Internet and media have led to companies' operations becoming more visible and transparent to the public during the 21st century. Several notable corporate scandals have led to society placing greater demands on businesses to assume more accountability for their actions. This study aims to examine and develop existing research regarding accountability, by adding dimensions of time and space. More specifically, the study examines the extent to which stakeholders hold corporations accountable after the revelation of an ethical corporate scandal, through a qualitative case study on a pending lawsuit against the Swedish corporation Boliden. Our theory is based on John Roberts' (1991) research presented in the article "The Possibilities of Accountability" and Martin Messner's (2009) research presented in the article "The Limits of Accountability".

Att allt fler och fler multinationella företag tar sig ut på marknaden är ingen nyhet, det harpågått under flera år, trots detta är det fortfarande ett högaktuellt ämne att forska kring då flerafrågetecken fortfarande kvarstår.Teorin talar för stora skillnader inom den nationella kulturen mellan de utvalda länderna,England, Spanien och Sverige. Men påvisar även att Spanien skiljer sig ytterligare från bådeEngland och Sverige som då har mer gemensamt.Uppsatsen undersöker teorins respektive våra intervjuobjekts syn på detta. Studien bygger påen kvalitativ ansats med hjälp av intervjuobjekt från tre olika företag; Lear Corporation iSverige, Mtorres i Spanien och Worcester Bosch Group i England. Empirin vi samlat in fråndessa företag jämfördes med teorin vi läst på och dessa jämförs i en analys och som följs avett slutsatsavsnitt.Undersökningen har funnit kulturella faktorer som bidrar till att påverka ledarskap och attdessa faktorer påverkar ledarna beroende på vilken kultur de kommer från. Vidare fann vi attdet svenska och engelska ledarskapet är mer likasinnade, i förhållande till det spanska somskiljer sig en aning från de två övriga.

The need of raw material does of course fluctuate but the long term view is an increasing demand due to the growing consumption of sawn timber products, pulp, paper and lately also biomass. This has led to a keener competition for wood. At the same time there is an ongoing structural change of a significant part in the Swedish wood supply market, the private forest owners. In 1992, 22 % of Sweden´s 335 000 private forest owner lived apart from their forest. In 2007 this figure had risen to 36 %.

Since 1928 the Swedish accounting and taxation has been closely linked by law which today as the European Union works with its harmonisation of the European accounting systems brings up difficulties. The Union strives to integrate the countries different ways of accounting in order to make it easier to use and understand foreign information. The Swedish connection between accounting and taxation means that a harmonisation would change the whole system as its known today. The purpose with this study is to examine what the link between the two means and how a decoupling would affect Swedish accounting and auditing. We also want to examine how the Swedish taxation office, who currently uses the accounting as a ground for taxation, could guarantee the quality of the declaration without a proper underpinning. The study shows that a decoupling could lead to an increase in quality on swedish accounting and that the administration would become more difficult to handle. The risk of dividend of untaxed profits is not seen as a problem in this context.

This paper examines, through questionnaire, how young students in upper secondary school in Malmo experience social integration. It also contain what they think should be done in order to improve the integration between youth that are ethnic Swedish and youth that have a foreign background. To understand the subject we started with a review over Swedish integration politic and its influence over Malmo and social integration in the country. We have used such theoretical starting points as identity and ethnicity in relations to the social surroundings, social affinity theory and flexible mindedness, making of groups among youth and factors to promote social integration. Our conclusion is that the experience of social integration between the two groups depends on how you experience yourself.

AbstractThe purpose of this essay is to study in what way teachers in preschool work with pupils enabling them to gain influence and involvement in their learning.Influence means being able to make your voice heard which is an important component of a democratic society. Involvement is about being part of a community in which everyone is welcomed regardless of beliefs and opinions. Several of today's researchers believe that learning occurs in interaction between people. Teachers providing meaningful assignments to pupils, they become more motivated to learn.The study is based on observations of how teachers work with influence and involvement in controlled sessions, and interpretations of them. My results show that children become involved in their learning when they are confronted with a variety of pedagogical approaches to learning.

Technology evolves quickly, with innovative ideas growing everywhere. Still, no technology is anywhere near challenging the mouse and keyboard for navigation of your standard computer. This study focuses on comparing the traditional technologies of mouse and keyboard with the new technology of gestures - in this case Leap Motion - in purpose of finding how the usage differs and what the potential users want from the competing technology. The experiment was executed in a controlled environment, with as few external factors as possible. We found that although the test subjects found Leap Motion fun, the test subjects do not want to surf the web with gestures.

