AbstractAccording to several researchers finance is scarce, scarcer for small businesses than for big enterprises. Small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, that want to start exporting and sales or manufacturing abroad need capital to get ready. Which capital structure and financial costs do they have, and which forms of finance do they actually use for that purpose. New american research by Mansi, Reeb (2002) has suggested, that there is a positive connection between leverage and a negative one between financial costs and internationalization, and that a non-linear model better describes this connection.This study has gathered data in two ways: Through a questionnaire from 37 SMEs and balance sheet figures from totally 166 manufacturing SMEs. In order to examine, whether the company was active on the international market, 200 SMEs in south Sweden were asked, if they exported to, produced or sold on any other market than their home market.

Our purpose of this paper is to seek an understanding of which service quality factors that affects customers in their decision making progress regarding purchasing financial services such as pension products. We also seek to evaluate the different service quality factors by compare their relative strength against each other. The study aim to investigate if there are any connections between customer behavior variables such as gender, age and income in comparison to these service quality factors related to pension products.The findings aim to help a small financial institute such as our case company Plain Capital to understand how their customers experience service quality regarding pension products.In order to find empirical results we conducted a qualitative research as well a quantitative research. The qualitative research employed both a focus group interview with pension savers and an interview with our case company Plain Capital. We were able to identify the service quality factors for pension?s products with help from the focus group interview.

Women ledaers and profitability, is there a correlation? Earlier research show different outcome on the correlation between women leaders and profitability. A Swedish consultant firm, Caran has a belief that more women leaders would create more financial profit, we ask us if that is the true situation. Using two different IC measurement methods we have shown the difficulties in calculate intagible resources, which methods that can/ can not be used and if women leders create financial value. We found the women leaders in Caran to add more value per dollar spent on the woman leaders than the value added per dollar spent on men leaders.

Over the last decade, the private insurance market has undergone a stable growth in turnover and growing demand for insurance products in all Member States of the European Union. Therefore, the creation of a single market in insurance will enable consumers to have access to wider choice of insurance products, and insurance companies to gain access to markets in various Member States and compete effectively. The EU legal framework for the insurance industry embraces the Treaty freedoms of services, establishment and capital, the EC Directives and the ECJ case-law. The present thesis identifies numerous factors that hinder the Community insurance market integration and offers possible remedies. The summary of the market obstacles is all-inclusive and reflects the responses to the questionnaires and the Commission surveys.

The Swedish business cycle is in a strong position at the moment, leading to great results and larger profits. This strong business posture has encouraged companies to increase both their liquidity and revenue. Now there is a dilemma, what actions should or could a respectable business take on these newfound liquid assets.The purpose of this paper is to deliver a clear picture of what options there are for such companies listed on the Swedish stock-market, and how the market wants them to act. To these means we have studied the basic theories linked to this subject and reviewed the cause and effects that motivates them. We have also conducted interviews with the people representing the market through their line of business.In the theory we found several options on what companies in similar situations tend to do.

The purpose of this paper is to find out which portfolio theory one should use during a financial crisis. We will examine two different portfolio theorys, the Minimum Variance portfolio and the beta portfolio.We have chosen to study two different portfolios, and followed their development during the financial crisis with its start in 2008 and the IT bubble with its start in the middle of 2000.The data has been collected from OMX internet database making it quantitative study. The beta portfolio's objective is to follow the index and the Minumim Variance portfolio´s objective is to spread the risk by investing in stocks with low volatility. By following the two different portfolios, and compare the development to the index, we will be able to determine which theory is most suitable to use during a recession. The studyperiods we chose were both in a recession and it turned out that the most appropriate portfolio to use was the Minimum Variance portfolio because stock in this portfolio tends to be less sensitive to economic fluctuations..

Background and problem: The importance of banks was clearly shown during the last financial crises, when the crises that started in the banking sector spread to the rest of the world. This is one of the reasons that this thesis is focused on banks in particular, one other reason is that a lot of previous studies has chosen to exclude banks because of the fact that their balance sheet differ from non-financial companies. This thesis is a beginning in filling in the gap that exists in the knowledge of banks capital structure. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to prove that it is possible to explain the capital structure in banks and that differences in the capital structure of the banks in Great Britain, Sweden and the United states of America exists. Method: The fact that our study is partly a replication of two earlier studies made a deductive approach most appropriate.

I en värld där individer möts av mängder av ekonomiska begrepp och ekonomisk information dagligen har forskning visat att människor har svårt att engagera sig och ha den förståelse som krävs för att hantera sin egen privatekonomi. Begreppet ?Financial Literacy? nämns ofta som en förklaring till människors olika kunskapsnivå och förståelse. I människors yrkesmässiga roll tas denna förmåga ofta för given vara uppfylld. Denna uppsats har undersökt ekonomiska kunskaper och ekonomisk förståelse hos enskilda näringsidkare, en företagsform där privatekonomin och näringsverksamhetens ekonomi är nära sammankopplade.

