With the introduction of the Swedish Code for Corporate Governance in December 2004, most companies listed on the major Swedish stock exchanges were required to have a nomination committee responsible for, among other things, evaluating the incumbent board and nominating new candidates. This master thesis aims at analyzing the effects of these nomination Committees on institutional investors in their corporate governance, through a qualitative study of 13 interviews. We have found that institutional investors have become more active through their participation in nomination Committees and that they have gained more influence over the companies in which they own shares. We believe that in reality nomination Committees have more influence over the selection of the board than was intended when the Swedish Code was written..

The recent development in several countries? legislation and best practice recommendations in relation to corporate governance in general and audit Committees in particular have affected Swedish listed corporations in the form of the Swedish Corporate Governance Code and the coming EU-directive. This paper aims to discover what factors affected Swedish listed companies to form audit Committees when this was entirely voluntary. We collected data from the annual reports of 121 Swedish listed companies and formed eleven hypotheses as to what factors we believed affected the voluntary formation of audit Committees based on Agency Theory, economies of scale and circumstances specific to the Swedish environment. We then analyzed the data through the use of a multivariate logistic regression model.

The purpose of this master thesis is to examine some information aspects of decision-making in Swedish municipal Committees. Which are the information needs and how do they emerge? How is the needed information sought and received and which are the sources? How do the members of the Committees use information when making decisions? To answer these questions qualitative interviews were conducted with four politicians (two chairpersons representing the political majority and two vice-chairpersons representing the opposition) and three officials in a municipality with a population of about 50 000. The politicians were interviewed in capacity of decision-makers, whereas the officials from the local administration are of interest through their decision-supportive role, which includes providing of reports and other information. The examination indicates that even if the conditions to some extent differ between the Committees, the administration is highly influential: Notions and proposals about action may come from inhabitants, organizations, politicians etc., but are handled by the administration, which often is the problem formulating actor, through which the informational needs nearly always are canalized.

According to the basic values of the Swedish Trotting Association the horse and its welfare should always be held in highest consideration. One part of the animal welfare work in the organization is to ensure good horse management practices by controlling all active trainers through the local licensing Committees situated at the Swedish racetracks. The Swedish Board of Agriculture stated that high quality animal welfare assurance programs used by the industry organizations can be used in the risk assessment of the official animal welfare control to make the official control work more effective and the ambition of the Swedish Trotting Association is to establish an animal welfare assurance program which may be approved by the Swedish Board of Agriculture. Racehorses are exposed to welfare hazards both in their management as well as during training and racing and factors like handling, training, feedstuff, stable environment, medication and the possibility to express natural behavior all affect the welfare of the horses. The aim of the project is to investigate and evaluate the animal welfare work performed by the licensing Committees and to give advice on how to improve the industry?s animal welfare control.

?The importance of representation and structures to establish influence. A study of the Trade Unions Youth Activities within The Swedish Trade Union Confederation.?-Katrin OlofssonThis essay is studying the importance of representation and structures for the youth to establish influence, within the Trade Unions of The Swedish Trade Union Confederation, LO. More specific it is about the youths influence in each trade union´s executive committee.

Swedish public administration has for the last few decades undergone reforms aimed at making it more efficient. A substantial part of these reforms have concerned creating clearer roles for politicians versus officials in the public sector, i.e. giving politicians a responsibility for setting goals and steering activities and public officials the role of implementing them.This study aims to examine one reform following this path that is under implementation in a Swedish public authority; Försäkringskassan, the Social Insurance Agency. The purpose of the reform is to increase the organization?s effectiveness and the rule of law.

The aim of this study is to explore local cultural policy documents in the municipality of Gothenburg Sweden, and, more specifically, to investigate the concepts of cultural planning and instrumental cultural policy. Cultural planning is in this thesis seen as a result of an instrumental view of cultural policy. The theoretical framework consists of the theories of Danish cultural policy researcher Dorte Skot-Hansen. She describes cultural policy in urban areas as founded in motives such as economy, social issues, entertaining and enlightenment. A qualitative text analysis is performed in order to see if the purpose of the cultural policies is to focus on cultural planning as formulated in the document Kulturpolitisk strategi ? version 1.0, adopted by the city council in 1998.

