This Master Thesis has its basis in a political decision made by Centerpartiet. The primary goal of the decision was to construct a new government agency, with the power to decide over all areas concerning social insurance. To be able to do this safely, by a merge of two different agencies, the thesis looks at different earlier merges for signs. First of all two agencies, Swedish Tax-agency and Swedish Prison and Probation Service, are studied because they are considered succeful in their earlier merges. Two main signs are that it took a long while and that the organisations worked with similar things before the merge.

In May 2008, the Swedish Government proclaimed several proposals in order to increase the status of the teaching profession. One of the proposals was that each teacher should be obligated to obtain a "teaching license" to be allowed to teach. The license/certification will guarantee that the teacher has the sufficient knowledge of pedagogy and subject obtained from University. The existing teachers who do not hold a proper certification today will be given a certain time period to attain one. The teachers that are certificated teachers but that are giving lessons in subjects not certificated in will be given a chance to obtain the proper knowledge of the subject.

The purpose of the study is to investigate how board structure influences CEO compensation for companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 2004. The theoretical frame of reference is based upon the corporate governance theory, the principal-agent theory and previous empirical research in the area. A cross sectional regression analysis is used, where a number of control variables are included and significance tests are conducted. The study is based on information regarding CEO compensation, and possible factors affecting the compensation, from 267 companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange A- and O-list in the year 2004. We find that the board structure has no significant effect on the CEO compensation.

The current financial crisis has left its mark. It has even hit the major Swedish banks who have shown large losses. The media has not been slow to take note of this, and the constant political debate about the bonus culture has been reinvigorated. Our aim is to find out how the major Swedish banks relate to the publicity and describe how and why senior executives are rewarded, and what strategies banks are using in the design of their reward system to maintain a legitimate behavior, and thus the confidence of its stakeholders.As a starting point to answer our purpose we have used the agency theory that describes our view of how various problems occurs and how incentives can be established in order to get senior executives to act for their owners' interests. Modern theories of reward systems are taken from a variety of authors, these theories give us an insight into how reward systems can be designed in banks.

This paper describes and develops a trade off model of optimal capital structure by Bradley et al. (1984). The model is then tested to examine how changes in corporate tax rates affect the optimal capital structure of firms. Based on theoretical implications of the model, four hypotheses are derived stating that firms? optimal debt-to-value ratio is (1) negatively related to financial distress costs, (2) negatively related to non-debt tax shields, (3) negatively related to firm volatility and (4) positively related to the corporate tax rate.

Background: The background explains different financial crises and the effect those crises had on the Swedish acquits regarding variable compensation. The resent discussion regarding variable compensation and the main problems with bonuses is also explained. Our theories for this essay is mainly based on the new directions from Finansinspektionen FFFS 2009:6,7 and stakeholder theory. Other theories used are agency theory, stewardship theory and economic man.Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to analyze the new directions for variable compensation and to investigate if these new directions can lead to a more long-term thinking for managers in banks. Method: We used semi-structured interviews with open questions for our survey.

Syfte: Uppsatsen använder kvantitativa metoder för att utröna huruvida aktierelaterade incitamentsprgram påverkar företagets förmåga att skapa värde för ägarna. Metod: Uppsatsen använder kvantitativa metoder och ett abduktivt angreppsätt för att besvara frågeställningarna Datainsamling: Data samlas in genom en årsredovisningsstudie och en internetbaserad enkät. Kursutveckling hämtas från SIX Trust och indexutveckling från affärsvärlden Teori: Den teoretiska grunden utgörs av principal-agentteori och en genomgång av de aktierelaterade incitamentsprogrammen uppbyggnad och agentkostander. Utifrån denna grund skapas hypoteser som sedan testas. Slutsatser: Det går inte att mopt bakgrund av denna studie påvisa att förekomsten av aktierelaterade incitamentsprogram påverkar företagets totalavkastning till ägarna..

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the issue of preferential rights in relation to the increased practice of hiring temporary staff. The object is illuminated from a diversity perspective by seeing what a circumvention of the preferential rights may have consequences for vulnerable groups on the Swedish labor market. The question of preferential rights to reinstatement is controlled in  The Employment Protection Act. The preferential right is for the protection of workers made redundant due to redundancy. The use of agency workers has increased significantly in the Swedish labor market since the industry's legalization in 1993. This has created some problems in terms of preferential rights. To a circumvention of the law, shall exist requires that the measures constitute circumvention is justified, measures should have been sought to circumvent the law and been unfair in view of the particular case.

