The thesis main objective is to establish the determinants for granting executive stock options and to examine their impact on performance for firms listed on OMXS30. The analysis is based on accounting data gathered from annual reports and Thomson Datastream. The empirical results display that firms grant stock options to mitigate the principal-agent problem. Furthermore, risk proves to be positively significant with executive stock options, implying that either executives increase the level of risk after being granted stock options or influence the decision of the remuneration towards stock options when the firm increase the level of risk, in purpose to boost the expected value of their options. No relation between executive stock options and firm performance could be established..

Problembakgrund: Det har visat sig att intresset för miljöproblemen har minskat och ämnet måste kommuniceras för att en större förändring ska kunna ske. Medierna och miljöorganisationerna har en viktig roll i kommunikationen av miljöproblem. Därför är det intressant att undersöka hur kommunikationen ser ut från en miljöorganisations sida.Syfte: Syftet med den här studien är att undersöka vad Naturskyddsföreningen har för huvudsakliga budskap i sina kampanjfilmer för att öka förståelsen hos människor.Metod: I denna studie tillämpas den kvalitativa metoden kritisk diskursanalys.Teori: De teorier som undersökningen bygger på är kommunikationsteori, diskursteori, retorik samt visuell kommunikation.Slutsats: Utifrån de resultat vi fått fram genom vår analys kan vi urskiljatvå huvudsakliga budskap i Naturskyddsföreningenskampanjfilmer vilka är miljö och hälsa. Inom dessa budskapanvänder de sig av argument på både lokal och global nivå. Vihar i denna studie även kunnat titta på vilka retoriska ochvisuella redskap som använts.Naturskyddsföreningen.

There is an increased pressure for firms to provide the financial market with additional information. Such disclosure is attached with different kinds of costs. In spite of these costs, and in spite of increased mandatory disclosures, firms choose to voluntary disclosure financial information to analysts and others. This indicates that firms also benefit from providing additional information. The subjects of this study is 431 annual reports from firms listed at the Stockholm Stock Exchange for 2002 and 2005 and the objective is to survey factors that can explain variations in firms? voluntary disclosure.

Uppsatsen behandlar moderskapsrepresentationer i det svenska reality-tv-programmet Ensam mamma so?ker. Syftet a?r att belysa hur diskurser om moderskap fo?rhandlas genom dessa representationer. Med en representationsanalys och semiotisk analys har jag tittat pa? mitt material utifra?n tva? tematiseringar med respektive underkategorier: 1) Tva?samhet: (hetero)sexualitet, monogami, ko?n och genus; 2) Funktion: social status, familjens och moderskapets funktion.

This thesis is based on a case study of the City of Stockholm. The study aims to explore the effects on the city's large investments caused by the public reform. Furthermore, the question concerns the character of the impact and if it will affect what type of investments that will be prioritized. The theoretical background is based on Brunsson's ideas about political organizations shifting towards corporate nature, and Almqvist's interpretation of New Public Management (NPM). Moreover, models explaining public management reform, and the main components of corporate shifting, are used.

IASB har presenterat en ny redovisningsstandard för rörelseförvärv som heter IFRS 3(R) som ett steg i arbetet att ersätta IAS 22. Arbetet med standarden påbörjades år 2001och är ett steg i harmoniseringsarbetet mellan IASB och FASB och för att förbättra dekvalitativa egenskaperna vid redovisning enligt IFRS. Studien syftar till att kartläggaskillnader som finns mellan IAS 22 och IFRS 3 (R). Med hjälp av egna exempelpresenteras och analyseras skillnaderna som kartlagts för att förklara eventuellaeffekter på de finansiella rapporterna, både i balansräkningen och på de kvalitativaegenskaperna. För att avgöra om IFRS 3 (R) har närmat sig föreställningsramen användsockså teorier om ägar- och enhetsperspektiv.Studien visar att det har genomförts många förändringar.

On November 1st 2010 the obligatory audit was removed in Sweden for small companies. What factors influence such companies to have their financial reports audited, and what factors exert the strongest influence. Purpose: The authors would like to investigate factors that affect companies with voluntary audits in Skåne län to continue with the audit. The authors also wish to examine the factors that have the strongest impact on the choice to adopt auditing. Method: A quantitative study has been conducted in which aquestionnaire was sent to companies in Skåne Län Conclusion: The factors that affect smaller companies to continue with audit are as follows: Accounting quality, cost, creditors (loans), suppliers / customers, the tax office and distort competition.

