The purpose of this research is to examine some historical aspects of Robert Putnam?s thesisabout voluntary associations and social capital. According to a micro perspective theory ofsocial capital the trust and reciprocity required and created by associations is important toexplain the disparity between institutional performance and socioeconomic development ofsocieties. The social patterns governing this therefore set a precedent for the future. Using themutual sickness benefit societies in Sweden as variable for voluntary associations around1884, the essay discusses the possible links between social capital, associations and long termeconomic development.

ABSTRACTSince Robert D. Putnam first wrote about the causes behind the regional differences in economic and political development in Italy, the theory of social capital has truly flourished in the fields of social science. This days you constantly hear politicians and scholars stressing the important role of the quality of the social fabric to a society?s wellbeing. There all looking at ways to construct policies and institutions that help the spread of social capital.

Entrepreneurship is a subject of growing attention, especially within public policy, media and research. Many studies have been done, but the subject of entrepreneurial exit has to a large extent been ignored. The aim of this study has been to investigate how entrepreneurs at an early stage in their career think about exit within a near future, and what factors influence their attitude towards exit. The study was conducted through a survey answered by 253 entrepreneurs active within business incubators in Sweden. Based on previous research on entrepreneurial intentions, a model of exit intentions was developed, and tested against several other factors.

The harmonization within EC Company Law has been relativley successful. Despite its relative success; important differences still remains in European company law.The freedom of establishment itself, and the ECJ?s interpretation of the freedom provides European companies with a substantial cross-border mobility. As a consequence of this mobility, together with the differences in national legislation; mandatory rules in company law can be easily evaded. A typical example of this is that a Swedish enterprise, by running their business through a British private limited company, can escape the Swedish legislation on capital contributions when forming a company with limited liability for its members.

Background: The growth of the venture capital industry has given birth to new relations between investors and entrepreneurial firms. Venture capital firms are by definition investors serving as an active partner which implies a deeper relation between investors and entrepreneurs than has been the case previously. This new situation leads to a number of questions. Do venture capitalists really act as active partners with a long term interest in the venture? Do they add any value besides capital? How important is their influence in the portfolio company's decision making process? Purpose: The purpose of this study is to give a deeper understanding of the relation between venture capital firms and IT companies in the start-up phase.

Den här uppsatsen syftar till att redogöra för i vilken mån Sveriges storföretag prioriterar arbetet med att optimera sitt rörelsekapital. Studien var av en explorativ sort där målet var att identifiera och uppmärksamma tidigare okända mönster och samband angående hur kapitalrationaliseringsarbetet utförs utifrån perspektiven fokus, ansvar och mätningar.Informationen som studien bygger på inhämtades genom en enkätundersökning som skickades ut till CFO:n på de 200 största svenska företagen rankade efter omsättning, exkluderat finansiella företag. Svarsfrekvens bland respondenterna blev 25 % då exakt 50 företag valde att svara på enkätutskicket. Enkäten skickades elektroniskt och besvarades genom att svara på ett webbaserat program.Resultatet från studien visade att majoriteten av Sveriges största företag prioriterar Working Capital Management. Till vilken nivå de väljer att fokusera på Working Capital Management beror på det enskilda företagets förutsättningar som till exempel vilken bransch de opererar inom..

The aim of this paper is to study intra household allocation of capital income by using data on Swedish observations. The 1991 tax reform was to change the taxation on capital income from a progressive to a flat tax system. Before the tax reform there were incentives to allocate capital income to the spouses with the lowest income of labor in order to reduce the total tax burden. The data describes the year of 1989 and 1993, those we choose to examine. Using Swedish data from LINDA database we estimate a quotient by ordinary least squares (OLS) regression.

The aim of this thesis is to describe the development of profitability and capital structure in Swedish quoted companies during the period of 1990 to 2004. Further, the aim is to determine the relationship between profitability and leverage in order to conclude whether the choice of capital structure supports the pecking order theory or the trade-off theory of capital structure. The findings show that return on assets fluctuates between 3 and 11 percent and that return on equity fluctuates between 3 and 22 percent during the period. Further, the leverage and the cost of debt have decreased. This indicates lowered financial risk in Swedish quoted companies in the period between 1990 and 2004.

