The increasing holdings by institutional investors have raised concerns about the institutions passive investment strategies and the implications for corporate governance. A way for investors to address moral hazard and opportunistic behaviour of management is to demand conservatism in accounting practices. This paper analyses the relation between institutional ownership and accounting conservatism in the Swedish market by studying firms on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm over a three-year period. Furthermore, the study investigates whether ownership by institutions with high probability of monitoring managers leads to higher conservatism in financial reporting. To measure accounting conservatism this study uses the asymmetric timeliness measure developed by Basu (1997).

Customer information is to be seen as an essential part in service development. The company should be aware of how their customers experience their services. The company can get access to customer information through complaints from their customers. All information obtained from the customers is not possible to use when developing new and existing services. The information has to be analysed before it is possible to use it for service development.This paper describes if Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) uses their customers as a source of knowledge when developing new and existing services and in that case how.

This study examines how a company adapts its operating control when the environmental circumstances are changing. This is a case study with a qualitative approach which is based on interviews. The main purpose is to examine how an accounting firm adjusts its operating control in order to meet the abolishment of the statutory auditing. Another purpose is to describe how the abolishment of the statutory auditing will influence or have influenced the choice of measures in the balanced scorecard. The question this study aims to examine is: How do audit firms adapt its operating control in order to meet changes in the environment? This question lead to a second question which the study also aims to examine and is How is the abolishment of the statutory auditing influencing the accounting firms goals, measures and focus in the balanced scorecard? The conclusion of this study shows that the abolishment of the statutory auditing has had an influence on the balanced scorecard.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine what the communication between bank and customer looks like. We have more specifically studied how the bank communicates with the customer when communicating different offers, how the customer wants the communication to take place, what communication problem looks like and how the customer wants the bank to design their offers. Our target group was bank customers with academic degree, with one to seven years of working experience. This study was conducted trough interviews with bank customers and representatives at the bank. On the basis of our studies we found that the communication between bank and customer works fairly well.

There will be changes in the accounting regulations in Sweden. Firms will be categorised as K1-K4 firms depending on the size of the company. There will be different levels of accounting in the four categories. Firms will always have the possibility to choose a more advanced accounting regulation than the one they are obligated to due to their size. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate which factors that influence the management in K3 firms in the choice between the K3 and K4 regulation.

IASB is currently working with the replacement of IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement. The new standard IFRS 9 Financial Instruments is said to be based on principles as opposed to the more rules-based IAS 39. This thesis examines the third phase of the project regarding micro hedge accounting. The expressed goal from IASB is to provide more useful hedge accounting information by reducing complexity of the standard. To examine the potential effects of the transition from the rules based IAS 39 to the more principles based IFRS 9, we have performed a case study on a major Swedish bank.

This thesis investigates management accounting systems in a Swedish health care environment. Through a qualitative case study of an activity-based cost accounting system that was introduced in 1994 at S:t Görans Sjukhus, a large Stockholm hospital, the following questions are addressed: What benefits can an activity-based cost accounting system offer the Swedish health care providers? What are the potential problems impeding the implementation of such a system? Main findings: an activity-based cost accounting system can improve the understanding of where costs are generated in the production processes. Comparisons between alternative production processes are improved, and the data may serve as a basis for internal pricing measures. Concerning the second question, difficulty in reconciliating the principles of economic control with the culture present in a hospital is identified as the main obstacle to a new management accounting system..

The purpose of this paper has been to describe the project manager's experience of the customer relationship in customer order projects. A qualitative interview study has been conducted in which seven project managers were interviewed. A thematic analysis resulted in four overall themes. The results showed the importance of a clear, responsive and open communication as well as a large degree of customization to meet the customer the best way as possible. The experience was also characterized by a dynamic relationship and the importance of the customer's expectations.

In our study the purpose was to examine the influence of Continuing Professional Education on small and medium sized auditing- and accounting practices. The study also aims to analyze possible similarities and differences in how small and medium sized auditing and accounting practices are affected of the requirements regarding Continuing Professional Education. In order to fulfill our purpose in the study we conducted interviews with auditors and accounting consultants on small and medium sized auditing- and accounting practices. Totally did we conduct seven interviews with four auditors and three accounting consultants. The majority of auditors and accounting consultants we interviewed are satisfied with the current requirements on Continuing Professional Education and think they contribute to the increase of quality and status of the work tasks performed by auditors and accounting consultants.

