China is considered as one of the world?s fastest growing economies and the future of China looks promising. Even though the Chinese market attracts many new foreign companies to enter the market there are entry barriers which companies may encounter as obstacles, which will aggravate the market entry in China. As a result companies loose business opportunities and therefore it is of great importance for Swedish companies, which are planning a Chinese market entry, to identify which entry barriers that are considered to be the most difficult obstacles to overcome.The purpose of the thesis is to examine which entry barriers that are generally considered to be the most difficult obstacles for Swedish companies to overcome when entering Chinese markets and to rank the five most difficult entry barriers to overcome.Information about these entry barriers have been gathered from Swedish companies, which have carried out successful market entries in the Chinese markets, through an e-mail questionnaire.The result generally shows that the most difficult entry barriers to overcome in China were: bureaucracy, property laws, language, cultural differences and difficulties finding local partners. The ranking of the entry barriers? result shows that bureaucracy is the most difficult obstacle to overcome, followed by cultural differences, language, relations and access to distribution channels.We conclude that companies experience different difficulties overcoming these entry barriers, which depends on the companies? size, years in China, markets and if the entry barriers were considered controllable or uncontrollable.

With the ambitions to rehabilitate individuals with different kinds of work disabilities through work, the government owned Samhall AB has a long history as labour market measure in Sweden.To show Samhall AB its importance, the company has requirements to fulfill the goal that around 5 percent of their employees, at Samhall AB, every year shall be transferred to an employment outside the company, which is called transition. Unfortunately since this goal was introduced it also created several dilemmas. One dilemma is the long lasting female under representation in transitions from Samhall AB to the regular labour market.The essays main task is to investigate the factors behind the female under presentation in transition from Samhall AB through a genus perspective and by using quantitative and qualitative method.The main conclusions are that female under representation in transitions from Samhall AB are basically caused by structural factors. Samhall AB?s strong industrial tradition and particularly the strong segregation between female and males on the regular Swedish labour market may inhibit females in their transitions.

The amount of mergers and acquisitions between international and Swedish actors increased due to the Swedish entry in the European Union. In many cases, conflicts between manage-ment and employees made visible the cultural differences between nations and organisations. As a result of these conflicts many companies experience difficulties in operating on the Swedish market and in some cases they have even been forced to leave it.The starting point of this study is analysing how the management at a foreign company in Sweden, that has undergone a merger, has been affected in the meeting with the Swedish business culture. The analyse has got three different perspectives as a base; management, market knowledge and culture.This study is accomplished on the basis of a deductive approach. It is a case study where the empirical foundation derives from five interviews.

We acknowledge the lack of empirical studies of the performance of analyst target prices in the Swedish stock market by examining the profitability of target prices for stocks publicly traded on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. We use consensus target prices issued between 2006-2010 and create two different strategies to observe the abnormal returns generated during this period. Going long in the top decile stocks with the best target prices and going short in the bottom decile stocks with the worst target prices generates a statistically significant abnormal buy-and-hold return of 8.9%. An active strategy with daily portfolio rebalancing and a timely response to target price changes generates a less significant monthly alpha of 1.4% against CAPM. The results show to be robust against the size effect discovered by Fama and French.

Bakgrund: Utvecklingsländernas obligationsmarknad har under de senaste fem åren genererat en avkastning i nivå med aktier. Detta faktum kombinerat bristen på tidigare forskning inom detta område har gjort det intressant att undersöka utvecklingsländernas obligationsmarknad närmare. Syfte: Syftet är att analysera effektiviteten på utvecklingsländernas obligationsmarknad. Genomförande: Med hjälp av informationskvoten och Treynorkvoten undersöks om någon av de tre fonderna i urvalet genererat systematisk överavkastning jämfört med marknadsindexet JP Morgan Emerging Market Constrained Index. Ett signifikanstest på 5 % görs för att utreda om avkastningen är skild från 0.

Banks are an important institution for the economy of a society. During the later years the world of banking has changed. Several new actors have entered the market and taken over traditional bankservices as well as new ones. The way of conducting banking has changed with the event of new technology. One of the banks customer segments, the students have also been under a change. With a changed market companies have to adapt to the new rules of the game.

The purpose of this paper is to compare two different portfolio strategies consisting of insider transactions and stock recommendations and examine whether they posses any information advantage.  The portfolios are balanced once every three-, six- and twelve- months in the period of 2007-2009. Our results show a pattern for these investment strategies. The portfolio consisting of insider transactions generates a positive return in equity in a negative market environment and the opposite reaction in a positive environment. The result for the portfolio consisting of stock recommendations show a positive return of equity in positive environment and the opposite effect in negative environment. The pattern that has been observed can be classified as an anomaly.

