This study investigates the value relevance of goodwill impairments for equity investors in Swedish listed companies. We provide insight on whether goodwill impairments are value relevant before as well as after the implementation of IFRS 3 and IAS 36. We express market value of equity as a function of book value of equity; net income excluding goodwill impairments and goodwill impairments, using the Ohlson valuation model and Hellström's price regression. Our findings suggest that goodwill impairments are statistically value relevant for equity investors. Prior to the implementation of IFRS 3 and IAS 36, our findings imply that equity investors respond negatively to goodwill impairments.

Problem: The question is if investors falls into psychological decision traps when they are about to make an investments decision. Research in other areas suggests that this may be case. The reason is that they are not aware of that psychological decision traps exist. If so, it can lead to pernicious consequences for the return on the portfolios they manage. Purpose: To investigate if investors fall into four different psychological decisions traps: anchoring, confirming evidence, overconfidence and regression towards mean, at investments in IPOs Method: We have collected data through a form of experiment.

Problem: The question is if investors falls into psychological decision traps when they are about to make an investments decision. Research in other areas suggests that this may be case. The reason is that they are not aware of that psychological decision traps exist. If so, it can lead to pernicious consequences for the return on the portfolios they manage. Purpose: To investigate if investors fall into four different psychological decisions traps: anchoring, confirming evidence, overconfidence and regression towards mean, at investments in IPOs Method: We have collected data through a form of experiment.

The aim with this study was to examine what it is that govern the way that municipalities develop the non-institutional care for youth. An extensive development of non-institutional care for children is a visible trend in municipal social service and probable reasons for this development are, among other things, research that show inadequate results of the institution care and economy. Our main questions at issue were how the municipalities argue the priorities that have been done within their youth care services with regard to the non-institutional care and how they reason considering this? Furthermore we asked why the municipalities have chosen to develop their non-institutional care for youth the way they have and on what grounds they make their choices? This study consists of eight qualitative interviews with politicians and employees in four different municipals along with analysis of relevant documents. We have found that what governs the way that municipalities develop the non-institutional care for youth has to do with that the municipalities found it vital to find alternative solutions to the expensive and ineffective institutional care, that they comprehend that the quality of non-institutional care are higher then of the institutional care and that the non- institutional care is seen as more effective with regards to economic results and achieved treatment results.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine relevance of the proposition made by new insitutionalists about institutional and technical environment. This proposition originaly made by Meyer & Rowan (1977) has two core assumptions: The first is that all organizations are controlled by combinations of types of demands; technical demands for efficient production and institutional demands to adept to cultural and normative expectations. The second assumption is that there exists a few organizations dominated almost entirely by one typy of demand. Organizations dominated by institutional demands are said to live in an institutional environment, while technical organizations is said operate in a technical environment. This thesis has examined if these assumptions are still applicable in describing organizational interaction with the environment.

This thesis examines the subject of change in public administration from an instrumental and an institutional structure perspective. The purpose of the thesis is to examine whether institutional structures affect the development of instrumental structures and if it in turn is possible to affect institutional structures by changing the instrumental structures. This case study is primarily based on a series of deep interviews with senior administrators and politicians within two new administrations in the municipality Karlstad, both which have been created by merging several smaller administrations, but also thorough analysis of several official document such as protocols from the municipal council meetings, Tja?nsterskrivelser and internal PMs.   The result of the analysis indicates that both institutional structures and the forming instrumental structures affect each other and  that their ability to affect each other depends on the dominance over the organization each structure has.  In my specific research case we can see that the institutional structure of the city-technical and housing administration has affected the outcome but the institutional structure of the cultural and tourism administration hasn?t.  While the structural change of the city-technical and housing administration hasn?t effected the institutional structure but the structural change of the cultural and tourism administration has affected the institutional structure of this specific administration..

Social enterprises are increasingly gaining ground as an organisational form in Sweden, however the institutional structures for financing these types of organisations are yet to be established. With its usual origin within the civic society, social enterprises prioritise a higher goal than to maximise economic profit, which often causes these organisations to be dependent upon resources from external constituents within its institutional environment. The aim of this study was to examine how a social enterprise, which derives from the civic society, acts to mobilise resources from constituents in its institutional environment. This was executed through a case study of Jordbro Världsorkester (JVO) - a typical organisation in the civic society which takes the form of a social enterprise - by identifying how assets were used to gain resources in strategic responses to institutional processes and examining how institutional processes affects how JVO acts. Throughout the study, qualitative interviews were conducted with JVO and constituents in its institutional environment and a theoretical framework was developed which explains how capital is used to gain more capital in an emergent strategy of strategic responses as the organisation gets in contact with institutional processes from its institutional environment.

