As of 1 July 2008 the revised Swedish Code of Corporate Governance applies to all Swedish companies whose shares are traded on a regulated market in Sweden. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether the introduction of the revised Code has affected the disclosure practice among Swedish companies. We investigate a sample of 43 small and mid cap companies listed on the OMXS Exchange that has previously not been covered by the regulation. We develop a disclosure index, measuring the disclosure level in annual reports before and after the introduction of the Code. The results from the study show that disclosure level has not increased after the introduction of the Code.

The governance and control of healthcare organizations has traditionally been run byprofessions inside the organization (Fölster et al., 2003). During the last decades Swedishhealthcare has undergone an institutional transformation where the governance has changedfrom professional governance to a more market like one (Sahlin-Andersson, 2006). Governingof healthcare can however be problematic as professional work is characterized by a highlevel of autonomy and tacit knowledge (cf. Tsoukas, 1997, Freidson, 2001). An expression ofthe new kind of governance is the annually published report ?Öppna jämförelser av hälso- ochsjukvårdens kvalitet och effektivitet?.

In 1994 it was decided that a new network based organizational model was to be initiated to face the problems of some of the gender inequalities in Sweden. The organisation structure was named Resource Centre for Women (ResursCentrum för kvinnor).This essay constitutes a qualitative case study of governing, with this organisation structure as my field of inquiry. My ambition has been to outline and explain what kind of governing has been used and how it works. I have also tried to identify potential changes of the ways of governing over time. To help me out with that task, I have applied a theoretical framework, characterized of a governance perspective, and have used terms as: governing with networks, partnership, projects and visionary government to interpret my empiric material.My result shows that there have been various changes in the ways of governing, from a more hierarchal government form of governing to a more governance based one..

The works of an employee within an authority involves many laws and rules that have to be followed at the same time every case is unique and the resources are limited. This study wants to illustrate how national environmental goals are applied by länsstyrelserna in Sweden. How does the implementation of the environmental goals works by länsstyrelserna in Blekinge, Skåne and Örebro län? Which problems creates obstacles in the implementation of the environmental goals according to länsstyrelserna? What differs between länsstyrelserna in the implementation? Mainly it is the complexity of problems that will be illustrated here, which may result in different implementation sof the environmental goals by länsstyrelserna or that the environmentalgoals do not applys like intended. In this study sixteen national environmentalgoal are examined; ?fresh air?.

The purpose with this report is to make a contribution to Bodycote heat treatments workshop in Värnamo, how to introduce, establish and constantly improve its environmental system. The rapport will help Bodycote with there certifying in ISO 14001: s demand standard. Organizations who continuously work with environmental issues have a lot to gain. Two things an active environmental development process will convey are, building of thrust within the circle of customers, and great financial savings. An increasingly numbers of organizations realize the importance to introduce a functioning environmental system into their activity.

It is said that concepts of organizational management can pave the way to success. This is not accurate and it is something that will be shown in the following study. Its most prominent conclusion is that the valuation governance to some extent has an impact on the formal structures, but that it had no further effects on the employee?s way of work. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the valuation governance is applied in Medley AB and the meaning of it.

Recent accounting scandals, often led by managers trying to improve results and thereby their own bonuses, have severely damaged the publics view of management. In the aftermath of scandals such as Enron, Parmalat and Skandia, demand has increased for Corporate Governance codes and similar regulation. The Swedish code for Corporate Governance came into effect on July 1, 2005. The code requires all Swedish companies listed on the Swedish Stock Exchange (OMX A- and O-list), with a turnover exceeding 3 billion SEK, to disclose a report regarding Corporate Governance, attached to the annual report.The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the new disclosure required by the Swedish Corporate Governance code will have a measurable effect on stock prices. The authors have applied event study methodology examining daily returns around the announcement of the Corporate Governance reports.

The Swedish system of environmental quality objectives is a so-called MBO, Management By Objective and has the purpose to guide the Swedish society towards sustainable ecological development. The system involves the whole society from the parliament and the government down to individual citizens. At the regional level, it is the county administrative boards that are responsible for the work with the system of environmental objectives. At the County Administrative Board of Västmanland County, it is the environmental unit who is in charge of work with the environmental objectives and they want input for how to improve their work with the environmental objectives, both internally at the Administrative Board and externally with external parties.The main purpose and goal of the study is to present the work of four other county administrative boards regarding their work with the environmental quality objectives and to identify external parties? opinions of how they want the County Board of Västmanland county to work with them in this matter.The work is designed as a case study of four county councils, where the environmental objectives coordinators at the four county administrative boards were interviewed about their work with environmental quality objectives.

