All companies face risk in their daily business. Internationalised companies tend to experience higher risk due to for example unfamiliar business environment than companies that act only on the national market. Estonia became independent as late as in 1991 and is therefore a new interesting market for many companies in neighbouring countries like Sweden. Risks that are most apparent for an internationalised company are political risk, currency risk, capital and interest rate risk, business risk and credit risk. Our intention of this study was to find out how Swedish companies acting on the Estonian market faced the different risks when entering the Estonian market and how they value the risks today.

Stock lending is primarily a professional activity. The supply of stocks in the lending market comes mainly from pension funds and insurance companies, while intermediaries provide valuable services by taking positions as borrowers as well as lenders. Borrowers use stock lending for various reasons. For instance, hedge funds usually borrow stocks to cover a short position. There has been a lot of controversy in the stock lending industry and the debate has mainly concerned its effects for the stock markets.

Stock lending is primarily a professional activity. The supply of stocks in the lending market comes mainly from pension funds and insurance companies, while intermediaries provide valuable services by taking positions as borrowers as well as lenders. Borrowers use stock lending for various reasons. For instance, hedge funds usually borrow stocks to cover a short position. There has been a lot of controversy in the stock lending industry and the debate has mainly concerned its effects for the stock markets.

The purpose of this essay was to find an understanding of what factors whichaffect refugee reception in two municipalities in the southern part of Sweden, themunicipality of Vellinge and the municipality of Landskrona. Three interviewswere made with three local politicians and these interviews were then analysedusing postcolonial theory. With the help of Matthew J. Gibney we identified sevenfactors which aided us in the analysis these were: Integration history, Ethnicaffinity, Determining who is a refugee, The wealth of the municipality, Thehousing market, The labour market and The action of other municipalities.We found that these factors were all useful in creating an understanding ofrefugee reception in the two municipalities. However they affected themunicipalities differently.

The purpose of this paper was to discuss stigma and stigmatisation in relation to social policy and social work. By discussing welfare systems in social policy I wanted to see if there could be any connection between social policy and stigma. I used case studies of hearing impaired adults to give examples of how the stigma processes work. By connecting the stigma and the social policy theories with the case studies I wanted to see how the social policy could affect the stigma processes or vice versa.In the paper the concept of stigma has been described and discussed, foremost using the theories of Erving Goffman. I have also discussed the welfare system and the connection between residual systems and stigma.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to investigate how librarians solve difficult reference questions. The aim is to discuss the nature of reference work ? do librarians make conscious decisions regarding search strategies or do they rely principally on their instincts, or simply chance. The thesis is a qualitative study.

Threats and violence, or the risk of being subjected to threats and violence in the workplace, is a major health and safety problems that exists in many professions. To be exposed to threats and violence can have serious consequences for the employee's health but also for the organization in question. The aims of this study was to investigate the prevalence of threats and violence at the Swedish Migration Board detention, and to examine whether there were health problems among employees who may be exposed to threats and violence. A web-based questionnaire was answered by 29 employees (response rate = 51 percent). The results showed that more employees had been exposed to verbal threats (66 percent), compared to physical violence (10 percent), and they showed a greater tendency to report physical violence, as opposed to verbal threats.

Media has the power to influences society. Some call them the third power of a state. Through amongst others, the agenda setting theory and the framing theory, this report seeks to understand how media describes the swine influenza and how it uses its power to influence people to vaccinate. As this report will show, there is no doubt that media has had an impact on the Swedish population of which 60 per cent followed through with the vaccination. Media used an information discourse and attempted to present its articles in an impartial manner and used governmental authorities and experts to support its arguments.

