The business world has been through an extreme transformation over the past decades, which have forced companies to look at themselves from a new point of view. Consumers have a complete new set of ways to gather information and are more motivated than ever to make sustainable consumption choices. This change of attitudes among consumers has made companies focus on other things than price versus quality. A whole new concept has been brought up to questioning: environmentalism. Consumers demand more organically produced products.

All small- and medium-sized family owned enterprises need to sooner or later undergo a change of ownership. When the elder generation is approaching their retirement they have to make a choice; either hand over the business to the younger generation or sell it to an outsider. The succession of the family owned business can create a life long dilemma for the entrepreneur. From the view of taxation there are, according to current legislation, no reasons to plan the succession to the younger generation. If no preparation has been done, the optional law system concerning inheritance will divide the property left.

According to the Water Framework Directive of the European Union, macrophytes should be used as indicators in the ecological and environmental monitoring of lakes. In the member state Sweden the Environmental Protection Agency has elaborated assessment criteria for determining lake status based on macrophytes. The main focus of this thesis is to evaluate the efficiency of the assessment criteria for macrophytes. In addition the concordance between the ecological status classes of the four quality factors included was analysed.The assessment criteria for macrophytes are based on the total phosphorus preference of the respective species. The focus is thus mainly on the nutrient level of the investigated lakes and the environmental problem monitored is eutrophication.

The purpose of the thesis is to examine why women face greater difficulties than men in the management consulting industry when advancing as well as to identify potential success factors that enable women to overcome the existing difficulties. In order to fulfil the purpose, a theoretical framework including gender and organisational theory has been applied to a qualitative case study of two Swedish management consulting firms. A number of difficulties have been identified related to women's career advancement, which are the following: the male leader and the stereotypical male leadership, firms having higher expectations on women's performance, women's reluctance to self-promotion and to play "the organizational game", women's preference of social networks, men's tendency to promote other men, and the choice and conflict between a career and family life. The identified success factors that enable women to overcome these difficulties are: adapting the male leadership style, having an extrovert behaviour, becoming more active in professional networks, promoting one self, actively seeking to gain more attention, and prioritising one's career. These success factors can be summarised as women adapting a more male-like behaviour.

When a person of the older generation in a family owned company wish to transfer his ownership to a person in the younger generation this can be done through a succession of generation. Different methods can be used to proceed with such a matter, selling the company shares for a price below the market value is one example of this.When the owner transfers shares to a person in the younger generation, either as a gift or by selling them to a price below the market value, the provision in the 7th chapter 4 § ÄB can be applicable. This provision establish that; when a gift that has been given during the grantors lifetime and when the purpose of this gift is to be equivalent to a testament, the gift shall be returned to the receiver if this action confines with the direct heirs statutory portion.A gift is to be equivalent to a testament when the giver had the intention to arrange the succession when the gift was given away, and when this gift did not amount to any economical sacrifice for the giver. There are two situations which causes a gift to be equivalent to a testament. The first situation arises when the gift is given by the giver right before his death, on his deathbed so to speak.

Abstract Master Thesis in Business Administration, School of Business and Economics at the Linnaeus University, 2013 Authors: William Funseth and Tobias Åkesson Supervisor: Magnus Willesson Examiner: Sven-Olof Yrjö Collin Title: The liquidity route to more informed investment decisions - A study on the relationship between concentration of ownership and liquidity on Nasdaq OMX. Background and problem: Previous studies have shown that liquidity can explain differences in returns in corporate shares, the company's cost of capital and the valuation of the company. Based on the effects of liquidity we developed a research question concerning how concentration of ownership effects liquidity of corporate shares the studies conducted for companies listed on Nasdaq OMX during a period with major changes on the stock market and is also investigating weather other company-specific differences can explain differences in liquidity. Purpose: The study's purpose is to study the relationship between ownership concentration and liquidity, and whether other factors might explain differences in liquidity. Method: The study is conducted with a quantitative method and it?s based on data collected from 2006-2011 for companies listed on Nasdaq OMX.

Game fields are one way to divert animals away from sensitive areas, create shelter and forage, and also to increase the biological diversity. In this study I investigated how the plant composition in six different crop mixes used for game fields affected the biomass production, biomass consumption and biological diversity at the Koberg estate in southwestern Sweden. Six experimental fields were used and each field contained six plots, approximately 1500 m2 each, that was sown with a different crop mix. The crop mixes ranged from a pure grass mix (A), 70 % grass and 30 % leguminous plants (B), 53 % grass, 21 % leguminous plants and 26 % other herbs (C), 100 % leguminous plants (D) to the most complex mixes constituting of 91 % leguminous plants and 9 % other herbs (E) and 87 % leguminous plants and 13 % other herbs (F). The fields were cut weekly during the summer in 2010, to estimate weekly biomass production.

