This bachelor thesis aims to analyse the effects of changes in management control systems following acquisitions, and deduce whether or not these effects are in line with the acquiring firm's objectives of the acquisition. Through a case study of technician consultant firm Energo, acquired in 2010 by ÅF, the study assumes the perspective of the acquired firm. Data has been collected through in-depth interviews at Energo and ÅF and complemented by internal documents to enrich and validate specific facts and statements. Data was then arranged and analysed through Otley and Fierriera's (2009) framework Performance Management Systems to understand how management control systems were constituted before the acquisition, what changes were made following the acquisition, how this process was accomplished and how it was experienced, in order to come to conclusions about the effects of these changes. The study concludes that the changes in Energo's management control system following the integration with ÅF, had significant effects on the outcome of the acquisition, primarily as it led to a high rate of Energo's employees resigning.

The female labour is still a rather unexploited resource in many parts of the world. Unleashing women?s potential, giving them the possibility to start their own enterprises would increase the economic growth. Not only does women's entrepreneurship foster greater equality in the world but it also creates a more versatile economy. Sweden is considered to be one of the most equal countries in the world; still, entrepreneurship is an area with sharp gender differences, especially in some industries.

The aim of the study is to investigate reasoning about variation in learning, made by Waldorf, Freinet- and Bifrost pedagogues. The focal points are how the pedagogues reason about variation in learning and why they want to use variation. It is a qualitative study, and it is done through interviews with one Waldorf pedagogue, one Freinet pedagogue and one Bifrost pedagogue. The conversation with each pedagogue is complemented by literature that describes and discusses each pedagogue?s specific teaching method. The results of the study are linked to different theories and reasoning by scientists and professors.

This paper describes and develops a trade off model of optimal capital structure by Bradley et al. (1984). The model is then tested to examine how changes in corporate tax rates affect the optimal capital structure of firms. Based on theoretical implications of the model, four hypotheses are derived stating that firms? optimal debt-to-value ratio is (1) negatively related to financial distress costs, (2) negatively related to non-debt tax shields, (3) negatively related to firm volatility and (4) positively related to the corporate tax rate.

Today the ability to swim is taken for granted by most people. Most of Sweden?s adult population can swim which is reflected in the reduced number of accidental drownings. About 1900 AD when Sweden?s population was about five million the average drownings per year was 1100.

Sweden needs a policy that stimulates economic growth. Year 1996 the Business Reorganization Act (1996:764) came into force. The goal with this law was to savebusiness, make it profitable and avoid unnecessary bankruptcies. Shortly afterwards itturned out that the law had no positive effect. A very few numbers of companies appliedfor reconstruction and the number of applications for bankruptcies continued to increase.In 2004, in order to stabilize the situation and bring about neutrality between twoproceedings, company reorganization and bankruptcy, the government proposed thereform of priority rules.

Heartwood has always been a desirable part of the tree, due to it?s superior decay qualities com-pared to the sapwood. How the formation of heartwood works has been known for a long time, but which factors that initiates and stimulates the production are poorly understood. This case study presents the results of a study in which silvicultural treatments and site properties had a key position as factors to the formation of heartwood. According to the hypothesis the amount of sapwood is directly controlled by the size of the crown.

Algal bloom is a naturally occurring phenomenon and occurs in all waters around the world but in recent years, algal bloom in the Baltic Sea has become more massive and more widely spread. When an algal bloom negative effects on the seawater quality, it may have an impact on tourism in the Baltic Sea. The aim of this thesis is to study, through a survey based on a production function approach, whether an environmental change as algal blooms, influenced the Gotland tourist accommodation industry and their "production of attractive overnight? in the summer of 2005. The results show that algal blooms did not have a great impact on companies ?production of attractive accommodations".

This report is a market research for the company 4 Body and Mind, a start-upcompany that works with personal training online. They wanted to know if themarket for elderly care could be interesting for them to enter. This report is hence aresearch of the market for health and welfare technology in elderly care within thepublic sector in Sweden. A general fact is that the world's population is getting older.This combined with rapid growth of individuals in the age 65+ changes the demandson the elderly care in Sweden?s municipalities.

