Currently there is a tendency in the EU to adjust the minimum-capital requirement. In France and Germany the requirement for private limited liabilities has been totally abolished, whilst other countries have chosen to reduce their requirement. The Swedish law concerning the minimum-capital requirement is from 1st of April 2010 being lowered to 50 000 SEK. In common law jurisdictions such as United Kingdom and USA a minimum-capital requirement does not exist. The european main argument to keep such a requirement is that it accomplishes a creditor protection.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to test for the existence of Capital Structure Arbitrage oppertunities in the equity-credit markets. Methodology: The mispricing of Credit Default Swap contracts are calculated and used as input in an Equity-Credit market trading strategy. The returns are then evaluated with a modified Value-at-Risk simulation. Theoretical perspectives: A Merton-based structural model, CreditGrades, is used for credit pricing and a mispricing-convergence trading-strategy between the credit and equity markets is implemented. Empirical foundation: Daily quotes for the Credit Default Swap spread of 37 European firms were collected for a period of two years, as well as equity-prices for the same period and the previous two years, used for model calibration.

We have through our theoretical framework been able to create a simplified measuring tool for a KIZ; the S-TKL. We have found that the S-TKL is possible to implement on the Öresund Region but with some flaws. Even though the Öresund Region has implemented the mindset of a KIZ, accurate statistics are in some areas hard to find. We can also through our empirical findings say that it is difficult to use the S-TKL on Shenzhen. The data we have found gives a good indication of both of the regions.

Outsourcing in IS/IT offers organizations the possibility to use external resources, maximize flexibility and focus on core business, this prompts many organizations today to be less keen on developing IS/IT-services in-house. Sourcing IS/IT is however a complex activity in itself thus requiring competencies in many areas of expertise and lots of organizations has experienced the challenge of managing the necessary competencies to ensure successful Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO). A literature review in the field of outsourcing revealed the lack of a comprehensive competency management framework with the ability to guide competency resource planning in ITO projects. In order to highlight the problem area, an extensive and thorough literature review and an empirical case study which investigated the skills and assets in ITO projects at ten major Swedish organizations was conducted. The study found that it is possible for organizations through structured analysis of their Intellectual Capital, using the competency framework developed within the study, to plan sourcing processes and prepare the necessary changes to ensure the ITO projects can be implemented with the desired effect..

There is no commonly accepted definition of a business method. It ought to consist of a method or a process of doing business. Business methods constitutes a broad category of patents, it is hard to tell exactly what can be interpreted in to the term. Most of the world's legal systems have made an exception from patentability for business methods. In the USA the exception was abolished in a case 1998.

The history of Banu Umayya has since the collapse of the caliphate occupied a major part in Islamic historiography. The present thesis analyses the presentation of the Umayyads in Ibn Khaldun?s al-Muqaddima and its relation to previous historical traditions. The thesis examines the social and intellectual context in which Ibn Khaldun stood and how it is represented in his historiography, while also providing an overview of the various socio-political, intellectual and historiographical developments in Islam. The theoretical perspectives are based on the concept of agency, examining the intellectual room for manoeuvre that the historian disposed of while composing the works.

The purpose of this study is to investigate which types of cultural capital gives high status in the current field of ?the creative industry? ? a group which could be seen as a new power elite in Gothenburg ? and how people with the ?right? cultural capital is included in the field. The author is invited to several free events within this field, and is investigating the process of inclusion with an auto-ethnographic method. The study will show that the process of inclusion is working quite absolute in the field of the creative industry, and that the audiences are mainly homogenous: masculine, white, middle class, has a taste disposition of the ?eclectic omnivore?, has entrepreneurial knowledges and is an active social media agent.

The thesis has two aims to first describe the phenomena by explaining how interim management works and what the charachteristics of an interim manger are. The second aim is to look at the value issue of interim management; What value does an interim manager provide to a company and how do interim managers try to capture and cultivate this?The qualitative method has been used. The interim management market analysed in this thesis can be stated to consist of three parts; the interim manager as a provider of knowledge, a client firm in need of a temporary manager, and an interim agency in between working as an intermediary/supplier. The characteristics of interim managers are; they are in general self-employers and rather generalists than specialists, meaning they are experienced and have great knowledge skills.

According to Swedish tax legislation, investment funds are taxed differently depending on if the are Swedish or foreign. The difference between the investment funds lies within the taxation of received dividends and the opportunity to shift the liability of tax of received dividends on to the funds shareholders. This measure is only available to Swedish funds. The question in this thesis is whether this difference is discriminatory against foreign investors and therefore constitutes a forbidden restriction against the free movement of capital stated in article 63 EUF Treaty.The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has given several preliminary rulings on this type of legislation and its compatibility with the principle of free movement of capital. It is not compatible with the free movement according to the court.

