A group of companies that only recently has caught the attention of Swedish designers, enterprises and media are the so -called "furniture pirates". In Sweden it?s mainly two companies that have ended up in the spotlight. The online stores Ikon M and Designers Revolt are two companies which currently sell replicas of famous Swedish and foreign designers. Although the designs sold are copyright protected in Sweden, and most other European countries, the right holders can only stand by and watch as more or less exact copies are sold for a fraction of the price of the originals.The business model - to exploit the EU?s free movement of goods and the UK's short term of copyright protection in matter of mass-produced art (industrial design) - has proven successful for the companies that practice it.

This essay tries, in different levels, to explain and create a deeper understanding for the phenomena ?private security companies?. By using Mary Kaldors theory about new wars, I will come to the conclusion that the insecurity that these wars create is an important part in understanding the emergence of a security need that these private security companies can provide. Later I investigate and explain howthe neoliberal privatization policy that is spreading through the world today has laid ground for development of the private security industry. When I have answered these questions I analyze how the private security companies can affect the state, war and peace both positively and negatively.

In connection with the property crises in many countries, caused by the financial crises, people are now more aware of the risks involved in poor property-investments. The unusually cold winters along with extreme prices of electricity in Sweden in recent years has also contributed to increased interest in energy-efficient buildings.The process of developing a modern family home in Kiruna, Sweden is presented the first part of this paper. The house has been designed to withstand very high stresses from snow, low energy consumption as well as a high standard of living comfort. Aspects of the house covered here involves everything from construction, heating and ventilation to sanitation. Each of these areas is presented based on their underlying, scientific methods or theories.

Leaders have many tools in their toolbox when it comes to managing their firms, assuring that they are moving in the right direction. One of these tools is vision. Vision can be a powerful tool for steering a company. But to be able to use it fully, you must also understand how vision is best conveyed to employees and followers. If you understand the vision as a tool, you can fully utilize it.

In order to counteract and to discover unethical actions within an organisation, a growing number of Swedish companies implement a so-called whistleblowing system. The purpose of our essay is to study the mindset of companies and further analyse how this mindset affects the design and quality of companies' whistleblowing systems. To do this, we have used a qualitative approach by interviewing different Swedish companies about their mindsets and systems. The study determines that there seemingly are three different categories of systems of varying quality. In this study we have chosen to call them "internal system", "external system" and "combined system".

The purpose of this master thesis was to examine how the corporations quoted on the A-list on the Stockholm Stock Exchange were affected by the introduction of IFRS 3 Business Combinations. Their opinion about the accounting rule and the acquired goodwill in particular was focused as well. The authors wanted to see if there were any changes in ROE, return on equity, after the introduction of the new accounting standard.Data for this study was collected through interviews, questionnaires and annual reports. Interviews were held with corporate accounting managers of Assa Abloy, WM-data, Electrolux, Ericsson and SCA. Questionnaires were sent by e-mail to 50 companies and were answered by 30 of them.

Previously studies have shown that the way companies explain outcome in their annual report is not totally trustworthy. Studies show that the management has a self serving bias when they explain the result to give a positive image of the company. Our study is based on investigations into this phenomenon in the telecom market in Sweden. Turbulent market conditions with, among other, deregulation of the monopoly of fixed telephony and a huge technical evolution, which has led to an increase in competition, is the reason to why we have chosen to study the telecom market in Sweden. As a benchmark in our study the attribution theory will be used.

Laws, regulations and generally accepted accounting principles hold options on how companies should recognize revenue. Generally accepted accounting principles are determined by standard-setting bodies as the Accounting Standards Board and the Financial Supervisory Authority, which is influenced by international standard-setting bodies as the IASB. Service revenue is generally recognized when performance is completed, but there are variations in when a performance is considered complete. The different accounting options available create difficulties in comparing companies over time and between companies, which in turn creates difficulties to achieve a true and fair view. By clarifying what methods and principles in accounting for service income the unlisted companies in Sweden are using and why these differences exist, we have been able to study how the comparability and the true and fair view is affected by these differences.

