The decisions for investment are forward-looking and the base of a long-term strategy. The research within investment have focused on diverse formulas which are used in financial assessment, which also should be complemented with qualitative evaluation. Consequently, the focus should not only be on the execution of the formulas. Less time have been spent on research concerning what actually initiates the investment proposals and affects the decision-making. This will be highlighted in this essay.

The purpose of this study is to gain understanding of how self employed entrepreneurs (hereafter referred to as ?entrepreneurs?) develop their competence based on their perceived learning space. The main question is: How do these entrepreneurs develop their competence based on their perceived learning space? Other questions relevant for the study are: How important is the social environment for these entrepreneurs and how do they interact with their social environment in order to develop their competence. The study has a qualitative approach.

Large retirement numbers and fierce competition of available labour, results in municipalities have to be more attractive as an employer. One way for the municipalities to fulfil their staffing requirement is partly to increase their recruitment efforts, and partly to educate their existing employees. Discussions about the supply of competence are therefore pressing within municipal activity. The aim of the study was to investigate how the concept of competence is used within a municipal administration. The method that has been used is Norman Fairclough?s critical discourse analysis, a method that allows multi dimensional analysis.

Studies have shown that mergers and acquisitions often fail and that a reason to this might be that investment banks do not take any responsibility for the post merger integration. Despite this there have been no studies of the potential benefits of an investment bank taking a holistic approach to the M&A-process and including post merger integration in its service. This study identifies a couple of investment banks that does this and calls them holistic investment banks. In M&A-theory a successful process is often described according to so called success factors that need to be fulfilled in order to achieve a successful result of the merger or acquisition. The business model and work approach of one holistic investment bank is analyzed in this case study on the base of seven success factors from established theories.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate if a dynamic investment strategy on the Swedish asset market can accomplish better returns then a static investment strategy. The dynamic investment strategy is created by incorporating business cycle predictors and firm-level variables to predict future stock returns. The predictive regression is calculated wih 60 months of observation (1999 01-2005 12) and is then used to estimate future returns for 23 months in the period 2004 01 -2005 11. The structure of the regression, with linear functions of ? and ?, goes back to Shanken (1990) and Avramov and Chordia (2005) has had success with the variables chosen.

The purpose of the thesis is to map the meaning of ?international competence? in Swedish company boards of directors. The study is divided in a qualitative part and a quantitative part. The qualitative study consists of a discourse analysis where variation in interpretative repertoires are identified to enhance the understanding of the nature of reasoning related to the meaning and importance of the issue at stake. The discourse analysis is conducted on an empirical material from 27 interviews with decision makers in recruitment processes to Swedish company boards of directors.

Our purpose in this paper is to examine if there is any profitability for a company with a factory in the timber industry to invest in a combined heat and power, CHP. Based on analysis and the results that the paper generates, we will give Derome AB a suggestion on how it is a profitable investment or not to installing in a CHP.By investing in a CHP plant, you can get a high efficiency, which means that companies can use their resources more effectively. The Swedish wood industry has by-products of production that can be used for combustion in their boiler which is an advantage.The essay is a qualitative study where we have a case company, Derome AB. In this company, we interviewed two employees who have knowledge in the study. They have helped us to provide information and data about their business.We chose to use the pay-off- and the net present value method, NPV, to see if there are profitable advantages for the investment.

The purpose with our study is to investigate why Capgemini adopts the Rightshore strategy, how they implement this strategy and how it affects Capgemini?s core competence. We also aim to look at how the company?s knowledge management is supporting the offshoring strategey, in addition to how Capgemini ?keeps control of? its core competence in following the trend of offshoring to India?.