The new Swedish Companies Act allows Swedish companies to issue two instruments that were previously prohibited: mandatory convertibles and participating debentures. The aim of the thesis is to conduct a cross sectional study of Swedish corporate hybrid securities, especially in the light of the new Companies Act. The cross sectional study also includes areas such as credit rating, accounting and tax. The thesis concludes that it is possible, under Swedish law, to issue corporate hybrid securities that qualify for both high equity credit and tax deductible interest payments. The use of certain hybrid provisions are, however, restrained by Swedish company law.

Mergers and acquisitions are a phenomenon which can occur for a variety of reasons. It may for example be that the organizations want to gain larger market shares or to complement and learn from each other and thus become more competitive. After the completion of an acquisition or merger, a process is initiated to create an affiliation between the two companies' employees. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether there is something that management can do to make the integration process as efficient as possible. The empirical research in this paper consisted of interviews and surveys with respondents from two accounting firms that recently completed a merger.

This thesis aims to investigate if there are any differences in the value relevance of yearly earnings announcements before (2000-2004) and after (2005-2009) IFRS were implemented for listed companies in the European Union. To assess the value relevance of earnings, an earnings response coefficient (ERC) is estimated using a linear OLS-regression model. The regression model uses accounting earnings per share as the explaining variable, with the corresponding return starting from (but not including) the previous year's earnings announcement date, ending at (and including) the current earnings announcement date, as the dependent variable. This study finds that there is no statistically significant difference between the estimated ERCs for the two periods. Although no statistically significant difference is found, data shows that the R2-values, which measure the explanatory power of the regressions, are higher for the period before IFRS.

Finanskrisen som utlo?stes ho?sten 2008 av en alltfo?r genero?s utla?ningspolitik av banker och finansiella institut ledde till att deras verksamheter blev ifra?gasatta. Kritik riktades bland annat gentemot IFRS regelverk och da? framfo?rallt va?rdering till verkligt va?rde som enligt vissa hade bidragit till krisens omfattning. Kritiken bestod fra?mst i att redovisningsmetoden till stor del bygger pa? subjektiva bedo?mningar av tillga?ngar som a?r sva?ra att verifiera fo?r utomsta?ende intressenter.

Research and Development-costs constitutes an important part in contemporary companies. R&D are treated differently depending on their definition and how the historic value is decided. The main goal for this essay is to bring clarity to how the definiton of the term R&D is decided in accounting as well as in tax law. Another goal is to decide how the historic value is calculated. It is also interesting to examine under which circumstances the costs can be activated in the balance sheet, and under which circumstances deduction for the R&D-costs may be allowed.

Tidigare forskning visar att resultatmanipulering i form av big bath fo?rekommer vid omstruktureringar av fo?retagens ledning. Det inneba?r att ledningen pa?verkar resultatet negativt genom att realisera stora enga?ngskostnader. I och med info?randet av redovisningsstandarderna IFRS 3 och IAS 36 ga?llande nedskrivningspro?vning av goodwill kan va?rderingens flexibilitet anva?ndas i egenintresse som ett verktyg fo?r big bath.

The purpose of our essay is to study the institutional-, demographic and accounting theoretical factors that influence an organisations actuarial commitment.The research was performed through a web based survey, with complimentary telephone interviews, directed to companies listed on Stockholm Stock Exchange A- and O-list on the 30 of November, 2003.Our data was analysed with a Median test, Kolomogorov-Smirnov test, T-test and a Mann-Whitney test. The purpose of the Mann-Whitney test was the low number of respondents that took part in the research. The Kolomogorov-Smirnov test was done to determine whether the population variances was equal or not. The data showed that organisations with a majority of female employees assume a lower salary increase, and a higher average age than other companies with a male majority. Only 2 of 11 hypothesis can be accepted as temporary truths but several other visible relations are indicated in our research, but can not be statistically proved.We think that the major problem with our is the time it was performed.

Much attention has been directed to Charity Foundations and how they use the donations given to them. Donators and external organisations put pressure on and evaluate the performance of Charity Foundations. The purpose of this thesis is to increase the understanding of how Charity Foundations handle the pressure from external parties through a qualitative case study of one Swedish Charity Foundation. The most important external factors have been identified and the accountability relationships between each party and the Charity Foundation have been examined. The empirical material was collected through semi-structured interviews and from written sources.