A wish for a higher standard of living has driven the rate of consumption in Sweden. Mainfocus in business is on a higher growth and profitability where some companies use a lowprice strategy to win competitive advantage. The positive consumption pattern spiral is oftendiscussed in media, while criticism is limited and often refers to the environment. In order toreduce our ecological footprint we should consume more sustainably. More and morecompanies implement CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) in their business strategy tobecome more sustainable.

A great source of risk during peace processes of today comes from spoilers, individuals and groups who deliberately try to undermine every attempt to achieve a negotiated peace agreement. The aim of the thesis is to examine problems related to the management of spoilers during peace negotiations and the effects thereof. A central aspect in this respect is the dilemma of whether to include or exclude controversial actors like spoilers at negotiations.The choice of limits of the subject is to examine the peace negotiations that resulted in ?The Agreement? in 1998, concerning the conflict in Northern Ireland, and in ?DOP? in 1993, concerning the conflict between Israel and Palestine. I find a significant difference between these two conflicts regarding the way of managing spoilers.

Power, Criminality and the gamble about bordering normality. From theperspective of Foucault. This study is about how criminality becomes a strategy of power used by the individual to overcome difficulties and gain advantages. This strategy of power sets loose a process of identity formation within the individual that gives shape to his own norms which are opposite to the one of the society. The individual norms and the normative society cooperate with one another in a cultural teamwork.

Uranium (U) is a naturally occurring component in bedrock and under the "right" conditions it can dissolve and move into the ground water. Since many people in Sweden depend on drilled wells as their main drinking water supply, they may be exposed to the uranium in the water. Radioactive radiation is not the major concern associated with naturally occurring uranium. It is rather the chemical properties of uranium that make it a potential danger to human health. Uranium is proven to have toxic effects with respect to the functioning of the kidneys.

In recent years, awareness of the climate change has increased around the world. Environmental issues have been taking into consideration, both by individuals and companies. Therefore the demands for new environmental friendly technology have increased, also known as cleantech. To further establish and develop cleantech it requires capital. Venture capitalists have as well seen the potential.To increase the number of Venture capital investments in cleantech, it is important the investments generate good returns.

By surveying conceptions of SLU Alnarp?s resources and competence among its students and personnel, this thesis has the purpose of inventing identity, positioning and image of SLU Alnarp. The underlying idea is that the analysis of the opinions of the students and the personnel will provide the SLU management with new ideas and general advice for an innovative strategy for success. Four quantitative interviews with selected representatives from different staff groups were performed. In order to obtain a differentiated view of the employee thoughts and opinions on the university, five persons were selected to be interviewed ? all with different types of responsibilities.

Problem: How has Nordea been adapted and influenced by the change of Basel II and how have the employees reacted on the new change?Purpose: This essay has a purpose to study how Basel II has influenced the credit rating at Nordea. We also want to study how the employees have reacted to the new change.Method: To receive the information that was necessary for this study interviews were performed with the employees at Nordea. The interviews were an effective way to start a discussion and by that we received important information.Basel II is new capital cover rules that the Swedish banks have introduced. These new rules mean that it will become more important with safety when it comes to risk management and credit giving.

Many companies choose to market their products and brands with help from celebrities. This is not a new phenomenon, though, this strategy is something that we consumers start to get used to and the risk that the consumer unconsciously unselects the message grows. A recently much-disputed theory is the use of incongruent marketing. This means that companies uses a marketing message with the objective to not match the consumer?s expectations.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to investigate the legal practice of valuation in arbitration board proceedings concerning freeze-outs after non-cash take-over bids. We find that the most important method for valuing the shares offered in exchange for the shares of a target company is to take the volume-weighted average of the quoted prices of the shares offered in exchange during the acceptance period of the take-over bid. This thesis is a complement to previous studies by Peter Jennergren (1996) and by Andrea Lundqvist and Victor Ludvigsson (2007) of how the Balken case (a freeze-out case that was eventually decided by the Supreme Court of Sweden, in 1996) has affected the legal practice of valuation in freeze-out arbitration board proceedings. We have undertaken an empirical study of 48 freeze-outs between 1985 and 2006 where shares in the bidding companies were offered in exchange for shares in the target companies.

Since 2005 all companies listed on a regulated stock exchange within the European Union are required to present their financial reports in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and International Accounting Standards (IAS). The purposes of these standards are to accomplish international harmonization of accounting rules to make financial reports more comparable. However, recent research has shown that some firms tend to use goodwill strategically in a business combination by manipulating the acquired assets and consciously allocate the intangible assets to goodwill to reduce the depreciation in the income and decrease costs. This phenomenon may reduce the comparability between financial reports and thus has an opposite effect on the purpose of IFRS and IAS.The aim of this study is to show how the companies involved in this study allocate goodwill strategically. Furthermore, the introduction of the new standards has contributed to that goodwill now is a subject for impairment test, therefore we want to show whether this affected the comparability of the companies in this study.An empirical study was conducted, based on interviews with four Swedish managers.

AbstractAt the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 the nations stated that traditional environmental policies were not sufficient to handle the multidimensional challenges posed by sustainable development. Governments needed to broaden their political decision making procedures in order to coordinate and integrate environmental, social and economic policies. Therefore a new tool was introduced in Agenda 21, National Strategies for Sustainable Development (NSDS). The aim of an NSDS would be to bring together actors from all parts of society to jointly reach a consensus on how to work towards the vision of a sustainable society. An NSDS would be seen as a strategic tool to help focus national policies for SD.

Background: Mergers and acquisitions have evolved from initially almost exclusively having been an American phenomenon, to becoming a common occurrence throughout the world. Companies though, are not defenseless against hostile bids, but must take many factors into account when selecting defense measures. Purpose: This paper aims to enhance the understanding of acquisitions through hostile bids on the companies studied. More specifically, this study aims to create a deeper understanding in how Scania and Skandia have chosen their defense measures, or could have chosen, before and during their hostile bidding processes with specific concern for their strategic credibility. Method: This paper is based on two companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange exposed to hostile takeover attempts in a similar time period.

This master?s thesis attends to a debate in the Swedish daily press concerning the public library which arose after the Swedish Moderate Party?s publication of their cultural political document Kulturen 2.0. This document contains a number of standpoints, of which three directly concern the public library: charges on book loans, libraries on contract and politically balanced purchase policy. In all, 28 articles are examined by means of an idea and ideological analysis. The purpose is to find out what is behind the conflicts surrounding attitudes about the public library's mission and activity in an era of needs for change.

This study is based on an ongoing debate regarding the Stockholm Stock Exchange, which centers around the possible abolition of quarterly reports. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this debate by examining how the relationship between financial reports and stock price correlates. The study's methodological approach is based on the Capital Market Research frame-work in which an ERC model and an extended model are used to measure the relationship. Three hypotheses were formed to categorize the direction of the study, these categorizations treats the differences in impact between quarterly and annual reports on stock price, as well as differences in impact as a casual effect of company size and seasonal sensitivity. The results of the study show that quarterly reports have a stronger impact on the share price than annual reports.

Social media on the Web has become more common over the last decade and in recent years it has grown immensely. The social media with the highest amount of members is Facebook, where not only private persons are found - companies started to establish their profiles on the network in 2006. However, little is known about how these companies succeed and reach their audience with information dissemination and interact with them. The aim of this study is to contribute with information to local companies on how they can manage to maintain their activity with different approaches and strategies. This study examines how three different local companies chooses to spread information and maintain relationships with their members on Facebook.