The purpose of our essay was to understand better how two companies manage ethnical diversity in their organization and standards of a multicultural organization. For study objects we selected two companies nominated as ?good examples? of companies working with ethnical diversity in their organization. The study objects are Föreningsparbanken and Pågen AB in Sweden. The result verifies that both companies have by some term a heterogenic staff of workmen in some parts of the organization although the heterogeneity occurs only on a lower level at the organizational hierarchy.

The music industry has been subject to great changes during the last ten years. The most significant factor contributing to this change is the increasing usage of broadband and thereby the increasing frequency of downloading music illegally. Music piracy and file sharing have caused record sales to plummet. Consumers have now moved on to consuming music in a digital format, not only through downloading but also from streaming music online, an activity partly made possible by social media channels such as YouTube. As the consumption patterns have changed companies within the music industry have been forced to find other sources of income than record sales and they have also needed to find alternate ways to market their artists.

1 January 2005 came the new reconstructed version of IAS 40. It came to compensate the earlier ÅRL and FAR who was applied within the European Union. These new standards came to be called as IAS/IFRS. The standards? are supposed to make sure that the differences between the different countries won?t be so split.

The problem area was identified due to the fact that research within internal audit is fragmented and insufficient, simultaneously to internal audit becoming more common in the public debate. Crises and scandals in companies such as Enron in the US and Skandia in Sweden have resulted in new regulations regarding how companies should be governed. These regulations have been established in Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) in the US, and in Sweden the Swedish code for corporate governance will be implemented in 2005. The regulations imply that companies must provide sound internal control and to accomplish that, companies should have an auditing and consulting internal audit function. The Swedish code for corporate governance denotes that companies can decide to comply or explain why the code is not complied.

An increasingly globalized market is leading to hard competition among manufacturing companies, which means that they are forced to become more customer focused to survive in the market. A Customer Relationship Management system is a system that will be of assistance to help companies succeed in building long term relationships with their customers. Best of Breed and ERP-based are two types of CRM systems. The study has focused on analyzing and examine the need for CRM systems at manufacturing companies. Our question formulation has been:? What need do businesses want to satisfy with a Best of Breed-based and ERP-based CRM system?? Are there any differences in the use of Best of Breed-based and ERP-based CRM system?In this study, we have chosen to carry out interviews and quantitative surveys with manufacturing companies to get their view of CRM-systems.

To establish sustainability reports is an increasing trend for more and more companies. This has led to a spread of the international framework Global reporting initiative, GRI, guidelines to make a sustainability reports. This trend has got a lot of critics from various stakeholders who believe that companies in these reports communicate the information in a way of window dressing. Both negative and positive information has to be represented according to GRI: s principle of balance.  Window dressing is created by adding a greater emphasis on the positive information. The researchers review the context of the negative information to study the extent to which it is reported and whether there are patterns and variations in the reported information.

This dissertation discusses the preparations companies do when their auditor is about to visit them. We wanted to investigate if companies do some form of preparations with the intense of trying to influence the auditor in an, for the company, advantageous way. The purpose was to be fulfilled through the deductive process of theorization and from the gathering of empirical and the analysis of this data. We decided that a multiple case study would be the best approach for us, as we wanted to undertake a greater number of interviews than is normally done in a case study. The result from our study showed that auditors think that information from a company is more reliable, if its documentation is neatly kept, or if the relationship between the auditor and the company is good.

The amount of cargo has since the 1970s increased in Sweden and the road traffic accounts for a large part of the transported volume. In Stockholm County the amount of cargo is calculated to be doubled in size from year 2001 to 2020 which means a greater need for transport is required. Much of these transports are being carried out by haulage companies of varying sizes which acts externally as carriers for their customers. All of this despite a greater awareness, laws and demands regarding environmental performance.The trend shows that the haulage industry in Sweden are moving towards fewer but larger haulage companies, which means that the competition is getting tougher for the smaller haulage companies. Smaller haulage companies and research about their competitive strategies is a neglected part of this industry.

