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.

Mergers between companies has become more and more common in Sweden and in the rest of the world with the motive to increase the competitive strength in the current markets and has an important role within organisational development of companies. When organisations merger there is not only buildings and objects that are put together but also their individual organisational structures, people, values and cultures. This can be a difficult process and can affect many people in how they think conscious as well as unconscious, feel and react.The purpose of this thesis is to gain a deeper understanding of how employees are affected following a merger when changes in the organisational culture come up, and how these changes are expressed.This thesis is delimited to investigate only one company, Skruf Snus AB and only focus on their business and employees in the region of Stockholm. The thesis contains a qualitative investigation with semi structured interviews that has been carried out with eight employees at Skruf Snus AB. The thesis is partly based on a model of Schein which describes the different levels in organisational culture and partly on some theories about reactions to change in relation to the integration between the employees following a merger.The results of the investigation indicate that with a merger the whole organisational culture is affected and therefore also the employees.

This thesis deals with the concept of soft balancing, traditionally defined as the diplomatic means of restraining a dominant state's ability to exercise its military power. As the dominant power in today's unipolar system, the United States, and other states? behaviour towards it, is the focus of analysis. The aim of this thesis is to explore the possibilities of developing the concept of soft balancing so as to include strategies to restrain also the political and economic capabilities of a dominant power. The thesis also considers the possibilities of soft balancing that small states ? to a large extent overlooked in existing theories on the subject - can possess.As a state with policies that aim to reduce the U.S.

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.

This study focuses on why people not longer want to be a part of a religious communion they have earlier been a part of. To examine this I have made seven interviews with people who have left their previous communions. Together with the methodological and theoretical discussions on discourse analysis, Richard Jenkins discussions on identity and theories concerning the post-modern society, I have made an analysis on how these people consider their previous communions and its members. They refer i.e. to the social control, the ?closed? culture and the non-questioning-culture that constitute the communions and its techniques.

The aim of this study is to explore the approach and views on female genital mutilation(FGM) among young women from Somalia, and how they perceive the tradition afterimmigration to Sweden. This is structured under the following questions: What do theyknow about FGM? What are their experiences? And what do they reckon about FGMtoday? The study is based on one recorded interview with a group of young femalesfrom Somalia. The data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The women?sfeelings were ambivalent though they on one hand opposed FGM because of serioushealth risks, but on the other hand were conscious of the tradition?s great influence inthe social network and daily life.

This thesis aims to develop a theory in the under researched field of international comparative cultural policy studies. lt does so by combining theories from the fields of political scienceand cultural studies, researching how and to what extent the concepts of culture of different states have an impact on the way cultural policies are constructed.The thesis uses this theoretical development in order to research a specific problem, namely the perceived possibility that Swedish and German cultural structures are slowly converging. Two recent official policy documents from each country are the objects of study. Through comparative idea analysis and with Michiel S. D Vries theories on decentralization, the thesis explains the convergence between the countries by differing cultural views between them.

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.

The purpose with this essay is to contribute with knowledge on how pedagogues in Swedish schools can prevent cultural clashes between themselves and their pupils and between pupils from different cultural backgrounds.The survey is done with qualitative interviews with three pedagogues.The result shows the importance that the pedagogues are positive to cultural meetings and that they acquire intercultural competence. The result also shows that the interviewed pedagogues acquired competences through direct meeting with students and their parents, courses, lectures and literature.The conclusion of this essay is that if pedagogues obtain more knowledge about their own and other`s culture, it would prevent cultural clashes in school.I believe that if the pedagogue teaches his/her students that there are different ways to think in the world, fewer cultural clashes would occur between the students.Key words: culture clash, education, communication.

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.

This bachelor of economics paper discuss that the increasing globalization has put the small companies in the Swedish textile and clothing industry in a situation where internationalization has become a necessity. Furthermore has the European Union lead to that this type of companies has to seek growth on foreign markets with great socio cultural distance from the home country, Sweden. Nowadays there?s no time to internationalize in the same course of action like before. Before, the Swedish companies begun their operations abroad in fairly nearby countries and only gradually penetrated more far-flung markets.

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.

This study aim?s to examine how conceptions regarding culture and ethnicity influence the daily work of personnel in integration projects financed by the European Social Fund (ESF). The method of this study was individual semi-structured interviews with nine persons working in three different projects. The reason why we have chosen these specific projects was because of their work with immigrant participants. Concepts that our study is based on was culture and ethnicity, but also the theory considering in-groups and out-groups.

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.

Many organizations strive to be transnational. This means that individuals with different cultural background will work together. Countries around the world have their own culture, which mark the way individual?s think and act. Different values between leaders and their subordinates are often a key factor to misunderstandings and conflicts in transnational organisations.