In this paper we investigate 67 Swedish buyouts in the manufacturing and retailing sector between the years 2004-2012. The purpose is to measure changes in a set of financial key ratios to see if private equity firms are able to improve performance in their portfolio companies compared to a peer group consisting of other firms within the same industries. Furthermore, we examine if there is a difference in the change of the financial key ratios between private equity-owned firms in the two sectors. The key results are that the private equity owned firms have not outperformed their peers with respect to the chosen key ratios. We also conclude that there is no significant difference in the change of the financial key ratios between private equity-owned firms in the two sectors..

In the early 1990?s more and more companies of the Swedish public sector were exposed to competition, and this started the debate on how such actions might affect the business and even society.The first chapter examines how the public sector and especially health care, is financed and managed. We also explore what it means to be exposed to competition and find that there are many different ways of exposing the public sector to competition. The study examines dental care as an example of a market with both publicly and privately owned companies. The purpose of this paper is to explore how publicly and privately owned health care companies view their relationship with their consumers.

The unemployment rate in Sweden is increasing even though there are more and more municipal activation policies established. The activation policies aim is to decrease the unemployment but that is not yet happening. This problem has led us to go through with this study.The aim of this study was, from an organizational perspective, to examine and describe how the interaction works between the Municipal Employment Services, Employment Office and Social Services in a Swedish medium sized municipality. Special focus was upon the legitimacy of the Municipal Employment Services.  This study was based on nine semi-structured interviews with managers and employers within the organizations in this study.

This study is about state officials who handle applications for sickness benefits and about municipal officials who handle applications for financial assistance. The purpose of this study is to explore the differences between the two professional roles regarding their conception about their exercise of authority, in terms of flexibility, individual adjustment, empathy and legal security.The study has a qualitative approach and is based on structured interviews with two state officials and two municipal officials. The questions that this study aims to answer are:- Is there a difference between state officials and municipal officials regarding their experience and use of flexibility? - Is there a difference between state officials and municipal officials regarding their perceptions of legal security, individual adjustment and empathy in their exercise of authority? - What kind of bureaucracy can you find in the two organizations?The results show that the state officials in this study have very limited flexibility due to legislation which makes their exercise of authority neither empathic nor individual. The municipal officials in this study state in their turn that the law entails broad flexibility and the opportunity for them to be empathic and to make individual decisions.

Due to the forest industry downsizing, many communities in rural forest regions in Canada and Sweden are facing problems to survive. In order to create community sustainability, resilience and well-being in remote forest regions, the view on the forest resources has shifted towards multiple use, through the concept of sustainable forest management (SFM). Beside the economic and ecological elements of sustainability, the social forest values are needed, contributing to the human well-being, local participation, stakeholder collaboration, human rights and cultural connection. In this thesis the embodiment of the social component of SFM within Prince Albert Model Forest (Canada), and Vilhelmina Model Forest (Sweden) will be examined. Being partners and facing similar challenges as rural boreal forest regions, the two model forests are compared through analysis of projects and activities, conducted interviews and organization documents. Looking at projects mentioned as successful by the interviewees, they all have elements from the social values of SFM. The direction can be explained by the introduction of the Forest Communities Program in Canada, demanding the Model Forests to work towards community stability and resilience, the Model Forest organization concept itself and the way global focus are increasing around social forest values. In the future, it may be important that the role of the MFs enable some kind of political authorization and legitimacy in order to improve conflict solving and indigenous rights equality.

Background: The use of reward systems can be of strategic importance as well as an affective mean of control for the organization in its work to achieve its goals. The municipal sector is characterized by its transparency and its responsibility for the taxpayer?s money. We therefore wonder which possibilities the municipal sector has to use reward systems as a men of control. Purpose: We intend to research the possibilities that the reward system offer as a mean of control for employees at the higher municipal level, with a special focus on commitment and motivation.

Sweden?s forestry legislation was updated in 2010 and a new definition of forest land was introduced. This definition was adapted to the one used by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for international statistics on the state of the world's forests. It is in short based on the lands ability to grow forest that reaches 5 meters, 10 % canopy closure and has a continuous distribution, according to FAO at least 0.5 hectares. A country-wide laser scanning is now carried out for the production of a new national elevation model; the laser data also provides information on forest height and density.