In the end of the 80´s the area of system development moved into a new era. As a consequence many new methods and development models emerged which in many cases resulted in problems when choosing system development models and methods. As a result of these problems the today standardized modeling language UML (Unified Modeling Language) was created. UML is tailored to support many different types of projects. This is possible because of UML?s capacity to be adjusted and adapted to a specific company environment.The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to investigate how and why companies use UML and what experiences and opinions those who use UML have of using UML in practice.

This master of economics paper discuss that the globalization has lead to increasing internationalization among small Swedish IT- companies in the service sector. Sweden has a long history of foreign trade but in the beginning of the industrialization only large companies that produced goods answered for the foreign trade. Before, the Swedish companies begun their operations abroad in fairly nearby markets and only gradually penetrated far-flung countries. Now this is no longer possible. When small companies nowadays seek growth in other countries there is no time internationalize with the same approaches as before, especially when the company offers a service.

Study objects: Three different productions companies which the authors have chosen to be anonymous. Purpose: The purpose with this study is to examine why production companies choose to use 3D-animations in television commercials, and what different kind of aspects affects their decisions. Theoretical: The theoretical chapter reviews the history of 3D-animation andtelevision commercials and other fields that will be relevant laterin the analysis and discussion. Method: A case study has been made on three different companies, two of the companies are active in post-production and the other one is active in the consulting area. Data was collected through semistructured interviews with two of the companies.

Previous studies have shown that there is a relationship between voluntary disclosure and analysts' forecast accuracy. However, there has been no research conducted specifically on bridges. Bridges contain information on how components such as price, volume, foreign exchange rates and acquisitions have impacted the financial performance between two periods. The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate the usage of bridges in quarterly financial information of companies listed on Nasdaq Stockholm. We provide a descriptive mapping of bridges and find that 30 out of 268 companies are presenting bridges as a part of their voluntary disclosures, with large firms being the most frequent users.

Sweden's government is dedicated to the goal of having a vehicle fleet that is independent of fossil fuels by 2030. Achieving these goals requires, among other things, new types of fuel that give lower net emissions of carbon dioxide. The present market includes stations offering lowlevel blends of renewable fuels in conventional diesel as well as some stations offering renewable fuels only. The purpose of this study is to survey purchasers? attitudes to the use renewable fuels in roundwood and bioenergy transport in forest- and energy companies. The study was based on qualitative interviews through a combination of face-to-face meetings and telephone interviews with each sample group. The total number of respondents was ten (10), consisting of five (5) from forest companies and five (5) from energy companies. Transport service purchasers were generally positive to renewable fuels and considered these necessary in the future.

In Sweden there is no legal regulation for the obligations and responsibilities between the contracting parties within the construction, civil engineering and installation sector. To clarify uncertainties regarding the liability, actors from theses sectors have agreed upon a voluntary regulation, called the General Conditions of Contract.When insurance companies want to enter the Swedish construction insurance market, they face a regulatory framework that not only regulates the construction market, it also imposes requirements on terms and conditions that must be included in the construction insurance. These terms are perceived as ambiguities and create difficulties and inhibit the ability for these insurance companies to offer competitive insurances. One of the terms that create these difficulties is the guarantee period, which is period of time starting from handing over the construction project to the employer, during this period the contractor still has the responsibility for the construction project. The guarantee period regulated by the General Condition of Contracts differs from the international use of the term both in length and in content.

During the last few decades a new kind of business operation have developed and this hasforced organisations to adapt themselves to a new competitive environment characterized byincreased customer demands as well as a larger amount of competitors. Therefore companieshave had a shift in their strategies from focusing on sales numbers to focusing on thecustomer. To build lasting customer relationships, in order to create customer loyalty, havebecome an important part of the organisational strategy and the collection of consumer datais essential in achieving this loyalty. Customer relationship management systems assistorganisations in managing information about individual customers as well as managing allaspects of customer contact, with the purpose of increasing customer loyalty towards thecompany. The collection of consumer data also enables for companies to design personalizedoffers to individual customers in the form of direct marketing.