This thesis aim to advance the Liberal Integrovernmentalism (LIG) developed byAndrew Moravcsik in order to order to explain how the European Court of Justice (ECJ) can make de facto EU policies diverge from what was originally intended by the Member States. More specifically it describes how the Posting of Workers Directive, Directive 96/71/EC, originally was created to shield certain Member States and their respective systems of regulating the labour market from pressure arising from the posting of workers form low-wage countries inside the EU. However, through a series of cases in the ECJ the de facto policy of the directive has changed and it is now in itself a potential threat against these systems. The Member States now find themselves caught in a ?Joint-Decision Trap?, unable to rectify the situation even though their original agreement has been turned on its head.

This thesis seeks to explain the effect of private equity ownership on the amount of invest- ments made in a company. We use three capital expenditure based key ratios to determine if there is a tendency for private equity owned firms to invest more or less than comparable companies. Our dataset involve 27 Swedish buyout companies that were sold by a private equity fund between 2001 and 2009. Each buyout is assigned a peer group of two firms in similar size and in the same industry. Firstly, we compare the key ratios to determine potential differences in the level of investment.

The first version of the Swedish Code of Corporate Governance was published year 2004, by the code group, Kollegiet, after a mission from the Swedish government. The Code consists a collection of rules and standards about corporate governance and internal control, and the first version was intended to include incorporated limited companies on Stockholm?s alpha stocks, and also listed companies with a stock market value over three thousand million Swedish kronor. Now a few years have passed, and in July 2008 a new, revised version of the Code was implemented, now simplified and shorted, with the intention to include all joint-stock companies in Sweden. The Code contains rules about for example ownership, management commitments, annual stockholders meetings, and the accountant. This study intends to, with a qualitative research approach and an inductive reasoning, through studies of empirics in the subject, review whether the accountant?s profession has been influenced by the Code.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the theoretical developments on social entrepreneurship. Our purpose is to create a better understanding of the phenomenon leading to new insights. We have categorized the knowledge of the concept into social economy, social ownership, social innovation and social missions. Drawing from our theoretical review we have chosen four empirical illustrations, Grameen Bank, Wikipedia, Basta Arbetskooperativ, Jörn Hälsogemenskap, and we have shown how these fit into the general description of the social entrepreneur. With help of our illustrations we show that it is complicated to pin point the core of social entrepreneurship as they each have separate structures, innovations, social missions and operate close to different sectors.

This thesis examines the established theories on the phenomena of merger of equals. In contrast to an acquisition, a merger of equals is complex since the very nature of it entails that none of the involved parties are in control. Merger of equals are therefore viewed as one of the most difficult types of partnership and data show that over fourty percent of all mergers fail to achieve their targets. Still, research on the phenomena is limited. The main purpose of this thesis is to analyse the implicit factors to why a merger of equals fail.

Purpose: To examine the governance mechanisms and the competence PE-firms adds to theirholding companies through an active ownership in order to create growth.Methodology: A qualitative study with interviews as its main source of data.Theoretical perspectives: Corporate governance and relevant theories within that subjectsuch as agent theory, board of directors and management. Previous research within the subjectwill also be presented.Empirical foundation: The empirical foundation consists of three conducted interviews anddata collected from the chosen PE-firms as well as six different holding companies.Conclusions: The governance mechanisms used in the PE-firms we have chosen are stronglyrelated to both theories within corporate governance as well as previous research on thesubject. The governance mechanisms being used are an explicit owners agenda and strategy, athorough acquisition process, usage of external competence, active ownership through theboard of directors and the insertion of incentive systems..

This final thesis consists of an investigation of how suitable it is to vertically integrate forest in Swedish forest companies. Different strategies to obtain raw materials have been evaluated and the advantages and disadvantages have been weighted against each other. The investigations contain a number of interviews with represents from companies with different strategies and persons that in different ways have faced the question of issue. An account study of SCA´s forest ownership has also been performed. The benefits for a forest company to vertical integrate forest consist mainly of safety in delivery, control over the supply chain and company image.

IRB 340, Flexpicker is an industrial robot used for sorting, packaging and the handling of details up to two kg. The Flexpicker is a delta robot, meaning that it with three arms controls a triangular plate, swivel, in a work area shaped like a cylinder. Joints using plain bearings connect the arms.The plain bearing in use today consists of a plastic ring which slides against a hard anodized joint ball. Despite the fact that the plastic contain friction-lowering additives, the bearing needs to be lubricated to prevent noise. Because the robot is used in food and drug handling environments, where the demands on hygiene are set very high, the robot is often washed.

This thesis studies path generation for industrial robots of six degrees of freedom. A path is defined by connection of simple geometrical objects like arcs and straight lines. About each point at which the objects connect, a region, henceforth called a zone, is defined in which deviation from the defined path is permitted. The zone allows the robot to follow the path at a constant speed, but the acceleration needed may vary. Some means of calculating the zone path as to make the acceleration continuous will be presented.

This essay discusses how Private Equity companies (PE companies) reason when evaluatingpotential companies to invest in through its investment criteria. Also methods they utilized toenhance companies value during their ownership period is treated.PE-companies invest in companies where they can see a good future development. Theintention is that through various methods to increase the company's value prior to divestment.In the UK and the U.S. in particular, the market for PE has long been great. In Sweden, insteadthe developments in the industry went a little slower.

This dissertation aims to explore how an investment appraisal differs depending on if it is conducted by a municipal or a private real estate company. Municipal and private real estate companies are not performing on totally equal terms in the property market. A municipal company in Sweden has a public service mission. The consequence due to that mission is that they have limited yield potential but on the other hand the right to certain subsidies. They are also limited by the law of public purchasing (in Swedish: Lag om offentlig upphandling) in the investment process.

Good governance-begreppet introducerades av Världsbanken på slutet av 1980-talet som riktlinjer för hur en stat på bästa sätt skall organiseras och styras för att nå ekonomisk utveckling. Good governance-idealen innefattar bland annat öppenhet, transparens, rättsäkerhet och effektivitet, som sägs uppnås genom åtgärder som liberalisering och decentralisering. Banken har använt sig av konditionalitet då de ställt krav på anpassning till good governance till de länder som ansökt om utvecklingslån. Tidigare har good governance-kriterierna setts som absolut goda och tillämpbara i alla länder, i enlighet med ett best practice-synsätt. Många har kritiserat denna tillsynes förenklade världssyn och hävdat att agendan är alltför ambitiös och att banken bör ta hänsyn till mottagarländernas specifika kontexter för att nå bästa resultat.

Inköpsorganisationen har varit och är föremål för förändring. Vid sidan av denna förändring har Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) utvecklats. TCO sträcker sig bortom inköpspriset och innefattar enligt Degraeve et al. (2005a) alla kostnader relaterade till anskaffningen och kostnaderna användningen av en vara eller tjänst medför genom ett företags hela värdekedja. Utifrån en tillhandahållen förståelse för kostnaderna ett företag ådrar sig utifrån etablerade leverantörsrelationer kan TCO fördelaktigt användas vid valet av leverantörer och till att utvärdera prestandan av leverantörer.

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 concepts of environmental scanning and Business Intelligence have gained increased interest over the last years in a number of different organisational contexts. The research in this field has mainly been dealing with methods and issues regarding organisation but the aim of environmental scanning, the forming of new perspectives, has been largely ignored. The purpose of this thesis is to study how Swedish joint-stock banks put environmental scanning and Business Intelligence into practice. First a literature study is made to create a background and to explain the different conceptions. Then I describe the different functions of the different services in Swedish joint-stock banks.