Corporate Social Responsibility has been defined as the responsibility towards stakeholders and the society in whole and the expression was founded in the 1950´s. Reporting in corporate social responsibility has been termed corporate social disclosure and has been divided into three areas: environment, ethics and human resources. The aim of this study is to explain variations in corporate social disclosure and the different media used by corporations to communicate these disclosures. A survey was conducted, which included all Swedish corporations listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, and all public-owned corporations. The results show that corporate characteristics such as size, industry and profitability can explain some of the variation in social disclosures and also have an effect on the extent and variation of the media used.

In recent years, the Swedish railway track system has been neglected in terms of capacity and maintenance. To adapt the existing system to current traffic load there is a great need for extensive improvement and maintenance. Shortcomings are especially occurring on older embankments running over soft subgrades. To select the most suitable method for reinforcement of the embankment, it is important to evaluate different solutions from a life cycle cost perspective. In long-term perspective, it is often shown that a method with low investment cost causes a higher maintenance cost and a shorter technical lifetime.

The purpose of this article has been to elucidate social secretaries? and teachers? experiences of collaboration around children in need of society?s intervention. We wanted to examine what the difficulties could be, according to their experience, and how they handled them. Additionally our aim was to analyze whether their method of dealing with the obstacles were likely to succeed, viewed from the perspective of system theory. In order to achieve our purpose we used a qualitative method and interviewed four social secretaries and four teachers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine preschool educators conceptions on gender pedagogy. Based on preschool teachers own words, we want to get an insight into the use of gender in the curriculum in preschool classes. We also examine the conditions and setbacks of conducting a gender-sensitive educational way of working the curriculum.In order to examine our research question, we choose the method of qualitative interview, and previous research in the theory of gender pedagogy from a sociocultural perspective, in which social interaction is very important. We have interviewed five educators in preschool classes, all with similar educational backgrounds.In the results and analyses section the educators' definition of gender pedagogy is presented and how they take part in gender educational theories strategies. The result of the survey show that the importance of the educator?s own approach to and further education in, the subject matter, makes it possible to really understand the gender norms.

Background: Borderline personality disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis that one to two percent of the population and at least every fourth patient that have received treatment at a psychiatric clinic has been diagnosed with. BPD is most common in women between teenage and early adulthood. Purpose: The aim of this literature study was to emphasize the nursing care of patients diagnosed with BPD within different perspectives. Method: A literature study was conducted to get a deeper understanding for the nursing care of patients with BPD. The search for pertinent articles, answering to the aim of the study, was done in different databases.

This master thesis deals with classifications schemes in multicultural societies. The aim is to investigate how well the Swedish classification scheme SAB has been adapted to the multicultural society of today. I have done a comparative analysis between the SAB and the UDC to see if an international classification scheme would have better possibilities to represent a multicultural society. I have asked some institutions that have a large collection of documents dealing with minority cultures how they experienced the SAB. I have also read literature about classification theories and compared universal enumerative, facetted and special classification schemes to see if the possibilities to classify documents on, or related to minorities differed from each other.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the legal protection against sexual harassment at work functions, and where to draw the line. The study is limited to focus on the sexual harassment directed at women from men, because it usually occurs that way even though only a few report the incidents. The results are discussed from a gender perspective on how the distribution of power is between men and women as a way to explain sexual harassment.Sexual harassment is currently protected by the discrimination law and the EU principle of equal treatment for men and women. For a behavior to be considered as sexual harassment it has to be unwanted by the receiving party and the person practicing the harassments must be aware that the behavior is perceived as offensive. The behavior shall be of a sexual nature and contribute to a disadvantage for the victim in the form of a violation of that persons integrity.It is the victim that determines whether the behavior is perceived as sexual harassment or not, what one person believes is a friendly behavior may be perceived as offensive by another.

The aim of our master thesis is to study the way valuation of real estate is conducted by real estate companies. Furthermore we want to identify the factors that affect the relevance and reliability of the valuation. The reason for this is the introduction of IFRS, in 2005, and the application of the IAS 40 rules stating that real estate are to be recognized at fair value on the balance sheet. To do this we have performed a case study on 10 Swedish real estate compa-nies listed on the Stockholm stock exchange, OMX, Large Cap and Mid Cap list to see how the share value has performed in relation to the reported net asset value since 2005 and how they value their collection of properties. We also studied the assumptions made by real estate company analysts.

