The purpose of this study is using McDonald?s in China and Sweden as a case to find out how fast food restaurant retailers combine adaptation and standardization with symbolic attributes of store atmospherics under different cultural background, and find out possible reasons. The study used McDonald?s in a case format to study in-store atmospheres. Further, the research has an investigating and explanatory qualitative approach, collecting the empirical data through observation with photos.

AbstractThis master thesis is a hermeneutic inspired case study of how the value base regarding the environmental and social responsibility in the Swedish coffee company Löfbergs Lila AB is affecting the company's business. A thesis inspired by hermeneutics means that it is based on two ideas, the one of interaction between entirety and partitions and the one of interpretation (Alvesson & Sköldberg 1994). This cause that the emphasis is on how the reality is interpreted and that it never can be seen as completely objective.The case study was conducted during the spring semester of 2010 at Karlstad's University and consists of both empirical and theoretical material collected during this time. The empirical material in this thesis includes, among other things, interviews with four representatives of Löfbergs Lila AB, written material from the company regarding its work related to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), some information about the coffee industry as a whole and different certifications for "ethical? coffee that exists on the Swedish market.The basic idea with CSR as a business strategy is that it can be financially beneficial for companies to take a social and environmental responsibility outside of the company (Vogel 2005).

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to study the causal relationship between bank sector development and economic growth in four Nordic countries (Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway).Method: Our thesis is based on a quantitative method. The study consists of a compilation and analysis of key financial indicators that represent economic growth and bank sector development. A Granger causality test has been conducted on the time series in order to measure the causal link between economic growth and bank sector development.Theoretical framework: The study is based on the theory of endogenous growth and the causal relationship between bank sector development and economic growth also known as the demand following and supply leading hypothesis. Results: The results of the four countries are ambiguous. Except for Denmark, that follows the supply leading hypothesis, the remaining countries do not show a unanimous result..

Bakgrund och problem: Icke vinstdrivande organisationer, så som idrottsförbund ellerskolor, är verksamheter som karaktäriseras av resursmässig ineffektivitet. Detta har avförfattare förklarats av att det finns incitamentsskillnader i vinstdrivande organisationer,så som att ha äganderätt i residualen. Det finns idag ingen lösning för hur detta probleminom icke vinstdrivande organisationer ska behandlas, men utifrån studier och teorierföreslås att en ekonomisk reglering skulle kunna vara lösningen.Syfte: Studiens syfte är att undersöka om en ekonomisk reglering, på en marknad medicke vinstdrivande organisationer, kan leda till förändrad kostnadseffektivitet.Metod: Vi har utfört en kvantitativ studie där vi med hjälp av UEFA:s Financial FairPlay-reglering studerat Europas bästa fotbollsklubbar för att ta reda på hur deraskostnadseffektivitet har påverkats av regleringen. Att mäta kostnadseffektivitet gjordevi genom att använda Data Envelopment Analysis och Malmquist TFP index.Slutsatser: Vi lyckades inte med denna studie påvisa att en ekonomisk reglering kangöra icke vinstdrivande organisationer mer kostnadseffektiva. Anledningar till detta kanvara att det inte har skett någon teknologisk utveckling i branschen samt att destuderade klubbarna blivit sämre på att vara effektiva med sina resurser.

The real estate industry is a sector where the companies generally have a capital structure which is high leveraged. The financing? with the related terms ? is therefore specifically of high importance for the companies in the sector. Traditionally, the way of obtain financing is by borrowing from the bank. Lately, due to new bank regulations, the banks have become more restrictive in their lending which have lead to a growth of other financing alternatives.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate what information needs arise from the interest in music, which sources are preferred, how this information is sought and what part does the public library play in providing music materials. Brenda Dervin`s Sense-Making theory is what serves as a theoretic framework for this study. A qualitative approach was undertaken in the investigation and nine interviews were conducted with people interested in music. Findings indicate that different ways of acquiring information are used depending on the situation in which the information is needed and also what kinds of music people prefer. The main findings of this study suggest that people interested in music are keen to constantly discover new music to perform or listen to.

The objective of this study is to examine the sustainability of recovering industrial wasteheat from several heat sources in a foundry constructed in a plant belonging to ITT Waterand Wastewater in Emmaboda, Sweden. A triple bottom line perspective will be appliedto achieve this objective. The triple bottom line approach takes into account ecologicaland social performance in addition to financial performance. The technology forrecovering the waste heat is a Borehole Thermal Energy Storage (BTES) which is aconstruction consisting of 140 vertical boreholes, 150 meters deep with an internal spaceof four meters.The calculated amount of energy for storage is approximately 3800 MWh annually. Ofthis amount 2500 MWh are expected to be utilized, while storage losses accounts for theremaining part.