Over the last decades there has been a steady increase in the representation of women on the political arena. Despite of this there are still fewer women in comparison to men in political organs particularly at the municipal level. It is therefore of great importance to examine which different factors that tend to effect the female representation at this level. Doctor of philosophy at Umeå University Jessika Wide presented in a study from 2000 that the share of women in the municipal councils tended to depend upon cultural, socio-economical and political factors. Other scholars also mean that women have specific interests and therefore are more represented in some areas.

This project was a request of Norrbodal´s Forestry Board, Västra Götaland. It was performed as a qualitative interview analysis of private forest owner?s deficient motivation regarding pre-commercial thinning. The purpose of the project is to investigate what the Forestry Board can do to motivate private forest owners to do more pre-commercial thinning. The results build upon 16 qualitative phone interviews with forest owners that have their forest within the district of Norrbodal. The owners are divided into two groups, the one who have performed the pre-commercial thinning and the one that has possible pre-commercial thinning needs on their properties according to the pre-commercial thinning analysis ,which is the result of a satellite analysis.

While conducting our practical training we experienced how the structure and the complexity of the municipal administration could, from a white-collar workers perspective, become a limitation and burden for efficient work. Deriving from this experience we found an interest in how politicians reasoned with regards to their relationship with supervisor in municipal old-age care. Kouzes och Micos (1979) ?Theory of organizational behavior in human service? became our point of departure. Their framework was therefore the foundation for our research and work throughout this paper.Our aim with this research was to examine how politicians viewed their relationship with supervisor in municipal old-age care.

During the 8th and 9th of January 2005 a devastating storm named Gudrun entered the south of Sweden and a big part of the forest owners got their forests damaged. The study objective was to investigate on which basis and how the affected forest owners made their managment decisions immediately after the storm and if there are any differences between different categories of forest owners. - Members ? non members in a forest owner association (FOA) - Resident owners ? non resident owners - Female and male forest owner The study is based on a questionnaire survey with the purpose to examine the most important counsellor and information channels of the forest owners. A total of 450 forest owners participated in the survey. Results show that all categories of forest owners prefer professional counselling rather than personal counselling.

Göranzon, Ingrid: From concept to reality - Uppsala Municipal School of Music. Master thesis, 30 credits. Uppsala: Department of Musicology. 2013.This thesis aims to explain how and why the municipal school of music (kommunala musikskolan) in Uppsala was formed. Municipal schools of music are a Swedish phenomenon that was formed all over Sweden after the Second World War.

The forest in the northern part of Sweden has changed dramatically during the last centuries. The forest has gone through a large-scale transformation, from it being only used locally for domestic purposes to becoming very important raw material for Sweden in the industrial age. The strategy by foresters during the second half of the 20th century has been to create pure production forests for commercial forestry. This has mainly succeeded and we have today homogenous production forests that give a high profit to the owners. The aim of the study is to compare the state of the forest in the former state forest Hällforsmarken in the years 1925 and 2000 and to interpret the changes which has taken place.

While conducting our practical training we experienced how the structure and the complexity of the municipal administration could, from a white-collar workers perspective, become a limitation and burden for efficient work. Deriving from this experience we found an interest in how politicians reasoned with regards to their relationship with supervisor in municipal old-age care. Kouzes och Micos (1979) ?Theory of organizational behavior in human service? became our point of departure. Their framework was therefore the foundation for our research and work throughout this paper. Our aim with this research was to examine how politicians viewed their relationship with supervisor in municipal old-age care.

This thesis studies whether private equity owned firms within the Swedish welfare sector distinguish themselves in terms of tax planning and short-termism from a control group consisting of other privately owned welfare firms. For the first time, the comparison is made on the entire welfare sector, between 14 matched pairs within education, health care and elderly care. We use financial metrics associated with tax planning and short-termism in sign tests to examine whether the private equity owned firms differ from our control group. The financial metrics tested are actual and paid tax rates, level of interest, book-tax gap, investments, personnel expenses per employee, and cash earnings. We find that the private equity owned firms in terms of tax planning only differ in the level of interest, while no notable differences are found in terms of short-termism..