Detta examensarbete har genomförts vid Mälarenergi Elnät AB i Västerås. Undersökningen föranleddes av regeringsbeslutet om att elmätare måste avläsas en gång per månad från 2009. Konsekvensen för Mälarenergi är att de måste investera i ett automatiskt mätinsamlingssystem. Syftet med projektet har varit att skapa en generell investeringsmodell för att ekonomiskt utvärdera ett antal mätinsamlingssystem. I rapporten har Milabs, Seneas, Enermets, HM Powers, Iprobes samt Techems och Viterras system analyserats.

? Does Karlstad municipality have adequate institutional conditions to make the best use ofthe citizens? proposals??The purpose with the thesis is to investigate if citizens? proposals lead to a broader politicalinfluence. To answer that, I have done a case study about how Karlstad municipal administers citizens? proposals. The research assignment is: Does Karlstad municipal have adequate institutional conditions to make the best use of the citizens? proposals? The perspective is a democracy perspective and the theory is institutional theory and policy process theory.A selection of citizens? proposals that have arrived to Karlstad municipal between 2008 and 2010 have been studied in detail to analyze how the proposals have been administered and if it matters how the proposals are phrased.

The aim of this study is to investigate which management control mechanisms evolve in companies that receive funding from Venture Capital companies and why the management control systems evolve in the way that they do. A case study was performed on three Swedish high technology companies, that all received funding from Venture Capital companies for the first time in 2006. Merchant?s framework, defining all management control mechanisms as either, results control, action control or personnel control, was used to structure the study. Results show that the companies that received Venture Capital all increased the use of management control mechanisms within results control, action control and personnel control.

Purpose: The main objective of this study is to research whether an announcement of an acquisition generates positive/negative abnormal short-term return towards the buying company?s shareholders. The secondary purpose is to research whether any differences could be due to selected factors: firm size and industry.Method: The study is quantitative in nature where the research aims at the stock price movement around the announcement of an acquisition. The sample size includes 30 companies between the years 2000-2010. The abnormal return is investigated by an Event Study.Conclusion: Our study shows that the publication gives a positive abnormal return in comparison to the respective sector indexes.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute with knowledge regarding the connection between the socialization process and the organizational commitment perceived by junior accountants. Based on Van Maanen and Schein's (1979) model, we intend to identify and describe how selected socialization strategies affect junior accountants? perceived affective, continuous and normative commitment during the initial five years in the firm.Research methodology: Semi-structured interview was chosen as the key approach for gathering essential data. Interviews were conducted at three major accounting firms with a total of eight interview participants. The study has a qualitative approach because of the ability to go in depth on the studied phenomenon.Conclusion: The socialization process consists of individual, informal, sequential, fixed, serial, and investiture strategies.

This paper thoroughly investigates needs and requirements for overhead distribution feeder inspection and develops models to investigate possible relations between short term inspections remarks and outages. The study was conducted in collaboration with Fortum Distribution AB that supplied extensive information about their overhead power feeders concerning both inspection and power outages. The investigated models where lognormal linear model, Poisson generalized linear model and negative binomial generalized linear model. All models were implemented utilizing offset terms to compensate for differences in feeder length and amount of overhead versus underground feeders. The Poisson generalized linear model was rejected at an early stage due to overdispersion and neither of the remaining models fit the data perfectly.

This study is about state officials who handle applications for sickness benefits and about municipal officials who handle applications for financial assistance. The purpose of this study is to explore the differences between the two professional roles regarding their conception about their exercise of authority, in terms of flexibility, individual adjustment, empathy and legal security.The study has a qualitative approach and is based on structured interviews with two state officials and two municipal officials. The questions that this study aims to answer are:- Is there a difference between state officials and municipal officials regarding their experience and use of flexibility? - Is there a difference between state officials and municipal officials regarding their perceptions of legal security, individual adjustment and empathy in their exercise of authority? - What kind of bureaucracy can you find in the two organizations?The results show that the state officials in this study have very limited flexibility due to legislation which makes their exercise of authority neither empathic nor individual. The municipal officials in this study state in their turn that the law entails broad flexibility and the opportunity for them to be empathic and to make individual decisions.