A quantitative and qualitative study of all LIS Master theses applying a gender perspective on children-centred issues previously published at the Swedish School of Library and Information Studies. Two hypotheses were investigated: 1) studies with explicit gender perspective express strongest urgency; 2) study results confirm predeclared assumptions. A content analysis of all theses, and closer thematic analysis of ten, form the main question: Is there a risk that the theses? similarities in terms of urgency and confirmation create predictable conclusions? The theses? motivations behind the choices of research problems are explored in the content analysis. Two categories of motivation can be identified: 1) personal; 2) generally applicable.

Media often discusses school, teachers and students. These discussions are often based on an adult perspective and students' views on the subject are not enhanced. Therefore, this paper intends to examine students' views on what they think makes a good teacher. Previous research shows that a good teacher can create the conditions for good learning based on the needs of students, and this is therefore important to investigate. The theoretical basis for this essay is the definition of an authentic teacher that which in this essay will be discussed from the point of view of Fibaek Laursen (2004).

During recent years, financial innovation has given rise to numerous structured investment opportunities aimed towards the general public. These have enabled private investors to engage in high-risk investments offering as much as 400 per cent leverage while oftentimes not fully having grasped the risk involved. The issuers of these securities have been criticized for using advertising of a too aggressive and misleading nature.By presenting 819 potential investors with two different investment opportunities yielding the same return over a six day period, we have aimed to assess whether the inclination of being affected by judegmental heuristics varies with factors such as knowledge, overall attitude towards the asset class, risk appetite and experience from previous investments.We have observed that investors' perception of the attractiveness of an investment can be distorted by altering the information presented to the investor. However, our findings show that this tendency decreases with an increased level of knowledge, experience and risk appetite..

The first of January 2005 all companies listed on a stock exchange within the European Unionhad to implement International Financial Accounting Standards (IFRS) in their annual report.But is this regulation for the good or worse and does the benefits outweigh the cost? The goalwith the regulation is to make it easier for investors, shareholders and other stakeholders tomake financial decisions, compare domestic as well as international companies at the samecondition. One of the differences with the introduction of the new regulation is IFRS 3 thathandles business combination and how goodwill and intangible assets from the acquiredcompany should be accounted for. The objectives of our dissertation is to identify those listedcompanies that have made one or more acquisition between the years 2005 to 2006 andmeasure their level of disclosure concerning goodwill and intangible assets through theacquisition. We concluded trough the results that positive accounting theory and systemorientated theory didn?t explain all the verities in the companies? disclosures.

Swedish healthcare has experienced increased economic pressure during the last decades and organizations have faced many changes. Managers and their roles in organizations have also been affected by the changes. Traditionally, managers in the healthcare sector are highly specialized doctors with a strong medical background. In the thesis, we study a big private healthcare company with an ambition to lead the development in the sector. In order to accomplish its goal, the company is trying to change the organization of managers.

New laws and recommendations within corporate governance during the last years have affected the way board of directors work. The board is said to have and fulfill three roles: a control role, a service role and a strategy role. These roles could be understood by three theoretical theories: the agency theory, the resource dependence theory and the stewardship theory. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether, and if so how, the board work differs between two small firms based on these roles, given that one of the firms is a publicly listed firm and the other is a privately owned firm. Using a qualitative case study as research method we find that the board work differs between the two companies when it comes to these roles.

Bankruptcy is a problem for the society in form of high costs for including suppliers, customers, employees, investors, banks, insurance companies etc. The purpose of this study is to confirm or dismiss a bankruptcy prediction model that has been developed in a previous Swedish study, in order to predict bankruptcy with help of specific key figures. The model has only been tested in a larger perspective where the population consisted of all small firms in Sweden, in this study the model´s reliability is tested by that it instead been applied to a minor perspective, where the population only includes Stockholm. With a quantitative approach of 12 different key figures from a total of 60 Swedish smaller registered companies in Stockholm between the years 2005-2007, has been studied. The companies are divided into two groups, companies with good financial health and companies that have ended up in bankruptcy.The results shows that the model is applicable in a smaller population, but some of the key figures do not generate essential or any type of information about bankruptcy, but the majority of the key figures in the model did.