The purpose of this essay is to examine how gender equality can be used in the workplace, its possible effects, and what collaboration can contribute to the subject of gender equality. A combination of legal sociological and legal dogmatic methodology has been used to examine the EU and Swedish law, how equality should be approached and what previous studies have concluded. An interview has been conducted to provide a clearer picture of how gender equality appears in practice, in the modern workplace. An equality plan should be conducted every three years and applies to employers who are responsible for more than 25 employees. The manual should include a description of the measures considered necessary in the workplace in order to promote gender equality. How an equality plan should be developed is not specifically outlined in the current law, and thus this is left up to the employer to determine.

The main aim of this master thesis was to examine the visual ergonomics and the systematic work environment management concerning lighting issues for nurses within domiciliary care. Further aims were to examine a few existing lighting solutions, to come up with ideas for future possible lighting solutions, and to evaluate if the legal regulations for lighting is satisfying and if the regulations are obeyed in domiciliary nursing.The methods used were a questionnaire completed by 55 nurses, field studies of used lightings in cooperation with a student in industrial esign, test of ten existing lighting solutions in a laboratory environment, and a field test of five existing lighting solutions tested by nine nurses in the home of the patient.The result indicates that 40 % of the asked nurses were dissatisfied with the working light in the patient?s homes. All respondents reported poor working light close to the patient, 50 % reported that this problem occurred daily. One third reported that they had to work in uncomfortable working postures due to insufficient working light, and 15 % reported risk of making mistakes due to the same reason.

We have by Statistics Sweden (SCB) been given the task of using different dynamic regression models in order to forecast service price index for sea transport. The aim is to see whether these models provide better forecasts than those previously used. This essay aim to identify, estimate and evaluate the selected prediction models. Through our data material we were given access to 28 sightings of sea transport index during the period of 2004 q1 to 2010 q4. We have chosen to evaluate three different transfer function models, one ARIMA model and one naive forecasting model. The input variables we decided to test in our transfer function models were the price of petroleum products, the port activity in Swedish ports and the lending rate of Swedish Central bank. The results of our study suggest that transfer function models generally provide better models than the ARIMA model and the naive forecast model.

Forecasting is an important part in attempting to predict how companies will perform in the future. The more accurate the prediction, the more valuable are the results obtained from the forecast. This thesis aims to investigate forecasts of return on equity, and whether a disaggregation of the leverage formula into its underlying components affects the forecasting ability positively. This is conducted by comparing a model based on the leverage formula's components with a model solely based on return on equity from previous years. The study includes manufacturing companies on the Swedish Stock Exchange over the period 1998-2011.

The present study tested the prediction that male offenders are judged more harsly than female offenders for involving in a violent crime. Three-hundred and fifty-four adult students (163 men, 190 women, 1 unspecified gender) evaluated a hypothetical crimescenario describing a violent conflict between two parties, as part of a 2 (Informants Gender: Male/Female) x 3 (Offender Gender Triad: Male/Female/Neutral) x 3 (Victim Gender Triad: Male/Female/Neutral) between-subjects design. In situations involving male offenders, compared to female offenders, the informants judged the male offenders more harshly which exposed a double standard, as we expected. Informants also believed that it was more likely that a male offender was a recidivist..

The purpose of this study is to investigate the proposed leasing standard's potential effects on stakeholders' financial key ratios and estimated bankruptcy risk via prediction models based on accounting ratios. This is achieved by adjusting the financial statements in accordance with the three most widely used ways of dealing with operating leases at date; capitalizing using a multiple, capitalizing through a present value method and to not adjust for them at all. Since the discounted method is said to reflect the proposed standard the closest, this version will be compared against the two other versions. The research is based on Nordic retail companies due to their high share of leases. The study shows that the unadjusted key ratios and estimated bankruptcy risks tend to be too low and would therefore deteriorate in combination with the new standard, when again the multiple method results in too weak key ratios and high estimated bankruptcy risk and would therefore tend to improve in combination with the new standard.

?CSR and political consumption ? a study of Nike?s and Puma?s CSR-reports?The purpose of this dissertation is to examine if political consumption has influenced multinational corporations to improve their Corporate Social Responsibility reports and policies more, than a company who has not been a target for political consumption.This dissertation is a content analysis of Nike?s and Puma?s first (Nike 2001, Puma 2001) and latest (Nike 2007/09, Puma 2007/08) CSR- reports. Archie Carroll?s model of Corporate Social Responsibility is used as theoretical framework in this study. The model is used to focus on four areas within CSR; economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic.

Public opinion has increasingly become a political force in the European integration process. At present, it appears that the people?s attitude towards the European integration is relatively skeptical. How can we expect that the attitude towards European integration will evolve in the future? This paper tests the extent to which diffusion theory can serve as a model to explain the development of attitudes to European integration policy in Sweden from 1999 until 2009.

Parallel import in the European Union is the perfectly legal activity under Art. 28-30 EC of buying goods in a low-price country in order to ship and sell them in a high-price country. The pharmaceutical market in Europe is subject to the subsidiartiy principle of Art. 5 EC and heavily characterised by national regulations that lead to significant price differentials between – generally speaking – Northern and Southern Europe. This incites the activity of parallel traders in the first place, who act as arbitrageurs.

An increased use of social media has enabled a new arena for HR functions and the work with HR issues. Proponents are critical of this, as it can lead to ethical and legal dilemmas. So far the research on this area is limited. On this basis I found it interesting to study how social media is used in connection with the recruitment process. Those who will benefit from this study are primarily those dealing with recruitment, but also others working with HR issues.

The purpose of this thesis is to shade light on some of the problems associated with rights issues with regard to Swedish law. This thesis is limited to discuss problems regarding directed rights issues, rights issue discounts, underwriting agreements and asset to share compensation. The common factor for these matters is that the current legal situation is somewhat uncertain which allows for differences interpretation and judgment..

Council Regulation 1/2003 regulates the application of the competition rules set out in Articles 81 and 82 of the EC-treaty and establishes a reform of the European Competition Law. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the complex of problems that the regulation leads to concerning the legal certainty for companies within the European Community..

Managing credit risk might be the single most important business area for any commercial bank. The assessment of "good" and "bad" corporate clients is a important task for a creditor. A bad debtor is a corporate client with hardships in meeting the continous claims (interest payments) that a creditor requires. One way of evaluating or separating a "bad" client from a "good" client is to assess the propensity for the client to file for bankruptcy. This thesis examines 226 firms in the Swedsh market in the quest of predicting corporate bankruptcy.

Parallel import in the European Union is the perfectly legal activity under Art. 28-30 EC of buying goods in a low-price country in order to ship and sell them in a high-price country. The pharmaceutical market in Europe is subject to the subsidiartiy principle of Art. 5 EC and heavily characterised by national regulations that lead to significant price differentials between ? generally speaking ? Northern and Southern Europe.

With increasing wine consumption and a growing assortment at available to Swedish consumers, there is an interest in understanding the decision making process of Swedish wine consumers. In this thesis the expert phenomenon is studied with respect to wine through wine critic reliability: grading objectivity, understanding the process of wine criticism and possible critic influence on consumer behavior. Two studies were performed; a qualitative in-depth session of interviews with industry connoisseurs and a quantitative analysis of 589 online wine reviews. Our results indicate that wine reviews are highly subjective and defy prediction through analysis of external variables. Critics are likely to judge differently based on what information they have at hand, suggesting that expectations affect grading.