As a consumer, you can use cards for payment more or less everywhere you go, however, it is not certain that the card can be used for all purchases. When a customer pays with card there arises a card transaction fee charged to the merchant. This is a big problem for businesses where transactions with small amounts are a large portion of sales. An observation at the beginning of this study showed that seemingly similar merchants have chosen to solve this problem in different ways. Some merchant?s refuses card purchases below a certain amount, while others accept card with any purchase.

A major issue that has been a subject for quite some time is whether there will be a scarcity of metals in the bedrock in the future and whether or not we might end up with a problem similar to that of the big oil crisis in the mid-seventies. Following the oil crisis many oil companies started up with risk management to control future risks. This work presents how Swedish mining companies work with risk management to handle risks that might come up in the future due to metal scarceness. How Swedish mining companies look at the possible metal scarceness and if they use risk management in their decision-making process is studied. By doing interviews with Swedish owned mining companies it was found that the mining companies did not see the future metal scarcity as a risk, even though 2/3 of the companies acknowledged the scarceness to be a reality.

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.

A major issue that has been a subject for quite some time is whether there will be a scarcity of metals in the bedrock in the future and whether or not we might end up with a problem similar to that of the big oil crisis in the mid-seventies. Following the oil crisis many oil companies started up with risk management to control future risks. This work presents how Swedish mining companies work with risk management to handle risks that might come up in the future due to metal scarceness. How Swedish mining companies look at the possible metal scarceness and if they use risk management in their decision-making process is studied. By doing interviews with Swedish owned mining companies it was found that the mining companies did not see the future metal scarcity as a risk, even though 2/3 of the companies acknowledged the scarceness to be a reality.

Biological pest management is defined as control of pests using their natural enemies. This method has been used in Sweden since the 1970´s and it has been developed ever since. Biological pest management is today relatively common among commercial growers but there are good possibilities to apply this method in the home gardens as well. The aim with this thesis is to compile a report from both the companies that are marketing the products and the home gardener´s point of view. This should give a better understanding of the market and how it could be improved. We will give examples of products that represent the different kinds of organisms that are being used in biological pest management. Our hope is that this will be an introduction to all interested in biological pest management. The legislations regarding registration of organisms are still a matter of discussion and are causing problems to producers, distributors and the market in general. Why isn´t biological pest management more common in the home garden? The main reason appears to be the lack of knowledge in the subject. What are the benefits using biological pest management when it requires so much knowledge and it´s more expensive than conventional pest management? With the environmental problems we face today, we hope that every single gardener has an interest in developing an environment as clean as possible, even if only in one's own backyard..

AbstractToday, too many construction projects are delayed and deviates from the budget. Agood project management is the basis for successful construction project. The mostcommon planning methods in the construction industry is currently Gantt chart andCPM. The problem with these is that focus is only at the time of the project anddoesn?t handle the budget.

Purpose: To investigate if Altman´s Z´-score model, which calculates financial distress, can be applied on companies established in Sweden and if the financial crisis in 2008 made previously healthy companies go bankrupt.Methodology: Quantitative studies with a positivistic foundation. Empirical data will be collected in order to examine if there is generalizability among the studied objects. Conclusions will be made by comparing the empirical data with the theoretical foundation. Financial distress in firms will be measured.Theoretical perspectives: Altman´s Z´-score model, designed to predict financial distress in private firms.Empirical foundation: A selection of 93 private firms that have gone bankrupt in the years 2008, 2009 or 2010. The firms selected all have a turnover that exceeds 20 million SEK.

Caran has a strong belief that women leaders affect the financial profitability positive. Since women leaders are intangible resources it is very difficult to calculate its exact value. The authors found that one of their measurement methods can?t be used to calculate the value of women leaders. The other measurement method can calculate significance between women and men leaders and provides an index to be compared to other groups.

