The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the competitiveness of family firms is affected by governance mechanisms. The thesis addresses four governance mechanisms: inefficient labor markets, inefficient capital markets, self control and altruism. We have conducted an abductive method to be able to perform a qualitative research study. In this study two family firms have been examined, ROL and Indiska Magasinet. We conclude that the presence of inefficient labor and capital markets within the studied family firms give rise to negative effects in terms of difficulties of hiring talented employees.

In this thesis work a Geographical Information System (GIS) based methodology to identify locations suitable for the installation of wave energy converters has been developed. Parameters of importance have been identified and a GIS-database has been set up, containing data about the marine environment. In a case study of the Swedish west coast the methodology has been applied, resulting in a number of maps showing possible areas. The results show that large areas are suitable for installation of wave energy converters, from a technical and economical point of view. When consideration is taken to other interests in the area, such as navigation, fishing and environmental protection, the size of the suitable area diminishes considerably.

Previous research has indicated that intellectual disabilities and parenting is not socially accepted and compulsory care of children often occurs in families where one or both parents have an intellectual disability. This study aims to, thru a document analysis, investigate ideas and representations of parents with intellectual disabilities that emerge in Swedish legal cases. The legal cases is about children who are taken care of according to LVU § 2, where one or both parents have a intellectual disability. The results of the study revealed that people with intellectual disabilities are seen as not capable of developing parenting ability, in some cases aroused concerns about parenting during pregnancy, these suggesting stereotypes of parents with intellectual disabilities. Of the documents reveals that social workers word overrides in the decision-making, this leads to a position of power where the parents are at a disadvantage..

Varje dag fattas beslut som kan komma att förändra människors liv. Årligen berörs omkring 50 000 barn av föräldrars separation där cirka 7000 av fallen leder till en vårdnadstvist som löses i tingsrätten. Familjerättens utredning blir ofta avgörande för domstolsbeslutet om vem som tillskrivs vårdnaden över barnet. Följande studie fokuserar på att ur ett deskriptivt beslutsteoretiskt perspektiv finna vilka faktorer som influerar bedömningsprocessen med fokus på könsdiskriminering och presentationsordningseffekt, alltså huruvida ordningen av föräldrarnas utsaga påverkar bedömningen. För att undersöka hur individen blir påverkad i sitt beslutsfattande fick en deltagargrupp med högskolestudenter läsa ett vårdnadstvistfall där modern och faderns utsaga presenteras för att sedan ta ställning till bland annat vilken förälder de ansåg vara mest trovärdig.

This paper investigates the internal product costing system in one of the Swedish banks with the purpose to evaluate the quality of its product costs and possible implications on decision making. The study shows that the current system distorts product costs by, among other things, using relative allocation of costs and time and by allocating all costs to individual units of products. We therefore propose an alternative product costing system, which mainly draws on ABC theory but is also adapted to the specific needs of service companies and of the Bank. This proposal is intended as a solution in this particular case and not to be generalized in other contexts. We hope however to add to the understanding of why more complex costing systems, such as the ones based on ABC theory are, according to previous studies, not widely used in practice.

According to the theory of elitist democracy civic political participation should be reduced to participation in the democratic elections. This essay examines whether a high rate of institutionalized political participation beyond the elections leads to: (a) that those who are included gets a more favourable treatment at the expense of the common interest, in other words that their self interest threatens the political equality, (b) reduced freedom of action for the politicians and the headmasters, (c) the emergence of vague conditions of responsibility. These hypotheses are examined in an empirical study of user-boards at four schools on three locations in southern Sweden. In these user-boards the parents are in majority and have the right of decision, which has been delegated to them from the local government and the headmaster. The main conclusion is that, based on this empirical investigation, there is no support in any of the hypotheses.

The Saami, a Nordic indigenous people scattered over four countries, has for centuries been regarded as parts of the national populations of the countries in which they live. During the 19th century saami demands for greater influence resulted en several changes, among them the founding of a Swedish Saami Council in 1993. The council became a popularly elected, representative institution with an agenda of its own, but also a public authority answerable to the government. The decision to attribute the council this twofold role was unusual and, from a certain point of view, even controversial: it makes it difficult to determine the location of the power to act in saami-related issues and the legitimacy to do so.This essay is about how the twofold role came into existence, what it leads to and how the seemingly contradictive duality is managed. It has an institutional approach with theories concerning institutions and etnicity as well as institutional change and handling of complicated and ambiguous demands.

