Palm oil has been used in processed food commodities since the 19th century. An increasing demand for regulating and ensuring a more sustainable palm oil production has resulted in various initiatives. However, these initiatives have received critique due to lack of compliance and insufficient revisions of palm oil plantations. The initiatives for creating an ethical, social and environmentally sustainable production are not sufficient for the Swedish industrial users of palm oil. As a result, stakeholders such as Swedish food processing companies, commit to ethical sourcing codes of conduct that go beyond the international palm oil initiatives.

Introduction: There was a reduction in Sweden of the share capital in 2010, in which the share capital was reduced from 100 000 SEK to 50 000 SEK. The reason behind the reduction of the share capital was to enable more people to start limited liability companies in Sweden. Meanwhile in Europe, they questioned the function of the share capital, and as a result of this discussion a number of European countries have abolished the requirement for the share capital in limited liability companies.Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate what meaning the share capital has to entrepreneurs based on their own businesses, and to see what function the share capital have for the creditors.Problem: What are the meaning of the share capital for today´s entrepreneurs and its creditors?Methodology: The study is based on a qualitative research method in which a cross-sectional study was done with four small limited liability companies and four creditors.Conclusions: The share capital functions and meaning has lost its intended meaning as creditor protection and the help to facilitate the raising of capital. The share capitals intention has to some extent been eroded.

This thesis examines the establishment of auditors as third party assurers of sustainability reports in Sweden. This is done through a qualitative case study that examines the subject from both a preparer?s and an assurer?s perspective. Empirical data was analyzed using a combination of agency- and Legitimacy theory. The study reaches the conclusion that sustainability reporting companies in the study demand a verification service for reported sustainability data in order to increase creditability, meet increased stakeholder demand and increased accounting complexity.

Values, where an organization describes the attitude its members should have towards their work, are being used to a larger extent than before. The neoinstitutional theory describes organizations? attempts to create Legitimacy through activities that are not really connected to their core activities. On the basis of the aforementioned theory this study examines to what extent employees and store managers at Clas Ohlson use and relate to the values of the organization in their everyday work. The study covers these individuals awareness of the impact of values in their work as well as the way they relate to values.

Abstract Title: Municipal property companies CSR investments Seminar date: 2015-05-28 State university: Halmstad University Institution: School of Economics, Technology and Sience (ETS) Level: Bachelor Thesis in Economics, 15 hp Authors: Carl Berg von Linde and Martin Samuelsson Examinor: Jan-Olof Müller Supervisor: Eva Berggren Number of pages: 39 Attachments: 3 Keywords: CSR, Municipal-owned housing, Social- and environmental responsibility, Strategic CSR, Legitimacy, Levers Research question: · How do municipal Swedish real estate companies invest in CSR and why? Purpose: The aim of this study is to understand how three municipal property reasons around investment in CSR and to identify different factors why investing in CSR differs between municipal property companies. Methodology: A qualitative study with abductive conducted semi-structured interviews of three municipally owned housing companies. Conclution: The municipal real estate industry uses CSR as a strategy to gain different benefits such as brand recognition. By acting responsibly, companies will strengthen their Legitimacy and create long-term economic gain.

This essay will explain the effects of decentralisation, and what impact it has on the efficiency to create a better integration for immigrants on the Swedish labour market. Examples of literature that has been examined are Marcus Gossas and Jon Pierre. From these authors, I have been trying to explain the relationship between decentralisation, cooperation and efficiency.Since the end of the Second World War until the middle of 1980, Sweden mostly received labour immigrant. Since then, the immigrant pattern has changed to consist of mostly refugees. Changed immigration patterns together with increasing debts for the Swedish government has lead to decentralisation and cooperation between public authorities has therefore become a target to reach better efficiency.

This Master?s thesis has governmental cultural policy in focus and concludes a textual idea analysis of the governmental bill Time for culture. (Tid för kultur.) The aim of the study is to examine how the government is seeking Legitimacy concerning the cultural policy. One of the starting points is that the society has changed over time in terms of for example increased globalization and multicultural and even the market adjustment is more evident. Also the economical basis in the society is different nowadays.

With the globalization, companies in the West chose to shift production to developing countries to cut down costs. This had a major impact when child labor and very poor working conditions in these factories were discovered and led many companies to take responsibility for their suppliers and the employees by adopting voluntary so-called Codes of Conduct.There is a subtle balance to enforce improvement of working conditions for employees at suppliers´ factories and to keep costs down. On the one hand, companies would like to conduct extensive audits at their suppliers to ensure code of conduct compliance and thus protect their Legitimacy. On the other hand, audits are expensive so companies would like to minimize audits to keep costs down. Companies thus have to strike a delicate balance in relation to how many and what suppliers they choose to audit.

