Background: To maintain or increase the trust in the market, companies can disclose more voluntary information in the annual reports. According to prior research the annual report is the primary source of information for small shareholders and investors. Thus, it is of interest to investigate why companies chose to report the voluntary information inquired by this group. Purpose: We investigate some company-specific factors to decide whether these determine the extent of voluntary information, particularly inquired by small shareholders and investors, in the annual reports of listed Swedish companies. We also aim to discuss underlying causes for our result.

AbstractTime after time the world is struck by humanitarian catastrophes, whether it is through a war or a natural disaster. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to have a functional and effective aid, as it is a matter of life and death. Thereby the actions of the humanitarian aid organizations are interesting. The investigation treats the three specific organizations Star of Hope, Sida and the Red Cross movement and the process from decision to action in times of war. The organizations are different from one another in many areas.

There are experiential products that through a digital transformation wholly or partially have taken new place in our everyday lives. Just a few years ago, we had music on CDs, movies on tape and books in bookshelves. In Sweden, we are now facing a transformation when the e-book begins to take place alongside the printed book.This paper focuses on what values play a role in the attitude towards ebooks among a selected group of Swedish book bloggers. A qualitative content analysis was performed on blog posts concerning the ebook from twelve different Swedish book blogs. The posts were then coded into categories and values.

The NIPF (Non Industrial Private Forest) owners in Sweden have very differentiated goals and needs with their forest. They have different backgrounds and some of them live at their forest estate while other live in an urban environment, and some are economically dependent on their forest estate while others are not. The heterogeneity among these forest owners creates problems for market actors that want to aim marketing messages to catch their interest. This is the problem background to the task that was provided to us as an investigative masters thesis for us. Their request was a plan for ensuring a successful marketing towards different segments of the NIPF owners. We commenced with a literature study based on market information and previously carried out similar investigations. We summarized the most important market information from the literature and created some hypotheses regarding goals and needs of the NIPF owners.

At Rottneros pulp mill mechanical pulp is bleached with hydrogen peroxide. The changes of bleaching chemicals that are used for different grades are taken from bleaching tables; however these tables are old and need to be updated. The purpose of this thesis was to be the basis of new documentation.In this thesis three pulps where studied with the aim to find the optimal bleaching chemical changes (total NaOH/VP-quote) for each pulp. The pulps were taken from the filter before the bleaching tower and the pulps were bleached in the lab. The most important pulp property in this study was the brightness and how that was influenced by the chemical dosages.

This paper examines family owned tourism businesses with a special focus on succession. In Nordic countries tourism has been widely promoted and used in rural development as a replacement economy for ?traditional? livelihoods based on rural production. Because the tourism and hospitality industry, especially in rural areas, is dominated by family enterprises, the topic of succession is of great relevance for tourism and tourism destinations. This paper looks at family businesses? special characteristics, challenges and advantages in terms of ownership structure, lifestyle, motivations, employees and destination impact.

Background: The development of the Swedish demography is one of the most important social and economic changes ever in Swedish history. Society as well as business is facing an age chock since almost every other company owner is over 50 years old. The complexity of managing a successful succession is pointed out as a major threat to the Swedish economy by the organization Svenskt Näringsliv.Purpose: The purpose with this master thesis is to identify and analyze critical success factors for a successful succession from a going concern perspective.Research method: By using the strong aspects from the quantitative as well as the qualitative method, high level of order and systematic could be reached, without loosing too much details and depth in this particular research. The empirical data was gathered by a digital survey sent to 3000 companies. The quantitative research was complemented by 6 qualitative interviews to increase depth and reliability.Results: The study shows that there is a great incongruence between the expected problems associated to the succession and the actual outcome.

In many of the world's countries, there is a national organization responsible for marketingthat country as a tourist destination. Through their offices, these organizations work towardsthe creation of effective strategies and a deeper understanding of local markets. Usingqualitative methods such as interviews, observations, and thematic analysis, we managed toinvestigate how the Czech and the German national tourist offices operate, and whatstrategies they are implementing to increase the volume of tourism. The study focused on theanalysis and comparison of the organizations' goals and communication channels.The results show that the investigated tourist boards operate in a similar manner with smalldifferences concerning choice of strategies and communication channels. These discrepanciescan be partly explained by differences in the organization's ownership forms and theconsequences that follow that fact.