This thesis is a study of social movements and their possibilities to effect politics by infuencing values in society through framing. I've looked upon social movements from a functionalistic-structuralistic perspective, as if they were carriers of values from people that otherwise won't be represented in the political life. The values that the social movements are struggling for can affect both the opinion and the decision-makers since the social movements in an active way are trying ti influence the society. The thesis examines the political opportunities that social movements hav to mobilise and grow. I have looked at different factors that either improve or make the political opportunities worse.

The purpose of this study is to explore how different discourses about risk linked to HIV prevention is likely to affect the decisions on the distribution of state funding for preventive activities aimed at 'men who have sex with men' (MSM). This by making qualitative interviews with principals that have an impact on this decision. Using a discourse analytic approach, based on both theoretical and methodological foundations, I investigate the discursive constructions of risk of HIV linked to certain groups and behaviors. MSM is found in the material placed into two different formations of groups, on one hand by the behavior on the other hand on the basis of identity. The identity position is organized discursively from a ?victim? position while MSM provides an "operator" position.

The Swedish do-it-yourself (DIY) market has expanded in recent years and is today a SEK90 billion market. Competition is fierce, however, and the DIY retail chains compete over market share with extensive marketing campaigns. Advances in computer technology have made it possible to acquire and compile huge quantities of point of sale data. However, due to a lack of economic theories and statistical methods, this data cannot be effectively utilized and the effects of the campaigns are not measured in any detail. In this study a new method was used to examine the effects of marketing campaigns in the DIY consumer market.

Guaranteed cohabitation of elderly couples is a new law that gives elderly couples the right to live together in special housing. Even if only one of the spouses has an administrator?s decision to live in special housing. The aim of this study is to describe and understand how three municipalities materialize the social rights guaranteed for the elderly couples? cohabitation.

Each year a significant number of children?s books, with a wide range of themes, are being published. The relation between children and adults is a common theme. In this study I have analyzed ten children?s books, five from the 1970?s and five from the 2010?s.

During recent years, financial innovation has given rise to numerous structured investment opportunities aimed towards the general public. These have enabled private investors to engage in high-risk investments offering as much as 400 per cent leverage while oftentimes not fully having grasped the risk involved. The issuers of these securities have been criticized for using advertising of a too aggressive and misleading nature.By presenting 819 potential investors with two different investment opportunities yielding the same return over a six day period, we have aimed to assess whether the inclination of being affected by judegmental heuristics varies with factors such as knowledge, overall attitude towards the asset class, risk appetite and experience from previous investments.We have observed that investors' perception of the attractiveness of an investment can be distorted by altering the information presented to the investor. However, our findings show that this tendency decreases with an increased level of knowledge, experience and risk appetite..

Wind power in Sweden is expanding in response to the government's decision that 49% of Sweden's power should originate from renewable energy sources by the year 2020. Problems with noise and sound emissions related to wind turbines are a constant argument against the wind power expansion and this paper means to examine if vertical axis wind turbines might be a viable alternative to the conventional horizontal design for noise sensitive areas. In order to determine factors like difference in frequency, noise propagation and noise emission level, measurements of both horizontal and vertical axis wind turbines have been completed and the data analyzed with MATLAB. It is shown that there is a difference in how the noise from the two types of turbines propagates due to avariation in the frequency spectra of the emitted sound. It is also shown that vertical axis wind turbines generate a lower sound emission with less intensity inthe lower frequencies..

Business Intelligence may help organizations in making the right decisions byproviding data for analysis which can be presented to decision makers. DataWarehouse which is a central part of Business Intelligence can be built in severalways but the methods presented by Ralph Kimball and Bill Inmons are considered thetwo main methods. The solution provided by Inmon focuses on integrating the entirebusiness into one large database using relational database development. Kimballhowever proposes dimensional database modeling by creating one or more data martsand integrating these using a data bus. Previous research has shown that the quality ofa Data Warehouse can be measured through critical factors such as data quality andsystem quality.