During the past year it has been made possible to buy back a company?s outstanding stock. This is done in order to change the capital structure towards a situation with less equity. A change in capital structure means a change in the cost of capital for a company and by that a change in the value for the stockholder. This Master Thesis studies the relation between capital structure and business risk.

This thesis emphasizes the importance of understanding the employees? attitude and motivation towards their workplace at a company that works in the advertising business. An example company; thcommunication agency PS Communication in Stockholm, was used for the empirical part to investigate the purpose. The topic is interesting since the company works in a fast changing environment with new techniques,tools and professionals and the company is also going through an expansion that include many new recruitments.The purpose in this thesis is as follows: ?the purpose of this study is to elucidate the fate of attitude and motivation of employees in relation to the workplace during business expansion, if performance is reduced and competition increases.?The analysis and results shows that attitudes andmotivation among the employees in the workplace has deteriorated, the employees agree that it is due to expansion the company is undergoing.

Title: Globalization ? Meeting a new market Author: Anna Nubäck Supervisor: Anders Nilsson Institution: School of Management, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola Course: Master in business administration, 15 credits (FED006) Purpose: The purpose of this essay is partly to create an understanding of the decision to establish a branch in Japan and especially to look at if and how the Swedish company in this study has adjusted its corporate culture to suit the Japanese market. Method: Data is collected thru a number of semi constructed interviews. A first telephone interview was followed by an interview made face to face that was also followed up by interviews performed over telephone. E-mails have been used to clear and correct collected data. I have also studied company reports, closely related literature, articles and papers on the Internet. Conclusion: My conclusion is that the company in this study based the decision to open a branch in Japan on the demand from one big customer and the potential to grow globally.

In recent years, the possibility to deduct expenses for research and development (R&D) has been interpreted narrowly. As a response, the Income Tax Act chapter 16, section 9 (the R&D-rule) was amended to increase the possibility to deduct R&D of more general character. The purpose of this thesis is to determine the meaning of the R&D-rule to be able to decide if the amendment is an extension of the deductibility and whether this amendment can be considered adequate.According to the R&D-rule, the recipient of the grant needs to conduct R&D activity and there needs to be a sufficient connection between the R&D activity and the company to be allowed deduction. The difficulty in applying the R&D-rule is mainly when the research is conducted outside the company and the aim of the research is not to solve the company?s specific problem.The connection between the R&D-activity and the company needs to be reasonable. This means that only R&D-activity that falls completely outside the company?s activities should be excluded from deductibility.

Problem: Hur skiljer sig Swedbanks Private Banking-tjänst ifrån dess Privatrådgivningstjänst i termer av kundkaraktäristika, relationsmässigt mervärde samt finansiell avkastning? Hur skiljer sig bankens fokusering ifrån kundens efterfrågan baserat på dessa variabler? Vad beror dessa eventuella skillnader på?Hur ser en modell som förklarar sambandet mellan avkastning och kontaktintensitet ut och är en exklusivare rådgivningstjänst så som PrivateBanking-tjänsten nödvändig att tillhandahålla för kundens räkning baserat på dessa variabler?Syfte: Definiera det mervärde Swedbanks AB:s PrivateBanking-tjänst medför i form av avkastning och relationsmässiga sådana, och vad som driver kunden att betala för denna tjänst jämfört med ordinär Privatrådgivning. Detta kommer generera en slutsats huruvida Private Banking-tjänsten medförnågon överavkastning, samtidigt som en modell kommer kunna skapas som visar ett eventuellt samband mellan avkastning och kontaktintensitet, vilket visar nödvändigheten med exklusivare sådana. Detta för att finna de eventuella gap som finns mellan kundens uppfattning och bankens tyngdpunkter.Metod: Vi har genomfört en kvalitativ undersökning i form av intervjuer med Private Banking- och Privatrådgivare på Swedbank AB. Därefter har en kvantitativ undersökning genomförts i form av enkäter till kunder som innehar Swedbanks rådgivningstjänster.

This essay is about the question if there is any difference in quality at the homes for the elderly in Skåne, depending on however the home is run by a public organization or private counterpart. The quality of the homes is meet with the help of numbers in ?the guide for the elderly? the facts in the guide are collected and judged by the ?Swedish National Board of Health. The result from the guide is divided into seven areas of quality, and then compared in a statistic test between the different types of organizations. And finally the result of the statistics is put in the context of the theory of New Public Management.

