The purpose of this thesis is to examine the conflict of interest between shareholders, life insurance companies and insurers in stock life insurance companies operated on a mutual basis from an agency-theoretic perspective. Further, this thesis aims to explore from an ownership-theoretical perspective, why this conflict of interest exist. A qualitative research has been performed and the empirical data is foremost based on interviews with persons from the life insurance industry and public prints. The study concludes that the stock life insurance company operated on a mutual basis has two principals whose interests are in conflict. History has shown that stockowners? interests have been prioritized on the expense of the insurers.

The general consensus is that the gap between the Swedish variable mortgage rate and the repo rate has increased over the last years. Although the Riksbank in recent times has cut its base rate, many banks have chosen either to leave the interest rate on variable mortgages unchanged, or they did reduce it but by less points than the reduction in the repo rate. The linear relationship between the repo rate and the variable mortgage rate has changed over the last decade and the mortgage margins these days are relatively high. This can somewhat be explained by the new rules introduced in the bank sector requiring banks to increase liquidity and equity. Since mortgage loans play an important role in banks? lending business it is of interest to gain knowledge in whether a repo rate reduction latterly has generated a limited affect on the banks lending rates..

Sustainability is today a current topic and companies are more or less forced to work with it even though it contradicts the historical role of companies, which is to generate a profit for shareholders. In recent years there has been a rising interest from banks to work with sustainability but research has shown a growing dissatisfaction among customers even though banks are spending a lot of money and time working with sustainability. This shows that there is an asymmetry between how the banks act and what their customers demand. The purpose of this paper is to create an understanding of how business customers perceive banks´ CSR-reports by investigating customers? interest in these reports.

This master thesis is about art activity in the public library. The essay takes its starting point from Government cultural political directives and my purpose has been to study how these are followed up in the municipal level. My survey takes place at the main library of Flen in the county of Södermanland. What I am looking for is, what the art activity looks like, what is decided regarding it and what the strategies are. Furthermore I look into how library visitors understand and participate in the art activity.

The aim with this paper was to find out how the brachycephalic look affects the health of dogs that have these features. Due to limitations in size, it was decided to concentrate on five common brachycephalic breeds in Sweden. Research methods included literature studies, questionnaires, a written interview and online sources. From the results it can be concluded that the way these dogs are built has a large influence on their health, particularly when it comes to respiration and giving birth. .

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how Digital Signage systems such as public info kiosks can be designed to better fulfill its main use; to enlighten, encourage and influence the public with information. The challenges presented from earlier studies shows that the public interests and goals, together with proper and relevant content displayed in info kiosks have impact on the attention the public have towards public displays. Qualitative methods such as interviews, usability testing and observations were conducted to further examine how a public info kiosk can be designed to draw attention and grow interest amongst students at K3, Malmo University. Usability testing were used on the digital prototypes that were developed to ensure that the gestural user interface meet the requirements of a proper interaction from the users. Important insights were made concerning; the attention and interest to relevant content, the aspects of the gestural user interface along with the placement of the info kiosk in terms of context.

The aim of this paper is to examine, by means of a quantitative method, whether using a Swedish athlete endorser in a sports advertisement will increase its effectiveness. We examine which characteristics an athlete endorser needs to be able to make people form a positive attitude towards the athlete endorser and thereby make him or her successful in advertising. We also look into whether an interest in sports can affect the advertisement effectiveness when using a Swedish athlete endorser. The results show that a well-liked Swedish athlete endorser generates highest ad effectiveness and that the most important characteristics that contribute to form a positive attitude towards an athlete endorser are trustworthy, physical attractiveness, success in sports and ?successful in respondent?s mind?.

In this work, I describe the factors that affect the bucking of pine logs on the basis of the machine operator. The aim is to find an explanation why the bucking differs so greatly between requested length results and the actual length results in pine bucking. The used methods in this study were data from simulated pine outcomes, data from earlier length outcomes and analysis of the harvesters' PRI files. This is to identify the problem. To explain the background to the problems a qualitative research interview was used.