Shell companies are characterized by containing liquid assets such as cash, securities or other similar assets. Transactions of shell companies constitutes a severe problem since the purchaser often has the aim of obtaining undue tax advantages by not paying the tax debt of the company.Historically it has been complicated for the legislator to stop the set-up in an efficient way since the transactions as such are not illegal, instead rather commonly used for example to restructure companies or for the transfer of companies to the younger generation. The purpose of the current legislation is to prevent individuals and corporations to involve in shell company trade. Aiming for an efficient legislation, the tax rate is at a very high level.The issue with the rules is that also honest buyers are at risk of being covered. This calls for high demands in complying with the principle of legal certainty and the possibility to forecast the tax consequences.The purpose of the thesis is to identify and analyze eventual problems when applying the legislation.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the companies on Nasdaq OMXS Large and Mid Cap to see if there are interesting patterns regarding their WACC assumptions, used when performing impairment tests on goodwill, during 2007-2009. If so, can we explain these patterns? MethodWe have gathered information about the WACC assumptions presented in the annual reports of the 133 companies that were listed on OMXS Large and Mid Cap during the spring of 2011. To complement this quantitative information we have also conducted an interview with Peter Malmqvist and contacted eight of the companies that were in the study.ConclusionWe can conclude that not all companies present their WACC assumptions in the annual report, even though IAS 36 states that this should be done. Of the 45 companies that were included in our study, eight had lowered their WACC during 2008 and increased it in 2009.

Researchers at Karlstad University have developed a method for making paper ion conducting. The reasearchers want to test this technique in various applications and produce products that make use of the ion-conducting paper. Hopefully this will drive the development forward and result in new applications for the ion-conducting paper.This study was to test the possibility of manufacturing a gas sensor of conducting paper along with electrodes of conductive polymers printed on the paper. By comparing the paper sensor with an electrochemical cell in which the electrodes of conductive polymer replaces electrodes of metal and ion-conductive paper replaces the liquid electrolyte in the electrochemical cell, it was hoped that it would be possible to measure the oxidation and reduction reactions that a gas could introduce at the electrodes.It was shown that it is possible to measure a potential difference in the range of 0.3 V to 0.5 V between the electrodes when exposing an electrode to 100% oxygen. The reaction that takes place is relatively slow and the reaction rate is partly due to the distance between the electrodes.Since the sensor can measure oxidation and reduction reactions it is possible that, in further development of a sensor, the sensor can be made ??into a versatile sensor with more applications than gas measurement as there are many more ways to oxidize or reduce the electrodes than by exposure to oxygen.During the study there have been discussions and meetings held with various companies in the sensor industry to be able to specify what the market demands of a sensor made ??of paper and the requirements that must be placed on the sensor for it to be interesting for the companies..

In this thesis a possible cost effective runner change of some of the units in the hydroelectric power station Olidan is investigated. The possibility to drive a unit at the same efficiency point through a change of the turbine shaft speed and the rate of discharge is tested. Furthermore the theories behind model testing, determination of efficiency increase from model to prototype and efficiency measurements shall be discussed and analyzed with Olidan as a starting point.A predicted curve has been built on information from model tests and field measurements on the existing runners and runner data from the test of the new model. The predicted curve shows the difference in efficiency between an existing runner and a modern one. It is the difference in efficiency that is used in the calculations that are to show whether changing to a pair of new runners will be cost effective or not.

Uppsatsens syfte är att analysera den nominella växelkursens påverkan på utrikeshandel och göra en jämförande studie mellan ett EU-land (Sverige) och ett EMU-land (Tyskland). Fokus för denna undersökning kommer att ligga på vad som skedde med utrikeshandeln under de två ekonomiska kriserna på 2000-talet, men även ge en generell bild för utrikeshandeln under hela perioden 2000-2010. Uppsatsen avser att besvara om det finns några skillnader i hur ländernas handel påverkades under kriserna med avseende på växelkursen, samt om handelssammansättningen av handelspartners förändrats. Detta kommer undersökas för att se hur Sveriges utrikeshandel påverkats av att stå utanför EMU.Resultaten visar på att den nominella växelkursen inte haft stor betydelse för utrikeshandeln under den undersökta tidsperioden. Både export och import har ökat under perioden, men det går inte att finna någon direkt koppling till växelkursförändringar.

Aim: A business ratio is a measuring instrument that companies use in their financial report to show profit and progress. As it is today, there are no standards to follow that shows which business ratio to present in a companies annual report. Our aim with this report is to see if there are any trends in the use of business ratios by looking into how thirty growth companies are applying them.Method: To see what business ratios are used in practice, we have collected information from the thirty companies? annual reports. With help from the literature, we have created an understanding about the most frequently used business ratios.