Corporate Social Responsibility is a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns into their core business and in their interaction with stakeholders on a voluntarily basis. The purpose with our thesis is to study how Swedish insurance companies work with Corporate Social Responsibility and to analyse the underlying strategies of the companies? social, environmental and economical activities. We will analyse where, how and for whom value can be created with CSR. Where does the value creation take place, how can it be created through these activities and who will benefit from Corporate Social Responsibility? Theories point out that companies need to assemble and value the total package of benefits to be able to create successful corporate initiatives.

The purpose of this thesis is to gain understanding of how companies proactively can manage their reputation. The thesis analyzes three multinational companies in Sweden and uses two theoretical approaches - the reputation risk view and the reputation strengthening view - to gain an overall perspective of how companies work with their reputation. It focuses on investigating which key areas of reputation risk the focal companies identify and how they manage the reputation risks within these areas. Moreover, it examines which stakeholders the companies believe are most critical from a reputation point of view and in what ways the companies work with strengthening their reputation among those stakeholders. In order to find a general approach, the thesis investigates the similarities and differences that exist between the respective companies in the study.

The aim of this thesis is to get an idea of how service companies set their prices. The method used was a case study approach, which was conducted at three real estate companies. The study showed that when setting their prices, the main aspect is their own costs. However, we have found that several other aspects play a big role when setting prices on services in real estate business such as individual customer behaviour and market competition. We have also found that the real estate companies charge very similar prices.

In recent years there have been major changes in the accounting field and the question of what is fair and accurate reporting is always a relevant issue. Defining the concept of true and fair view and to find an accurate synonym is difficult, still it may be considered that there is an implied meaning of the concept in the business of accounting. In 2004 BFN started the development of K2, a simplified regulatory framework for small companies. The purpose of K2 is to facilitate the accounting and reduce the administrative burden for these companies. In Sweden, 95 percent of all companies belong to the category of small companies and are allowed to use the new and simplified regulations, K2.

This thesis addresses online marketing within gaming industry. Some customer identifying methods and website development were introduced as well as examined over the Internet. An empirical study focusing on two gaming companies has been carried out. The purpose has been to describe the use of internet by online gaming companies for online marketing. The thesis will focus on finding out how online gaming companies identify their target groups on internet and how they use internet to reach out to their consumers.

New companies go public through Nasdaqs growth market First North constantly. The reasons for going public are many, and the interest at the moment is big. There are different ways to go public, the most common being the traditional IPO. This study is about the companies that have been listed on Nasdaq First North between 2008 and 2013 through traditional IPO, or by RTO (reverse takeover).The differences between these two ways of going public are that the IPOs are reviewed more thoroughly by Nasdaq and the market. This makes the study interesting, as the RTOs go public in a faster way, and avoid the review from outside parties largely.

Today many industrial companies invest a lot of resources on research and development to resist the tough competition on the global market. This leads to a high risk game when the companies start many development projects, with uncertain outcome where some of the projects have to be terminated prematurely. The main purpose with this study is to identify factors, both internal and external, that influence the decision to terminate projects prematurely in Swedish development projects. Factors mentioned in the literature will be compared with case studies on three Swedish industrial companies to demonstrate the most important ones when taking such decisions. First a literature study was made to identify basic terms, a general project model and factors affecting the decision.

Background: Sweden has, since 1983, had a statutory audit for all joint-stock companies. However, according to EG?s fourth corporation directive, member countries can decide on their own if this applies for small joint-stock companies. An investigation was launched in the fall of 2006 to form an opinion on the importance of the audit reporting by law and what an abolishment of this rule would mean for small joint-stock companies. Critics are claiming that the cost of audit for small companies is exceeding the cause in these micro companies.Audit is regulated by Swedish translation (RS) of International Standards on Auditing (ISA) and is to be applied in all companies comprised by the statutory audit.