This essay deals with the paradox of why the immigrants in Sweden, despite their considerable size of 12 % of the population and common interest and living opportunities, haven?t mobilized politically in any significant way. The aim with this essay is to reach a theoretical understanding of why this paradox exist. By the use of a critical case and a theoretical model, based on theories of collective action, the conclusion of this essay is that, despite the fact that the immigrants have a common interest and an organizational structure, the immigrants in Sweden has not mobilized politically in any significant way. The main reason for this is that they have a weak common identity and they don?t have the structural opportunities to act..

The paint market of today is a jungle whit an enormous range of different paint types; there all has different properties and different compositions, some with big influence on the environment and some whit less influence on the environment. It could even be difficult for an expert to always know what should be used on which surface and what would be the best out of the environmental point of view.This work is not intended as a total review of all the manufactures range of colours; only as a deeper dissertation about distemper paint in general, in particular Falu Red Paint. Whit focuses on the environmental issues.The work is especially for those who are ready to paint but don?t know what paint they should chose and people that has a interest in paint and environment, perhaps it also could be of interest for professional painters even when there probably isn?t any big news for them. The information is compiled from the Internet and downloaded brochures from the Internet..

Descartes sharp distinction between body and mind has had a severe influence on the culture of the western world. We now have a constructed system of knowledge that discards perception asunreliable and instead admits only deduction as the adequate method of understanding oursurroundings and ourselves.But what are we, if not human?And what would our lives be like without our dreams, the passions of our hearts and the sensationsof our sense organs?Irrational as it all may seem, these aspects form our existence, giving us pleasure, experience andknowledge beyond what we plan or try to predict. It is the fuel that keeps us going, fighting, loving.So how come we seek to explain everything? How come we seek the approval of others in matters we should be confident enough to judgeourselves? Why can't we embrace all the aspects of what it means to be alive? I state that the society and culture of the western world offers great possibilities for expression andcommunication.

The purpose of this study was to investigate pupils' and teachers' experiences of using the simulator computer game Minecraft in connection with the Swedish school competition Future City. The study examines how students (ages 14-15) and teachers have experienced the use of Minecraft, what the students have learned in relation to everyday education and the different forms of education during Future City and also examine which patterns that exists in the experiences of the students, with personal interest of and knowledge of Minecraft as a benchmark. The study was conducted through individual semi-structured interviews with both students and teachers. The analysis of the results is based upon a theoretical perspective that includes a socio-cultural view of learning, as well as the lines of reasoning in previous research about computer games and learning. As a general approach towards the study, and in a way, a justification of the chosen research method, a hermeneutic approach was used.

The activity of interest groups in the political process of the European Union has given rise to a broad debate concerning the effect on European democracy these groups have. As relatively powerful political actors, the question of these groups? views on the EU and how the union should be is an important one. The status of these groups owns democratic representation also affects the democratic status of the EU. Being based on a number of theories, this study adopts an ideology analysis for the purpose of testing these theories on two cases ? the Swedish environmental organizations World Wide Fund for Nature and The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.

Payday loans are becoming a challenge of increasing gravity for society. Statistics show that the number of young adults with financial issues related to such loans has been growing over the past few years. Despite efforts to halt this trend, little is changing. Government mandated warning labels in commercials are typically used to inform about the risks associated with the consumption of certain goods and services, such as alcohol and tobacco. Despite issues related to payday loans, there is currently no legislation in Sweden mandating the inclusion of warnings in marketing of such loans.

Title: Global Reporting Initiative - A comparative study on compliance with the initiative's guidelines between Ericsson and Vattenfall.Authors: Peter Leidhammar, Mattias ThorénSupervisor: Bo EnquistExaminer: Margareta BjurkloSeminar Date: 2009-01-14Background and problem formulation: The interest and the requirements that stakeholders have for companies sustainability issues are becoming increasingly important. Thus more companies are increasing their work on their sustainability reports. As there are no laws governing how these are to be designed, standards have been created by various organizations that companies voluntarily can follow. Now, after the Swedish government gave them the directive to follow the GRI's guidelines the Swedish public companies have started to follow this trend. The question then stand how much the private companies' sustainability reports differ from state companies and whether this can be traced to the differences in the companies' ownership and their stakeholders picture.Objective: The purpose of the paper is:· analyze how the GRI's guidelines are followed by the two organizations· highlight differences between them from a theoretical perspectiveLimitations: This paper is limited to two companies, one company owned by the government and one privately-owned company.