This study is done on behalf of Södra skogsägarna in the autumn of 2012. The main purpose of the study is to get an explanation to why some of the members are passive in their forestry, and how Södra can stimulate them to become more active. To achieve this a questionnaire study was conducted on the members of Södra in the community of Gislaved. The result of the study shows that there are many different factors that influence whether the forest owner is active or not. Examples of those factors are timber prices, the forest owner's objectives and the forest owner's financial situation. The main goal for the forest owners in the survey was to obtain high economic result and to increase the standing timber volume for the next generation.

During recent years, financial innovation has given rise to numerous structured investment opportunities aimed towards the general public. These have enabled private investors to engage in high-risk investments offering as much as 400 per cent leverage while oftentimes not fully having grasped the risk involved. The issuers of these securities have been criticized for using advertising of a too aggressive and misleading nature.By presenting 819 potential investors with two different investment opportunities yielding the same return over a six day period, we have aimed to assess whether the inclination of being affected by judegmental heuristics varies with factors such as knowledge, overall attitude towards the asset class, risk appetite and experience from previous investments.We have observed that investors' perception of the attractiveness of an investment can be distorted by altering the information presented to the investor. However, our findings show that this tendency decreases with an increased level of knowledge, experience and risk appetite..

New laws and recommendations within corporate governance during the last years have affected the way board of directors work. The board is said to have and fulfill three roles: a control role, a service role and a strategy role. These roles could be understood by three theoretical theories: the agency theory, the resource dependence theory and the stewardship theory. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether, and if so how, the board work differs between two small firms based on these roles, given that one of the firms is a publicly listed firm and the other is a privately owned firm. Using a qualitative case study as research method we find that the board work differs between the two companies when it comes to these roles.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has recently become increasingly important for companies to integrate into their ongoing work. CSR is about social, environmental- and financial responsibilities. The tourism industry often involves large impacts especially on environmental and social factors, which is why CSR-work plays an important role according to previous studies. One trend that has increased among consumers in the tourism industry during recent years is to travel to the lowest possible price. It has for example become increasingly common to book airfare by budget airlines.

Purpose: The purpose with our study is to accomplish a quantitative research of all municipalities in Sweden and see why they apply Balanced Scorecard. The study will also investigate the spread of Balanced Scorecard, even the benefits and how they use it. Method: In our study we have chosen a quantitative research. The study has been accomplished with a questionnaire survey which we sent to all of the Swedish municipalities. We have also done a literature study to get more knowledge about relevant theories.

There is consensus in research, policy, business and many other areas around the benefits of creativity. Previous research shows that creativity is only spurred under certain conditions. Usually creativity is not associated with concepts such as control, deadline or cost effectiveness. Companies, by contrast, have the need for control and management of their operations, which implies that the two processes can be difficult to reconcile. A company that wants a high creativity while maintaining control and management is forced into a series of organizational compromises.

In order to achieve comparability, which is one of the fundamental principles of accounting, companies should be consistent concerning the accounting policies they use. Only under certain circumstances changes in accounting policies are allowed, and when there is a change in accounting policies, it is important that the change is reported in a way that assures that the financial reports still achieve comparability. The purpose of this thesis is to establish which rules and recommendations about changes in accounting policies that exist in Swedish and German law and what their meaning is. Further, the purpose is to compare these rules and recommendations and discuss their differences and similarities, advantages and disadvantages. Since publicly traded European companies will be obliged to prepare their consolidated accounts in conformity with International Accounting Standards (IAS) from 2005, I also describe the content of IAS 8 which deals with changes in accounting policies, and discuss what the consequences of this transition might be for Swedish and German publicly traded companies considering changes in accounting policies.

Today, there are a number of different models and methods used to estimate the equity value of a company. A common tool for valuating stock prices is the usage of different multiples. This is a method used to determine the value of a company, by examining and comparing the financial ratios of relevant peer groups. The disadvantage with this method is that it does not take all the important aspects, such as risk, investments and capital structure, into consideration. However, this study investigates if the key value, called discounted cash flow (DCF), can be integrated with the valuation of the multiples.