Because of among other things the globalization and a focus on core competencies knowledge has become very important for the companies of today, especially for research-intensive companies. The problem is that the companies become more sensitive to how knowledge is created and spread, that is, how organizational knowledge is created. Especially sensitive are companies who are small, young and research-intensive. The purpose with this thesis is to explore how organizational knowledge is created in small, young and research intensive companies.The theory is based on a five-phase model of organizational knowledge creation and four modes of knowledge conversion described by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995). These concepts constitute the foundation of the analytical model used in the thesis.The study is carried out by qualitative, highly structured interviews with low standardization.

At first glance, the group CEO's (koncernchefens) legal position looks easy. It is the CEO?s responsibility to lead and make decisions on matters which affect the entire group, all while defending the company?s best interests. However, when one looks closely at how the Companies Act (Aktiebolagslagen) regulates how a company should organize itself, as well as the options available to manage the group, one rea-lizes that simply appointing a group CEO does not necessarily make the company compatible with the Companies Act. A group CEO threatens to reduce both the Board and CEO's legal administrative districts which are not in accordance with legal and commercial principles.In order to introduce a group CEO it requires a detailed investigation of the group's legal relationships.

Background: Goodwill has always been frequently discussed and a lot of scientific research has been done regarding factors that affect companies? impairment of goodwill. Previous research has concluded that companies reporting low results are more prone to do impairments of goodwill than companies reporting better results which possibly can be seen as a form of earnings management.Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to examine if goodwill impairments occur to a greater extent among Swedish listed companies when the companies are reporting lower earnings. A subsidiary purpose is to see if there has been an improvement since 2008 regarding the size of reported goodwill in comparison to equity in the years 2009-2011. And to analyze the development of the companies goodwill impairments in relation to reported goodwill.Methodology: Three quantitative studies have been performed for the years 2009-2011 where all the listed companies on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm have been included.

On November 1st 2010 the obligatory audit was removed in Sweden for small companies. What factors influence such companies to have their financial reports audited, and what factors exert the strongest influence. Purpose: The authors would like to investigate factors that affect companies with voluntary audits in Skåne län to continue with the audit. The authors also wish to examine the factors that have the strongest impact on the choice to adopt auditing. Method: A quantitative study has been conducted in which aquestionnaire was sent to companies in Skåne Län Conclusion: The factors that affect smaller companies to continue with audit are as follows: Accounting quality, cost, creditors (loans), suppliers / customers, the tax office and distort competition.

The purpose of this thesis was to highlight how different aspects of market communication are used when micro companies choose to use both Internet and store selling activities towards the consumer market. The thesis dealt with off-line and on-line communication considerations with focus on advertising, interactions, and relations. In order to achieve this purpose a case study was conducted, that revealed that the companies acted according to theories. The conclusions drawn from the thesis were that companies tended to rely on traditional ways of dealing with advertising and interaction. We could also see that relations were created as a result of unconscious behavior and that the Internet activities still were on a basic level..

The purpose of the study is to examine and analyze the relation between the existence of global companies and given support to immigrant- owned companies with large cultural difference from public services. This helps answering the question "Which affect does the existence of local dominating companies have on the establishment of small companies owned by immigrants with large cultural differences?" This has been accomplished through a field study containing twelve interviews with small companies in two different cities and two interviews with the community officials in each city. The research was thereby narrowed to only treat the two cities in Sweden in order to examine the relation between public services support to small immigrant-owned companies and how the immigrants experience the support from them. The analyze was made due to a handful of theories such as the The network theory IP model, Hofstede's 4+1 model and the Product Life Cycle.

Companies that invest in e-learning have different expectations regarding the outcome of the investment. According to literature and articles it is common that companies see reduction of costs as the primary benefit with e-learning. Therefore we ask ourselves the question if companies have attained the expected benefit of the investment in e-learning and to what extent cost reduction have been a determining factor in the investments? The purpose of the thesis is to examine if companies that invest in e-learning have attained the expected benefits. We also want to examine what the reason for investing in e-learning is and if cost reduction is the primary reason for investing.