Slovenia and Latvia are two examples of countries which have gone through a successful democratic transition. They were both under authoritarian rule and command economy up until their declarations of independence in the early 90s. Today they have a functional market economy and political pluralism. I have examined transition theories highlighted by Jonas Linde and Joakim Ekman and from these theories sought the explanations to what lies behind the successful transitions of these two countries. The transition in Slovenia was affected by liberalization from within the ruling communist party which then controlled much of the transition process. A relatively large civil society and the fact that Slovenia was not involved in the Balkan War also contributed to the short process.

A third party access to district heating networks has been proposed in Sweden, to increase the competition on the district heating market. Such third party access could create opportunities for the agricultural sector as an energy producer. This study describes the technical, economical and environmental prerequisites for a farmer cluster to build and run a heating plant, fueled with local wood fuel. The heating plant in the described scenario is 8 MW and will supply a village of 1000 houses, and is fueled with wood chips exclusively. Supplying a heating plant with fuel puts high demands on the logistics, since there need to be a continuous flow of fuel. In the scenario, wood residues from felling and thinning is stored in stacks in the forest, and a few times a year chipped and transported to a storage area at the heating plant. In the study, an estimation of the profitability has been made by estimating the cost of the investment, personnel, operating and maintenance costs and costs for the fuel and ash handling.

Bakgrund: I dagens näringsliv där nationella och internationella företagsförvärv tillhörvardagen har due diligence-analysens relevans ökat tillsammans med antaletundersökningsmoment. Företagens ansvar vad gäller samhällsansvar och korruptionsfrågordebatteras ständigt i samhälle och media vilket bidragit till att CSR-due diligence och thirdparty-due diligence uppkommit som nya granskningsmoment vid företagsförvärv. Utöverdessa har M&A-försäkringar uppstått som en reaktion på förvärvens allt komplexareriskanalyser och garantiklausuler.Syfte och forskningsfrågor: Syftet med studien är att beskriva hur due diligence-trendersprids och undersöka i vilken utsträckning trenderna CSR- och third party-due diligence samtM&A-försäkringar praktiseras av svenska förvärvsaktörer. För att uppnå syftet kommerföljande forskningsfrågor att undersökas och besvaras: Vilken genomslagskraft har deidentifierade trenderna uppnått enligt aktörer på den svenska förvärvsmarknaden? Vilkafaktorer och aktörer är mest bidragande till spridning av nya due diligence-trender?Avgränsningar: Uppsatsen undersöker den svenska förvärvsmarknaden med fokus påspridning och användning av tre utvalda due diligence-trender.

Background: As Porter?s diamond (1990) suggested, the business environment highly influences firms? strategies. Today, most of the companies have to decide their strategy depending from a worldwide business environment. Yet, strategy researches and the growing importance of marketing for business success also show that customer dimension must be taken into consideration. On some markets and in certain industries, the offer is much higher than the demand and then, companies need to attract customers.

The Sweden Democrats achieved great progress in the latest election in the Swedish municipals. The party is now closer than ever concerning reaching the Swedish parliament. This thesis examines the Sweden Democrats in the Swedish municipals with the aim to find out which municipal factors that led to their progress. By looking at the percentage share of unemployment, the percentage share of foreigners, the percentage share of education, average income, traditional political colour, average age, criminality, early representation of a party hostile to foreigners, the municipal type and the sickliness in the municipals I find out which factors explain the progress of the Sweden Democrats. The thesis is an empirical quantitative study build on statistics by the help of regression analysis and diagrams.

The aim of this study is to analyse the sexual power relations in contemporary urban novels of Swedish female writers.I have identified a discourse in these novels as a heteronormative matrix which power is ruled by norms and assumptions about normality in both the heterosexual and lesbian stories. For this purpose I have related to Ivar B. Neumanns theory that individuals always find a way to confront the discourse by three different strategies. These strategies are used in my study as tools to organise these novels, because it is possible to see that the protagonists find at least one of these strategy?s to her protest.The first strategy I studied was the docile.

The aim of this study is to investigate the situation in Romania concerning trafficking for sexual purposes. We look at what affect the European Union has had relating to this matter, in order to conclude what a membership implies on the fight against trafficking. A gender perspective is apparent throughout the essay and new institutionalism leads us to focus on the affect of the EU, both formally and informally. Questions to be answered revolves around the EU:s strategy against trafficking, recent trends and the implementation of the strategy in Romania, formally and informally. The study has the form of a case study and is conducted through a field study in Romania.

