The purpose of this thesis is to gain understanding of how companies proactively can manage their reputation. The thesis analyzes three multinational companies in Sweden and uses two theoretical approaches - the reputation risk view and the reputation strengthening view - to gain an overall perspective of how companies work with their reputation. It focuses on investigating which key areas of reputation risk the focal companies identify and how they manage the reputation risks within these areas. Moreover, it examines which stakeholders the companies believe are most critical from a reputation point of view and in what ways the companies work with strengthening their reputation among those stakeholders. In order to find a general approach, the thesis investigates the similarities and differences that exist between the respective companies in the study.

The aim of this thesis is to get an idea of how service companies set their prices. The method used was a case study approach, which was conducted at three real estate companies. The study showed that when setting their prices, the main aspect is their own costs. However, we have found that several other aspects play a big role when setting prices on services in real estate business such as individual customer behaviour and market competition. We have also found that the real estate companies charge very similar prices.

In recent years there have been major changes in the accounting field and the question of what is fair and accurate reporting is always a relevant issue. Defining the concept of true and fair view and to find an accurate synonym is difficult, still it may be considered that there is an implied meaning of the concept in the business of accounting. In 2004 BFN started the development of K2, a simplified regulatory framework for small companies. The purpose of K2 is to facilitate the accounting and reduce the administrative burden for these companies. In Sweden, 95 percent of all companies belong to the category of small companies and are allowed to use the new and simplified regulations, K2.

This thesis addresses online marketing within gaming industry. Some customer identifying methods and website development were introduced as well as examined over the Internet. An empirical study focusing on two gaming companies has been carried out. The purpose has been to describe the use of internet by online gaming companies for online marketing. The thesis will focus on finding out how online gaming companies identify their target groups on internet and how they use internet to reach out to their consumers.

AimThe aim of the study was to develop a method for the survey of play movement demands and temporal patterns in order to enable a descriptive study of the defensive players in American Football. The overall aim was to  improve the understanding of how American Football is played to create opportunities for enhancement of current or developing new training methods to better suit football.MethodFifty plays from a Division 3 college football game on video from 2005 was divided into sequences of action for one player each from the defensive line, linebackers and defensive backs and analyzed with the video analyzing software cSwing. Every players sequence of action was recorded in a spreadsheet and noted on a scaled football field where distances were measured and together with time stamps from cSwing velocity was calculated.ResultsUsing this method it was possible to describe the play movement demands and temporal patterns which was the main task of the study. The defensive end worked on an average 4.61 seconds per play, the distance was 12.4 meters and average speed 2.5 m×s-1. The linebacker worked on an average 4.35 s per play, 13.7 m and at a mean speed of 3.0 m×s-1.

The following thesis concerns the conceptualization of openness within the open access movement. Open accesscan be understood as a phenomenon or a movement that aims at changing the current system of scholarly communication.Consequentially, the movements goals arose in relation to the escalating serials crisis in scholarly communicationand the increasing power of commercial publishers. The purpose of the thesis is to study three centralopen access declarations with the aim of uncovering the different conceptualizations of openness found withinthese texts. Leaning on the theoretical position known as actor-network theory, the declarations role within a surroundingnetwork is explored by focusing on how openness as a concept has been produced and reproduced bycentral actors. Two overarching questions frames the study: How is openness conceptualized within the declarations?And how can openness, as a concept, be understood as an effect generated by a larger network?The first part of the study focuses on the first question.

New companies go public through Nasdaqs growth market First North constantly. The reasons for going public are many, and the interest at the moment is big. There are different ways to go public, the most common being the traditional IPO. This study is about the companies that have been listed on Nasdaq First North between 2008 and 2013 through traditional IPO, or by RTO (reverse takeover).The differences between these two ways of going public are that the IPOs are reviewed more thoroughly by Nasdaq and the market. This makes the study interesting, as the RTOs go public in a faster way, and avoid the review from outside parties largely.

This essay is called Imaginary non-community, How Swedish press portrayed the fight for freedom in Tunisia and Hungary 1955 and 1956 and it describes how two similar struggles for freedom are portrayed through the eyes of the most popular Swedish news papers Dagens Nyheter, Aftonbladet and Expressen. In 1955-56 Sweden is a country where the focus lies within the nation itself with economic growth and the building of folkhemmet. The Swedish social program for a more improved living condition. Outside of Sweden the cold war is reigning and the Swedish international politics is careful and passive. The fear of communism makes Sweden side with the western powers and therefore they (Swedish politicians and news papers) do not object to the French military effort to strike down the rebellions by force in North Africa.

