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.

Who would not like a profit of more then 95 % in a day? Investors in Sweden had thatopportunity, if they had bought a certain stock on the primary market and sold it on the firsttradable day at the Stock Exchange. Most of that profit fell into the hands of institutionalinvestors. The reason for this extraordinary profit was the underpricing of that specific stockduring its initial public offering (IPO).Our report aims to analyze the relationship between offer price, underpricing and theownership structure of stocks. Our investigation is based on all IPO?s on the Stockholm stockexchange during the years between 2000 and 2005.

This is a case study that explores the ways in which implemented university reforms have affected employees in the higher educational sector. Previous research within the research field has mainly focused on policy related consequences of the reforms. This is why a study that brings attention to the ways the reforms have affected employees is sorely needed.The aim with the study is to examine whether there is a discrepancy between formal changes and the ways the employees experience them. The study is based on interviews with 8 lecturers from two universities and the material is analyzed mainly through sociological neo-institutional theories, such as Richard Scott?s theory of the three pillars within an informal institution and Helmke and Levintskys theory of the relationship between formal and informal institutions.The results show that there is a discrepancy between the formal changes and the ways employees perceive them.

The last few decades largeincreases in institutional and foreign ownershipin Swedish listed companies have created a concernthat the traditionalSwedish ownership model are disappearing.With increasing globalizationand ever morecapital-intensive markets, so have great owners forced to admitcapital fuelled institutionaland foreign investors into their companies. By from an agency theoryperspective examine how different ownershiptypes and ownershipconstellations affects the cost ofequity, we want to see if there is reason for concern. Is the change in ownership structure affecting theSwedish listed firms?Our results show that the owneridentity or ownership constellations don?t affect the cost of equity that much.The only owner-identity that shows a significant correlation with the cost ofequity is the institutions and they relate to a lower cost of equity. Theresults show that companies with two controlling shareholders relates to lowercost of equity which can show that ownership structure affects the cost.

Why is the e-revolution of the Swedish film distribution lingering? In attempting to answer that question, this qualitative study depicts the distribution market of Swedish film and its actors. Thirteen interviews with representatives of the industry have been conducted in search of an understanding of the current situation. Two important conclusions are made. One is that the strong interdependency between the actors of film distribution is inhibiting the acting space of those who seek change.

There will be changes in the accounting regulations in Sweden. Firms will be categorised as K1-K4 firms depending on the size of the company. There will be different levels of accounting in the four categories. Firms will always have the possibility to choose a more advanced accounting regulation than the one they are obligated to due to their size. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate which factors that influence the management in K3 firms in the choice between the K3 and K4 regulation.

The presidency of the European Union (EU) is one of the most important institutional actors for the improvement of democracy and equality between the member states. To hold a presidency is a big task and for many countries a tough challenge. What makes a presidency successful? The purpose of the thesis is to examine this question using Ole Elgströms? ?four properties for defining a successful presidency? as the theoretical background. This thesis will employ a comparative framework of four countries, using size and age (age understood as ?time being an EU Member State?) as the defining factors.

To talk about, talk to or with children. A conversation between a child and its teacher should be more than the teacher telling the child what to do, how to act. It should be more like a respectful and reverent meeting between two people where the adult sets the tone. The purpose of this research is to investigate teachers' experiences of conversations with children in need of special assistance. Our issues: What do teachers say about how they meet children in need of support? How do teachers response to students who are in difficulty? What ability have teachers and their school's to meet children in need of support and what appear to be particularly important or problematic issues for them in that work? In order to find some answers to our questions we interviewed ten teachers at two schools.

The purpose of the work is to highlight schools work to prevent bullying and abusive treatment, find out about schools work to prevent bullying and abusive treatment follow what is written in the governing documents and how schools can work preventively against the same. The questions have been investigated through qualitative interviews and analysis of documents or in the theoretical background. The interviewees and partially schools were selected through an arbitrarily selection. In each plan against abusive treatment states that the monitoring and evaluation should be conducted in a manner that is not consistent with the responses from leisure educator 1, 2 and 3. School B's plan does not contain an overview of the measures needed to prevent and stop abusive treatment of children.

The purpose of this study is to search and analyze different logics that operators use in the work of helping juvenile delinquents to break their criminal behavior. New institutional theory is used in this study to analyze the results. The study was conducted through qualitative interviews of six professionals in two municipalities which work with juvenile delinquency. There are two questions that we want to address in this study. The first one is what methods the social workers are using in two middle large municipalities to help youth to brake there criminal behavior.

In this thesis I investigate aesthetic preference for picture books among children aged 3?6 as well as criteria for preference among parents. Through my design project: illustration of a picture book, I aim to put my research on preference in the context of illustration and design. By using the design project as an applied method for research I have sought to answer how one as an illustrator can apply knowledge regarding preferences of the target groups when illustrating for picture books. I have primarily based my research within the field of cognitive developmental psychology, with primary focus on stage theory, and the field of literature.

This study deals with the phenomenon of European integration and its impact on national party programs in Poland, a current member state of the European Union. The author will argue that the question of European integration has left a mark on the political party programs of two mainstream domestic parties on opposite sides of the ideological dimension, in the form of a certain degree of convergence regarding the ?European issue?. Relating the result of the analysis to the theoretical structure of Europeanization and sociological institutional change, the essay will attempt to show a possible link between them. Although this trend does not seem to indicate any dramatic effects of the membership per se in the programs (the national arena seems, in most cases, be of more value for party activities) there is an indirect effect in the form of the presence of Europarties and a pronounced incentive for social and economic adaptation..

This essay studies how and why large sports clubs from sports with a different degree of commerciality interact with their institutional surroundings in the way that they do. It compares two large Stockholm-based table tennis clubs, Ängby SK and Spårvägens BTK, with a large Stockholm-based football club, AIK Fotboll. In order to get proper data, a number of key persons within the organisations were exploratively interviewed using open and semi-structured questions, together with study of literature and other sources related to the subject. One of the key findings was that the non-profit table tennis clubs, who were expected to resemble the institution association closely, were subject to company-ization, and thus acted a lot more like the institution company than expected. The other key finding was that the football club, although driven partially like a public limited company, in many aspects placed a greater value on cultural capital than on economic capital..

This Master thesis studies how a diversified institutional care organisation can optimise its collective knowledge resources so to manage and distribute this knowledge to different parts of the organisation with help of the organisations intranet. The purpose of the study is to examine if knowledge management and the organisations intranet can be used to create, store, transfer and better use the knowledge within the organisation. Through a case study the thesis will look at different knowledge processes and their relation to the organisations intranet. The case study includes a questionnaire for the whole organisation and qualitative interviews with seven persons from different levels of the organisation. The theoretical framework of the study approaches knowledge management and intranet through four knowledge processes.

Denna uppsats behandlar politisk förändring i svenska kommuner. Fokus är New Public Management-reformer och specifikt har andelen kommunal barnomsorg på entreprenad studerats. Studien är kvantitativ och består av datamaterial över Sveriges 290 kommuner som samlats av Statistiska Centralbyrån (SCB) under perioden 1998-2005. Teoretiskt utgår uppsatsen från en nyinstitutionell teori. Fyra hypoteser om politisk förändring i svenska kommuner har konstruerats och sedan operationaliserats genom sex variabler; politisk majoritet (blå/röd), kommunstorlek, skatteunderlag och andel barn- och äldreomsorg på entreprenad.