Recent accounting scandals, often led by managers trying to improve results and thereby their own bonuses, have severely damaged the publics view of management. In the aftermath of scandals such as Enron, Parmalat and Skandia, demand has increased for Corporate Governance codes and similar regulation. The Swedish code for Corporate Governance came into effect on July 1, 2005. The code requires all Swedish companies listed on the Swedish Stock Exchange (OMX A- and O-list), with a turnover exceeding 3 billion SEK, to disclose a report regarding Corporate Governance, attached to the annual report.The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the new disclosure required by the Swedish Corporate Governance code will have a measurable effect on stock prices. The authors have applied event study methodology examining daily returns around the announcement of the Corporate Governance reports.

Companies today are exposed to a turbulent market with fierce competition and the ability toinnovate itself becomes increasingly important. But what innovation is and how it is managed is farfrom obvious. In this case study at EVRY the research questions are: ?What is innovation in ITconsultant companies?? and ?how can innovation be managed in IT consultant companies?? ITconsultancy is a complex type of business and their focus is often to innovate the customers businessrather than their own. The study is based on a literature review, field studies, unstructuredinterviews and an interpretive analysis.

The companies? managements acknowledge personal relations and trust, through good communication and predefined responsibilities and goals, as key factors to succeed in strategic alliance. These factors did not always exist according to the employees? involved. This research, in contrast, suggests that these factors are subordinate to the correlation between the company?s vision and the alliance objectives, hence level of priority, which indicates that management has hidden motives for entering the strategic alliance.

Introduction: The concept of CSR was first coined in the 1950?s and refers to corporate vol-untary work to contribute to a sustainable society. In Sweden, companies within the finance sector are among the worst when it comes to implementing CSR in their daily work. The debate on whether companies should engage in CSR activities or not, is extremely relevant nowadays. Right now we are facing a time where the demand on companies to take their social responsi-bility becomes more intensified.

The world becomes more globalized for each year that passes by due to economical, political and technological processes. The globalization process leads to increased contacts with people from different cultures and therefore intercultural communication occurs.Intercultural and strategic communication is significant to accomplish successful establishments and effective communication for companies. The export from Sweden abroad increases every single year and today there are about 1500 Swedish companies around the world and 350 established in Russia. The purpose of this study has therefore been to analyze the factors that affect the establishments of Swedish companies in Russia.Material to our study has been collected through qualitative interviews and a seminar focusing on these questions. Our interviewees all have experiences on working with Russia, as most of the interviewees work for Swedish companies in Russia or are consults that help companies to succeed with their establishment.The material has been evaluated and analyzed in relation to our main theories in intercultural- and strategic communication using theorists and theories such as Hofstede and his five cultural dimensions, Goffman?s staging and Habermas communicative action theory.Our theories have been put in relation to our collected information and complemented by earlier research and the result indicates that you need intercultural competence to manage an establishment of a Swedish company and the strategic communication in Russia because of the intercultural differences that the respondents experience..

The financial result of a transfer of ownership or external sale is to a great extent depend-ent on how the transfer is implemented and how the tax rules apply. The applicability of the Swedish tax rules regarding transfer of ownership in closely held companies largely de-pends on the interpretation of the prerequisite, equal or similar activity, which can be found in section 57, clause 4 of the Swedish Income Tax Act.The ruling made by the Supreme Administrative Court in RÅ 2010 ref. 11 changed the concept of equal or similar activity. The ruling lead to that the shares in a closely held com-pany was qualified due to that the capital from the original company had been transferred to the operating company. According to the ruling the original company had been split into several companies, thus was the companies considered to carry out equal or similar activity.

AbstractDespite that e-business nowadays is established scepsis against it amongst consumers exists. We, as consumers, suppose that this skepticism is caused by bad communication from the e-business companies. This has lead to our suggestion that some con-sumers refrain from e-business because of bad communication or deficient trust.Our purpose with this paper was to investigate factors of communication between companies and consumers within e-business (B2C) from the consumers? point of view. We thereby have drawn conclusions regarding consumers? choice of e-business company.

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.

For innovative organizations and companies it is essential to use existing knowledge to avoid spending time and resources on already existing innovations. By using patent information, companies are able to get a picture of what is already done in their area of interest. The main purpose of the study is to examine the information use in small and medium-sized enterprises that are members of the Swedish Inventor?s Association, focusing on patent information. The study examines the use of patent information and which barriers the companies have to patent information.

On the night of the 26th December 2011, large parts of southern Norrland were struck by the storm ?Dagmar? that caused serious damage to the forests. In the past 10 years wind damage has become a hot topic after several major storms. Forest companies own 25% of the Swedish forest and thus influenced largely by wind damage. The main purpose of this study was to examine whether forest companies attitude towards preventive wind damage actions were changed after the storm ?Dagmar?. The result was developed by doing interviews with two forestry companies.

Background Svenska Spel is a regulated company run by the state and government, where CSR, community and social responsibility is in focus. The highly regulated Swedish gaming market has in recent years become more exposed to competition by foreign unregulated betting companies thru Internet.Problem discussion There are two views regarding CSR and how they are affecting competitive advantage and profitability. On one hand, it suggests that companies foremost shall focus profits and act in the best interest of the shareholders. On the other hand, it connects CSR to be a contributor to competitive advantage that increases the company?s profitability.Problem formulation Svenska Spel is competing with other betting companies who doesn´t act under the same conditions, betting companies that don´t have a responsibility to the state.

Today, companies work with issues concerning Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). A higher demand from customers and other stakeholders as well as an extended legislation are great reasons. Framework and guidelines for sustainability reporting has been developed which includes indices that companies are able to report. Though, for a long term work with sustainability a functional system and internal tool is necessary. Balanced Scorecard, BSC, is a useful tool and efforts have been made to integrate BSC and CSR with purpose to establish the work with sustainability in a more concrete and clear way.

The aim of this study was to examine how two integrating social enterprises relate to and combines social, ecological and economic sustainability and how they work with sustainable development in the field of social work. The study has been focusing on three questions: What are the values underpinning ?Macken? and ?Vägen uts? approach to sustainable development? What motivates these companies to work with ecological sustainability in the creation of new jobs? How do these companies combine social, ecological and economic sustainability? To answer our questions we have been interviewing nine employees through semi-structured interviews combined with observations and this study was analysed through a symbolic perspective. The conclusion of this study showed that these companies worked with specific themes to reach social sustainability. Recurring themes in the study was empowerment, recovery and the employee?s own experience of exclusion.

After a series of corporate scandals around the world the trust in the business world was damaged, probably most in the United States but also in Sweden. Voices were raised for an increase in the openness and insight into the affairs of the company whereupon different corporate governance codes were developed in a majority of countries. A Swedish corporate governance code was issued in December 2004 with the purpose to re-establish the damaged trust for the companies and the business world. The Swedish code was accepted by the Stockholm Stock Exchange as an exchange rule for A-listed and larger O-listed companies as of July 2005. The purpose of this essay is to study how the Swedish corporate governance code in fact leads to an increase in trust in the stock market and to study the companies? attitudes towards this code.To fulfil the purpose of this essay, the authors have carried out a survey among the concerned companies where the companies? attitudes towards the Swedish code were collected.

The purpose with this study was to elucidate the pros and the cons with a sale support system. This has been narrowed down into two questions: ?What are the pros and cons for a company that have a sale support system? and what are the pros and cons for a company that does not yet have a system?? Configurator that is a sale support system has been studied. It is a system that presents products by accepting different functions, qualities or parts that are possible to match. It can be used in business-to-business or business-to-consumer situations, through different sale channels, namely direct sale, indirect sale and online sale.