With the increased significance of information technology (IT) in today?s society the term ?electronic democracy? (e-democracy) has gained much importance within the democracy theory. Naturally, there are several competing views on how the technology should be used for democratic purpose. One aspect of this is the somewhat revitalized claim for direct democracy in accordance with the hypothetical opportunity to finally realize it as a democratic system. The ideal of direct democracy combined with the almost total credence in the potential of technology constitute the idea of a ?push-button democracy?.

We came across the discussion about the so-called duty to report (14 kap 1 § SoL) and we found some previous research, showing that preschool teachers are hesitant to report, and that they want real evidence that children are being mistreated, even though the duty to report clearly states that they have to report as soon as they suspect that a child is being mistreated. Our purpose became to study what tendencies and conditions preschool teachers and principals, placed in the municipalities of Hässleholm and Kristianstad, have to fulfil their duty to report according to the social services act, when there is a well founded suspicion that a child is being mistreated.  We split the purpose into the following research questions:   Do local guidelines about how preschool teachers should act when suspecting that a child is being mistreated exist, and are they being followed? To what degree does the staff has knowledge about these guidelines? How do preschool teachers experience the treatment from colleagues, principals and social welfare officers when they´ve done or wanted to do a report? How do preschool teachers experience the reactions of a report from custodians? We did conversational interviews with two principals, one from the municipality of Hässleholm, and one from the municipality of Kristianstad. We also made focusgroup interviews with the staff, three persons each from one of their respective preschools. Our conclusion is that preschool teachers are unwilling to report mistreatment.

The purpose of the thesis Masculinities ? Gender and its Impact on the Social conditions of individuals is to perform a critical study of how gendered norms influence the social conditions of individuals. This has been done by a problematization and the attempt to answer the question of how the hegemonical masculinity can be analyzed as a discourse, and how the structural aspects of this discourse inflict on the social conditions of masculinities.The question was divided into the analytical themes: the boarders of the discourse, the institutionalization of the discourse, the actuation of the discourse and the agents of the discourse. The theoretical frame is constituted by the theory of discourse by Michel Foucault, the theory of the hegemonical masculinity by R.W. Connell and a subversive identity theory by Judith Butler.

Background: The regulation of banks is increasing in order to stabilize the financial market. Despite this increase in regulation, financial crises still continue to occur. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is gradually increasing the capital requirements for banks, yet the increase in capital requirements doesn?t seem to solve the problem. This raises the question: how does capital regulation affect banks? Purpose: The purpose of this study is, primarily to illustrate the effects that capital regulation has on risk and efficiency on banks within the European Union, but secondary also study the relationship between risk, efficiency and capital regulation.Method: To achieve the purpose of this study, a deductive approach has been used, where the problem is assumed to be due to an agency problem.

Under den senare delen av 1900-talet inträffade ett antal företagsskandaler, såsom Enron och Worldcom, vilket föranledde ett bristande förtroendet för såväl styrelsers som revisorers arbete. För att återfå förtroende på den svenska marknaden introducerades Koden och en uppdatering av Aktiebolagslagen gjordes. En av de förtroendehöjande åtgärderna innebar att revisionsutskotten introducerades. Revisionsutskottens införande innebar ett tydliggörande av styrelseledamöternas arbetsuppgifter, men medförde samtidigt att huvudmannaskapsproblematiken i styrelsen aktualiserades. Vilket leder till vår problemformulering: Hur har revisionsutskottens införande påverkat ansvarsfördelning i styrelsen?För att kunna besvara vår frågeställning har vi genomfört kvalitativa intervjuer utifrån ett expertperspektiv.

This thesis has aimed to study steering process and institutionalization in the context of educational policy work. This has been conducted by using empirical material from the political decision-making process that preceded the implementation of a new national program on how principals should be educated and certified. By using an aggregated theoretical point of view containing new institutionalism and traditional Swedish curriculum theory, the process was analyzed from different perspectives. The results depict a process that contained several actors who tried to shape the principal education program differently. From the theoretical perspectives, the decision-making process could be understood as an act of both self-interest as well as trust in their own beliefs and cultural values.

This thesis has aimed to study steering process and institutionalization in the context of educational policy work. This has been conducted by using empirical material from the political decision-making process that preceded the implementation of a new national program on how principals should be educated and certified. By using an aggregated theoretical point of view containing new institutionalism and traditional Swedish curriculum theory, the process was analyzed from different perspectives. The results depict a process that contained several actors who tried to shape the principal education program differently. From the theoretical perspectives, the decision-making process could be understood as an act of both self-interest as well as trust in their own beliefs and cultural values.