In recent years the interest for ethics has increased exponentially. It has become more and more common with the ethic rules and guiding of principles within the business world, both in companies and in different professional groups. Auditors face difficulties and have to deal with different ethical problems where ethics and morality is taken up. It is important that accountants can react in a legal and correct manner. To become an accountant a person should have gone through college or university where the schools have some responsibility to provide the student with basic ethics course for a accounting education.The main aim with our paper is based on the theories of Lawrence Kohlberg about ethical development investigation potential differences in the ethical reasoning among student who are in first or last year of the studies with orientation in accounting.

The aim of this paper is to examine the capacity for ethical reasoning of Swedish certi-fied auditors in the five largest accounting firms in Stockholm, and also how ethics courses affect the auditors' ability to ethically statement. To calculate the auditors ability to ethical statement, questionnaire has been used. The questionnaire is based on a psychological instrument, the so-called Defining Issues Test. At the beginning of the questionnaire some questions are asked about the ethics courses. From the questionnaire a calculation was made of an average index called p-score (Principled score).

The aim of this paper is to examine the capacity for ethical reasoning of Swedish certi-fied auditors in the five largest accounting firms in Stockholm, and also how ethics courses affect the auditors' ability to ethically statement. To calculate the auditors ability to ethical statement, questionnaire has been used. The questionnaire is based on a psychological instrument, the so-called Defining Issues Test. At the beginning of the questionnaire some questions are asked about the ethics courses. From the questionnaire a calculation was made of an average index called p-score (Principled score).

Aim: Auditors objectivity is an obvious part of auditing, but there is doubts and hesitation in society today because of the corporate scandals that have occurred in recent years. Several researchers suggest that auditors actions and behaviors is connected to the ethical climate within the organization. A relationship that also affects auditors objectivity and independence. This thesis aims to investigate how the ethical climate influence auditors choice of relationship to their clients, by choosing a relational and close relationship or a transactional and distanced relationship. And if the client approach have an effect on the auditors objectivity.Method: A survey was conducted among 232 certified accountants in Sweden.

In order to achieve comparability, which is one of the fundamental principles of accounting, companies should be consistent concerning the accounting policies they use. Only under certain circumstances changes in accounting policies are allowed, and when there is a change in accounting policies, it is important that the change is reported in a way that assures that the financial reports still achieve comparability. The purpose of this thesis is to establish which rules and recommendations about changes in accounting policies that exist in Swedish and German law and what their meaning is. Further, the purpose is to compare these rules and recommendations and discuss their differences and similarities, advantages and disadvantages. Since publicly traded European companies will be obliged to prepare their consolidated accounts in conformity with International Accounting Standards (IAS) from 2005, I also describe the content of IAS 8 which deals with changes in accounting policies, and discuss what the consequences of this transition might be for Swedish and German publicly traded companies considering changes in accounting policies.

Abstract: Since the implementation of IFRS, many changes in accounting standards have occured. Companies that follow IFRS must therefore always adapt and change its accountingprinciples according to changes made by IFRS. The latest change that companies must consider and adapt to in their financial accounting is the revised version of IAS 19 regarding pensions. This study aims to investigate if there is a relationship between financial accounting and management accounting due to changes made by IASB. More specifically the study investgates how the removal of the corridormethod and the introduction of IAS 19 as an external approach has affected its management accounting in three large corporations in Sweden.

Ethical competence is an important precondition when people are to respond to moral problem situations as efficiently as possible. In these situations it is not easy to make choices and decisions, especially when many stakeholders are involved with various opinions and interests.The purpose of this thesis was to generate a web-based support tool to train and promote ethical competence of the users of this tool.We first created a theoretical basis by studying the major theories of ethics in general and ethical competence in particular. The importance of ethical competence and its main subject, namely, the autonomy in the theoretical part described and specified. In addition has the practical ethical reflection over morality preferred and characterized to the classical ethical passivity over morality. We have also preferred and characterized the autonomous thinking to the heteronomous one.Based on the theoretical base a prototype tool to support the training of ethical competence was designed and developed.

