The purpose of the thesis is to examine why women face greater difficulties than men in the management consulting industry when advancing as well as to identify potential success factors that enable women to overcome the existing difficulties. In order to fulfil the purpose, a theoretical framework including gender and organisational theory has been applied to a qualitative case study of two Swedish management consulting Firms. A number of difficulties have been identified related to women's career advancement, which are the following: the male leader and the stereotypical male leadership, Firms having higher expectations on women's performance, women's reluctance to self-promotion and to play "the organizational game", women's preference of social networks, men's tendency to promote other men, and the choice and conflict between a career and family life. The identified success factors that enable women to overcome these difficulties are: adapting the male leadership style, having an extrovert behaviour, becoming more active in professional networks, promoting one self, actively seeking to gain more attention, and prioritising one's career. These success factors can be summarised as women adapting a more male-like behaviour.

The executives of a firm possess considerable influence over a company's financial reports. The numbers can be adjusted in a favorable direction by engaging in Earnings Management, which harms the reliability of the financial reporting. Previous research suggests that Earnings Management can differ between genders. In recent years the debate about a woman's role in the business world has received generous attention in media. Moreover, the presence of women in leading positions has become a relevant issue for Firms.

BackgroundA cost that lately has been discussed related to audit is the higher cost for auditing of small stock company. The question is if this cost is higher than the total utility of statutory audit and should it in that case be statutory. SRF says that the condition for small stock companies development is an abolishment of statutory audit. FAR consider that auditing is important for development and continuation.PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate whether there are any winners or losers among auditing Firms and accounting Firms in Sweden if the statutory audit for small stock companies abolish.MethodThe paper is both a qualitative and a quantitative study that is based on primary data made from an interview and a questionnaire investigation. ConclusionOur conclusion is that the big Winner is the accounting trade.

This paper tests the information signalling hypothesis on a sample of Firms making open market stock repurchases. Using an earnings-based valuation model, we find that a majority of repurchasing Firms are undervalued relative to their economic value. This result is consistent with previous academic studies, which claim that undervaluation is the prevalent factor explaining the observed abnormal return following the announcement of a repurchase program. We do not, however, find any evidence that the repurchase is consciously made by management to provide the market with new information. .

The aim of this thesis is to analyze how small and medium-sized management consulting Firms in Sweden work with human resource management during digital transformation. By interviewing companies, this study explores their approach to attracting, recruiting, and developing competence. The results showed that management consulting Firms have good access to candidates, made possible by having a strong corporate culture and attractive working conditions - Crucial parts for attracting talent. Social media and networking are frequently used for marketing and attracting interesting candidates. Digital tools and social media showed to be useful during the recruitment process, but personal contacts and networking still play a central role.

Law Firms are defined as knowledge-intensive companies. Due to the dependency regarding the resource of knowledge among the Firms employees and to the fact that they often are categorised as a type of professional service firm. The purpose of this study is to investigate the different types of profitsharingsystems as a form of reward with focus on the theoretical differences and effects of the True Partnershipmodel and the Stockholmmodel. In addition to these models we will look into the Human Resource processes of; recruiting, integration, retaining and development of employees. The main purpose of the study is to examine the theoretical level on how the profitsharingsystems effect different Human Resource processes and through the knowledge of these connections using this as an analogy when to analyse other law-Firms and knowledge?intensive company?s.

ABSTRACTTitle: First steps towards successful recruitment ? A study about a small Swedish firm?s recruitment strategyCourse: Bachelor Dissertation - LeadershipAuthors: Filip Agby, Damir Macanovic and Thomas MennerdahlAdvisor: Anders BillströmKey Words: Recruitment in small Firms, recruitment strategy, wrong fit recruitment, HRM, right staffProblem enunciation: What pros and cons could the choice of recruitment strategy mean for a small Swedish firm. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to give recruiters a better understanding of how a small Swedish company could use different recruitment strategies, together with systematic preparations, to affect the experienced recruitment result. Another purpose is to study if earlier mentioned international research about small Firms? recruitment strategies is applicable to a small Swedish firm.Theoretical framework: The section initiates by introducing the reader to the subject through describing Human resource management with a focus on recruitment.

