A wish for a higher standard of living has driven the rate of consumption in Sweden. Mainfocus in business is on a higher growth and profitability where some companies use a lowprice strategy to win competitive advantage. The positive consumption pattern spiral is oftendiscussed in media, while criticism is limited and often refers to the environment. In order toreduce our ecological footprint we should consume more sustainably. More and morecompanies implement CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) in their business strategy tobecome more sustainable.

Dealing with threats and violence at the workplace is a reality for many social workers, where a majority of them have to face client oriented incidents at least once during their career. Incidents are most commonly expressed as threats and harassments, but can also take place in the form of physical violence. Looking at the problem from a supervisor perspective, it will affect and possibly damage the specific exposed employee, the workplace as a whole and the clients. Supervisors are the ones responsible for developing workplace enviroments that are satisfyingly safe, for which guidelines can be found in law as well as in an emerging research area. Reasons as to why some people tend to become violent is as complex as reasons as to why some people seem to be more vulnerable or exposed than others. That is why means of preventing threats and violence can not be explained in one single way, but the answer must be sought on several levels.

This bachelor?s degree thesis was conducted in mechanical engineering at Halmstad University during spring semester 2010 in close collaboration with the company Gremo AB, located in Ätran, Sweden. Gremo AB produces, developes and sales forest machines in both Sweden and on the international market.Gremo AB belongs to one of the market leaders in forest industry, especially with their forwarder. In order to become a market leader even with their harvester, the company decided to change the harvester to have a swivel and a leveling driver cabin.The aim with this bachelor?s degree thesis was to develop a design concept for the harvester driver cabin, which Gremo AB can apply on the new harvester.

This paper describes and develops a trade off model of optimal capital structure by Bradley et al. (1984). The model is then tested to examine how changes in corporate tax rates affect the optimal capital structure of firms. Based on theoretical implications of the model, four hypotheses are derived stating that firms? optimal debt-to-value ratio is (1) negatively related to financial distress costs, (2) negatively related to non-debt tax shields, (3) negatively related to firm volatility and (4) positively related to the corporate tax rate.

This report presents an investment calculation based on an assumed initial investment of a new saw line to an existing sawmill. In order to get as close to reality as possible, we have received data material from northern forest owners who recently made an initial investment in their sawmill in Kåge. In order to calculate and evaluate investments are several different methods, but we, we have chosen to use the discounted cash flow method. The method sums up with the help of a fixed cost of capital together with any future costs and revenues, thereby giving a present value of the investment. We also do a sensitivity analysis to examine how selected factors affect the investment research they change. The study is carried out to a fictitious investment, and therefore the result should not only be studied as a result of the figures. The purpose of this study was that with the help of an investment calculation studying the profitability of a hypothetical investment, and by means of a sensitivity analysis to study the sensitivity of investment to changes. The result demonstrates that the calculations according to the present value method requires a lot of information of the prospective investment.

Sammanfattning Titel:                            Externt kapital i samband med investeringar                            - En studie om framgångsrika företag i Gästrikland Nivå:                     C-uppsats i ämnet företagsekonomi Författare:            Madelene Bergström                            Mikael Pettersson Handledare:           Per-Arne Wikström Datum:                       2012 ? 06 Syfte: Syftet är att undersöka vilken inställning framgångsrika företag har till olika externa kapitalkällor vid en investering samt hur dessa företag har finansierat tidigare investeringar. Metod: Datainsamling har skett dels via en egen webbenkät till 229 stycken framgångsrika företag i Gästrikland samt genom en sammanställning av redan insamlat material från åren 2005 ? 2011. Materialet har sammanställts och redovisas i diagramform. Analysen har sedan gjorts genom att jämföra empiri och teori vilket sedan är utgångspunkt för diskussion. Resultat & slutsats: Studien visar att företagen prioriterar internt kapital framför externt kapital samt att deras inställning till externt kapital varierar med marknadens konjunktursvängningar. Det finns även en skillnad mellan företagens inställning till olika kapitalkällor och de kapitalkällor de faktiskt använt när de har genomfört investeringar. Förslag till fortsatt forskning: En studie som på ett djupare plan belyser bakomliggande orsaker till skillnaderna i inställning till olika kapitalkällor och vilka källor som faktiskt har använts vid en investering. Uppsatsens bidrag: Studien bidrar till en ökad förståelse för hur företag finansierar investeringar. Nyckelord: Pecking order, finansiering, kapitalkällor, externt kapital, internt kapital.