A case study was done of Sthlm Policy Group, a consulting agency that mainly targets NGOs and government agencies in the peace and security sector. The goal of the case study was to explore the tendency of NGOs in Sweden to hire commercial consulting companies. The main interest was to see what the key reasons are for NGOs to hire private consulting agencies, but also to explore what problems that might be associated with such relationships. Interviews were carried out with representatives of the consulting agency, with its clients as well as with other NGOs that were identified as potential clients. The interviewed NGOs and government agencies were found to approve of the use of commercial consultants.

This study will chart the changeover work, with a standpoint in the SMED-theory, at the company Peter Ernst AB in Värnamo. They are suppliers in plastic moulding industry and delivers to amongst other Saab in Trollhättan and Scania. The company are in a very competitive market, and they have to make manufacturing more efficient and rationalise their costs to be able to compete. A big problem, which the company has identified, is their long changeovers. It brings higher costs, a more stressful work climate and holds back the company from becoming more efficient.Field studies will be conducted on the changeover, which will be observed and filmed.

This study focuses on how the idea of sustainability is dealt with by companies, how the idea changes when moving through a company structure and how the different individuals interpret the idea. To date, many different studies have been written on the subject of sustainability, but few share the perspective addressed in this particular study. This case study was formed at a paper mill in the central part of Sweden. Semi-structured interviews with employees working on different hierarchical levels, within the same company, were chosen in order to get an insight into how the idea of sustainability is implemented throughout an entire company. The interviews have been transcribed to help identify contrasting patterns.This study has shown that the idea of sustainability, and its context within society, differs from how the idea is perceived in the organization.

The purpose with this work is to investigate the cost to produce piglet in a case study company. The starting point is going to be the agriwise (www.agriwise.org) calculation which I am going to change and adapt to the case study company. To day the pig market is bad but we have probably reached the bottom. The market has started to rise. It is no business to produce piglets today.

Background: During extreme market conditions like the period during fall 2008 the discussion of what affects company value becomes apparent. The capital structure is the relation between borrowed capital and equity in a company´s financing mix. What impact changes in capital structure have on company value is a widely debated subject within the theory of finance. If a relationship between capital structure and company value exists the implication is that an optimal capital structure where company value is maximized also exists.Aim: The aim of the thesis is to study whether a certain relationship between capital structure and company value exists among selected stocks and companies listed on Stockholmsbörsens OMXS30.Implementation: With aim to fulfill the purpose of the thesis regression analysis has been performed among chosen stocks and companies. The empirical results eventuating from this have been analyzed from the view of elected relevant theory.Completion and results: We find that during normal market conditions a positive relationship between debt ratio and enterprise value (EV) can be established.

Medieföretaget AB is a Swedish Media Company that covers several different business areas.The company daily produces one of the biggest newspapers in Sweden and publishes editorialnews on one of the country?s most visited news homepage. The company also has smallerfirms that produce new business models. Due to big changes in the media climate over theworld and a new company management team the company in November 2008 started adepartment for innovation. The main purpose of the department was to create a structuredway for managing ideas and to promote innovation.

This report deals with activities that from a CSR perspective are considered to create a shared value for a medium-sized construction company in Sweden. The CSR definition used in the report is the European Commission?s since it reflects the valuecreating aspects of CSR, in contrast to the traditional philanthropic aspect of CSR.Companies in the building construction industry have difficulties identifying activities that create value in society and in the company. The aim with the project is to, from a CSR perspective, identify and evaluate value creating activities in a building construction company. The activities will be evaluated with respect to competitiveness and how they can be implemented into an organization.

Isaberg Rapid AB is a company that manufactures for instance staplers and glue guns. Headquarters and main factory is located in Hestra but there are also subsidiary companies in Denmark, Netherlands, France, Spain, China and England. There are also two filial factories in France and China.Today has the company no logistic guidelines committed and that leads to problems since the salesmen promise different things to the customers. This contributes too many different logistic solutions for Isaberg Rapid AB. The company has also noted problems with returns of goods.The purpose with this task is to standardize and compile logistic guidelines, usable to all Isaberg Rapid AB's small to midsize customers.

In a time of economic turmoil and financial crisis profitability matters rise higher and higher on company agendas. Many companies are pressured to find profitability to avoid layoffs or even bankruptcy. Profitability essentially depends on the margin on the product or service sold and the costs associated with selling these products or services and hence these areas are of vital importance if companies are to improve profitability. Previous research has focused, for the most part, on product profitability while customer profitability has received less attention. This study is based on a case study of a Swedish publishing house and aims to investigate how the company?s Cost-to-Serve varies between its distribution channels.