Background: During extreme market conditions like the period during fall 2008 the discussion of what affects company value becomes apparent. The capital structure is the relation between borrowed capital and equity in a company´s financing mix. What impact changes in capital structure have on company value is a widely debated subject within the theory of finance. If a relationship between capital structure and company value exists the implication is that an optimal capital structure where company value is maximized also exists.Aim: The aim of the thesis is to study whether a certain relationship between capital structure and company value exists among selected stocks and companies listed on Stockholmsbörsens OMXS30.Implementation: With aim to fulfill the purpose of the thesis regression analysis has been performed among chosen stocks and companies. The empirical results eventuating from this have been analyzed from the view of elected relevant theory.Completion and results: We find that during normal market conditions a positive relationship between debt ratio and enterprise value (EV) can be established.

The furniture retail industry in Sweden has gone trough large changes during the last decades. Today the industry is tough and in the maturity stage where few new companies enter, especially if they do not have a unique offer. The furniture companies have become larger and fewer, the changes have lead to difficulties for smaller and medium sized companies to grow and be profitable.Our purpose is to analyse, evaluate and compare three smaller companies in Stockholm with the intention to find what kind of marketing strategies they are using to survive on the Swedish market. First we interviewed the three companies to see what they do to survive on the market, then we asked 100 persons to fill in a questionnaire to see if they had the same opinion as the companies described.With help from theories we prepared questions which laid the foundation to the empirical part of the essay.The result from this study shows that the three companies differ from each other when it comes to using relationship marketing and placing the customer in the centre. All of them are aware of the importance of doing so, but because of different limits and possibilities they can not fully adjust everything to the customer.

SEB Merchant Banking provides to its institutional customers a true market neutral product called Dynamic Manager Alpha (DMA). The DMA is constructed by a long position in an exceptionally well performing mutual fund and a beta adjusted short position in an appropriate index. The key to making the product market neutral is adjusting with the correct beta, since the beta changes, it is very important to have a good model for predicting beta in the future.This master thesis begins with describing what beta is in a CAPM sense. It then continues with recognizing the so called ?Two Beta Trap?, which separates two kinds of beta.

SEB Merchant Banking provides to its institutional customers a true market neutral product called Dynamic Manager Alpha (DMA). The DMA is constructed by a long position in an exceptionally well performing mutual fund and a beta adjusted short position in an appropriate index. The key to making the product market neutral is adjusting with the correct beta, since the beta changes, it is very important to have a good model for predicting beta in the future.This master thesis begins with describing what beta is in a CAPM sense. It then continues with recognizing the so called ?Two Beta Trap?, which separates two kinds of beta.

In today?s Europe, migration has become a security issue rather than a humanitarian issue. Previous research highlights how migrants have become prisoners of bureaucracy in Europe by their mobility being hindered. The present study critically analyses the migration governance in Europe by highlighting labour market integration in Sweden. The study highlights migrants with a specific focus on foreign-born women. The research questions chosen to examine this phenomenon is: How does migration governance in Europe affect member states' policies for labour market integration, with a particular focus on Sweden? How do foreign-born women in Sweden experience labour market integration processes within the framework of the governance mechanisms that exist in Europe? Foucault?s theory of power and the theoretical concept of choking composes a theoretical framework which is used to analyse focus group data and text analysis data.

This paper tests the information signalling hypothesis on a sample of firms making open market stock repurchases. Using an earnings-based valuation model, we find that a majority of repurchasing firms are undervalued relative to their economic value. This result is consistent with previous academic studies, which claim that undervaluation is the prevalent factor explaining the observed abnormal return following the announcement of a repurchase program. We do not, however, find any evidence that the repurchase is consciously made by management to provide the market with new information. .

Purpose of this thesis is to study the impact of wind turbines on their surroundings. It also aims to analyze how the communication looks between the authorities, the planner and local residents prior to the establishment of wind turbines in Lännäs/Odensbacken in Örebro, where three wind turbines set up in a group.The results of this survey show that the participants experience themselves not as especially disturbed of the turbines in the form of large noise, shadows, and sleep disturbance indoors and outdoors. Participants felt that no change had taken place on the natural environment (52%) since the turbines became operational. It was 49% of participants had got no information about the establishment of Örebro Municipality, Örebro County Administrative Board or Wind Power Company. Scientists/­experts had the highest confidence of 86%, politicians and the media/journalists had least confidence.

Our essay treats the use of the annual report when it comes to marketing. Today there are many different ways for companies to reach out with their different messages; the thing that caught our interest was if the annual report is such a way.The annual report is an external accounting report which task is to give information to interested parties of companies. The annual report can be used to examine if the company has followed and achieved their goals. In other words it?s an important source of information that can be found about a company, which different interested parties can take part of for analyze.