AbstractFor an audit organization, it is important to work toward maintaininga high error climate to handle errors in an efficient and propermanner. This means that it is important for accountants to worktowards high quality of work, reduce and manage errors that mayoccur in their daily work. Therefore, auditors must know how tohandle errors in order to improve efficiency, which can be affected byhow leadership is exercised in the workplace. The error climatemeans being able to act in a manner which will ensure a good jobtowards customers but also within the internal operations.The ethical leadership may thus have an impact on how auditorshandle the error environment both internally and externally. It is veryimportant for customers to have confidence in the business but also tomaintain the order and the general rules of society for accountingfirms.My study aims to show the thinkable relationship between ethicalleadership and the error climate.

The aim of this study is to examine if Kenneth, a character in the novel Nyår by Stig Larsson, takes his ethical responsibility for one of the characters that appears in one section of the book, Ann. Nyår has often been related to morality. This study shows that Levinas philosophy of ethics is a supplement to the discussion of morality. According to Levinas, a person that acts in a non-moral way still can act in a righteous ethical way. With this starting point, it is possible to be close to the text and to bring out new perspectives on the novel.

A company may use different accounting techniques to adjust accounting information and thereby attract investors. Big Bath Accounting is defined as a strategy used to make changes in the financial statements and reduce the results further when the companies expect negative results. This phenomenon has been observed empirically and occurs when including CEO change and negative results. The aim of this study is to test whether there is another factor affecting Big Bath Accounting, namely remuneration of the CEO. The CEOs should, by changing the accounting information, be able to influence their compensation.

Aim: Based on portfolio theory, which highlights diversification, and CSR, which describes the value of social and ethical responsibility of corporations, this study examines whether there is a difference in risk-adjusted performance between ethical and traditional mutual funds. Ethical funds are limited in their opportunities of diversification and should therefore be limited in their potential perfomance. On the other hand, a focus on social and ethical responsibility can be profitable.Method: The study uses a quantitative approach where we used 25 mutual fund in each category, ethical and conventional mutual funds. The mutual funds and their data has been obtained from www.morningstar.se and www.pensionmyndigheten.se. Historical performance between 2009-2013 were processed to obtain the Sharpe ratio and M2.

Background: Many different parties in the society are affected by the financial information delivered by the companies. Therefore, different interests want their ideas to have an impact on the accountning standards. The construction of the accounting standards are illustrated as a pure political process, where lobbying and conflicts of interest are determining factors. Purpose: The purpose is to understand the underlying interests behind regulation of financial accounting in Sweden and how these interests are manifestated in the establishment of accounting standards. Method: The thesis is designed as a casestudy of the regulation process which induced the legislation of the Årsredovisningslagen 6 kap 1 § 3st.

Since January 1st 2005, public companies within the European Union shall prepare their consolidated accounts in conformity with the international accounting standards. The adopted accounting standards are IASB?s IAS/IFRS completed with interpretations. Furthermore, member states may permit or require public companies to prepare their annual accounts according to IAS/IFRS. Sweden has not yet given companies the ability to use IAS/IFRS in the annual accounts due to taxation difficulties the strong relationship between accounting and taxation brings.

Many professions, such as doctors and psychologists, have a long history of work practice which have resulted that these professions have created their own ethical guidelines. The IT profession, which can be viewed as a relative young and somewhat immature profession, have yet to accommodate any clear guidelines regarding ethics. It?s therefore imperative to create discussions regarding ethical actions to raise the ethical awareness and also create ethical guidelines. The development of the IT profession is moving forward at a quick pace and it?s important to understand that this rapid advancement is not only changing the profession but also changing the society and the environment.

Since 1928 the Swedish accounting and taxation has been closely linked by law which today as the European Union works with its harmonisation of the European accounting systems brings up difficulties. The Union strives to integrate the countries different ways of accounting in order to make it easier to use and understand foreign information. The Swedish connection between accounting and taxation means that a harmonisation would change the whole system as its known today. The purpose with this study is to examine what the link between the two means and how a decoupling would affect Swedish accounting and auditing. We also want to examine how the Swedish taxation office, who currently uses the accounting as a ground for taxation, could guarantee the quality of the declaration without a proper underpinning. The study shows that a decoupling could lead to an increase in quality on swedish accounting and that the administration would become more difficult to handle. The risk of dividend of untaxed profits is not seen as a problem in this context.