In the latest years the Swedish armed forces have gone from an armed force with conscripts to voluntary men and women. When the basic training is voluntarily may the question be if the new men and women have the same approach to Desirable competences and pedagogy that is used by their officers during their training. Desirable competences are a part of the model transformational leadership and are divided into task related competence, management competence, social competence and capacitate to cope with stress.To deal with this problem I have used questionnaires from conscripts and a new questionnaire made on voluntary recruits.I have compared the results in a case study method and it shows a positive progress from the recruits view how the officers use examples from the transformational leadership. The study shows that recruits want officers to make demands, motivate and inspire them. The recruits want to know the goal with the education and they want the officers to make demands on them..

This paper conducts a qualitative examination based on interviews with six childrens librarians. The purpose is to put a perspective on the librarians competence and focal knowledge within the area of reading promotion and reading stimulation aimed for children, and also to examine how this competence and knowledge is constructed. The work is based on the following questions: How do childrens librarians experience reading promotion and reading stimulation within their profession? Which competence and what knowledge do childrens librarians experience as most important in order to make their work with reading promotion and reading stimulation function? What can be concluded regarding the construction of their competence and knowledge? The analysis is carried out from theories about competence, tacit knowledge and reading promotion. Following primary conclusions are drawn from the study: The professional role is mainly experienced as promoting reading as pleasure, but also as an important factor for childrens language development.

Recently, the IASB and the FASB initiated a joint project to determine which companies that could be defined as investment entities and thus subject to an exception from IFRS 10 Consolidated Financial Statements. The first draft, ED/2011/4 Investment Entities, was published in 2011 and included six criteria that a company must meet in order to be classified as an investment entity. Based on academic theory, the fact that the IASB and the FASB published a joint proposal is interesting for several reasons. Traditional accounting theory tends to distinguish between two different approaches in standard setting: principles- and rules-based. The IASB is considered to have a principles-based approach, while the FASB is considered to have a rules-based approach.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the procurement of maintenance at SvK. Byunderstanding the process that has led to the current procurement strategy; providesuggestions to how the procurement of maintenance can be improved to ensure thequality of future maintenance of the national grid.A god client can be associated with a number of qualities, ?acquisition competence?.Vinnova describes acquisition competence as the ability to plan, formulate,communicate and monitor. Different businesses and industries have different needsand opportunities and operate in different economic structures which requireadjustments in their acquisition competence. A number of areas have been identified,called areas of focus, where clients can adjust their competences to their markets.The areas of focus are competition, competence/quality, control and communication.By defining the need of acquisition competence for SvK and identifying problems, anumber of suggested strategies have been proposed.

Upon marketing the system in Europe and the USA cost savings generated from reduced work force have been prevailing. Since the cost of labour is much lower in the Asia Pacific region other factors have to be stressed. The parameters of flexibility and quality assurance may however cover any initial investment in a production system. Our purpose is to value flexibility and quality in a manufacturing context, applied to DAS, in order to use it in investment calculations. In order to make an adequate estimation of different companies, due to problems associated with acquiring correct figures, the Key Success Factors needs to be examined so that the gathering of numbers can be conducted with more focus.

This thesis deals with questions about competences and qualities that librarians inpublic libraries find that they need to be qualified suppliers of literature (books andmagazines).Our aim is to problematize the competence of the profession in relation to promotingliterature, knowledge in literature and reading habits. We want to know what librariansthemselves think about their own competences when it comes to supplying andpromoting literature. Does it have to be a leisure interest or do they get the possibility toread during working hours?What do librarians think it means to be a qualified promotor of literature and how dothey acquire the right competence? Do they believe that their competence correspondswith the occupational requirements? How much of their knowledge about literature andpromoting literature comes from personal interest and commitment?We primarily used the theories about competence by Per-Erik Ellström. One of thetheories is the one of implicit and explicit knowledge.

When the costs for a company increase it is normal to look for alternatives to lower thesecosts. One of the expenditure that farmers have is energy costs. The price for the energy mayvary because of the free market. To look at the possibilities for a farmer to invest in sunpower, to make the company less sensitive for the changes on the electrical market, isinteresting. The biggest part of the electricity that is produced in Sweden comes from a fewcompanies on the market.