During the last decades, brand equity has been a priority topic for both practitioners and academics. In accordance with the structural changes in the economic settings caused by the so-called "new economy", corporations being confronted with a shift on perceived business value structure from tangible assets to intangibles. On the other hand firms increasingly are adopting more responsible behaviour towards their societies. In this context, one critical question is to understand how corporate conduct may affect brand equity. The purpose of this study was to find how brand equity (BE) measurement methods embrace corporate responsibility (CR), based on a literature review.

Title: Branding the public sectorAuthor: Rasmus Bergmark and David BackmanTutor: Magnus FredrikssonPurpose: The purpose of this thesis was to examine branding in the public sector. The frame extends to government agencies and authorities in the Swedish public sphere, and aims to identify ulterior motives for their work with branding.Method/Material: The material used in this thesis consists 102 graphic manuals for government agencies in the Swedish public sector. The examination was based on an inductive survey where we extracted prominent motives among the graphic manuals.Main results: The main results of this survey shows which ulterior motives are more prominent than others, why they are more prominent and correlations between different motives.Number of pages: 53Course: Media and Communications studies CUniversity: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information sience, Uppsala universityPeriod: Fall 2013Keywords: Corporate branding, public sector, motives, market communication.

Under de senaste årtiondena har det vuxit fram en ökad medvetenhet gällande den hållbara utvecklingen. Som en följd av denna ökade medvetenhet väljer en del företag att implementera hållbart arbete i sina verksamheter. Detta arbete kan företagen sedan redovisa i en frivillig så kallad Hållbarhetsredovisning. Men precis som vid finansiell information finns en osäkerhet kring reliabiliteten i den information som presenteras, något som skulle kunna åtgärdas om företagen låter en utomstående tredje part bestyrka hållbarhetsredovisningen. Då bestyrkandet av hållbarhetsredovisningar inte är reglerat i samma utsträckning som bestyrkande av finansiell information vilket visar sig i att det dels är frivilligt men också genom att det finns möjlighet att välja andra bestyrkandegivare än revisorer.Syftet med denna studie är att se om det finns ett samband mellan utvalda faktorer och företagens val att låta bestyrka sina hållbarhetsredovisningar samt val av bestyrkandegivare.

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.

Ett nytt globalt system, inte nytt i tiden, dock i omfattning och påverkan, håller på att förändra maktordningen och de politiska relationerna så som vi känner dem. Detta innebär bland annat att ansvarsfördelningen mellan offentliga och privata aktörer blir mer oklar och tar nya former. Begreppet Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) syftar på det etiska ansvar företag bör ta för sin verksamhet, såväl inom den egna organisationen som i det omgivande samhället. Den frågeställning den här uppsatsen söker besvara gäller varför CSR blivit en allt viktigare del av företagens policy? Uppsatsens fokus ligger på globaliseringsteori och slutsatsen blir att förklaringarna till CSR kan delas in i såväl etiska och praktiska, som kosmopolitiska.

From policy to practice - a study of textile companies view about challenges with implementing CSR policies examine the textile companies awareness of which challenges there are with the implementation of codes of conduct in a global supply chain, as well as to analyze how the companies deal with the challenges. With increased globalization many companies have chosen to outsource entire or parts of the production in various developing and newly industrialized countries. However, the working conditions in these countries do not always fulfill the labor standards that are defined in various conventions. The society began demanding companies to take social responsibility. The social responsibility goes under the term Corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Företag har under den senaste tiden upplevt ökade och förändrade krav från intressenter, vilket kan påvisas genom hur intresset för Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) har intensifierats. Electrolux är ett av de företag som upplevt hur kraven förändrats, vilket i kombination med en miljökrävande verksamhet utgjort utmaningar för företaget. Ett sätt att möta intressenternas krav är genom utökat strategiskt arbete, varpå CSR kan vara ett framgångsrikt sådant tillvägagångssätt. I denna uppsats genomförs en fallstudie av Electrolux där vi ämnar besvara frågeställningen: Ur ett strategiskt perspektiv; Hur har intressenters ökade och förändrade krav påverkat karaktären av Electrolux CSR-arbete mellan år 2000-2015? Studiens analysmodell baseras på; intressent- och legitimitetsteori, Porter & Kramers steg för strategiskt hållbarhetsarbete samt Carrolls CSRpyramid.