AbstractTitle: Accounting firms´ view on the (new law) in joint-stock companiesCourse: Business Administration, Financial Accounting in Corporations and Groups, Ad-vanced Course, 15 ECTSAuthors: Mikaela Uveby, Shadi Nourbehesht, Almira DizdarevicAdvisor: Kent TrosanderProblem: During the last few years, more importance and emphasis has been put on auditors and accounting in general due to a number of company and business scandals on both national and international levels. The United States as well as the EU consid-ered it a necessity to make regulations stricter when it comes to auditing and ac-counts in order to increase the public trust to accounting. At January 1st, 2007, Sweden also changed its law concerning accounting firm challenges. The new law states that as soon as someone of the auditor?s co-workers assists a client with some part of the basic bookkeeping, the main bookkeeping or the drawing-up of the an-nual account, the challenge situation becomes a fact.Purpose: The purpose of the essay is to examine and inquire into how the renewed law con-cerning accounting firm challenges, that was established and put to action at Janu-ary 1st, 2007, has affected accounting firms.Method: The writers have chosen to complete qualitative interviews in order to get a deeper insight to and an understanding of the topic.Conclusion: One year after the renewal of the law, the writers have reached the conclusion of that the new law has not had a great impact on the accounting firms.

The purpose of this study is, on the basis of institutional theory, to contribute with moreunderstanding about resistance to management accounting change and also to survey reasonsfor the resistance and how to cope with the resistance.The study is a qualitative case study and semi-structured interviews have been used tocomplement the study?s theoretical area, consisting of scientific articles.The conclusion from the study is that resistance to management accounting change can beunderstood and explained by the institutions of each organisation and its underlying structures. Afurther conclusion is, with the structures in mind there are many reasons for resistance and alsomany ways to cope with the resistance. A model has been produced in purpose to createunderstanding and to survey the resistance to management accounting change..

Customer satisfaction is a key aspect for many corporations, among them Exacta Distributionscenter. To raise their customer satisfaction, we have researched ways to raise customer satisfaction through the implementation of an error-handling system and recommendations on how the organization should function in the future. This paper describes how these recommendations and the application has been developed, through help in existing theories. This results in a customer portal with the main purpose to provide help in handling orders with errors, and several routines recommended to Exacta Distributionscenter. .

Background: Charity and other non-profit organizations have traditionally not been subject to any particular regulation enforced by Swedish law. Recently though, accounting standards have been altered which, through the new "Bokföringslagen" as of first of January 2001, have affected accounting standards for non- profit organizations. One of the implications which the new"bokföringslagen"has for non-profit organizations in Sweden is the link which it establishes with other accounting regulations enforced by the "Årsredovisningslagen". This link will, in turn, determine which rules that apply for any particular organization. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine how accounting regulations are handled by Swedish non-profit organizations.

The study tries to increase the understanding of the phenomenon known as the Big bath, on the question whether the market accepts Big bath accounting principle or not. Big bath is an accounting theory meaning that a company is likely to increase its impairment in a specific year. This could be as a reaction on a change in the leadership, a depreciation of the result or maybe an external decrease in demand. Through a quantitative survey of the market it is examining whether the companies themselves are inclined to use the procedure and if the stock market accepts it. The study concludes that Big bath similar procedures are a fairly common accounting practice and that the stock market does not seem to mind. .

Företag som upprättar så kallade hållbarhetsredovisningar har blivit allt vanligare. Dock råder det inom forskningen på området en oenighet om vad hållbarhetsredovisning egentligen är. En mängd olika begrepp används om vartannat och några klara definitioner finns inte fastlagda. Syftet med denna studie är därför att göra en kartläggning av de olika begrepp som används inom den globala, akademiska hållbarhetsredovisningslitteraturen för att utreda innebörden av dessa begrepp samt för att utreda hur dessa begrepp förhåller sig till varandra. Studien genomförs med hjälp av en litteraturstudie där 12 artiklar väljs ut genom ett intensitetsurval och sedan analyseras och jämförs med varandra.