Today many industrial companies invest a lot of resources on research and development to resist the tough competition on the global market. This leads to a high risk game when the companies start many development projects, with uncertain outcome where some of the projects have to be terminated prematurely. The main purpose with this study is to identify factors, both internal and external, that influence the decision to terminate projects prematurely in Swedish development projects. Factors mentioned in the literature will be compared with case studies on three Swedish industrial companies to demonstrate the most important ones when taking such decisions. First a literature study was made to identify basic terms, a general project model and factors affecting the decision.

Background: Sweden has, since 1983, had a statutory audit for all joint-stock companies. However, according to EG?s fourth corporation directive, member countries can decide on their own if this applies for small joint-stock companies. An investigation was launched in the fall of 2006 to form an opinion on the importance of the audit reporting by law and what an abolishment of this rule would mean for small joint-stock companies. Critics are claiming that the cost of audit for small companies is exceeding the cause in these micro companies.Audit is regulated by Swedish translation (RS) of International Standards on Auditing (ISA) and is to be applied in all companies comprised by the statutory audit.

The globalization and the realization of a European common insurance market have increased the importance of cross border insurance contracts. Despite that, a gathered set of rules regulating cross border insurance contracts does not exist. The sets of rules within Private International Law which arises today when determining the applicable law regarding cross border insurance contracts are the law of 1993 on applicable law to certain insurance contracts (the law of 1993) and the law of 1998 on applicable law to contractual obligations (Rome Convention). Since the Rome Convention is the only Community instrument which still is in the form of a treaty, work has been done in order to convert it into a regulation, called the Rome-I-regulation. Therefore, the future Rome I-regulation is of importance for the thesis as well since it most likely will replace the Rome Convention.Swedish law is based on the principle of party autonomy, which means that the contracting parties have the right to freely agree on the content of the contract, including the choice of law.

Because of among other things the globalization and a focus on core competencies knowledge has become very important for the companies of today, especially for research-intensive companies. The problem is that the companies become more sensitive to how knowledge is created and spread, that is, how organizational knowledge is created. Especially sensitive are companies who are small, young and research-intensive. The purpose with this thesis is to explore how organizational knowledge is created in small, young and research intensive companies.The theory is based on a five-phase model of organizational knowledge creation and four modes of knowledge conversion described by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995). These concepts constitute the foundation of the analytical model used in the thesis.The study is carried out by qualitative, highly structured interviews with low standardization.

At first glance, the group CEO's (koncernchefens) legal position looks easy. It is the CEO?s responsibility to lead and make decisions on matters which affect the entire group, all while defending the company?s best interests. However, when one looks closely at how the Companies Act (Aktiebolagslagen) regulates how a company should organize itself, as well as the options available to manage the group, one rea-lizes that simply appointing a group CEO does not necessarily make the company compatible with the Companies Act. A group CEO threatens to reduce both the Board and CEO's legal administrative districts which are not in accordance with legal and commercial principles.In order to introduce a group CEO it requires a detailed investigation of the group's legal relationships.

This essay aims to examine what subject positions are possible within the discourse of relationship anarchy. Through semi-structured interviews with four people who define themselves as relationship anarchists I've made a discourse analysis to determine how these relationship anarchists explain what, in the discourse they?re in, is described as an relationship anarchistic way of being, what isn?t and how they relate to this. Relationship anarchy is described as an ideology based on freedom. It is about the right to define their relationships as they like, as something constantly changing and that does not hold a specific value based on its label.

Background: Goodwill has always been frequently discussed and a lot of scientific research has been done regarding factors that affect companies? impairment of goodwill. Previous research has concluded that companies reporting low results are more prone to do impairments of goodwill than companies reporting better results which possibly can be seen as a form of earnings management.Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to examine if goodwill impairments occur to a greater extent among Swedish listed companies when the companies are reporting lower earnings. A subsidiary purpose is to see if there has been an improvement since 2008 regarding the size of reported goodwill in comparison to equity in the years 2009-2011. And to analyze the development of the companies goodwill impairments in relation to reported goodwill.Methodology: Three quantitative studies have been performed for the years 2009-2011 where all the listed companies on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm have been included.