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.

The aim of this essay was to investigate the effects of adopting a site to the UNESCOs World Heritage List. Thefocus laid on the example of the Decorated Farmhouses of Hälsingland, which was the most recent Swedishadoption. With the question of impact of the World Heritage List in mind, the region of Hälsingland became themain focus. The study was made with particular focus on Gästgivars, a farm located in the municipality ofBollnäs, to which the theory of social life of things was applied. The result of the World Heritage was, in the caseof Gästgivars, an increase of the cultural value and social status.This case study has shown that the impact of the nomination has not been immense, but suggests that longtermeffects can show.

The eighth of august the Olympic games in Beijing started. The chinese regime promised to improve the human rights situation in the country if awarded the Olympic games 2008. The decision to place the games in Beijing arouse severe critique and many questioned how the International Olympic Committe could place the games in a country that so obviously violate basic human rights.The main purpose of this essay has been to analyse what consequences the Olympic Games has given the human rights situation in China. In order to accomplish this I have studied some specific human rights, which I consider to be directly linked to the games. I found that the situation for these human rights has infact worsened since 2001 when China was awarded the games.

Den här studien handlar om konsumenters adoption av fingeravtrycksläsare i mobiltelefoner. Att implementera fingeravtryck som en verifieringsmetod har blivit allt vanligare i mobiltelefoner. Under 2013 lanserades iPhone 5S med fingeravtrycksläsare. Därefter har två företag lanserat teknologin i sina premiumtelefon, Samsung Galaxy S5 och HTC One Max. Det har även blivit möjligt att utföra betalningar genom PayPal med hjälp av teknologin och snart kommer det även att gå att betala på Alibaba.com, vilket är en kinesisk variant av eBay.

Sambandet mellan samhällsutvecklingen och de växande miljöproblemen kom i slutet av 1980-talet att få en allt mer framskjuten roll på den politiska agendan i Sverige. I och med att energianvändningen står för en stor del av miljöproblemen har allt fler kommit att inse vikten av att uppnå en hållbar situation för energianvändandet. För att se hur arbetet mot en hållbar energianvändning fortskrider har International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) tagit fram en modell för detta. Studiens övergripande syfte har varit att analysera huruvida Sverige går mot en mer hållbar energianvändning med hjälp av IAEA:s indikatorer. Teorin i studien har baserats på grundläggande miljöekonomiska resonemang.

In this study we examine how the image of women, through framing and stereotyping in interviews, is constructed in the Swedish television morning show Gomorron Sverige on International Women?s Day. Our study is based on qualitative method, using the ECA (Ethnographic Content Analysis) model.Our main theoretical assumptions are that media contributes to constructing the images of reality we see in our heads, and that the images of women mediated through television are stereotypes which are displayed in the presenter?s questions and in the respondent?s answers. By defining the problems related to International Women?s Day, showing causal connections, making moral judgments and presenting solutions, television contributes to the viewer?s perception of what is important, why it is important, what is wrong and how to make it right.Based on our theoretical assumptions we have divided our study into three analytical themes:1.

The underlying purpose of this study is to see whether a library focused solely on providing literature in other languages than Swedish serves as a unifying, integrating force, or as an agent for division and exclusion. The study focuses on the International Library in Stockholm. The authors have created a profile of the visitors of the selected library, concerning their characteristics, their library habits and their perceptions of the International library. This profile has then been compared with the staff?s perception of the visitors as a group.

The aim of this essay is to analyze the implementation process of the International Baccalaureate?s Diploma Programme in four of the approximately 30 schools currently offering the IB at upper secondary level in Sweden. The starting point is a comparison between definitions in fundamental documents in the national programmes for Natural Science (NV) and Social Science (SP) on the one hand, and the IBDP on the other. The evaluation, based on Program theory, focuses in particular on the consistencies in the Organizational plans of each system.  The basic assumption is that the IB due to a deviating organizational system, different structures, aims and objectives makes a challenge for the dominating educational discourse, to use a concept by Michel Foucault, and that resistance against the IB therefore is to be expected.As a second part of the evaluation five people who either play, or have played the role of coordinators of the IB, and who thereby are responsible for the implementation, have been interviewed. The questions have been focused around in what sense the informants can confirm resistance in their implementation work due to the differences found in the first part of the evaluation, and in what ways it manifests itself.Finally, Michel Foucault?s power structures in connection to discourse analysis have been applied on the results of the two previous parts of the essay.

In Sweden, little research has been done on the topic of international exchange programs that various schools offer to their pupils. This study investigates how pupils view these exchange programs, and how in their opinion it affects their learning and their level of motivation. The study also investigates the motives for taking part in or declining an international exchange. To answer these questions a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews with pupils with and without experience respectively was carried out.The study indicates that pupils that have not taken part in an exchange believe that it is a time consuming quest that may affect the student?s results in other courses, which is not a belief shared by the other group.

It has been found that customers in the home market perceive the retailer?s store image more positively than customers in the host market, even though this study has found that theretailer?s store image is generally perceived very positively by customers in both examined markets. In addition, this thesis has found that there is a significant difference in how IKEA?smanagement and customers perceive its store image. It can also be concluded that IKEA management perceived store image more positively than customers.

This graduation thesis aims to give a survey of how cultural property is protected withininternational law and how these protections worked during the conflicts in the formerYugoslavia and later at the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY.Cultural heritage is important symbols for ethnicity, religion or political views. Because ofthis cultural property has been targeted in armed conflicts as long as can beremembered. The protection of cultural property within international law has developedfrom the midst of the 19th century up til today and is still developing towards strongerprotection. One of the latest armed conflicts where the cultural property became targetedwas the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990?s.

The aim of this paper is to get a deeper understanding if research about international relations has any practical meaning. The main focal point is about the importance of the scholar idea soft power, and its meaning on foreign policy actions through expressions. A quantity and quality method is used. The point of the main theory that concerns international relations takes a rationalistic perspective, and expands it to the notion that ides can have an impact on policy outcomes. Three different types of research utilization can be traced to determine in which way an idea is getting implemented.

The intention of this study is to investigate why some regions, which choose to secede from their parent country, are internationally recognized and others are not. The case studies of this study are South Sudan and Somaliland. South Sudan is as of now the world?s newest state, and Somaliland is a break-away state that is considered a part of Somalia by the International community. There are conditions that have to be fulfilled, before existing nations recognize the break-away state, such as an agreement between the seceded state and the parent country, which was the case for South Sudan and Sudan.

Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att ta reda på vilka faktorer och risker som påverkar köpbeslutet för en konsument gällande en ny innovativ produkt. Uppsatsen kan på så sätt bidra med kunskap och förståelse för företag som vill utveckla den här typen av produkter. Studiens inriktning och syfte togs fram i samarbete med textilföretaget FOV Fabrics. Med utgångspunkt ur syftet och problemet genomfördes en enkätundersökning som kompletterades med semi-strukturerade intervjuer med fyra av enkätrespondenterna. Resultatet av enkätundersökningen analyserades och jämfördes med resultatet av intervjuerna.

In Sweden the work of reducing acidification and its prime cause; emission and deposition of sulphur dioxide, has been going on for decades. Despite of all the work that has been done the positive progress in the acidified areas is slow. This is partly due to a long recovery time for the acidified areas but also because the reductions of emission and deposition of sulphur dioxide have not been large enough. Emissions of sulphur dioxide from land based source in Sweden are estimated to 34 000 tons in the year of 2010. During the same year, approximately 182 000 tons of sulphur dioxide will be deposited over the Swedish territory.