The purpose of this paper was to identify the elements and the alloys that five objects found in Birka consist of and to examine whether there are any significant differences between the presumably imported and domestic objects. The material was analyzed using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) which was equipped with an energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS) in order to identify the elements that are present and the alloys that the objects are made of. Then the SEM results were compared with the results of previous analyzes that have been performed on finds from Birka in order to investigate how the objects differ in elemental composition and to find out if there are any significant differences between them. The results showed that the objects? content of the elements analyzed varies as the copper alloys the objects are made of.

The aim of this bachelor?s thesis is to investigate what role the public library in Sweden may have when it comes to gender equality issues. The questions at issue that were asked, in order to give an answer to the aim, was how the librarians defined and saw work with equality, how much the steering documents for the library impact and what they are doing in their practice to weaken the dichotomies between the sexes. The theoretical starting point used for this study is three concepts, the gender system, the stereotypes and the gender contract described by the Swedish historian Yvonne Hirdman. The purpose of the three concepts is that gender is a social construction which produces gender stereotypes and a gender order in society, which the library is a part of.

The function of traditional leaders in the modern states of Africa has been under debate for decades. The dominant research discourse suggests that these institutions should be integrated into the state in order to minimize the amount of parallel political spheres, since the latters are considered to affect state legitimacy negatively. But are the states in a situation where they need to compete with the traditional institutions in order to gain more legitimacy? If so, is the struggle for legitimacy a zero-sum game where there can only be one winner? Or is it possible for these institutions to co-exist or even benefit from each other? The aim of this bachelor?s thesis is to research if, and to what extent, African citizens? confidence in traditional institutions has an effect on state legitimacy. This has been done by statistically analyzing the data from the latest completed round of the Afrobarometer survey, a study that has been conducted in 20 different countries across West- and Northeast Africa.

The emergency medical care in Sweden has been under persistent debate, due to factors such as long waiting hours, inefficient patient flow, and understaffed departments. In an effort to meet the critique and with a willingness to improve the problems, an increasing amount of emergency clinics are adopting theories and models within Lean. Positive outcomes are evident, there has been some criticism directed towards Lean. Among these is the argument that in order for Lean to be successful it needs to be used within standardized and foreseeable processes, and that it therefore only is applicable to those kind of processes found within industrial production. This prompted the question of whether Lean was a suitable strategy within emergency medical care, considering the large variation of patients and non-foreseeable processes that in fact share little resemblance to that of industrial production.

Background and problem: The abolishment of the mandatory audit in Sweden resulted in a marketorientation in which the small sized enterprises gained a stronger position. Theaudit firms are faced with the challenge to better meet the clients need and todemonstrate the value of audit now when it is optional. In coherence with thisclient focus it is endorsed to implement a value-based pricing that primarilyconsiders the client?s value and willingness to pay. The value of audit andaccounting services to small sized enterprises is not yet fully investigated, whyit is difficult to implement a value-based strategy.Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate the value of audit and accounting servicesto the small sized enterprises through the study of which attributes theseservices consist of and which priority the small sized enterprises attach to thedifferent attributes.

Background - Swedish trade and industry primarily involves small corporations, including small manufacturing corporations. Currently, most costing models that are used are based on studies accomplished at large corporations. This conveys to the fact that product costing that occurs at small manufacturing corporations is based on all complexities that large corporations bring, which rarely match with small corporations. It occurs that small manufacturing corporations unconsciously rely on incorrect information that has been calculated based on great corporations? product costing.

This master thesis was conducted in order to investigate the effects of the browsing species Yeheb on animal tissues in Swedish landrace goats and to make a literature review in order to increase the knowledge of the importance of this plant for livestock production in Somalia. The evergreen Yeheb bush is a very important feeding source for grazing and browsing animals in Somalia during the dry period. Yeheb contains cordeauxiaquinone that stains the bones of the animals red/pink, which has been an increasing problem when exporting meat to foreign countries. In an experiment, two goats were fed dry and fresh leaves from the Yeheb bush for one and two months, respectively. The goats did not feed the intended amount of dry leaves, since the supply and palatability was not as high as estimated.

Today it is mainly small and medium sized companies that choose to outsource parts of their ITdepartment in order to increase and become great. It is becoming increasingly common forcompanies to take the help of competent suppliers so that they then can focus on their own corebusiness. These companies are taking advantage of modern methods to support systemdevelopment by outsourcing to other countries such as India. Choosing to outsource to othercountries poses new challenges for companies when they meet both cultural and organizationaldifferences. It requires a lot of time and planning and clear communication in order to developand reach the goal.

The aim of this study was to shed light on how journalists describe the child?s world and what gender labels are used in their descriptions. We wanted to get a better understanding of what happens when gender is constructed.In order to study how gender is constructed, we chose to examine how the children?s magazine Kamratposten describes children?s spare time. We chose Kamratposten because it turns to both girls and boys.