Background: The situation for Swedish agricultural production today is characterized by an increased competition, particularly after the country joined the European Union. Swedish agricultural production laws guarantee safe, high quality foodstuffs. However, due to these strict laws, Swedish farmers face higher production costs than their competitors. Meanwhile, cheaper imported goods compete freely on the Swedish market. Swedish agricultural production must find new ways to survive in the increasing competition.

The Swedish stock-market gives investors an opportunity to benefit from the global growth while financing companies invests and contributes to a socio-economic development. Parallel to the ownership of the funds also follows a responsibility as companies in the funds affect society and the environment. The growth of savings in funds, combined with an increased focus on sustainability has developed SRI (socially responsible investment). Therefore it is interesting to examine whether responsibility is an exception, which only concerns SRI-funds or a general principle, which includes the whole Swedish stock-market.The results of the survey makes it clear that all the Swedish major banks actively works to integrate sustainability within the respective bank's business to achieve a more sustainable financial system. Thus concludes the investigation that responsible investments are a general principle on the Swedish mutual stock-market.How responsibility is integrated in fund management differ between the banks.

The flexibility of the labour market is considered as an instrument for increasing economic growth.Therefore has the use of flexible employment, also called atypical employment, increased. The atypical employment is characterized by insecurity in comparison with a traditional permanent full- time employment. One of the most common atypical employments is the manning employment, which is insecure whether it is permanent or not. The insecurity in the industry is based on insecure income, unpredictable working hours and poor psychosocial work environment.In order to encourage a continued increase of flexibility in the labour market while the need for security for staffing employees would be satisfied was Directive 2008:104 adopted. A certain amount of security has been achieved.

Title: Management control of facility efficiency in municipalities - A case study of Halmstad municipalityLevel: BachelorSeminar date: 2012-05-31Authors: Markus Nilsson & Sara MattssonAdvisor: Sven-Ola CarlssonKey words: Control management in municipality, facility efficiency, management by objectives, internal rents and incentivesBackground: The public sector owns and manages a large property portfolio and in the municipalities, the properties are always a big cost item. Because of the outside world changes and the public interest, the properties should be used as efficiently as possible.Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe how control management of facilities looks like a municipality. The paper also seeks to explain how employees work to make the facilities more efficient in a municipality.Methodology: The authors use a qualitative method with open interviews.Theoretical perspectives: The choice of theory was made with the field of management control and facility efficiency in mind. The theory therefore includes management by objectives, internal rents and reward systems, motivation and communication within organizations.Empirical foundation: The organization has undergone a reorganization 2010/2011. There are no clear incentives to reduce facility costs.

Over the last decade the conversation on entrepreneurship has been both worldwide and intense. In Sweden, as in many other countries, this conversation has also concerned women?s entrepreneurship. Parallel with this conversation has been the debate on women in leading position in large corporations. This thesis aims to find out why and how women use entrepreneurship to handle existing conditions in life (such as the hardship of combining a traditional career with a traditional family life) and to create new conditions that suit them better.

The market for eco-labelled products has developed rapidly from the early nineties in Sweden. There is a full variety of environmentally friendly products on the market today, and perhaps organic food is the most popular alternative. Eco-clothes have not reached the same amount of success as other eco-labelled products on the Swedish market. In this essay I will discuss and analyze which factors that have influenced green consumers attitude and behavior towards eco clothing. Four interviews with green consumers in Karlstad have been done in order to explore consumers attitude and behavior.

Title: Pricing of IPO:s on the Swedish stock market Authors: Mikael Gustavsson Martin Kvist Henrik Wannberg Tutor: Anders Hederstierna Problem: There are certain sets of problems for underwriters when they are pricing potential stock-exchange companies. The problem partly consists of estimating the demand at an IPO and also to accurately value the business in comparison to the market. To set the price per share is problematic, since the company carrying out the public offering wants to optimise the amount of capital at the same time as they want the share to be subscribed in full. If the IPO would not be carried out, it could cause harm to the position of the underwriters. Purpose: To investigate whether underpricing exists associated with IPO:s on the Swedish market during the period 1995-1999. Method: The collection of data has been achieved by means of: Internet, E-mail and telephone calls. Conclusions: We have reached the conclusion that oversubscribing in comparison to the return at an IPO has an average growth of 3.3 per cent the first day, on every occasion of oversubscribing. For the studied population, including 138 initial public offerings, the average market value rise is 15 per cent the first day. When we made our calculations, adjustments have been made for the general index of Affärsvärlden (AFGX).