This report brings up the question - ?Is BIM profitable when planning a single-family home??.The methodology for finding the answer to this question is firstly to state the definitions of BIMand the company that is projecting by using the BIM-model. The answer is then obtained byanalyses of the factors of profitability with respect to: time, opportunity of revision, problemvisualization, preference adjustments and energy. A BIM-model has been made simultaneously asthe writing has proceeded to get a perception of how a BIM-model really matters for the analysis.The analysis shows that the answer for the question depends on further factors. The factors thatare mostly discussed are the company?s intentions and the complexity of the house.

As companies worldwide are in search of competitiveness and larger shares of the market, organizational change has become a key-factor to sustain a competitive edge. But as organizations consist of people, the human aspect of change is not to be disregarded. When change occurs, humans need time to find their new role in the organization, a process that takes time. In this thesis the authors ask themselves what an implementation process of a new managerial role looks like. To answer this question they?ve studied LRF Konsult.

Research has shown that our numbers of choices are constantly increasing. In this paper, we investigate the choice-making process further with regard to satisfaction, recommendation propensity, confidence, and preference. The study focuses on two fitness clubs where product information is provided sequential to the participant. We examine if consumers who maintain their choice tend to be more satisfied with their choice and more willing to recommend the choice to a friend. If they are, why is this? We found that the participants who changed their choice claimed to be less satisfied and had less propensity to recommend the choice to a friend.

The swedish rule concerning the treatment of employee stock-options have changed and the new wording of the rule will be applicable for the first time in 2010. The previous wording of the rule stated that the employee shall be taxed for the stock-option when moving abroad, even if the option is not exercised. The Swedish Skatteverket and Regeringsrätten have found that this rule is in conflict with the free movement of persons within the European Union. The new wording of the rule states that the employee shall be taxed when the option is excercised, no matter where the employee is situated. A state`s right of taxation of a stock-option determines wheter and to what extent the employee stock-otion derives from that state..

Trading based on technical analysis has its roots in the U.S. financial industry where it has long been common practice, in Sweden however the trading style has not had the same impact. Based on the results from the preliminary study we believe this is about to change and that the topic therefore requires further studying. Several online stockbrokers today provide information and tools for technical analysis to their clients. As the list of indicators to use for creating strategies is so immense it is interesting for an investor to know what actually could be the basis for a profitable investment strategy.

This paper aims to derive the Black-Scholes equation for readers without advanced knowledge in finance and mathematics. To succeed, this paper contains a theoretical chapter in which concepts such as options, interest rate, differential equations and stochastic variable are explained. This paper also presents the theory of stochastic processes such as the Wiener process and Ito process. In the chapter on the Black-Scholes model the Ito process is used to describe price of shares and with the help of Ito's lemma Black-Scholes equation can be derived. In the paper, assumptions are listed that apply to the Black-Scholes model and then uses the Black-Scholes equation to calculate the price of a European call option.

With the introduction of the Swedish Code for Corporate Governance in December 2004, most companies listed on the major Swedish stock exchanges were required to have a nomination committee responsible for, among other things, evaluating the incumbent board and nominating new candidates. This master thesis aims at analyzing the effects of these nomination committees on institutional investors in their corporate governance, through a qualitative study of 13 interviews. We have found that institutional investors have become more active through their participation in nomination committees and that they have gained more influence over the companies in which they own shares. We believe that in reality nomination committees have more influence over the selection of the board than was intended when the Swedish Code was written..

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and investigate how the consumer-oriented commerce can be developed and integrated to the brand Västervik.This thesis has a qualitative approach and we have done a case study of the Swedish city Västervik. We have performed interviews, with eight selected respondents who have different backgrounds, but with competence in different problem areas that we investigate in this thesis.We have, in this qualitative thesis, found aspects that Västervik should consider if they want to succeed with an integration of commerce in the brand. We have through a model found common facets that commerce and tourism shares and which Västervik should consider in the process of branding the city.The results of this thesis are presented in chapter six, there we also have featured reappearing tendencies that consider the development of commerce and how the commerce could be integrated in the brand Västervik..