The aim of this two year master thesis is to analyze how digital preservation is presented as a problem in the Swedish national strategy for the digitization and digital preservation of the Swedish cultural heritage. In order to study which assumptions about digital preservation exists within the strategy I apply the discourse oriented methodological tools presented by Carol Lee Bacchi, which focuses on discerning what problem or, rather, representation of a problem exists within a specific policy. This study is a post-structuralist discourse analysis. The main focus of the study is on what assumptions and prerequisites the dominating representation of the problem is based upon and how the representation has evolved. The main material of the study consists of public investigations conducted by the Swedish state, governmental propositions and replies as well as other public documents upon which Bacci's methodological tools are applied.Results show that digital preservation is primarily interpreted as a financial problem as the national strategy and its surrounding documents stress the need of cost-efficient solutions.

This study investigated how banner ads, depending on its quality and placement,can capture a user's attention while searching for editorial content in an online newspaper. Furthermore, the user's search strategy was also studied to see whether it varied depending on the placement of an ad. An experiment was conducted where 20 subjects searched for articles in a Swedish online newspaper while their eye ovement was recorded with a headmounted eye?tracker. In each search task the online newspaper contained either a low quality ad or a high quality ad.

This thesis studies the concept of balance in the management control systems (MCS) of a small Swedish company within the IT-sector. The aim is to evaluate the importance of balance and dynamics in MCS and investigate which factors affect them. The frameworks used are Simons (1994) four levers of control, and the five-factor model for balance and dynamics by Mundy (2010). The small IT company - the object of the case study - has grown extensively in the last years and needs to develop more formal MCS without losing efficiency and creativity in their fast-moving industry. The case study reveals that balancing MCS is important also in smaller companies with less formal MCS.

Problem: When opening a newspaper today there is a good chance that the headlines have something to do with recent developments in the global climate debate. This development is forcing companies to take action. The problem for many companies, including Thule, is that they are unaware of the environmental work conducted throughout their value chain and also what they need to do to become green. Thule, a company with a strong focus on profitability and growth, will not make environmental issues a part of their core strategy unless it can be shown that economic incentives exist. With this thesis we will try to build a case that will help Thule, and also other companies, see the possibilities a green venture brings with it.

Uppsatsen behandlar third party ownership (TPO) inom den professionella fotbollen da?r fokus fra?mst ligger pa? den europeiska toppfotbollen. Vidare tas fotbollens autonoma sta?llning till samha?llets o?vriga grenar upp och belyses. Syftet med uppsatsen a?r till stor del att belysa en problematik som den traditionella juristka?ren inte anammat.

The primary purpose of this paper is to find the determinants of first-day returns on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. Our research will cover the 1996 ? 2004 periods. Our secondary purpose is intended to find a profitable trading strategy with regard to future IPOs on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. By using regression analysis, focusing on company specific factors and the IPO process, we hope to find a function exhibiting statistical significance, determining future first-day returns from which construction of a profitable trading strategy will be possible.

The Sister Kenny Research Center is part of the Sister Kenny Rehabilitation Institute locatedat the Abbott Northwestern hospital in Minneapolis, USA. The Sister Kenny RehabilitationInstitute provides rehabilitative services, treating more than 70,000 patients a year.The Sister Kenny Research Center strives to optimize the service to patients by nurturingnew innovations in rehabilitation care and treatment. Research projects are conducted ininterdisciplinary so-called Clinical Innovation Teams. As the Sister Kenny Research Center isrecently started, it did not prior to this thesis project have a design process or structured way ofworking in design projects.The outcome of this thesis project is a comprehensive innovation strategy package with a set oftools to enhance the innovativeness at the Sister Kenny Research Center. The strategy packageconsists of three interlinked parts:?A design process adapted to the work environment at the Sister Kenny Research Centerensuring projects are conducted in a structured and innovative manner.?An Innovation Handbook describing the design process to the Clinical Innovation Teamsand providing step-by-step guidance to designing.

In June 2006 the Council of the European Union agreed on the review of the EU sustainable development strategy. This renewed strategy voices a commitment to sustainable development that includes a diverse list of safeguarded interests. Sustainability is to be attained in the spheres of democracy, solidarity, the rule of law, gender equality and at the same time it should promote a dynamic economy. Given this multifunctional application of sustainable development, curiosity may soon give rise to questions such as; What is the legal significance of the concept? Is it to be considered a general principle of Community law? And can it be used as an instrument in adjudication and legal reasoning? Anyone who looks deeper into the concept of sustainable development is soon to find a labyrinthine complex of ideas, expressions and opinions.