This thesis aims to examine the conditions for entrepreneurship in Taiwan by the occurrence of cultural phenomenon guanxi. Based on the concept of familiness and guanxi, the family is central in this study of family business. Traditional descriptions of the Asian culture claim that guanxi is vital in the business context. Though, recent studies indicate that significance of guanxi seems to be changing. Therefore the purpose of this thesis is to create an understanding of the importance and relevance of guanxi in the context of Taiwanese family business.By travelling to Kaohsiung, Taiwan to interview six managers of Taiwanese family firms this study?s empirical material was gathered for further processing based on a qualitative approach.

The accounting scandals that have attracted attention in recent years have led to internal control becoming a more central part of business activity. Doubts about what firms actually do have increased, all caused by the attention of accounting scandals. To counter this, frameworks and laws evolved and gained a significant role in the organization and its surroundings. The aim of the present study is to find out how four companies in the Kristianstad region are working to ensure its internal control and how they work to minimize risk and reduce uncertainty. We have used a qualitative method and interviewed a person in a senior position in each company.

Background: The Swedish Parliament passed a law change in late 2010, suspending the former requirement for all Swedish incorporated companies to have an auditor. The new limit values allow the smallest incorporated companies to dismiss the auditor of the company (or not appoint one in the case of a newly started company). The opinions of abolishing mandatory audit vary, and little research has been done post to the law change. However, a new situation has arisen, meaning the optional choice of voluntary audit, for some companies.Aims and research questions: The aim of the thesis is to examine the reasons behind voluntary audit in Sweden, as well as what value companies, having chosen audit, see in their auditor. The following research questions have been used in order to fulfill the aim of the thesis: ?Why do small private owner-led incorporated companies in Sweden voluntarily choose audit?? and ?What value does the voluntarily chosen auditor add to the companies??Methodology: The research questions were formulated after reviewing relevant literature and scientific articles regarding the topic of voluntary audit, as well as the recent law change in Sweden.

It is a common view that companies should focus on building brands to increase profitability and stabilize cash flows. However, building and keeping brands alive is costly. Many firms spend large sums on branding only because they are supposed to, without knowing if they will actually gain from it. Up to date, there is limited convincing evidence that branding actually contributes to shareholder value creation. This thesis aims to investigate the relationship between brand strength and profitability and shareholder value.

Issuing convertible bonds for financing purposes has never become widespread practice amongst Swedish companies, in spite of the instrument being common in international markets. Economic theory based on efficient markets suggests that companies should gain no financial benefits from using convertibles and the Swedish situation could be interpreted as in line with this reasoning. However, there are Swedish companies that have chosen to issue convertibles and the Swedish market therefore seems both supportive and contradictory to the existence of benefits of convertible bond financing. Little research concerning the Swedish market has been conducted and the purpose of this explorative thesis is thus to enhance the understanding of the Swedish market for convertibles. This is achieved by conducting in-depth interviews with six listed Swedish companies that have recently issued convertible bonds.

The ongoing harmonization process aims to incorporate IFRS regulations into the Swedish accounting. As a consequence investment property?s starting from 2005 may be valued using the fair value method, in accordance to IAS 40. This involves major changes for listed property enterprises that from now on can value a large extent of their assets to fair value. All parties don?t appreciate this progress, opponents to fair value have expressed great concern that fair value don?t work in practice.

Graphic profiles are a part of companies? brand expressions. The graphical values reflect the brand values the business wants to convey. They consist of different graphic elements such as logo, company sign, colour schemes, templates, rules, fonts, pictograms, formats and references to how different graphic elements should look, for example, business cards, signs and materials for websites. This thesis aims to examine why firms choose to replace their graphic profiles by studying their underlying motivations.

Subclinical mastitis (SCM) is a well-known problem in the dairy sector, where it causes severe economic losses mainly due to reduced milk production. This is a problem not only in the western world but also in developing countries. Surveys from different developing countries have shown a SCM prevalence of 52.4 ? 88.6 % at cow level and 26.7 ? 63.2 % at quarter-level. To combat mastitis is important to optimize the milk production of the cow.

