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.

The aim of this bachelor thesis has been to examine and develop our own understanding about how young people in Sweden (16-29 years of age), take part in cultural activities. As librarians it is important to know what kind of activities and interests this particular group has. With Pierre Bourdieu?s theoretical framework towards habitus and capital we are interested to see if there is a connection between one?s cultural use and background, if different access to capital with or within groups has an affect or not. With both statistics and interviews with people within our target, we believe this data has been sufficient enough to conduct a good and valid study.

Syftet med uppsatsen var att undersöka om det förelåg något samband mellan ett litet företags leverage och kreativitet och mellan andelen venture kapital av det egna kapitalet och kreativiteten. Teorier inom områdena kreativitet och kapitalstruktur har studerats och denna teoribildning applicerades vid undersökningen. Den metod som valdes för att studera fenomenet kreativitet var dels en kvantitativ studie baserad på företagen vid Ideon där generella samband försökte fastställas. Dels har ett Ideonföretag studerats närmare i en intervjustudie för att på djupet försöka beskriva hur en förändring i kapitalstrukturen upplevs påverka det kreativa arbetet av de anställda och ledningen. Studien visar att det finns ett samband mellan kreativitet och leverage samt att det inte finns något påvisat samband mellan venture kapital och kreativitet.

The overarching purpose is to describe how elite soccer clubs choose to structure their sport oriented organization. This purpose leads us to questions and areas involving sport managers, casting, operational directions, education and goal setting in sport.The results in this thesis are based upon a qualitative investigation of sport managers in Swedish elite soccer clubs. To strengthen the reliability in our choice of method we will fortify it with theories that reflect methodical choice.Our conclusions in this thesis is that one can see a clear difference in how the clubs choose to structure the casting and operational directions within their organization. We have also noted that there is a clear distinguish between the levels of education amongst sport managers in Swedish elite soccer clubs..

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..

Intresset för begreppet venture capital väcktes av den anledning att det är ett dagsaktuellt ämne som ständigt florerar i massmedia. Denna studie behandlar individens beslutsfattande i ett venture capitalbolag och har landat i ett syfte där vi vill skapa en förståelse för hur individerna i ett venture capitalbolag fattar investeringsbeslut. Detta genom att beskriva vad individuella beslutsfattare grundar sina beslut på i nyetablerade IT-företag. Vi har utgått från teorier kring erfarenhet, information, förtroende och vilka huvudsakliga beslutskriterier venture capitalister använder sig av i sitt beslutsfattande. Eftersom vi har använts oss av teorier och därefter genomfört en empirisk undersökning har vi ett deduktivt angreppssätt.

The aim of this essay is to get deeper into the mysteries of love as they manifest themselves as most open: in literature. I have studied the two French writers Claire Etcherelli and Françoise Sagan, both writing about love in the 50?s Paris. While Etcherelli?s love takes place between factory workers, Sagan?s scene is the upper middle class.

I uppsatsen undersöks kulturellt och annat symbolisk kapital hos läkarstudenter vid Karolinska Institutet. Det teoretiska ramverket utgörs av Pierre Bourdieu. I studien jämförs läkarstudenternas investeringar i utbildning, mediavanor och andra kulturella aktiviter med fyra andra elitinriktade utbildningsprogram i Stockholmsområdet. Studien har en kvantitativ del med data insamlat genom en postal enkät till högskolestudenter och en kvalitativ del med personliga intervjuer med läkarstudenter på termin fyra på Karolinska Institutet. Studien visar att läkarstudenterna har mycket gemensamt med studenter vid de andra utbildningarna men att det särkskiljer sig i vissa avseenden.