Background: Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, MiFID, was implemented in Swedish law in 2007 and aimed to increase competition of the securities market in order to achieve efficiency and lower transaction costs and to enhance investor protection. Another aim was to increase confidence in the market. After the implementation of MiFID some doubts had been highlighted regarding its intentional effects. This evoked the authors? interest to examine the directive?s effects and its impact on investors? trust.Aim: To examine how various participants in the Swedish securities market experienced changes since the implementation of MiFID in 2007, and its impact on the securities market and minor investors' trust.Method: The study applied a qualitative method with a deductive approach to describe, interpret and understand the problem area.

Following the implementation of IFRS with yearly impairment tests, the question of correlations and causalities between impairments and investors? decision making is gaining interest in academia. This essay will study the relationship between significant goodwill impairments, communicated on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm webpage between the years 2005-2009, and the impact those announcements have had on investors? decision making. Furthermore, the causality behind the impairments will be in focus.

To act responsible in relation to environmental, economic and social issues is a trend that is spreading among businesses and their investors. In order to assess business risks, ethical interested investors are calling for open, honest, clear CSR information that can be followed up in corporate sustainability reports. The ability to communicate about risks and to meet investors requests already in the business analytic process can save resources and increase the company?s profitability.The idea that companies should take responsibility for their impact on society from economic, environmental and social perspective is called Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR. In addition to CSR, there is another three-letter abbreviation in this context, PRI ? Principles for Responsible Investment ? which are principles, signed by ethically interested investors.

Non-profit organizations gain increasing attention in society but their legitimacy often decrease by scandals in separate organizations. Doctors without borders (MSF) constitutes an exception and has managed to retain their legitimacy. The aim of this study was to examine how MSF built and retained its legitimacy towards institutional actors in their environment, when the branch in general is suffering from a crisis of confidence. In a case study, this was done by identifying the institutional pressures on MSF and examining which strategies MSF uses to handle the pressures. The study was conducted through qualitative interviews with employees at MSF and actors in their environment.

In 1992, the European Union began institutionalizing the cooperation against terrorism within the EU structure. Since then, this cooperation has gone through a number of changes. From a historical institutionalistic point of departure we explain these changes by identifying sources of institutional resilience and institutional change. Based on these results, we were able to pose hypotheses of when and what category of change was most likely to take place.The results show that the cooperation against terrorism within the EU was most likely to remain stable because of strong sources of institutional resilience. If change would occur through an increase in the sources of institutional change, it was most likely to be of a less extensive category.

The aim of this study is to understand which roles institutional personnel in HVB-homes (homes for care or living), that include animals ascribe the animals for the young clients in treatment. Using the termsrole, role-taking, primary socialisation and secondary socialisation within the perspective of symbolic interactionism, we intend to analyse the expericences from the institutional personnel of what roles the animals are ascribed in treatment of young clients. We also wanted to find out if the institutional personnel have certain expectations on the animals as tools in the treatment and whether the institutional personnel believes that the animals have important roles in the treatment of the young clients.To find the answers of our aim and approach to our problems, we have used a qualitative study where we have interviewed six institutional personnel distributed in three different HVB-homes that uses animals in treatment of young clients. Our empirical material shows that the institutional personnel ascribe the animals a variety of roles, which among others are: friendly and familiar, meaningful, safe, comforting and soothing. Other roles that the institutional personnel ascribe the animals for the young clients are: teaching in order to develop empathy and responsibility; helping in therapy situation and having an activating role.

This study is an institutional analysis of the firm both as it is theoretically conceptualized and how it takes shape and changes. The role of power relations between manage¬ment and employees is especially examined with the aim of evaluating pos¬sible connections between the firm as an institution and power relations within it. Based on a comparison of two cases (two selected periods of the same organization) it asks ?How closely does each case match the conceptual characteristics of the firm??; ?What are the power relations between management and employees in each case??; and finally ?What factors account for the resulting differences??. It is found that there is a negative correlation between employee power and proximity to the firm as a concept.

This essay is about how organizations reveal their employees in the annual report. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which organizations reveals their employees in the annual report, and the purpose has three questions: How do the organizations present their employees in the annual report? What do they choose to report? What motives lies behind?The problem today is that organizations can´t account the employees as assets, they can only be accounted as an expense in the income statement. This can lead to that stakeholders can´t convey an organization's "true" value.With a combination study, we examined how organizations certified by Investors in People presents the employees in their annual reports. In the framework, we have, among other things dealt with personnel mandatory disclosure in the Annual Account Act, the difference between private- and public sectors accounting.