In May 2004 eight former communist countries (EU-8) with close historical trade ties to Russia joined the European Union. According to integration theory, we expect that Russia ? a so called third country ? in some cases may suffer from trade diversion due to this. This thesis focuses on the possible effects on Russian trade resulting from the 2004 eastern enlargement of the European Union. It aims to find out whether any evidence of trade diversion can be found.

Syfte: Att undersöka hur hållbarhetsrapportering fungerar som strategisk kommunikation. Att granska hur 20 svenska börsnoterade bolags hållbarhetsrapportering struktureras.Teoretisk ram: Intressentmodellen. Systemteoretisk kommunikationsmodell.Metod och material: Samtalsintervjuer med nyckelpersoner verksamma inom CSR-kommunikation. Kvantitativ innehållsanalys av 20 börsnoterade bolags hållbarhetsrapporter.Problemställningar: Hur används hållbarhetsrapportering som strategisk kommunikation bland svenska börsnoterade företag? Hur påverkar hållbarhetsrapportering bolagens varumärken? Hur präglar branschtillhörighet och rapportering enligt det internationella ramverket Global reporting initiative, GRI, hållbarhetsrapporteringen?Slutsatser: De studerade bolagen använder hållbarhetsrapportering som strategisk kommunikation för att berätta för aktörer inom och utom organisationen om sitt CSR-arbete.

Our thesis focus on how retirees perceive Tv4s news casts of economy news where we focused on five different aspects: What is the relationship between the news cast and the viewer and how does the viewer express their understanding of the news cast and the way it is constructed? What are the viewers attitude towards the news content and how do they find the news cast useful for them personally?We choosed retirees as our target group due to their vulnerable economic position in today?s society and TV as an important medium for them due to the digital divide. The study was performed with twelve qualitative interviews and one group interview where six retirees took part.We discovered a big interest for economic news in the target group. The majority had a sympathetic view of the news cast they saw but they also expressed skepticism toward the economy segment and/or news castings. The majority expressed a lack of trust for the journalists and the experts brought in to share observations and make announcements, and the financial business overall.

Our curiosity was awakened when we became aware that many social workers use "mindfulness" methods in their profession. In this study, we used qualitative methodology in our desire to examine and understand why the mindfulness approach, with its roots in eastern philosophy, is becoming established in society at large and, simultaneously, being used in the social work field. We were interested in when and why social workers choose to use mindfulness with their clients. Our prior research has revolved around development and use of methods in social work, and on the human reaction to stress.We conducted seven semi-structured interviews, which incorporated four comprehensive questions:1. Why has the mindfulness method become established in the social work field and in the culture in general?2.

The purpose with this study is to investigate funds that are environmentally friendly. Environment issues has become a large subject that affects all aspects in today?s society.  It is a global issue which has affected the awareness of environmentally friendly products and its benefits for the environment.How has this awareness affected the financial market?  In this study the authors have looked at six environmentally sound funds and six energy funds to answer the question if it´s better to have your money in traditional energy or in renewable energy.This study is made in an quantitative way, the data has been gathered from the internet database Morningstar. The energy funds have had its biggest assets in companies dealing with oil, and the environmentally sound funds have had its biggest assets in renewable energy. Bye looking at the different funds rate of return and relating that to risk managing theories of Sharpe and Treynor, the authors compared the two types of funds.During the period that was looked at during this study ( third quarter of 2007 until third quarter 2010) the energy funds outperformed the environmentally sound funds in every aspect. .

The increasing health problems in our society have been lifted to the surface and debated for quite some time now. Even though the statistics of bad health somewhat have dropped, the problems still remain. Many companies are wrestling with this and are suffering from huge financial losses due to the costs of people frequently calling in sick for work. This has resulted in an increasingly high expansion of different types of preventive measures in order to avert health problems. But far from all companies reach these goals and it is there for of high value to study how important resources can be used in a more efficient way.The purpose of this study is to achieve a deeper understanding for Health promotive services in companies and to understand which influential factors are crucial in the process of reaching successful strategic Health promotions.

In the 2011th Swedish football league three games were suspended because ofbangers that exploded on the terraces. The first suspended match was played by Syrianska and AIK. We have performed an image analysis of two of Sweden?s biggest newspapers, Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter, to see how they reported fromthat incident. The reports from the first incident are important because the mediareporting from the first incident might have determined the attitude of the press and the Swedish football association (SvFF) towards the supporters for the remainder of the season.