AbstractTitle: The Swedish real estate companies choices of valuation within investment properties and its further effects on the qualitative characteristics of accounting.-A study of the Swedish real estate companies listed and non - listed on the stock market, after the application of the international rule board.Background and Problem: From January 2005, all companies, listed on a stock market within the European Union, are required to prepare their consolidated accounts using common set of International Accounting Standards, IAS/IFRS. In Sweden, this opportunity has also been given to non-listed companies, to voluntary implement these rules in their consolidated accounts. One difference between Swedish accounting rules and contemporary International rules, deals with the accounting treatment of investment properties, which foremost affects the real estate market?s accounts. In contrast to the Swedish Financial Accounting Standards Council?s recommendation RR 24, the new standard, IAS 40, permits a choice between different accounting alternatives.

In recent years there have been many corporate scandals from environmental and social aspects. Corporate irresponsible behavior has led to major public discussions on responsibility and these pressures made that many companies wanting to show that they are working for a sustainable development by voluntarily reporting economic, environmental and social and social issues in the financial statement. They hope this will create credibility for the companies. In the current situation, there are a number of guidelines that companies can use to report sustainability. One of these is the GRI guidelines which is an international framework that covers many accounting areas and allows companies to compare their sustainability reports with other companies.The purpose of this study is to determine if all state-owned companies follows the government?s requirement that these companies must form a sustainability report under the GRI guidelines, and the sustainability report must be audited and certified by an outside party.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how LKAB are portrayed in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN). The methods that were used were: Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) combined with Critical Linguistic Analysis. These were used since they help to reveal the structures and unconscious meaning and power of word. It gives the tools to see how authority, power and meaning of words are constructed during social practice of the way they are used. To complement the method the theories that?s used are discourse analysis since CDA is both a method and a theory.

This Degree project is a study about the Mortgage Cap, introduced in October of 2010, and its impact on the demand for rented apartments. The mortgage cap was introduced to decrease the households? loan-to-value ratio and thereby increase their economical resistance during times of financial instability.The past ten years Swedish households have continuously increased their average loan-to-value ratio. In an attempt prevent this negative development Finansinspektionen introduced a mortgage cap stating that banks should no longer grant mortgages corresponding to more than 85 percent of the property?s market value.In order to answer the main question two methods were used both a survey and two interviews.

A reforming trend is captured showing that countries are shifting from defined benefit pension systems towards defined contribution systems. The reforms have been justified through predictions that the defined benefit systems will not manage to provide good enough pensions to members in the future. The newer defined contribution pension plans often include individual financial accounts where individuals have the possibility to choose how a part of their pension savings should be invested. Sweden was early to introduce such a system, which at the moment provides more than 800 funds to choose from. The aim of this thesis is to capture the market risk associated with these individual investments and does so by using Monte Carlo simulations for six selected pension funds.

Blekinge Hospital suffers from a budget shortage of 100 million SEK, while the government now requires that hospitals will no longer be running a deficit. Blekinge Hospital will then use their limited resources to survive in the future and the activity must be enhanced in order to keep costs low without having to lay off personnel. The idea is that the organisation should be more efficient with a more efficient resource usage. Performance measurement systems are important tools for achieving the policies set out within an organization, measuring and evaluating performance is a way to see where improvements in efficiency may be necessary in the business. Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is one of several measuring systems, where the focus is on measuring non-financial performances.

The translation of financial records of foreign subsidiaries gives rise to currency translation adjustments that affect total group equity. If unwanted, fluctuations in translation adjustments can be avoided using net investment hedges. This study aims to find the extent of net investment hedging in Sweden today and in a short historical perspective, and find explanations to varying levels of hedging and firms' decisions to hedge. Based on annual reports, we determine Swedish firms' net investment hedging policies and their level of hedging. The 32 largest companies listed on the Stockholm stock exchange in the years 1993, 2004, 2006, and 2009 are studied.

All inclusive travel has become a popular way to travel abroad. When tourists pay for everything in advance their need for contact with the local people will be reduced. The consequences of this can be dissatisfaction from the local people as they are left out and do not share the financial benefits created by tourism. During the purchasing cycle of an all inclusive travel, it is possible that the tour operator can influence a sustainable development.The aim of this paper is to compare how a large and a small tour operator in their purchase of all inclusive holidays interacts with local players to create sustainable development, thereby creating a surplus value to the customer. The hypothesis is that the amount of knowledge and application of this knowledge regarding sustainable development differs in the purchase process between large and small tour operators.This paper was carried out as a case study.