This study presents a survey of the capital budgeting methods used in investment decisions by selected Swedish firms. The study has a qualitative approach where the main goal is to increase the understanding of why firms use ?incorrect? capital budgeting methods like the payback method despite the well known fact that it is one of the most faulty methods, according to literature in business finance (Brealey. Myers). The study has specially researched the impact of company?s size, investments size, ownership structure, branch traditions and political risks influence on firms capital budgeting..

Several studies have investigated the relationship between different measures of innovative activity, such as patent statistics and R&D expenditures and some have looked deeper into the differences between large and small firms regarding number of patents issued per employee or per R&D dollar. In this paper, the objective is to find out if there are any indications of a barrier to entry (due to economical factors, lack of knowledge etc) for small firms to get into the field of patent handling. The approach is to first set up a hypothesis based on some simple assumptions about how firms would make decisions about whether to apply for a patent or not and thereafter use econometric methods in an empirical investigation. The data used for this study are figures on number of employees, number of patents granted and R&D expenditures for the Swedish firms in the pulp and paper industry. The main conclusion is that, based on the analysis of the data from this rather limited group of firms, no such barrier can be seen..

Sweden's school voucher reform has made the Swedish school system into one of the world's most liberalized. The debate concerning the ownership of Swedish schools is intense and the Swedish Minister of Education is open to restricting private equity owned companies from running schools. Interestingly, fewer calls are heard for restricting smaller profit-driven companies from owning schools. This essay aims to examine whether or not the quality of education provided by an individual school changes if it is acquired by a large private equity owned school group. This is done by conducting a comparative study on four independent schools recently acquired by AcadeMedia, Sweden's biggest private equity owned school group.

Swedish agricultural businesses are facing challenges in order to achieve long-term profitability. The opportunity to improve profitability and efficiency on farm level may be enhanced by management. One way to work with leadership is to use Lean. It is a management system that aims to improve competitiveness. Currently, there is a project where Lean is implemented into 100 agricultural firms.

The aim of this paper has been to investigate how accounting firms govern their organizations with regards to the complexity in the service that they offer. The service includes the general accounting tasks which through standardization can be cost efficient, the advisory services that entail flexibility, and the relationship with the customer which needs to be taken into consideration when delivering the financial reports. These three components are important but require different approaches when it comes to governing the organization. The conducted case study has shown that the accounting firms govern their organizations bureaucratically and mainly through behaviour and accounting controls. The advisory services demanded by customers are standardized, not analytical, and therefore do not require the firms to take flexibility into consideration.

Funding is essential for companies to function. All companies must relate to the funding issue, whether they are working with it in an active manner or not. Funding can be done in two ways, either through equity or debt and the ratio between these are called capital structure. Already in 1958 Modigliani and Miller concluded that a company?s capital structure does not change the value of the company, thus the company?s debt in relation to equity is irrelevant.

AbstractBachelor Thesis, School of Economics at Vaxjo universityProgram: Enterprising and Business Development, EBD 362, Spring 2006Authors: Jens Asp, Vivianne Holmer, Carl-Marcus WahlstromExaminer: Stig G JohanssonKeywords: Services, cooperation, collaboration, customer offer, knowledgeTitle: Service firms in collaboration ? A study of the development of small service firms in collaborationNutek presented numbers during year 2005 witched show that the Swedish service sector, for the first time ever, was greater than the industrial sector. The kind of firms that develop most is small service firms without employees. The topic of interest in this bachelor thesis is to study how this kind of firms can develop. There is a great number of strategic options for firms to choose.

The use of group contribution between consolidated firms is a common phenomenon in Sweden where taxation is not based on the return on the consolidated level but on the return on the individual firms. However, the process of handling the group contribution does not work without problems. This thesis analyzes three main issues where group contributions oppose the Swedish Companies Act. ? The Swedish Companies Act enacts the decision regarding group contributions to be made at a shareholder?s meeting.

This study was performed to examine the performance of an equity based crowdfunding campaign, as well as seeking to describe the risks, complications and the opportunities that this kind of funding brings. The study was conducted by an empirical case study of a company that was about to initiate an equity based crowdfunding campaign.The conclusion is that the planning of an equity based crowdfunding campaign is time consuming and requires knowledge in many different areas. Therefore it is important to identify in which areas skills and resources already are available within the company, and where it must be obtained through a learning process.The report also highlights that equity based crowdfunding, because of legal restrictions surrounding the issue of unlisted shares, can not be marketed as other types of crowdfunding. This leads to the conclusion that those who invest in equity based crowdfunding do not necessarily belong to the crowd that crowdfunding is generally associated with. Arguments can be made that this crowdfunding model rather resemble traditional angel networks.A technical study was also made about the company's products.