In this essay a proposal of city renewal is made for the new train station area built on highly productive agricultural land in Landskrona. The proposal is based on how the situation for the agricultural land in terms of exploitation looks like today and also on theories of urban governance to find out why the area turned out the way it did..

A trend since the early 90?s has been that some public libraries offer a special shelf containing environmental information to the community, but it seems as though the subject has been overlooked by the literature and the science community. The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to study how three independent public libraries work with environmental information that is made available to the community. The following questions were addressed: 1) Which arguments can be found as to why the libraries offer this activity? 2) How does the environmental work at the public libraries look and what does it contain of? 3) Are there any similarities or differences in this work between the three libraries?To answer these questions interviews with librarians were carried out; observations were made to complement the interviews.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how municipalities handle planning of megaprojects. The term megaproject here refers to a large project in terms of time, space, investments, numbers of agents etc. With an increasing importance of the phenomena the need of discussing the role local politics could take in this process is important.How do municipalities handle the difficulties that come with megaprojects and what roles do they take in their work with megaprojects? These empirical questions are tested on a case where the municipality of Lund works with the megaproject European Spallation Source (ESS). A theoretical question discusses the megaproject in the light of governance and government, and structures the analysis around these two important terms.Different parts of the municipality handle there part of the planning from there own logic.

This thesis calculates and compares the values of improved environmental quality due to future possible investment alternatives in biogas production facilities at Käppalaförbundets Reningsverk (Käppala Sewage Treatment Works) in an attempt to determine which alternative yields the highest such value. Käppala faces three investment alternatives for the usage of biogas. The alternatives are production of vehicle fuel, district heating and thirdly, heat and power production. Estimates of the value of environmental change are calculated for each of the three investment alternatives, and these estimates are then compared. The environmental change in question is the change in discharge levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and particle matter.

In Sweden, detailed development plans (DDPs) go through a screening process to decide whether their implementation could cause significant environmental impact or not. The criteria in the legislation were studied to see if an environmental impact assessment was needed. This study also investigated 26 DDPs from 12 out of 13 of the municipalities in Östergötland and how they meet up to the demands in relevant legislation, for example the rules for Environmental Impact Assessments. Plans that concerned suburban communities and new housing were selected. The environmental issues highlighted in the plan documents were compared to selected topics from the GIS data base 'Östgötakartan' to see if the assessments made by the municipalities were reasonable judged.

During the 90s most companies organized and adopted routines for their environmental work. This work included for example eco-efficiency improvements and the introduction of environmental managing systems. At the UN conference in Rio in 1992 the concept Sustainable development was defined, but it was not until about the year of 2000 that companies in Sweden shifted their work from environmental management to sustainable management. A consequence of this is that they now have to focus on environmental aspect in conjunction with social and economic aspects.The purpose of this study is to gain understanding of what a change of focus to sustainable development means for companies. Has the environmental work suffered in the competition with social/economical aspects under the new sustainable focus? How will the new way of working affect the balance between environmental and social aspects? Changes were studied in five companies by analysing their annual-, environmental- and sustainability reports and through interviews of sustainable managers.

BACKGROUND & During the last century, the Swedish chemical industry has developedPROBLEM: considerably in regard to respecting the environment. Following various discharges and pollutions during the first half of the 20th century, environmental concepts such as CSR, Responsible Care and REACH have developed in order to improve the situation. Today, environmental issues play a central role in the society, but what are the reasons behind this increased environmental commitment? PURPOSE & The purpose of this thesis paper is to study the driving forces behindDELIMITATIONS: the increased environmental awareness in companies. Is this mainly due to stricter legislations, or do factors like pressure from the general public, the industry or customers play a more vital role? Furthermore, do economic incentives exist, that make it interesting for companies to invest in environmental awareness? Since the chemical industry spans over a wide spectrum in regard to environmental issues, this paper will focus on a specific area of the industry.