A budget consists of figures showing how much a particular activity has access to during a given year. With a balanced scorecard, these figures and guidelines can be converted in to more easily understandable non-financial instructions for the employees. One of the most significant differences between the budget and the scorecard is that the budget focuses on short-term results while the scorecard focuses on long-term visions and goals. With a long-term thinking the leaders can  set more long-term goals and also make more well-planned investments which increases the possibility for the organization to evolve and become better in the long term. By combining the two instruments a good balance between short and long term perspectives can be achieved, which creates a more effective steeringIn the 1990s, many of the municipalities introduced needs budget, one of them was Gothenburgs municipality.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if the stock market reacts differently to accounting information, depending on the stock market climate. The study focuses solely on stocks listed on the OMX Stockholm 30 during each year from 2005 to 2009. By applying the concept of Earnings Response Coefficient we can estimate how the market reacts to accounting information. The dependent variable in the equation is the market reaction on unexpected earnings, in the study described as the abnormal return on stock. For quality purposes we measure this on a ±1,5,10 and 20 days basis.

Hållbarhetsredovisning är ett frivilligt åtagande för företag och är en vidareutveckling av miljöredovisningen. Redovisningen ges i flera dimensioner för att skapa en starkare grund och trovärdighet samt för att ge en helhetsbild. Denna redovisning utgör miljörelaterade, etiska och sociala förhållanden samt den ekonomiska utveckling som är knuten till dessa. Parallellt med att miljö- och hållbarhetsredovisningspraxis utvecklades under 1990-talet och början av 2000-talet har allt fler modeller, rekommendationer och riktlinjer lanserats av olika organisationer och individer. Till skillnad från den finansiella redovisningen finns det ingen uttömmande lagstiftning för hur ekonomiska, miljömässiga samt sociala och etiska aspekter ska redovisas.

The economic policy of the Swedish Social Democrats has undergone major changes during the last thirty years. From using a so-called Keynesian policy to promote full employment in the economy, the Social Democrats have switched to a more monetaristic policy to promote low inflation instead. What I intend to do with this study is to see if the policy change also can be noticed in how the party describe their own policy. Have the Social Democrats been open and transparent with their change in priorities, or have they tried to hide this in their rhetoric?The purpose of this thesis is to examine if one can notice a change from a Keynesian to a monetaristic policy in the Social Democrat?s descriptions of their economic policy.

Media has in the last year been dominated by news about the current financial crisis around the world. For the banking system in Sweden the crisis began to show in the beginning of 2008 and there where a lot of speculations about how serious the crisis would be and it?s consequences. In several aspects, the banks' situation in the current crisis, are linked to the banking crisis in the 1990s. Although these crises have had different break-out reasons, there are several parallels between these crises to be drawn.

Introduction: The auditor's going-concern warnings express the quality assurance of information and if these are wrongly based, the stakeholders become deluded. Previous research has shown that auditors do not have any major difficulties in identifying companies that are financially distressed to the extent that they risk receiving a going-concern warning. International studies on the determinants of going-concern warnings have instead focused primarily on the auditor's decision regarding companies that are already in bad shape financially. Auditor grounds for issuing a going concern warning may be linked to factors related to the client, the auditor, the audit firm, the relationship between the client and the auditor and the environment. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to find out what specific factors that affect the auditor issuing going concern warnings for financially distressed companies.

Title: CSR and profitability in three dimensions ? practical examples, Economic Value Added and previous researchAuthors: Linda-Marie Emilsson & Martina Classon Subject: Business AdministrationDate: 2011-05-26Mentor: Krister BredmarProblem description: Scientists have for a very long time disagreed about whether or not companies should work with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and if there is any correlation between CSR and profitability. There are mainly three different views according the correlation: CSR have a neutral impact on financial performance, CSR have a positive impact on profitability and CSR have a negative impact on profitability. One of the reasons behind the disagreement is the complexity measuring CSR. Scientist claims that EVA is a measure that can be used to measure the correlation between CSR and profitability.        Purpose: The intention with our essay is to find out if there is any correlation between CSR and profitability.

Idag är det mycket uppmärksammat av både akademiker och användare att information från traditionella finansiella redovisningar inte är tillräckliga för att motsvara de krav som både externa och interna intressenter ställer på mer innehållsrika rapporter. Marknad och intressenter efterfrågar information om ekonomiska, miljömässiga och sociala aspekter, vilket har lett till att allt fler företag upprättar en hållbarhetsredovisning. Hållbarhetsredovisning syftar till att skapa en hållbar utveckling och ses som ett verktyg eller en möjlighet för företag att lämna information om dessa tre aspekter och det leder till ett ökat förtroende för företaget och dess verksamhet. Syftet med denna uppsats var att beskriva hur företag inom basindustrin i Norrbotten tillämpar hållbarhetsredovisning. Studien genomfördes genom en fallstudie av fyra företag för att beskriva hur de tillämpar sin hållbarhetsredovisning.