Master Thesis in Business Administration, School of Business Administration, Linaeus University, Finance 4FE03E, Spring 2011Authors: Benni Hansson, Axel SandquistTutor: Christopher von KochExaminer: Sven-Olof CollinTitle: Compensation as a means of monitoring or recruiting ? a study on ownership structure in Swedish listed companies.Keywords: CEO compensation, compensation structure, ownership structure, ownership types, ownership concentration, agency theory, resource dependence theory, managerial theoryBackground: There has been extensive research on CEO compensation, however not a lot on Swedish listed firms. Many studies have an agency theoretical perception on CEO compensation. In accordance with this, compensation is used as a means to solve monitoring and incentives problems.Purpose: The aim of this study is to examine the role of CEO compensation, by studying ownership structure.Method: To examine the role of CEO compensation we use a multi-theory approach, based on agency theory, resource dependence theory and managerial theory. The companies examined are Swedish listed firms the in years 2005 to 2009.

This Bachelor Thesis looks at the cooperation between the Swedish civil society and theEuropean Union (EU), and it aims at evaluating Swedish civil society organizations' influencewithin the EU's development work on policy level. It focuses primarily on eight civil societyorganizations, and it is based on empirical material collected in Stockholm and Gothenburg,Sweden. The material has been analyzed using three theoretical frameworks. The firstdetermines whether the structure of the EU allows bottom-up influence, the second looks atthe communication between the EU and civil society organizations, and the third assesseswhether the civil society has the ability to influence the political agenda within the EU?sdevelopment work.Conclusions of the thesis include determining the complex structure of the EU as a mainobstacle to influencing the EU's development work.

In the light of some company scandals the Swedish Code of Corporate Governance, the Code, was introduced in the year of 2004 to reinforce confidence in how Swedish listed companies are managed. As many of the other European codes of corporate governance, the Swedish Code is based on the principle of ?comply or explain?. The need for corporate governance regulation arises from the inherent conflict of interest between owners and managers. This conflict is limited in companies controlled by a family in contrast to companies that lack a strong owner.

The product structure of the fuel tank installation is one of the most complex product areas at Scania. Caused by the number of parameters, which affect the fuel tank installation, a product structure is created which is very difficult to handle. Knowledge exist that the structure in a nearby future will be considerable more complex. The purpose of the study has been to understand in why this complexity exist and find ways to break the trend of a growing product structure. The goal was to achieve a more standardized fuel tank installation.A theoretical study was performed in order to bring knowledge in relevant areas both in general theory but also in documentation at Scania.

Begreppet venture capital är relativt nytt i Sverige. När en venture capitalist träder in i ett företag går denne ofta in i styrelsen, vilket leder till att venture capitalbolaget kan påverka företaget på olika sätt. Vårt syfte är att identifiera hur den strategiska, taktiska och operativa styrningen påverkas av att ett venture capitalbolag träder in i företagets styrelse. Vårt syfte har även varit att identifiera vilka problem och möjligheter som kan uppstå när styrningen påverkas. Efter att vi studerat ett venture capitalbolag och ett av deras portföljföretag kom vi fram till att i deras fall är det framförallt den strategiska styrningen som har påverkats.

Denna studie jämför hur Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) och Fama-French trefaktorsmodell förklarar och förutspår avkastning på en global aktiemarknad. CAPM utgår ifrån att investerarna förväntar sig en riskfri ränta adderat marknadspremien multiplicerat med företagens exponering mot marknaden. Fama-Frenchs är en utvidgning av CAPM modellen, där företagens storlek och book-to-market-värde läggs till som förklarande variabler för avkastning. Genom regressionsmodeller och prediktioner för portföljer indelade i storlek och book-to-market jämförs modellerna. Fama-French tycks vara genomgående bättre på att förklara och förutspå avkastning under perioden 1990m07-2013m02 för samtliga portföljer, förutom portföljen för stora företag med medelhögt book-to-market värde.

Background: Traditionally defined boundaries and borders between organizations are at present being re-evaluated because of new and tougher demands. Today we can see a trend where these boundaries are being lowered or even eliminated when organizations choose to co-operate instead of compete. Purpose: In order to create an understanding for the partner selection process in the newly founded joint ventures between the companies which are building the Swedish 3G Network, the determining factors are being studied. Delimitation: The studies companies are co-operating as network operators but are at the same time competing as mobile operators. This relationship is in the literature described as co-opetition, which will not be investigated in this paper.