The study tries to increase the understanding of the phenomenon known as the Big bath, on the question whether the market accepts Big bath accounting principle or not. Big bath is an accounting theory meaning that a company is likely to increase its impairment in a specific year. This could be as a reaction on a change in the leadership, a depreciation of the result or maybe an external decrease in demand. Through a quantitative survey of the market it is examining whether the companies themselves are inclined to use the procedure and if the stock market accepts it. The study concludes that Big bath similar procedures are a fairly common accounting practice and that the stock market does not seem to mind. .

Previously studies have shown that the way companies explain outcome in their annual report is not totally trustworthy. Studies show that the management has a self serving bias when they explain the result to give a positive image of the company. Our study is based on investigations into this phenomenon in the telecom market in Sweden. Turbulent market conditions with, among other, deregulation of the monopoly of fixed telephony and a huge technical evolution, which has led to an increase in competition, is the reason to why we have chosen to study the telecom market in Sweden. As a benchmark in our study the attribution theory will be used.

The purpose of this study is, on the basis of institutional theory, to contribute with moreunderstanding about resistance to management accounting change and also to survey reasonsfor the resistance and how to cope with the resistance.The study is a qualitative case study and semi-structured interviews have been used tocomplement the study?s theoretical area, consisting of scientific articles.The conclusion from the study is that resistance to management accounting change can beunderstood and explained by the institutions of each organisation and its underlying structures. Afurther conclusion is, with the structures in mind there are many reasons for resistance and alsomany ways to cope with the resistance. A model has been produced in purpose to createunderstanding and to survey the resistance to management accounting change..

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate whether accounting quality is a priced factor by investors. The event studied is the release of year-end result and the release of the annual report. To assess accounting quality a sample of 30 companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange during 2003 to 2007 are studied. We assess accounting quality by the absolute size of discretionary accruals using the modified Jones model developed by Dechow et al. (1995).

Accounting for financial instruments can either be based on a transactions approach or an eco-nomic approach. Under a transactions approach instruments are reported at cost whereas under an economic approach instruments are reported at fair value. Hence, under a transactions approach realization becomes a criterion for recognizing fair value fluctuations as revenue whereas under an economic approach it does not. A mixed model is defined as a combination of the transactions approach and the economic approach insofar it records some accounting items at cost and other items at fair value. The mixed model gives rise to an issue commonly referred to as an accounting mismatch.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyse and propose improvements to the cost accounting system in use at an airline operating on the Swedish market. The choice of study object is based on the airline?s desire to have its cost accounting system evaluated. During the analysis we have identified a number of points where the current cost accounting system does not correspond to its intended purpose. These points include significant groups of costs not being considered in the current system, potential over capacity is not visible and logic connections between distribution keys and the use of resources are sometimes lacking.

Although previous research conclude that mergers and acquisitions do not always lead to improved profitability or increased shareholder return, the number and size of M&A?s is steadily increasing. In this thesis we examine why an acquirer pays a price higher than the market value. Can accounting data explain the size of the premium? 618 European transactions between 1997 and 2008 are examined and relationships between the targets? accounting data and the premium is analysed through statistical regressions.

The natural disasters of recent time have caused the people of Sweden to donate very large amounts of money to different fundraising organizations. With this in mind, we found it interesting to examine the extent of disclosure in the annual reports of the Swedish fundraising organizations. Thus, the purpose of this study is to identify which factors that influences the extent of disclosure of accounting principles in the annual reports of Swedish fundraising organizations. To fulfill this purpose we conducted a content analysis of 149 annual reports from Swedish fundraising organizations. To help us explain the levels of disclosure we applied stakeholder theory, institutional theory and legitimacy theory.

The purpose with this thesis is to demonstrate that other factors than the existing set of rules could influence the Management Group?s decision in regards to depreciation of goodwill. We have explained the conflicts between the management group and the stakeholders by using the Agency Theory and the Stakeholder Model. We have used the Positive Accounting Theory to describe how the management group?s opportunistic behaviour decides which accounting method to use.

The purpose of our study is to determine whether a membership in FRII exercise any influence over the fundraising organizations accounting and work, and if that?s the case we want to study the effects.We began with a search for information about the theories we intended to use in our study and to establish hypotheses. We came to the conclusion that the agency theory and the stakeholder model were the most relevant theories for our work. We also chose to discuss problems in accounting, legitimacy theory and standard setting.We decided to conduct a total opinon poll due to the fact that FRII only have approximately seventy members. We also decided to conduct a cross section approach which means that the attempt of our study is broad but rather shallow.

Sammanfattning:Det finns olika valmöjligheter inom redovisning. Vilket val man gör styrs av vilket resultat man önskar visa. Det har just införts en ny lag som innebär att juridiska personer skall ta upp en schablonintäkt för sina periodiseringsfonder och vi bestämde oss för att undersöka vilka val företagen gjort och vilken betydelse olika faktorer har när de ska välja att sätta av till periodiseringsfonder eller ej.Vi valde ett deduktivt angreppssätt och de vetenskapliga teorier vi främst utgick ifrån var agentteorin och Positive Accounting Theory (PAT). Vi valde att undersöka om följande faktorer kan ha samband med vilka beslut man tar när det gäller periodiseringsfonderna: bonus till ledningen, företagens skuldsättningsgrad, storlek, bransch och ägarstruktur.Vi ställde samman en hypotes för varje faktor och i de fall vår ursprungliga rådata var kontinuerligt kvantitativ testade vi dessa hypoteser med hjälp av så kallade t-tester. I andra fall gjorde vi korstabeller med ?2-test.Från PAT är det endast skuldsättningsgraden som påvisar ett svagt samband.

Globalization has among other tendencies led to the emergence of new ways of doing business. One of the ways for organizations to meet the demands of a new competitive landscape has been through management accounting change, a field which has become increasingly popular in research. This paper builds on that research and seeks to investigate the case of the implementation of a new management accounting system in a Swedish company which was triggered by strategic change. Commonality through the interactive approach is by some researchers seen as a key to successful change. This approach is contrasted to the importance of symbolic constructs and change recipients? cognitive effort to understand the meaning of change for which Framing theory is applied.

Background: Many different parties in the society are affected by the financial information delivered by the companies. Therefore, different interests want their ideas to have an impact on the accountning standards. The construction of the accounting standards are illustrated as a pure political process, where lobbying and conflicts of interest are determining factors. Purpose: The purpose is to understand the underlying interests behind regulation of financial accounting in Sweden and how these interests are manifestated in the establishment of accounting standards. Method: The thesis is designed as a casestudy of the regulation process which induced the legislation of the Årsredovisningslagen 6 kap 1 § 3st.

Since January 1st 2005, public companies within the European Union shall prepare their consolidated accounts in conformity with the international accounting standards. The adopted accounting standards are IASB?s IAS/IFRS completed with interpretations. Furthermore, member states may permit or require public companies to prepare their annual accounts according to IAS/IFRS. Sweden has not yet given companies the ability to use IAS/IFRS in the annual accounts due to taxation difficulties the strong relationship between accounting and taxation brings.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the method called zero recognition that is used in accounting for construction contracts when the outcome is uncertain. When this is the case it is hard to make the necessary estimates needed for the percentage of completion method to be used. Both the meaning of the method from an accounting perspective and the practical importance and purpose of the method is investigated. The method used for this study is the qualitative one and the deductive model is used to relate the theory with the empirical research. The theoretical background consists of accounting theory and theories about individuals, companies and markets.