Transformation of inorganic mercury (Hg) to methyl mercury (MeHg) is a biotic process that is proposed to be conducted primarily by sulphate reducing bacteria (SRB). The formation of MeHg is of great interest because it is the mercury species that biomagnifies to the greatest extent in the aquatic food webs; about 90 % of all Hg in fish is MeHg. Our understanding of factors involved in the production of MeHg is very important for making a reliable risk assessment. The purposes of this study were to investigate the different factors that control the solubility of Hg and the production of MeHg in a contaminated lake sediment. The lake Ala-Lombolo, Kiruna municipality, is well-known to be contaminated by mercury from different sources. Sediment cores were sampled at three different locations (N, SW and SE) in the lake and divided in three different layers; 0-5, 5-10 and 10-15 cm.

Purpose:  The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the major car companies have been affected by the global financial crisis. We would also want to look at how revenues and profits have been affected, and what the consequences have been both within the company and the market in general. It?s also interesting to see how profitability and financial stability has been affected. We had chosen to do a ?before-after? comparison, and we chose to compare the years 2007 and 2009.Boundaries: We have chosen to concentrate on a corporation in the Asian market, more specifically Toyota.

The aim of this study has been to, through a couple of chosen theories, examine in what way and for what purposes Japan has used its international aid system, How can the nation have been said to have implemented and acted in lines with the philosophies and principles set forth in the ODA declaration. What approaches, concerning positive and negative aid sanctions in the matters of aid to Cambodia and Burma, have been chosen and what have the motives for these choices been. What have been the determining factors of the outcome related to these sanctions - economic, political and/or matters of identity? I have found that a concern for possible decrease in economic profit and investment related areas, combined with a feared loss of political prestige and worsened diplomatic relations to the neighbouring countries in the Asian society, have come to overtrump the notion of advocating democracy, human rights, environmental and anti-militaristic issues..

The Smart Grid technology has during the last decade been established as a way to create a greater flexibility on the electricity grid that will be needed as the development moves towards an increased share of renewable primary energy sources in the electricity production. One part of the Smart Grid technology is the ability to shift loads in time, to adapt to either price or emissions, known as Demand Response. This project, which was conducted at KTH in collaboration with the consulting corporation Capgemini, examines the economic, environmental and social aspects of the Demand Response technology. In the project, three household products are used in a model that derives the potential savings in costs and emissions of CO2e. The results show that the actual savings measured in SEK are small, but that the savings measured in percent can be as high as 20 percent. Reduction of CO2e emissions is slightly lower.

Abstract The aim of this study is to find out how teachers view the importance of reading in the teaching of foreign languages. In relation to this, we wish to gain understanding of what teachers want to achieve with reading, how they choose texts and what difficulties they encounter in getting their students to read. Six teachers from three different upper secondary schools in southern Sweden were interviewed for the study. We also examined the text-materials that they were using for their instruction. The findings show that students read mostly adapted texts from textbooks and, to a limited extent, authentic materials.

When driving hard and cornering on a circuit good control of a car?s roll is desired, so the car reaches steady state quickly but yet in a controlled fashion. This control is mainly given by the combination of the cars springs, shock absorbers and anti-roll bars.The aim of this report is to investigate, analyze and measure a Porsche Boxster?s turn in behaviour and roll dynamics as well as with the aid of simulation results give suggestions for improvement of the previous mentioned combination.Two different simulations were made, one based on a simpler model that was based on an evolved version of the bicycle model in Matlab and one was more advanced model in the simulation software rFactor. Measurements of the real car was made using a GPS-based measurement system.

Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att öka förståelsen för företags internationella etableringsstrategier och titta på vilka möjligheter och hinder som finns i etableringsprocessen.Metod: Uppsatsens forskningsstrategi har varit att göra en fallstudie på Kina och en surveyundersökning på svenska företag som idag är representerade på den kinesiska marknaden. Vidare kombinerar studien de två vetenskapliga angreppssätten kvalitativ och kvantitativ ansats. Både primärdata i form av surveyundersökningen och ett seminarium och sekundär data i form av olika litteratur såsom böcker, vetenskapliga artiklar och internet har använts för att knyta samman våra resultat.Resultat: Uppsatsen resulterar i att de största möjligheterna som finns för svenska företag på den kinesiska marknaden är att öka sinlönsamhet och sänka sina produktionskostnader. De största hindren är lagar och förordningar, kulturella skillnader, tullavgifter, skatter och piratkopiering..

This paper examines possible applications of fuzzy logic on the field of artificial intelligence in digital games. It describes fuzzy logic in contrast to crisp logic. The paper will give several examples of possible applications of fuzzy logic-based decision making for game AI. These examples include the choosing of weapons for AI agents and the gas-break decision of an AI-controlled car. The paper will also analyze the impacts of game AI which makes decisions based on many factors.