Syftet med denna studie är att ta reda på huruvida det föreligger en skillnad i företagsprestation mellan familjeföretag och icke-familjeföretag. För att göra detta har en kvantitativ metod tillämpats. Undersökningsåren är 2003-2011 och företagen som har undersökts har varit små och medelstora företag på den svenska marknaden. Slutsatsen är att det inte föreligger någon prestationsskillnad mellan familjeföretag och icke-familjeföretag..

Purpose - To analyze the relationship between supply chain management maturity, supply chain performance and financial performance in small and medium-sized enterprises (SME:s).Design/methodology/approach - The data comprises 15 SME:s that participated in a local logistic study in Gävleborgs län. The levels of supply chain mature within these Firms were based upon an interview study and the financial performance of the Firms was then examined using financial reports-based data.Findings -The results of this study indicate that there is a strong relationship between SCM maturity and SC performance in SMEs, some relationships between SCM maturity and financial performance, as well as some relationships between SC performance and financial performance. This means that if Firms use maturity indicators in the SCOR areas to improve their processes, they will most likely achieve a positive effect on supply chain performance and probably also on financial performance. The result implies that the supply chain maturities in these Firms are higher than expected with no one at the adHoc level.While this study is based on a rather small number of participating Firms, it would be valuable to further test the significance of the indicated correlations between SCM maturity and performance in a large-scale survey.Research limitations/Implications - The research is an attempt to understand supply chain maturity and it´s implication on financial performance. Developing supply chain maturity is an opportunity for a company to gain superior performance.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of capital structure in Swedish small and medium sized Firms. The study includes 24.859 Swedish Firms which are further analyzed with regards to their financial characteristics. These characteristics consist of short term debt, long term debt and total leverage. The study compares the relationship between these characteristics and six independent variables.The result shows that profitability is the greatest determinant for capital structure in Swedish small and medium sized Firms with regards to total leverage. When profitability increases the total leverage of the firm decreases.

This study examines how management consulting Firms work with business- and functional strategy and how these strategies are interrelated. More specifically we focus on business strategy (business unit level) and knowledge strategy (functional level) and whether these are aligned or not, i.e. whether strategic congruence exists.A number of recent studies have examined the importance of business strategy and knowledge strategy in management consulting Firms separately, but few have pointed out the importance of the alignment between them. With this study we contribute to the strategic field of research with a model that describes how management consulting Firms should work with their knowledge strategy given their business strategy. The model is developed through a synthesis between theories in the field of strategic congruence, business- and functional strategies and thereafter tested by an empirical case study of six management consulting Firms.

Background/Problem: Since the IT-burst in 2000 it has been recession within IT-consultant Firms (Sif 2004). The tendency is, however, changing slightly and IT-consultants Firms are getting more assignments again (Arbetsmarknadsstyrelsen ? AMS, 2004). IT-consultants Firms are however still related to stressed per-sonnel (Handelskammaren 2004; Hallstedt 2001). Another critical factor is the communication between management and workers.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to find out how much influence underlying factors have in connection to the internationalization of Born Global Firms. Methodology: This study has a qualitative approach in which data is obtained mainly through interviews and secondary data which consists previous theories about the internationalization in small and medium sized Firms and recent theories that entitle these Firms as Born Global. Conclusion: Based on the existing theories and the qualitative data, we have concluded that the underlying factors for the Born Global firm?s internationalization are abilities and opportunities to create insidership in relevant networks. The most crucial underlying factors for Born Global firm?s internationalization are the ability to create processes to break old patterns of thoughts and the ability to ally with right partners. .

This study examines whether the ownership structure of Swedish Firms contributes to explain the variations in executive pay. A regression analysis was performed on 102 companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. The analysis suggests a negative relationship between ownership structure and executive pay after taking company profitability and size into account. The result is in line with previous studies and the agency theory. This indicates that large shareholders have a stronger position in Swedish companies or that large shareholders monitor the management to a larger extent, rather than providing incentives.

The intrest and development of bioenergy and energy from renewable sources in Sweden has increased rapidly over the last few years. There are a whole lot of alternatives for those who would like to venture and invest in renewable energy production. Production of renewable energy opens up many opportunities for forestry and farming to venture a new branch of production, on basis of the primary production. Several of the new energy sources grows on farmland or in the forest. The opportunities exist in the primary products, as well as in refining and reselling, in the value chain of energy. The starting-point is the Farmer as an energyproducer. This master thesis studies the nature of farmer-own Firms, who has invested in production of renewable energy.