the auditor, and hopefully give the reader some new information.Our questions at issue were: What in the debate, regarding the independence of the auditor, in concern of the scandals, is most relevant each decade?Witch aftermath has influenced the regulation regarding the independence of the auditor?What we thought was the best way to answer this question was to study a large amount of journals according to the current decade, since 1930 and forward. The journals presented different persons opinions regarding the scandals, and we used them as an instrument to analyse the regulations and after-effects of the scandals.Our conclusion is that in purpose to make the auditor independent, the debate among competent and well-informed people in the line of business has, through the decades, frequently recurred to strive towards a more homogenous auditing..

The definition of an expectation gap is, when the local municipal politician and the audited apprehensions and expectations gets apart about what auditors are going to work with and what they are going to accomplish.Svenska Kommunförbundet writes in their publication Fullmäktige och revisionen (2004) that the communication between the auditors and the audited is important so the final result becomes great. Apart from the communication, the recurring information about auditing is important to increase the knowledge and understanding. Are there expectations on what the auditors are going to review and discover among the audited, when there probably are expectations from the inhabitants on the auditing. This leads us to our purpose of our essay which is to investigate and describe if there exist an expectation gap between the auditors and the social welfare boards in the primary municipality. The method we used to collect our data was a guided telephone interview with 66 persons.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to find out how much influence underlying factors have in connection to the internationalization of Born Global firms. Methodology: This study has a qualitative approach in which data is obtained mainly through interviews and secondary data which consists previous theories about the internationalization in small and medium sized firms and recent theories that entitle these firms as Born Global. Conclusion: Based on the existing theories and the qualitative data, we have concluded that the underlying factors for the Born Global firm?s internationalization are abilities and opportunities to create insidership in relevant networks. The most crucial underlying factors for Born Global firm?s internationalization are the ability to create processes to break old patterns of thoughts and the ability to ally with right partners. .

AbstractProblem: This thesis was made by a commission from Svensk Logistikanalys AB (SLA). SLA is a relatively new firm who is working as a freight broker for firms that wants to lower their freight costs. SLA contacted Jönköpings international business school because they experienced a problem with too many firms, that had SLA?s concept introduced to them, but turned down their services. On the basis of this, following purpose of the report has been stated.Purpose: In this thesis we will study companies that have said no to the services of SLA.

Purpose: To investigate if Altman´s Z´-score model, which calculates financial distress, can be applied on companies established in Sweden and if the financial crisis in 2008 made previously healthy companies go bankrupt.Methodology: Quantitative studies with a positivistic foundation. Empirical data will be collected in order to examine if there is generalizability among the studied objects. Conclusions will be made by comparing the empirical data with the theoretical foundation. Financial distress in firms will be measured.Theoretical perspectives: Altman´s Z´-score model, designed to predict financial distress in private firms.Empirical foundation: A selection of 93 private firms that have gone bankrupt in the years 2008, 2009 or 2010. The firms selected all have a turnover that exceeds 20 million SEK.

This paper examines the reasons behind firms considering backsourcing. While firms experience problems with their outsourcing activities, backsourcing emerges as an alternative solution. Firms primarily take cost considerations into account when reconsidering their outsourcing practices, but this only scratches the surface. A deeper analysis is needed, since cost increases arise from issues such as quality defects and cooperation problems. Even though production costs are low, outsourcing always implies transaction costs.

This master thesis concerns whether Swedish non-financial listed firms act in accordance with the optimal capital structure theory and/or pecking order theory. The examined period is 1998-2004 and we discover that Swedish companies neither follow optimal capital structure theory nor pecking order theory. From our results we conclude that there exists no single point of the capital structure which is optimal. Rather it seems as if the optimal point lies in-between an interval from 0 to the industry average, where firms tend to be indifferent to their debt-ratios. Our results show that Swedish companies prefer internal financing followed by equity and as last choice debt issuance..