This paper analyses how Swedish fine-art oil paintings sold at auctions has performed as a monetary investment during the period autumn 1985 until spring 2006. An average price technique as well as a hedonic regression technique, applied to a sample of 19 213 auction sales, is used to construct price indices. The indices show somewhat different results, which is explained by the inability of the average price model to adjust for relative differences in quality between periods. The hedonic regression model on the other hand captures this effect, why the hedonic index is applied in a financial return model. By adjusting for transaction cost, the financial return of an average investment in paintings is calculated.

In a business environment where the stakeholder perspective is evolving and sustainable development is receiving increased attention, it is of importance for companies to adjust. The demand and pressure is exerted from several stakeholders who force companies to take action and live up to the expectations because if failing to do so, negative consequences will most likely be the case. The attention of this study is on ABB Power Products (ABB PP) and their environment and working environment risk management. The aim of this thesis is to identify and describe how perceived environmental risks are managed and what the incentives are to work proactively to minimize the risks. The incentives for a proactive risk management strategy are researched through both a strategic and operational perspective.

I have always been interested in sports, so when it was time to write the paper I chose to write about sports and economic.It has led to this problem: How is the function of management control and planning problems in sports?   Sports clubs are non-profit association and non-profit organizations aim to support members? moral and economic interests. A financial manager will lead the accounting department and have the final responsibility. The finance manager has to work to produce financial results, reports and custom operations (Högfeldt, 2011). A sports club use economic tools, usually budget.

AbstractTitle:The Impact of Management Control Systems on the Purchaser Function - A study of Scania and Sandvik Authors: Mohammad Reza Akhbari and Johanna Sullivan Svensson Published: 2011 Keywords: Management control, purchasing function, impact, control, control instruments, Key Performance Indicators, measurement, communication and organizational structure. Background and problem formulation: In order for a company?s business idea or vision to be fulfilled, the management of a company needs assistance from various means to intentionally affect the operation in the desired direction. Management control concerns activities of both financial and non-financial character in order to implement the strategy of a company and to reach profitability. Since the purchaser function is responsible of spending 50 percent of a company?s total revenue, the function has an optimal starting point to be a key actor in the shaping and execution of a company?s strategic plan.

The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of how venture capitalists can use their network in order to reduce information asymmetries between themselves and the venture management team. A qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews, consisting of open questions, have been used to receive gradate information in order to reach our explorative purpose. Our theoretical framework consists of relevant studies made on the dynamics of networks and the problems that can arise in the complex relationship between a principal and an agent. We have been interviewing two venture capital firms and therepresentatives from two business angel networks. We also made an additional interview with an influential financial actor in order to try to verify our conclusions Our conclusions are that an extensive network can be used by venture capitalists in order to; verify ventures? technologies, complement the competences in the venture management team, and arrange co-investments, resulting in reduced information asymmetries between themselves and the venture management team.

This cross-sectional study investigated the use of health benefits in relation to the self-rated health of employees at two medium-sized industrial enterprises in Hälsingland. The method used to investigate this was through a self-designed questionnaire consisting 19 questions about health, lifestyle and health benefits at the workplace. A total of 100 questionnaires were distributed in the two companies, hence 50 surveys at each workplace. The response rate was measured to 88 % and 74 %, which means a loss of 6 persons and 13 persons. The results showed that Company nr 1 offers its employees a health benefits consisting of free access to gym in the company premises after working hours and financial contributions to training-cards.

This is a study of predictions made by the press during the financial crisis in Asia in the autumn of 1997. The study includes a qualitative, quantitative and comparative analysis of the Swedish newspapers Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Industri. In the last chapter a quantitative analysis of the newspaper Finanstidningen, that today no longer exists, has also been made for comparative reasons. A theoretical framework is also set in the study to explain how the predictions can affect the economy. The quantitative analysis shows that 2/3 of the texts in the traditional morning papers Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet included predictions about the crisis from an Asian or global perspective, while only 1/3 of the texts in the financial newspapers Dagens Industri and Finanstidningen included such predictions.