Title: The life is too soft to accord in to tariffs: an essay about youth and families with children who are recipients of economic support, their experience of their financial situation and the reception towards the social welfare.Author: Ana Becovic & Kerstin Olsson         Supervisor: Erik WesserInstitution: Humanvetenskapliga institutionen, Högskolan i KalmarType of Essay: Degree project, 15 ECTS                     Date: December 2008The aim for our study has been to examine how youth and families who are recipients of economic support on long term basis experience their contact with social welfare. The starting point for the question at issue has been the client's experience of their financial situation the reception and expectations towards the social welfare.In our B-level study we carried out qualitative interviews with social welfare officers to find out how they applied the "child perspective" in granting financial support and to what extent they felt that they succeeded in meeting the need of the client. The conclusion was that there is still room for improvement in this field and particularly a wish to focus more on the child's situation and development. The officers told us that they tried to pay closer attention to the child's situation through asking about the children and by visiting the families at home.They expressed awareness of the importance to a child's well being the financial situation of their family. They also expressed the need for the child to be able to take part in leisure time activities and having an active social life.In this study our research method is based on qualitative interviews.

2009 beslutade det europeiska fotbollsförbundet UEFA att införa regelverket Financial Fair Play Regulations, för att förbättra fotbollens ekonomiska hälsa. Detta som en följd av en allt mer ansvarslös och irrationell pengahantering bland europeiska fotbollsklubbar, med stora underskott och försenade betalningar som konsekvens. Ett avsnitt i regelverket berör de så kallade ?break-even?-kraven, som sätter begränsningar för hur stora underskott klubbar får visa upp. I vår uppsats har syftet varit att utreda huruvida ?break-even?-kraven är att anse som förenliga med EU-rättsliga konkurrensregler, specifikt art. 101.1 FEUF.

This thesis studies whether private equity owned firms within the Swedish welfare sector distinguish themselves in terms of tax planning and short-termism from a control group consisting of other privately owned welfare firms. For the first time, the comparison is made on the entire welfare sector, between 14 matched pairs within education, health care and elderly care. We use financial metrics associated with tax planning and short-termism in sign tests to examine whether the private equity owned firms differ from our control group. The financial metrics tested are actual and paid tax rates, level of interest, book-tax gap, investments, personnel expenses per employee, and cash earnings. We find that the private equity owned firms in terms of tax planning only differ in the level of interest, while no notable differences are found in terms of short-termism..

Background: The debate about environment, labor conditions and aid to developing countries has the last years been a much discussed subject The pressure on the companies to live up to their responsibility is beginning to be noticed in the market.Purpose: To find out if a retail company investing in Corporate Social Responsibility thereby direct can effect it?s stock value. Using interviews to investigate if and how stock analysts and corporate finance professionals valuate a company?s CSR initiatives.Theoretical perspective: The description of CSR is leading to the main theory, The Brand Value Change, and the Market Hypothesis. Additionally a theory of the Consumer Buying Process and CAPM-model about financial risks is presented.Method: An event study of 30 companies to investigate if there is any change in their stock values and interviews with three professionals from the financial sector to find out about their attitude to CSR.

During the financial crisis voices were raised towards the regulatory framework IAS 39 recognition and measurement of financial instruments and pointed out that it was inadequate. The complexity of the framework contributed to the fact that it was difficult to apply. IASB accelerated the modeling of the new to be regulatory framework IFRS 9. In this study we will focus on the reliability of accounting information, which is an important aspect from the stakeholder?s point of view, for example, to be able to make the best decisions the accounting information should be proper.

Investor Relations is a function used by companies to compete for capital by creating relations with investors. It is a young function, earlier practiced by the same people who had responsible for exercising the Public Relations.Investor Relations has evolved a great deal lately but there are still no concrete theories behind the function. The aim though is clear and there are literature explaining how to practice the different parts. The most research within Investor Relations uses the theory of Relationship Marketing. Lately the two authors Hägg and Preiholt have started to examine what they call Financial Marketing since Investor Relations is about relations between actors on financial markets primarily.In this paper, we examine the aspect of information in Investor Relations.

The purpose of this essay is to study the two cases ?The hijacking of a bus in Årdal? & ?The double murder in Ljungsbro? from media ethics aspects.  The aim for this study is to clear up if the the Swedish newspapers have reported according to the mediaethic rules and to see if there is any differences between the newspapers reporting. The following theories has been used to reach the objective: the journalism task, news values, the liberty of press and speach, media ethical rules and discursive discrimination. The study has used a critical discourse method formed by Teun a. van Dijk to analyse the material, mainly through macro- and microstructures.