Title: Competitive Advantages in Professional Football Cubs ? A Resource-Based Analysis Authors: Daniel Grass, Mattias Holst, Bengt Jönsson Semester: Spring 2001 Supervisors: Leif Edvinsson, Allan T. Malm Problem: In order to be a successful football club, the management team has to consider a variety of business issues. Since money is having such an impact on the football industry of today, the financial status of the clubs sets the condition for how clubs are able to achieve their main objective, i.e. to be successful on the football field.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the research library of Linnæus University is used by students as a meeting place. Building upon Putnam's theory of bonding and bridging social capital and Audunson's conception of high and low intensive meeting places, it aims to explore the research library's potential for creating social capital and thus strengthening both learning and democracy in a university context. Borrowing part of the survey design from a study conducted as part of the Norwegian PLACE project, this study collects responses from 134 students as to their use of the library as a meeting place. The results show that the Linnæus University library is used for a variety of meetings of both high and low intensity, why it should provide a good setting for the creation of social capital. There seems to be a connection between how often one visits the library, as well as to which department one belongs, and how one uses the library as a meeting place.

Background: The regulation of banks is increasing in order to stabilize the financial market. Despite this increase in regulation, financial crises still continue to occur. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is gradually increasing the capital requirements for banks, yet the increase in capital requirements doesn?t seem to solve the problem. This raises the question: how does capital regulation affect banks? Purpose: The purpose of this study is, primarily to illustrate the effects that capital regulation has on risk and efficiency on banks within the European Union, but secondary also study the relationship between risk, efficiency and capital regulation.Method: To achieve the purpose of this study, a deductive approach has been used, where the problem is assumed to be due to an agency problem.

In order to drive innovation and growth in a nation is it important to have innovative companies. Many of those innovative companies are smaller companies, which are in need of capital injections for expansion of its operations or to be able to produce a commercial product. In many cases the banks will not lend because they believe there is too great a risk that they will not get their money back. It is in this situation venture capital becomes interesting. Venture capitalists? see the potential the product and/or entrepreneur possesses and are therefore more willing to take the risk in investing in these companies.

The Vaxholm conflict was initiated when the Swedish Trade Union for Construction Workers shut down a construction site in order to prevent a Latvian construction company to build a school after the two parties had failed to agree upon a collective agreement in compliance with Swedish regulations. An emotional public debate followed that resulted in a discussion of the proposal for the Services Directive of the EU, based upon the country-of-origin principle. In this thesis we will analyze whether the country-of-origin principle or the country-of-destination principle is best suited to capture the gains-of-trade that the common market hoards and improve welfare within the EU. We conclude that the country-of-origin principle is the more apt of the two, though it leads to some short-run costs such as structural unemployment. But these will be more than outweighed by the gains in aggregate welfare for the EU in the long run..

AbstractAuthors:Stefan Harrå and Magnus BjörkAdvisor: Markku PenttinenTitle: Accounting Consequences of the change in pension accounting Background to problem: When the revised IAS 19 comes into force January 1, 2013, it means that two of the three accounting principles for defined benefit pension plans are disappearing, including the corridor method. The corridor method has made it possible for companies to defer its actuarial gains and losses. Now that the corridor approach abolished then the unrecognized actuarial gains and losses immediately be covered by equity, which involves very large amounts of some companies. Why the amounts have grown so big is much because of the discount rate. The discount rate is a controversial parameter, and there is disagreement on how it should be fixed.Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine the accounting implications this will have for the company applied the corridor method, and if there is some parameters in the actuarial assumption that is more important than others.Methodology: The thesis has mainly been based on a qualitative research through qualitative interviews with a small sample that is affected by this change.

This paper starts where previous research in this scientific field, research about individuals who managed to end their criminal lifestyle, ends ? by talking in terms of Pierre Bourdieu?s forms of capital. In former studies the researchers pointed out access to a job and parenting as helpful factors to end a criminal lifestyle. Our purpose with this paper, however, was to find out if it is possible to understand criminals successfully ending their criminal lifestyle from Bourdieu?s capital metaphors and Mark Granovetter?s concept of strong and weak ties.