Who has the ownership of a company´s long-term strategy, and who should have it? Is it the board of directors or the senior management? Swedish law and regulations seemingly point in one direction, whereas the findings of studying the relationship between CEO and chairman of the board in eleven Swedish listed large- and mid-cap companies, point the other way. In a majority of the companies the senior management have the ownership of the long term strategy whilst the board of directors merely hold a control function. The possible effects on the companies managed as well as the rules and regulations they are managed according to, are analyzed..

In this thesis we examine the relationship between board composition and firm performance in Swedish companies. The selection of companies includes all Swedish limited liability companies, with the exception of micro enterprises, that have been active between the years of 2009-2010. We develop hypotheses based on resource dependence theory, agency theory, and the resource based view, and test these with regression analysis against collected data. Specifically, we examine the effects of board diversity, outside directorships, and CEO duality. Our findings show that none of the theories provide sufficient explanatory power of the relationship between board composition and firm performance, and that further research is required to better understand the role and effects of company boards..

This is a bachelor essay in business and administration with concentration in accounting. The purpose of the essay is to describe and analyse how an auditor, who has had a close cooperation with a small owner-led company in several years, can obstruct the specific familiarity-threat and if it appears, secure that it does not affect the independence of the auditor.The conclusion of this essay contains two models which intend to describe how an auditor, as a suggestion, can obstruct the specific friendship-threat and if it appears secure the independence of the auditor..

Product development cycles become shorter and shorter. The time from idea to market has become an important competitive factor. Despite this, methods used for making the product development process faster are surrounded with uncertainty about their efficiency. The purpose of the thesis is to describe the pros and cons of ?best practice? methods for shortening lead times and how these methods effect the lead times in research and development.

Today, the catering personnel are an essential part of the safety organization on board Swedish passenger vessels in ferry services. Their responsibilities for the safety on board have increased in connection with the changes in regulations made on the shipping industry. These changes have been mostly related to human factors and structural leadership in the last 25 years.A well-functioning safety organization requires competence and commitment from every individual. Previous researches on Swedish passenger ferries concerning the safety organization have raised issues regarding the catering personnel?s perception of the safety on board.

This paper is about the use of task boards in agile system development projects. The main focus is on how digitalized versions of the task board can be of assistance during the development process. Our investigation is based on qualitative studies, with system developers of various backgrounds and professional roles, along with studies of relevant literature. The main results are that a digitized version of the task board can increase awareness for the team and be of major importance if it is accessible through the web. On the other hand negative effects of the digitalization can emerge as well.

Företag på NASDAQ OMXS Small Cap har sedan 2008 omfattats av svensk kod för bolagsstyrning, Koden. Kodens målgrupp är företagen men syftet är att främja investerares och aktieägares intressen. Det är således rimligt att ställa krav på att Kodens regler är av hög kvalité utifrån deras perspektiv. I studien undersöks vilka samband som existerar mellan reglerna i Koden angående styrelsen och Small Cap företagens lönsamhet, mätt som räntabilitet på totalt kapital. Sambanden används sedan för att avgöra om reglerna i Koden är korrekt utformade eller om de behöver modifieras.

Corporate governance intensified due to the corporate scandals in the USA which led to a new law the so called Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).In 2005 the "Svensk kod för bolagsstyrning" (The Code) was introduced. The main purpose of The Code is to strengthen the confidence in Swedish companies quoted on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. The Code focuses on the working process of boards. The rules set by The Code places higher demands on the board.  Among many other duties the board has to establish long term operational goals and strategy.

This master thesis project will describe and evaluate the interfaces between applications and Controller Area Network, CAN, interface boards from different manufacturers. The interfaces have corresponding functions but the usage of parameters is different. The simply communication of sending and receiving messages is more alike than the supplementary functions between the different interfaces. The CAN communication is more controlled by the CAN protocol and is therefore more alike. The evaluation shows differences and similarities between different interfaces and also difficulties and options to translate them.

The purpose with this master thesis is to analyze how the Swedish County Administrative Board (Länsstyrelsen) acts in an environment that changes fast with more regional actors than ever before. There are also proposals regarding new public authorities and eventually a reduction of the Swedish County Administrative Board.By studying a report issued by the Board in December 2005 the aim is to find their intentions and actions for the future. By using three diverse theoretical concepts - the public organisation, the instrumental perspective and two separate perspectives from new institutionalism - the expectation is that I will have the possibility to analyze the intentions of the organisation in many different ways.In this case study I also want to take into consideration the central discourses in the regional debate, shall we decentralize or shall we keep on having a strong state even in the future? What kind of regional policy does the Swedish County Administrative Board prefer?The result shows that the Swedish County Administrative Board struggles for a strong state even in the future, but it does not propose any huge changes. In many ways it seems like they act as they are supposed to - as an instrument for the government - but despite that it is obvious that the Swedish County Administrative Board tries to show that it has the traditions and knowledge.

The recent accounting scandals in large companies in both USA and Europe, such as Enron and Scandia, have led to a huge debate about the quality of financial reports approved by auditors who, at the same time, offer consultancy service to their audit clients. Many researchers and experts argued that there is a role conflict when an auditor offers consultancy service to audit clients. They argue that the main duty of an auditor is to verify the truthfulness of the company's financial statements. Giving consultancy service to the audit clients will impair the auditor's role to examine the company's books independently because of the economic bond between auditors and audit clients.As a result of the Enron scandal, the legislators in the USA have made restrictions to how auditors provide non-audit service to audit clients. However, the legislators in Sweden, unlike the US, did not choose to introduce such restrictions.

Corporate governance intensified due to the corporate scandals in the USA which led to a new law the so called Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).In 2005 the "Svensk kod för bolagsstyrning" (The Code) was introduced. The main purpose of The Code is to strengthen the confidence in Swedish companies quoted on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. The Code focuses on the working process of boards. The rules set by The Code places higher demands on the board.  Among many other duties the board has to establish long term operational goals and strategy.

Earlier this year the Swedish migration board gave a part of their responsibility for the separated children to those municipalities that have signed an agreement with them, so that the children can get the best handling of their matters and also to lift the heavy pressure of the Swedish migration board. Our aim in this paper is to see how this division is made and which areas of responsibility they have. We want to see how this process is being handled in relation to these children?s rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Swedish law. To get the best information possible we used a qualitative method.

Today, the catering personnel are an essential part of the safety organization on board Swedish passenger vessels in ferry services. Their responsibilities for the safety on board have increased in connection with the changes in regulations made on the shipping industry. These changes have been mostly related to human factors and structural leadership in the last 25 years.A well-functioning safety organization requires competence and commitment from every individual. Previous researches on Swedish passenger ferries concerning the safety organization have raised issues regarding the catering personnel?s perception of the safety on board.

People play games now more than ever before. While the digital gaming industry dominates the market, boardgaming has been living in its shadow. Board games offer a physical tangibility and a social experience that can be found in few digital games. How do we create a tool that further builds upon those strengths? The purpose of this study is to examine the possibility of developing a service that consists of an mobile application and board game events to promote social face-to-face interaction. Focus has been on the social face-to-face interaction in the context of a board game session.