Companies financed through borrowed capital are allowed a tax deduction for the costs re-lated to their borrowed capital. A similar tax relief for companies financed through share-holder?s equity does not exist, why these companies are taxed higher than companies fi-nanced by borrowed capital. The result is that there is an asymmetric tax treatment of companies depending on how they are financed.The autumn of 2012, the Swedish government presents a proposal for an investor deduc-tion which seeks to equalize the above mentioned asymmetry. The proposed investor de-duction is a tax relief for investments in shares in a startup- or small company equal to 50 percent of the acquisition cost of that investment.The venture capital deduction, which in this thesis is treated as an alternative to the inves-tor deduction, is an interest-free tax credit which significate that two-thirds of the acquisi-tion cost is deductible from taxation at the time of the acquisition.

The purpose of this study is to examine how school meals are organized in a selection of Stockholm's secondary schools and to examine the relationship between school meals and the different parameters that indicate each school's symbolic capital and educational capital. By looking at the statistics from each school on the basis of the final grade average, percentage of pupils with foreign background and gender, I examine whether it is possible to see a relationship between how schools organize meals and which pupils attend the school.  In my study, I systematically went through each school's website and tried to identify how school meals at each school are organized. To increase the validity of the study, I have also conducted a questionnaire survey by mail addressed to school principals.   In order to analyse and understand my results and put them in relation to my current knowledge about the schools in my sample, I am using Bourdieu's theoretical tools that a given aid, both in methodological and analytical purpose. Based on Bourdieu's theories of symbolic capital, cultural capital and educational capital, I can understand and analyse school meals are organized and focused as part of schools' symbolic assets in competition with other schools.   The first part of the study shows that there are four different organizational models for school meals, fully equipped kitchen and canteen, heating kitchen and canteen, school meals in restaurants and school meal card.    In the second part, I have examined the relationship between the type of organization for school meals used and the symbolic resources available at the school. I can conclude from the results that it is difficult to find a correlation between the symbolic resources and the different categories. But even though it is not possible to see all the schools' symbolic assets equally clear, there are still some very telling examples. In many ways, these examples can be seen as polar opposites to each other based on Mikael Palme?s concepts ?goal rational? and ?education oriented? schools..

För att skapa fler jobbtillfällen och driva på BNP-tillväxten i Sverige krävs det att små och medelstora företag får möjligheten att utvecklas och växa. För att klara det krävs det mer kapital från venture capital-marknaden, som är den viktigaste källan av finansiering för ett nystartat företag. Det har dock varit tuffa år för venture capital-bolagen sedan finanskrisen slog till. Den problemformulering som legat till grund för studien var följande:Hur har finanskrisen och den pågående eurokrisen påverkat venture capital-bolagens investeringsprocess?Studien syftade till att undersöka hur finanskrisen och den pågående skuldkrisen i Europa påverkat de svenska venture capital-bolagen och dess marknad.

The purpose of this study is to explore the concept of the immigrant-writer. By studying the literary criticism on four debutants, all of whom have been categorised as immigrant-writers, I have come to the conclusion that the critics tend to focus on the authors' otherness. By using postcolonial theory I've analysed the role as representatives of a supposed other reality that is imposed on these four authors by the literary critics. The theories of Pierre Bourdieu, especially his concepts of symbolic capital, literary field and position, have been used to contextualise these conclusions. Although the otherness that the critics accentuate seems to work as a negative symbolic capital in a bigger societal perspective, in the author's position within the literary field it grows their positive symbolic capital.

Entrepreneurship is considered essential for the Swedish economy, as well as globally. Accordingly,massive efforts are put into creating environments that successfully can support new ventures. The business incubator is a prominent part of these efforts and is important especially for the knowledge shared within its internal network. The aim of this study is to further explore how different activitieswithin the incubator can influence the interaction, and thereby the construction of social capital,among the incubatees. Using a qualitative case study of three incubators, and the framework of theincubator model, it is concluded that three distinguishing components within the framework influence the interaction, namely infrastructure, mediation and business support.

The cost of capital for traded companies is basically assessed on information from thefinancial market. Small and non-traded companies are lack of this necessary financialmarket information in order to determine an appropriate equity risk premium and tocompute the cost of capital.In the absence of financial information necessary for an external investor, it is difficult toevaluate a non-traded company with the Capital Asset Pricing model (CAPM), which isbased on the financial market information. It measures only the systematic risk, which isthe contribution of one share to the market risk of a portfolio. It is therefore important tofind models that reflect the small and non-traded companies? real business value and theirunique characteristics.