This essay aims to analyse the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, formally called MiFID, andwhether it improves the situation of the investor, the customer, on the market for securities. MiFID isa directive from the European Union and was implemented by the member states in 2007. Besideshaving the objective to harmonise the European financial market, the directive aims to increasecompetition and efficiency among the markets in the member states.After our initial reasearch in the area we choosed to do a textual analysis and divide the content ofMiFID into three main areas: trading venues, transparency and investor protection. These areas aresubsequently analysed in relation to the investor?s situation on the market for financial securities andthe overall question at issue is whether MiFID improves the situation of the investor.

In this essay I evaluate the legality of Karl Popper?s criticism against psychoanalysis, regarding this theory of Freud?s being pseudoscientific. Popper?s criticism is based on his theory of demarcation in which he states that an empirical theory must be possible to test by observations in order to be, as most important is, hypothetically possible to falsify based on other empirical statements ? often in the form of new found facts that contradict the original statement/theory. In purpose of assessing Popper?s criticism I perform a modified idea analysis, based on a book by Evert Vedung (1977).

During the last years, the pharmacy market undergone major changes. Re-regulation that has been done in 2009 meant that monopoly was unlocked for competition. In a market where firms offer equivalent products, increases the importance of delivery service as competitive tool to differentiate themselves among the crowd. This also applies to pharmacy market where the supplies of goods in large way consist of equivalent products regardless of the company.This case study observes the importance of delivery service in terms of competitive tool on pharmacy market by focusing on a company?s improvement in delivery service.

The purpose of this paper is to view Karlstad Municipality and their financial support to non-profit organizations within equestrian sports. Despite the varying representatives of various equestrian sports in Karlstad, there seems to be a single beneficiary within the sport when it comes to financial support from the municipality. The policies and plans concerning cultural development are directly compared to the Karlstad Municipality and its contribution to these organizations within equestrian sports. Through interviews and reports I have studied the process of financial support from the Karlstad municipality using an intersectionality theory based on Nina Lykkes guide on gender studies and feminist theory. Pierre Bourdieu?s theories on field, habitus and capital are also used as a method to enhance the understanding of equestrian sports and its role in modern Swedish society. The conclusion is that the Karlstad Municipality is, for a several of reasons, promoting non-profit organizations within equestrian sports, which are operating as riding schools.

The following is an examination of work and gender and how they interlocked in a Swedishbrewery between 1923 and 1939. Leaning on labor process theory and Marxist feminist theory,this paper examines what constituted women?s work in the brewery industry in this era, how women?s work changed with rationalization and economic recess, and how the all-femaleunion locale reacted to these changes. The events portrayed are related to earlier research ongender on the labor process, to the history of the Swedish labor movement in large, and to theevolution of the so-called ?Swedish model? with its relatively low level of conflicts on thelabor market.

Wind power is a growing energy sector in Sweden. However, it still represents only a small part of the total electricity production, about 0.7%. In order to create good conditions and to facilitate the establishment of wind power in Sweden, the government has for example, created a national centre for wind use. The objective has been to reach the governmental goal, which is an expansion of wind power by 10 TWh by year 2015 compared to the level in 2002. The Swedish electricity market was deregulated in 1996 which refers to the introduction of a competitive market in electricity production and trade.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka huruvida hedge- och aktiefonders avkastning påverkas av samma riskfaktorer. Vidare syftar studien även till att undersöka om hedgefonders och aktiefonders riskexponering är konstant över tiden eller ej. Slutligen analyseras även hedgefonders förmåga att förutspå upp och nedgångar på marknaden och därmed generera överavkastning. Det angreppssätt som har använts i undersökningen är av det kvantitativa slaget, där regressionsanalyser har genomförts för att undersöka svenska hedge- och aktiefonders riskexponering samt svenska hedgefonders market-timing förmåga. Studien bygger på avkastningsinformation, under tidsperioden 2001-2004, för 20 hedgefonder och 20 aktiefonder.

With this paper we intend to investigate what kind of benefits there are by adding commodity futures to a well-diversified portfolio. Since the last fifteen years the commodity speculation has grown tremendously, which partially can be explained by that commodities exposes the investor to certain factors other than an investment in equities. According to our calculations the commodity futures have outperformed stocks during our research period, which partially could be explained by the increasing demand of physical commodities in developing countries e.g. India & China (Akey, 2005). By constructing different portfolios consisting of equities and corporate bonds we could investigate whether our portfolios will benefit from commodity futures and how this will vary over different levels of risk.