This Master?s Thesis aims to illustrate in what ways the two Swedish environmental assessment tools, the Environmental Load Profile and EcoEffect differ and if performed valuations gives different results and environmental goals.The built urban environment causes about half the environmental loading in Sweden. The society?s ambition towards sustainable development has resulted in demands reducing the environmental load. One way to accomplish this change is with the assistance of tools for environmental assessment of the built environment.

Since the end of the Cold War, foreign aid donors have been using political conditionality to promote human rights, democracy and good governance in recipient countries. This phenomenon has been analyzed and criticized, but mainly from a strictly empirical point of view. In this paper, the legitimacy of political conditionality is analyzed through a normative perspective based on the extrinsic value of efficiency. If the political conditions don?t result in a democratic development, including respect of human rights and good governance, they can not be justified.With at theoretical focus on the donors, based on the unequal relationship between donor and recipient, I am examining the donors? possibility and supposed will to use political conditions in development cooperation.

Syfte: Vi ska analysera hur fastighetsmäklare värderar småhus och hur de använder sig av taxeringsuppgifter, det vill säga de egenskapsuppgifter om tomtmark och småhus som samlats in vid fastighetstaxeringen från fastighetsägarna. Vi ska även sammanställa en modell över de faktorer som har central betydelse vid uppskattning av marknadsvärdet.Metod: En kvalitativ metod har använts där vi genomfört personliga intervjuer med fastighetsmäklare. Teorin baseras på relevant litteratur, vetenskapliga artiklar och elektroniska källor. Empirin redovisas genom en kategorianalys.  Resultat & slutsats: Vi har kommit fram till att fastighetsmäklare med erfarenhet inte följer de steg som teorin tar upp vid fastighetsvärdering.

Currently there is a controversial debate about that we must reduce our impact on the global warming; therefore both the Government and the local authorities have invested heavily in developing renewable energy in Sweden. The major development on the wind power market can be seen as a result of both the technological development and also on the decision that the Government took in 1996, which opened up the wind power market for private parties.This paper has aimed to examine the types of financial innovations that have arisen from the investments and financing of wind power on Gotland, and what these innovations can contribute to the future development of wind power.The problems that this thesis is based on is; what kind of financial innovations have occurred within investment and financing of wind power? How can these innovations contribute to the continued development of wind power on Gotland? The conclusion of this study shows that respondents and participants have defined a number of financial innovations that have emerged. Where some of the innovations only can be seen as incremental since they are based on continuous improvements, while others can be seen as radical as they are completely new for the context in which they operate. The study has also shown that Gotland has a great potential to produce more renewable electricity, but the development is dependent on the new power lines being built, in order to export electricity to the mainland..

The change of control clause is nowadays a well used covenant in the Eurobond market, with the aims to protect bondholders in case of a leveraged buyout. This thesis intend to evaluate whether the change of control clause is a new phenomenon in the Eurobond market today and to estimate what have been the driven force for the popularity of it. The thesis found that the change of control clause already existed before and thus it is not a new phenomenon. Several factors where found though to explain the extended use of the clause today. Starting in 2005 the LBO activity increased rapidly, exposing almost every company to the risk of LBO.

There is no commonly accepted definition of a business method. It ought to consist of a method or a process of doing business. Business methods constitutes a broad category of patents, it is hard to tell exactly what can be interpreted in to the term. Most of the world's legal systems have made an exception from patentability for business methods. In the USA the exception was abolished in a case 1998.

The interest in building low energy houses has increased along with the rising engagement inthe climate questions. With the advancing energy prices it is highly suitably for those whobuild and administer their buildings in long-term to build energy-saving houses. 40 % ofSweden?s total energy consumption constitutes of the energy in residences, therefore it iscrucial to take advantage of all the free energy as we possibly can. With crucial questions likequality of living and profit low energy building is a subject that concerns us all.Three proposals for apartment blocks are presented in this work on a real estate in Stockholm.Each proposal is developed through unique processes of design with the purpose to displaypossibilities to deal with the energy requirements of today and tomorrow through energybased architecture.The first proposal is an apartment block based on a traditional design process, the demands ofthe property owner and it?s affected by opinions from architects.