Even if the main purpose is to decide if the companies profitability and financial position is a determining factor for its growth, the purpose is to determine if there are any differences between big and small companies in there economical positions then they grow, in the selected industry. This thesis is mainly a quantitative study. The selected industry for the study is extraction of turf. The financial measurement that most clearly differ the growing companies from the not growing companies or the companies that didn?t change there amount of employees was the returns of the companies own capital.

This study is intended to study how the social worker in financial assistance relates to the social workers exercise of its authority, regarding the Social Services Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. In concerning how the social worker treats and handles the cases of their clients, but also what significancethe organization's policies and goals have on the social worker?s role and the formation of their professional identity. To answer these questions the study chose a qualitative approach. Because the purpose of this study is to investigate the social worker?s personal beliefs about their way of conducting social work.

Background: Sweden and the rest of the world went through the biggest financial crisis at the end of 2008 since the 1930s. The major Swedish banks have goodwill related to their acquisitions inside and outside Scandinavia. Swedbank, SEB and Nordea has acquired in the Baltic countries and Russia, however Handelsbanken has established itself in Great Britain. The crisis in the Baltic countries led that real wages fell, unemployment rose, real estate prices collapsed and the number of borrowers who had trouble repaying their loans increased rapidly. All this led to the problem of impairment of goodwill in the Swedish banks that had expanded rapidly in the Baltic countries.Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate the application of IFRS 3 in Swedish banks before, during and after the financial crisis, and to investigate the low-downs in the four majorSwedish banks in 2006-2010.Completion: The study is primarily based on the case studies by the examination of the annual reports from all banks as well as evaluation of the interviews.The authors have chosen to makea strategic choice of a small number of cases through the concentration on the impairment of goodwill in the bank sector of Sweden.Results: The result of this study is that there are problems for banks in implementation of IFRS 3 in practice because of insufficient information in the banks' financial statements.Generous estimates used in the calculation of impairment testing.

China is a unique market that differs from the Western market in many ways. Companies are not required to publicize financial reports, and furthermore a heavy focus on business relationship building can make it hard for companies to have high quality streams of data to get insights about their markets. For a consultant company to successfully enter the Chinese market and helping producing and technological global firms improving their insights on the Chinese market, the consultant company needs to understand which the important factors are and how those factors can help in creating value for their potential customers. To help the analyzing and consultant firm called Kairos Future, a qualitative case study was conducted on 16 different global companies with focus on industrial production. The case study was mainly conducted through face to face interviews with decision makers who had a broad understanding of their respective companies.

Over the last decade, the private insurance market has undergone a stable growth in turnover and growing demand for insurance products in all Member States of the European Union. Therefore, the creation of a single market in insurance will enable consumers to have access to wider choice of insurance products, and insurance companies to gain access to markets in various Member States and compete effectively. The EU legal framework for the insurance industry embraces the Treaty freedoms of services, establishment and capital, the EC Directives and the ECJ case-law. The present thesis identifies numerous factors that hinder the Community insurance market integration and offers possible remedies. The summary of the market obstacles is all-inclusive and reflects the responses to the questionnaires and the Commission surveys.

Even if the main purpose is to decide if the companies profitability and financial position is a determining factor for its growth, the purpose is to determine if there are any differences between big and small companies in there economical positions then they grow, in the selected industry. This thesis is mainly a quantitative study. The selected industry for the study is extraction of turf. The financial measurement that most clearly differ the growing companies from the not growing companies or the companies that didn?t change there amount of employees was the returns of the companies own capital. It was also the returns of the companies own capital there the main difference existed between the big and the small companies.

The purpose of this master thesis is to map and analyze the appropriate valuation approaches used for Intellectual Property rights and develope a model for valuing patents. This project has been executed on behalf of Electrolux?s Group Intellectual Property and is intended to be used for managerial purposes.Project limitations include patents that doesent concern technology oriented products and services, real option methods, financial forecasts, decisions concerning patents taken by the R&D division, patent applications in general and taking into account unexpected future management decisions regarding patents.Electrolux?s Intellextual Property team applies, manages and protects the groups Intellectual Property rights including patents, designs and trademarks. With an increased globalization and the rise of emerging markets, incentives have increased further to protect and safeguard the group?s innovations.Mainly there are three different valuations approaches for valuing intellectual property rights, these include the income based approach, cost base approach and market based approach.