Uppsatsens titel: Private Equity ? värdeskapande processer vid buyout-investeringar Seminariedatum: 2008-06-05 Ämne/kurs: FEKK01, Examensarbete kandidatnivå, 15 poäng Författare: Victor Kask, Marcus Löfgren, Petter Werner Handledare: Tore Eriksson Nyckelord: Private Equity, Värdeskapande, LBO, MBO, Corporate Governance Syfte: Syftet är att beskriva och analysera hur Private Equity bolagen arbetar för att skapa värde i sina portföljbolag. Metod: Uppsatsens utformning utgår från en kvalitativ undersökning där informationen baseras på semistrukturerade intervjuer med personer som har olika befattningar inom den svenska Private Equity branschen. Teoriska perspektiv: Det teoretiska ramverket baseras på teorier hämtade från kurslitteratur och relevanta artiklar. Empiri: Det empiriska materialet som är grundläggande för analysen är hämtat från de semistrukturerade kvalitativa intervjuerna.

Syftet med denna studie är att kartlägga i vilken omfattning samhällsansvar är en del av språkreseföretags verksamhet. Studien är baserad på intervjuer med personer i ledande position inom tre språkreseföretag som finns representerade i Sverige. Den teoretiska referensramen består av ett antal kategorier som är baserade på tidigare forskning om ?Corporate Social Responsibility? (CSR) inom olika typer av turismföretag. Dessa kategorier är ekonomisk, miljömässig och social hållbarhet samt drivkrafter och hinder för turismföretags arbete med samhällsansvar.Studien visar att omfattningen av samhällsansvar inom språkresebranschen är varierande.

In many European countries there is an increasing concern about the occasionally high concentrations of nitrate and pesticides in drinking water. The advent of the EU Water Framework Directive particularly highlights this. The directive states that all large drinking water sources should be identified and protected from pollution before 2009 and that by 2015 all water bodies should reach a 'good status'. In Sweden about 60 percent of the drinking water sources have protection areas. This means that about 700 new water protection areas need to be designated before 2009. This will affect many farmers, restricting their farming practices. The purpose of this study was to investigate which methods are used in other countries concerning nitrate and pesticide pollution from agriculture. From this, the expectation was to generate ideas on what could be undertaken in Sweden when designating new protection areas.

There is a mutual dependency between the business world and the country?s municipalities. The municipalities are dependent on the companies to create work and tax income while the companies are dependent on the municipalities they are located in to provide good infrastructure among other things.Apart from this the municipalities can work activly with creating a strong brand in the eyes of the companies and many researchers in marketing agree that marketing of places will be more common in the future. Marketing of municipalities is however still a rather new and unexplored area and it is uncertain how and to what extent the municipalities work with this.The thesis is formulated:How are the municipalities working to market towards companies and is it possible to make out any positive change from these marketing efforts?The goal of this study is:Our goal is to examine how the view of marketing of places differs from different municipalities in the Stockholm region, how some of these municipalities work with this and how far they have come in this work.

There is a growing awareness that multinational companies have opportunities to influence political conditions. Ethical activities made by multinational companies and ?Corporate Social Responsibility? (CSR) can therefore function as a positive input in society. The primary purpose of this master thesis is to investigate CSR´s contribution to strengthen human rights, and thereby to democratization. The research questions are listed below:1.

Over the last few years, many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the aid sector have grown and become important economic, social and political actors in Sweden. However this sector has also been hard criticized in terms of aid effectiveness. Church of Sweden (CoS), a well established organization in this sector, has faced new challenges in form of demands from their environment regarding reporting aid work. These demands have pushed the International Department of Church of Sweden into a process for adapting the structure in order to meet the new effectiveness requirements. Using both, Contingency Theory and Resource Dependence Theory as theoretical framework and a single case study as research strategy, this master thesis goes in deep into the description of the change of the structure of the International Department. This work shows how the different parts of the organization functions and what impact will these changes in the structure mean for the future of the organization. The analysis of the empirical evidence related to the theoretical framework shows that the organization responds to external demands through a more centralized structure than before.

Interest deduction limitation rules have an important function as the regulations prevent the Swedish tax base to decrease. However, the restrictions must not be at the expense of the business environment. Interest deduction limitation rules that do not work in a satisfactory manner are likely to make Sweden a less favourable country to establish in. The first Swedish rules which were aimed to restrict interest deduction threaded into force in 2009. The rules were applicable to intercompany loans related to acquisitions of part ownership rights and the aim was to reduce tax avoidance through corporate group-loans. The rules proved to be ineffective since the avoidance continued and the Swedish rules could not tackle the problem.

How capital structure influences corporate performance and value has been in the interest of researchers and scholars for more than half a century, but an answer is yet to be found. The main objective of the present paper is to contribute with data for this cause and hopefully help to clarify this mystery. The method that was used was by analyzing the impact of debt on profitability and market valuation through linear regression. The study examined 17 Swedish property companies listed on Nasdaq OMX Large Mid and Small Cap over a 6 year period (2007-2012). The authors found a slightly negative relationship between debt-to-equity and profitability measured by return on equity (ROE) as well as by return on assets (ROA).