In recent years there have been many corporate scandals from environmental and social aspects. Corporate irresponsible behavior has led to major public discussions on responsibility and these pressures made that many companies wanting to show that they are working for a sustainable development by voluntarily reporting economic, environmental and social and social issues in the financial statement. They hope this will create credibility for the companies. In the current situation, there are a number of guidelines that companies can use to report sustainability. One of these is the GRI guidelines which is an international framework that covers many accounting areas and allows companies to compare their sustainability reports with other companies.The purpose of this study is to determine if all state-owned companies follows the government?s requirement that these companies must form a sustainability report under the GRI guidelines, and the sustainability report must be audited and certified by an outside party.

Arbetet med att stärka ett arbetsgivarvarumärkes attraktivitet, både internt och externt, det alltmer välbekanta begreppet ?Employer branding?, är ett vanligt förekommande koncept i dagens organisationer. Syftet med studien är att försöka ta reda på vad fenomenet ?Employer branding? är och hur organisationer kan bedriva arbetet med att göra sitt arbetsgivarvarumärket attraktiv på den svenska arbetsmarknaden. Tieto, COWI och Klarna AB är de företag som deltar i studien.

Ever since Lipsky wrote about street-level bureaucrats in 1980 the main belief has been that certain characteristics of their jobs make it exceptionally difficult to severely reduce their discretion. However, discretion comes at a price and if public servants abuse their power the Legitimacy of government is at risk and ultimately even the democracy.This thesis address this question by analysing the Swedish employment service which in the beginning of 2001 started a project called ?Af Sverige? trying to improve internal rule of law. By comparing two local and fairly equal jobcentres and how the street-level bureaucrats within use their discretion, I seek to find support for my hypotheses that organizing local jobcentres according to the principles of machine bureaucracy plays a significant part in reducing discretion.My findings show that a jobcentre characterised by strict rules, few units, good communications and a forthright manager who delegates formal power to the employees results in a stricter and more uniform application of regulations among the street-level bureaucrats. My conclusion is therefore unambiguous.

With the globalization, companies in the West chose to shift production to developing countries to cut down costs. This had a major impact when child labor and very poor working conditions in these factories were discovered and led many companies to take responsibility for their suppliers and the employees by adopting voluntary so-called Codes of Conduct.There is a subtle balance to enforce improvement of working conditions for employees at suppliers´ factories and to keep costs down. On the one hand, companies would like to conduct extensive audits at their suppliers to ensure code of conduct compliance and thus protect their Legitimacy. On the other hand, audits are expensive so companies would like to minimize audits to keep costs down. Companies thus have to strike a delicate balance in relation to how many and what suppliers they choose to audit.

The purpose of this study was to examine how SOS Children's Villages as an organization in Swaziland is affected by, and takes into account, the cultural, organizational and societal context in which it acts. Material was gathered through a field study during one month in one of the three SOS Children's Villages in Swaziland. The study has a qualitative approach and is based on the result from 12 semi-structured interviews with village mothers and other representatives from the organization. The other representatives were: social worker, program director, child and youth development coordinator, board member and educational manager. Since this study is both characterized by a specific historical, cultural and organizational context, we decided to connect the postcolonial perspective with an organization theory with focus on the concepts of culture, power and a children?s right perspective.

This thesis aims to analyse the problems concerning the reorganization of the Swedish consulary system, which took place right after the Swedish entry in the European Union in 1995. This thesis shows the underlying debate in the Parliament before the changes. It also discusses which factors caused the reorganisation. My work focuses on the Swedish consulary representation in Spain which exist of an embassy in Madrid and 20 underlying honorary consulates. The consulates are not foreign authorities but are still handeling a lot of cases as an govenmental authority.

Problem formulation: The awareness and importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is growing within both corporations and society at large. The corporate progress in sustainable development can be both profitable and essential for the potential to compete globally. The value of sustainability reporting may differ between industries and companies of different sizes. The demands for sustainability reports are expected to increase. By 2010, no previous survey on sustainability reporting practices had been conducted within Swedish corporations. Purpose: The aim of the current study was to examine sustainability reports within Swedish corporations during 2010 and to compare the findings with preceding surveys to determine differences over time and between corporations.