This study was performed to examine the performance of an equity based crowdfunding campaign, as well as seeking to describe the risks, complications and the opportunities that this kind of funding brings. The study was conducted by an empirical case study of a company that was about to initiate an equity based crowdfunding campaign.The conclusion is that the planning of an equity based crowdfunding campaign is time consuming and requires knowledge in many different areas. Therefore it is important to identify in which areas skills and resources already are available within the company, and where it must be obtained through a learning process.The report also highlights that equity based crowdfunding, because of legal restrictions surrounding the issue of unlisted shares, can not be marketed as other types of crowdfunding. This leads to the conclusion that those who invest in equity based crowdfunding do not necessarily belong to the crowd that crowdfunding is generally associated with. Arguments can be made that this crowdfunding model rather resemble traditional angel networks.A technical study was also made about the company's products.

Title: Market Communication in transformation Authors: Gabriella Holm and Christoffer LarssonPurpose/Aim: The purpose of this paper is to examine how market communication at PR-firms in Sweden has changed over the first decade of the 21-century. In 2007 social media expanded on the Swedish market. This had implications for the way we are looking at communication and therefore also the PR business and how they are operating. The aim with this paper is to see how social media have affected marketing communication at PR-firms.Methodology: This paper is based on case studies from Swedish PR-firms. We used five cases from 2003-2005 and five from 2010-2012.

Riskkapitalbolagens verksamhet är mycket omdebatterad då förespråkare hävdar att riskkapitalbolagen bidrar till långsiktigt stabila företag och kritiker menar att de bryter ner värde hos sina portföljbolag. Denna debatt har föranlett många studier i ämnet men ytterst få har undersökt portföljbolagens syn på riskkapitalbolagens inblandning. Författarna har därför valt att bygga vidare på en tidigare studie som, genom att jämföra värdeutvecklingen för 13 portföljbolag under två år med utvecklingen hos en grupp jämförbara bolag, undersökt om riskkapitalbolagen skapar uthålligt värde hos sina portföljbolag. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka huruvida strategiska skillnader mellan portföljbolagen och jämförelsebolagen har påverkat värdeutvecklingen i den tidigare studien samt hur riskkapitalbolagens inblandning har bidragit till dessa skillnader. Detta gjordes genom en enkätundersökning där samtliga bolag i den tidigare studien tillfrågades att medverka, av dessa valde 13 företag, sju portföljbolag och sex jämförelsebolag, att delta.

The purpose of this research was to examine what motivates and influences an individual to invest in a project or company through equity-based crowdfunding. The intention was therefore to identify internal and external motivation factors and examine how external social factors such as the Internet, other individuals? investment decisions and interaction in social groups affect an individual when he or she invests through equity-based crowdfunding. The results showed that both internal and external motivation factors are important components of an investment through equity-based crowdfunding. External motivators proved to be for example yields and helping entrepreneurs.

This paper aims to investigate abnormal returns for rivals to bidder targets in connection with the announcement of the bid. The study is based on 38 bids placed between September 2006 - January 2011 and 137 rival firms listed on Nasdaq OMX Nordic. We measure cumulative abnormal returns, CAR, for rival firms through an event study. We find that rival firms earn significant positive CAR in connection with the announcement of the bid. This is in line with the two-sided signaling effect presented by Akhigbe et al.

Title: The implementation of valuation of tangible and financial assets to fair value ? and its effects on the creditor protectionCourse: Bachelor theses in business accounting, 10 Swedish creditsAuthor: Sam EspelandAdvisor: Ogi ChunKey words: IAS 16, 39, 40, fair value, creditor protection, equityPurpose: The purpose with the essay is to examine how the implementation of the IAS standards that regard valuation to fair value, effects the equity and how the effects on equity affects the creditor protection.Methodology: The essay is using both a quantitative and a qualitative approach in which the quantitative part constitutes of data collection from annual reports and the qualitative part constitutes of interviews.Theoretical perspective: The theory gives a thorough understanding in how the IAS standards are designed, furthermore the procedure at liquidation and lack of capital is being treated, moreover some relevant terms and concepts are being treated.Empirical foundation: This chapter is divided into two parts, in one part the results from the quantitative approach is being presented in diagram form, and in the other part the interviews are being presented.Conclusions: The implementation will give a higher equity for most real estate companies, but likely also for example the mining industry. The creditor protection will likely be worsened among the industries that experience an increase in equity since their activities may proceed for a longer time before they have to be liquidated..