Most companies and organizations today depend on technology connected to the Internet. Schools and offices have therefore been providing computers, phones and other technology to the employees. The recent technological development and decline in prices for technology have contributed to making these products a part of everyday life for most people. This has made it very common for employees and students to bring their own devices into school and workplaces.The aim of this study is to define what "Bring your own device" means for Swedish companies and organizations and how it has been implemented in those. The aim is not mainly to generalize to all Swedish companies but create an understanding how the trend is used to provide a basis for continued research in this area.

In the proposition Nya förmånsrättsregler, 2002/03:49, the government suggests a new bill of beneficial rights, or FRL. The proposition has several changes, mostly for The Banking system. One of the changes is that the banks´ individual beneficial rights shall be replaced by a general beneficial right, where the beneficial value never exceeds 55 percent of the value of insurance bonds. Previously, the beneficial value was 100 percent.The purpose of this essay is to evaluate the relationship between the banks´ activities, and the new bill of beneficial rights, especially what the effects will become for the public companies within the printing houses, with 1 - 49 employees in the Skåne Region.The survey includes a total of 142 companies and it was distributed via e-mail. The conclusions from the study are that there are tendencies of increased difficulties for companies to get their credits granted by the banks.

BackgroundToday a common approach to solve a complicated problem is to assemble a temporary workforce in order to solve the problem by working together within a project. One of the difficulties with working in projects is to maintain the planned budget. Working hours and costs are often exceeded. Many companies presume that any certain project will succeed, a presumption that leads companies not to anticipate risks involved in a project. In companies today there is seldom time for evaluation or moderation of a project, in order to have time for evaluation there is a great need for an adequate planning of the project.IntentThe intention with this study is to create a model for planning, budgeting and evaluation of projects within consultancy companies.MethodWith the help of interviews and discussions within the group Hamnar och Byggkonstruktioner at Sweco has evidence to present a proposal on planning, budgeting and monitoring been developed.ResultsA model has been developed to ease for consultancy companies to plan, budget, monitor and evaluate projects.

Background: Knowledge management is a concept that is considered of increasing importance in the developing knowledge society. Previous research in the area has to a large extent been based on large multinational companies. Purpose: The thesis aims to clarify how middle-sized Swedish management consultancy companies work with knowledge management. The thesis intends to use existing theories about knowledge management to explain the effect of size and area of operation on management consultancy companies? knowledge management.

SummaryThe purpose of this thesis is to examine what effect the IFRS 2 has on earnings, equity, financial strength and return on equity for listed Swedish companies with active stock option plans. The purpose is further to investigate the companies? attitudes towards IFRS 2 and to find out if companies tend to deviate from stock option plans due to the changed accounting rules. We also want to examine the view of IFRS 2 from an auditor?s perspective.We have used a deductive approach and a mix of quantitative and qualitative research methods with a view to get a completely clear picture within the field of study.

In January 2005 the emission allowance system was introduced within the European Union and the first period ends at the end of 2007. The system was introduced in order to decrease the wastes of carbon dioxide and the system is a part of ratifying the Kyoto ?protocol which first period runs between 2008-2012.The idea of the system is to reduce the wastes of carbon dioxide where it costs less to do so and the expenses for the society therefore are as diminutive as possible. Different theories explain that companies can benefit from environment legislation and can depending on the company?s attitude gain competitive advantages improve its productivity and thereby increase its profitability.With this in mind, the study aims at examining how the introduction of the emission trade system has influenced Swedish smaller companies in the distant heating industry, with focus on the factors attitude, innovation, competition and profitability.

Work is an important part of the lives of humans, fulfilling several functions; it establishes possibilities to interaction and to feeling as belonging to a context, it gives structure to time and space, creates common goals and it leads to a general well-being in individuals. For the well-being of employees it is essential with recuperation in a pleasant environment where you under relaxing and informal forms have a chance to interact with colleagues. The aim of this study was to investigate to which extent the employees of Tetra Pak Packaging Material AB at Tetra Pak in Lund experience that the informal communication during the coffee-break contributes to their well-being. The aim was also to distinguish if this potential well-being effects how the employees experience how work in general makes them feel. The hypothesis of the study is that the coffee-break effects the well-being in a positive way, and that it has a positive effect on how work in general makes the employees feel.