Since year 2005 the accounting has changed for public companies because of the new international standards, IFRS. IFRS 3 provides a single international accounting treatment for acquisitions and has broadened the definition of intangible assets. By IFRS 3 goodwill is defined as the excess of the cost of acquisition and is separated from intangible assets. Now goodwill must be annually tested by an impairment test. There are many valuation issues to considerate when it comes to deciding the value of goodwill.

Nowadays, the world around us is changing faster and faster, the globalization is increasing and harder competition puts extra pressure on companies to be more innovative than ever before. One of the fastest changing industries is the IT industry where the actors always have to be up to date to keep their competitive advantage. The authors want to find out what makes some companies in this industry more innovative than others by examining what internal elements that are necessary for innovation. Much research has already been carried out within the field of innovation and especially about innovation management, although less research exists about smaller, non high tech service companies. Therefore the authors also tries to find out how applicable today?s theories are on this special field and thereby fill a smaller gap in today?s research.

Existing studies concerning private labels are unclear as to whether private label manufacturers carry out product development themselves. Furthermore, there is a lack of studies comparing product development processes in private label companies and national brand manufacturers. This study highlights a set of critical product development factors and assesses their prevalence in four different companies in the Swedish retail business. The study is based on a number of qualitative interviews with key personnel responsible for various table fats. Findings indicate two levels of involvement in the product development process on the private label side.

In Sweden, there an increasing need for transport and this leads directly to fuel demand of the transport sector is expected to increase. Both politicians and industry believes that renewable fuels are a realistic and significant method to reduce the transport sector's environmental impact. This study aims to document the Swedish haulage contractor?s attitude to biodiesel. Also to document the strengths and weaknesses of biodiesel, based on opinions from the ultimate consumers.

AbstractThe purpose of this study has been to provide a deeper understanding of how companies in the travel industry works with social media and electronic Word-of-mouth (eWOM) by analyzing and investigating social media and eWOM and how it effects customers? expectations on the companies service quality. In connection with the purpose we have chosen the following research questions: 1. In which way can companies in the travel industry interact with their customers participation on the Internet through social media. 2.

In the early 1990?s more and more companies of the Swedish public sector were exposed to competition, and this started the debate on how such actions might affect the business and even society.The first chapter examines how the public sector and especially health care, is financed and managed. We also explore what it means to be exposed to competition and find that there are many different ways of exposing the public sector to competition. The study examines dental care as an example of a market with both publicly and privately owned companies. The purpose of this paper is to explore how publicly and privately owned health care companies view their relationship with their consumers.

The purpose of our essay is to find out if there are any strategies for profit transactions in a group. To realise our purpose we conducted two case studies with interviews. But we can not draw any general conclusions.To conduct the research we had to build a theory. In this theory we found motives to do profit transactions and how to do it. We also thought that there had to be some conflicts between the motives and the manager´s interests.In our analysis we found that financing the dividend was a strong reason to make profit transactions between companies in the group.

The first company to send TV-commercial was the American company NBC, it was in the year of 1941. In Sweden, TV-commercials were first shown in 1987/88. TV 4 was the first channel to send commercial in Swedish television.TV has the advantage of showing both sound and picture, which makes TV the strongest channel of communication to mediate a message between a company and the consumer. Although TV-commercial is the most expensive choice to mediate a message, it is also the most effective one. (Persson, 1993)Almost everyone is exposed to TV-commercial daily.

In 2010 mandatory audit was revoked for small and medium sized companies in Sweden. At the same time the authorization for accounting consultants was established with the aim of raising the knowledge and status of the profession. Even though The Swedish Companies Registration Office has discovered more errors in the accounting after the mandatory audit was eliminated, it especially concerns those companies who does not have neither an auditor or an accounting consultant. One of the reasons often mentioned to be audited is the auditors role when it comes to lending decisions. Our empirical studie show that the auditors most important function, being unbiased, is not what is of greatest importance for the credit institutions.Instead it was professional skills, and for small and medium enterprises (SME) it was consulting they requested the most.

Introduction: Bokföringsnämnden started the K-project in 2004. The purpose was to collect rules and standards for different categories of companies in a complete set of regulations. Small businesses were given the option to choose between K3 which is the main regulatory and K2 which is a simplified regulatory framework. One specific difference between the regulations is that companies may not capitalize development costs if the company applies K2, this may causes problems for the companies that can give rise to such costs.Purpose: The purpose is to explain the problems that companies have identified in the choice of regulatory frameworks and the implications that may follow the specific rule in K2 on the company's activities and financial report.Frame of reference: K3 contains definitions and requirements that must be met so development costs can be capitalized in a company. Information presented in the financial statements should be relevant to the reader.

The DuPont formula is one of the most well known and basic tools used for financial statement analysis and is highly useful for understanding firms strategies and operating environment. Previous studies on American listed companies have also shown that analysis of the changes in the DuPont components is useful in forecasting contexts. In this thesis we test whether disaggregating the change in return on net operating assets provides incremental information about future performance for Swedish listed and not listed companies. We find that the change in asset turnover is a leading indicator of increased profitability for both listed and private companies, regardless of size. We also find evidence that the usefulness of the disaggregation for understanding future performance is greater in capital intense industries and lesser in service industries..

There is much literature covering strategic change under different circumstances but very little concerning how companies act strategically under sudden and radical changes to market conditions. Based on three different events (the terrorist attack in the USA September 11th 2001, the Tjernobyl accident April 26th 1986 and the Islamic revolution in Iran 1979) with such radical changes as a result we chose three companies that were affected (SAS, Asea Atom and Atlas Copco). The result of the events that were studied in this thesis is extremely unusual to their character. The events themselves were sudden and of a temporary nature but the results were long term changes of market conditions. Through personal interviews the authors have tried to establish how the companies have perceived the events and how the top management has strategically handled the situation.

Today Internet is clogged up and packed with homepages and information from both private persons and commercial companies. This has led to a decreased availability for a company to be noticed. The most common tool for consumers to use while searching for products online is via search engines. But because of the nature of these, not all companies can have good placements. Our research question was, "How do small online-companies attract consumers to their website"? The purpose of this thesis is to identify how a company works through online-communications and how to attract consumers to their home page.

Background: The Swedish Parliament passed a law change in late 2010, suspending the former requirement for all Swedish incorporated companies to have an auditor. The new limit values allow the smallest incorporated companies to dismiss the auditor of the company (or not appoint one in the case of a newly started company). The opinions of abolishing mandatory audit vary, and little research has been done post to the law change. However, a new situation has arisen, meaning the optional choice of voluntary audit, for some companies.Aims and research questions: The aim of the thesis is to examine the reasons behind voluntary audit in Sweden, as well as what value companies, having chosen audit, see in their auditor. The following research questions have been used in order to fulfill the aim of the thesis: ?Why do small private owner-led incorporated companies in Sweden voluntarily choose audit?? and ?What value does the voluntarily chosen auditor add to the companies??Methodology: The research questions were formulated after reviewing relevant literature and scientific articles regarding the topic of voluntary audit, as well as the recent law change in Sweden.

The primary purpose of this study has been to investigate the Swedish timber industry?s perception of compression wood. A secondary aim has been to describe particular areas within the production process where compression wood is likely to cause problems. This study has mainly been carried out as a questionnaire. In order to connect the findings to current research, additional information has also been collected by means of a literature review. The questionnaire has been intended for sawmills and wood-manufacturing companies from various production classes and owner categories, as well as from different parts of the country.