[Abstract: This study examines the observed difference between Swedish and foreign owners when it comes to nominating committee participation. The background to the study is that foreign owners seem to participate in Swedish nominating Committees to a lesser extent than their Swedish counterparts. The focus is on institutional owners and the companies studied are all listed companies who follow the Swedish code of corporate governance. Particular attention is paid to perceived differences in behavior that can be explained using the common corporate governance related theories of Exit, Voice and Loyalty as well as Agency Theory. These explanations are chiefly related to differences in attitudes regarding insider information, different knowledge levels regarding the purpose and workings of nominating Committees of the Swedish kind as well as differences due to home market biases.].

Ethical evaluation of scientific studies carried out using animals is legally mandated in many countries and has been so in Sweden for over three decades. The animal ethics Committees (AECs) responsible for the task have however been subjected to criticism; common critique being that the wrong issues are discussed and that the ethical evaluation is thus incomplete, that there is a lack of coherence across Committees and that the Committees are not as democratic as they might appear. This study investigates the view of Swedish AEC members on a number of issues in order to shed some light on the mandate and functioning of the Committees, and on the grounds for ongoing criticism. In a survey and interviews AEC members and other persons connected to the Committees gave their views on the AEC task in relation to their roles, the ethical evaluation per se and whether or not emotions such as empathy play any part in it. There were significant differences found between AEC member categories and several issues were encountered, many of which have been stressed in previous studies.

The purpose of this Master's thesis is to examine the decision-process concerning public art in Borås municipality. My questions have been from where the initiatives come, who the decision-makers are, how the decisions are taken and which questions are discussed. I have examined this through partly interviews with the members of the deciding organ in Borås municipality, partly through literary studies. I have also analysed texts such as debates and protocols from the Swedish parliament. I have also been present at two of the Committees meetings.

For centuries it was a crime to be without work or an income in Sweden. Those breaching this law were called vagrants and could be sentenced to forced labor. They stood outside of society in many ways as they were being criminalized. Society's view of them becomes clear by the laws enacted against vagrancy. The investigations that were made in creating the laws do not only say something about society's view of vagrancy, but something about the society itself.In Sweden we have a unique collection of investigations and referrals that are public records through Freedom of the Press.

Since the Maastricht Treaty the European Parliament has gained competence in the decision-making process and the Parliament is today one of two decision-making institution, next to the Ministers of Council. In this study the main focus has been to shed light over the negotiation culture within the European Parliament, which up till now has been a neglected research area. This is of great significance because the internal negotiations in the European Parliament decide the external negotiation position with the other institutions.After face-to-face interviews with MEP:s and assistants I have been able to identify certain characteristics to create an understanding of the negotiation culture in Europe's elected Parliament. The negotiations are oriented towards a problems-solving approach and the prevailing apprehension is consensus-based negotiations instead of the existence of political blocks. The Committees are stronger than the European party groups, which further encourage negotiation.

Titel: Fostran som pedagogiskt projekt. Bilden av ?problembarnet? i statens offentliga utredningar. (The bringing up of pupils as an educational project. The image of ?the problem child? in governmental Committees).   This study focuses on the image of the problem child as it appears in two texts (from the 1940s and 1970s) of governmental Committees on Public Health (SOU) and the new school law (Ds 2009:25, will be implemented in July 2011).

Dichotomy in change ? a study of how the relationship in terms of power between politicians and civil servants in local government is affected by the transition to a system without branch Committees.

The purpose of this essay is to examine which factors that influence the design of internal control in municipal context and how well it works. We choose seven municipals, where we interviewed the administrative managers, the chairmen of the Committees and two persons of the staff in each activity unit. The interviews were performed by telephone, due to the keeping of the essay?s timeframe.The theory in our essay comprises eight hypotheses. These hypotheses were operationalised into different variables aiming to make statistical tests possible.