This paper is the result of a study of competition and cooperation in regard to tourism between the five largest municipalities in Norrland in northern Sweden. The municipalities are Luleå, Skellefteå, Umeå, Sundsvall and Gävle. The aim was to study the relation between competition and cooperation between these municipalities. An important theoretical aspect in this study is coopetition, where competition and cooperation occur at the same time. The studies on coopetition in the Nordic kontext is limited and the main literature on coopetition study the relationship between firms. This study however takes a geographical standpoint and aims to fill the gap in the literature on how competition and cooperation are connected to each other between chosen municipalities. To do this the tourism strategies of the municipalities were studied thoroughly. These written strategies provided information about how the municipalities view their competitive advantages and disadvantages and some general information about how they cooperate with the nearest regions. To find out how the municipalities think about competition and cooperation with the other four specific municipalities interviews were made with experts on the tourism field in each municipality. The results show that the municipalities do not have established strategies for how they are to be competitive compared with other specific municipalities. They do not see it as profitable to compete, instead they should complement each other. At the same time however, most of the municipalities mostly cooperate with municipalities in a short distance from them, and due to lack of resources only briefly or not at all with the municipalities studied here..

Eco certification of small housesTo construct an environmental friendly building and show that as a company you care for the environment, is presently very attractive in the Swedish real estate market.This degree thesis covers the environmental certification called ?Svanenmärkning? the Swan, witch is the Swedish equivalent to the European standard ?the EU Flower?. It is concentrated on the certification process in small houses that the Swedish institute of standard, SIS, has presented. We have worked together with the company Faluhus witch is a Swedish producer of small family houses.Faluhus is located in the town of Borlänge, Dalarna and has produced family houses since the 1950:s. They have a great heritage born in the old Swedish mining culture, with great wooden mansions and country homes.

People living with disabilities in our society today are more likely to be without a job compared to the rest of the population. The fact that a high number of people are not given the opportunity to work, and thereby being self-sufficient, is a failure for both the individual and the society. My purpose with the study is to increase knowledge and understanding regarding disabilities in the working life, with focus on the disability dyslexia. In the study, I am investigating the employer?s obligations and rights when employing a person with disabilities.

Purpose: Our purpose is to achieve a higher understanding of which factors University of Uppsala is using to attract and keep their existing workers.Theory: We have worked with Barrow & Mosley's the employer brand mix, this modelexplains 12 important factors that exists within the employer branding process. External reputation, internal communication, the board, values and corporate social responsibility, internalmeasuring systems, service support, work environment, rewards and acknowledgements, learningand development, performance estimation, team management and recruitment and introduction.Method: To achieve an understanding of our subject we have chosen to work with a qualitativemethod. This type of method is more considerate of the interviewed person?s way of seeingthings and also accounts for how the person answers. To answer our problem statement we haveconducted a case study on University of Uppsala where we used semi structured interviewsbecause we wanted to limit the risk of leading questions.Empirical findings: University of Uppsala were used as material for our empirical discussionContext: The main reasons that workers is attracted to and are staying at the university dependson the external status they achieve when working there, this combined with that the workers getsto be a part of the university's brand.

AbstractFor an audit organization, it is important to work toward maintaininga high error climate to handle errors in an efficient and propermanner. This means that it is important for accountants to worktowards high quality of work, reduce and manage errors that mayoccur in their daily work. Therefore, auditors must know how tohandle errors in order to improve efficiency, which can be affected byhow leadership is exercised in the workplace. The error climatemeans being able to act in a manner which will ensure a good jobtowards customers but also within the internal operations.The ethical leadership may thus have an impact on how auditorshandle the error environment both internally and externally. It is veryimportant for customers to have confidence in the business but also tomaintain the order and the general rules of society for accountingfirms.My study aims to show the thinkable relationship between ethicalleadership and the error climate.

Recent years have been very turbulent for most private equity firms. Especially the financial meltdown in global economy has affected the industry, but also the public pressure has made private equity houses change their control strategies towards more conventional methods used in public companies. This thesis aims to put light on the control methods used in listed private equity houses which use a buyout strategy. The paper describes how the control methods change over the different phases the asset experience and how different value generating strategies use altered control methods. Using Merchant's (2003) framework for management control systems and Berg and Gottschalg's (2004) research on value generating strategies in buyouts the thesis shows that action controls as designing instructions for the board and a business plan, together with goal alignment is the commonly used control strategy directly after the acquisition.

Today, the requirements on doors and door sections in buildings are often many andtightly restricted. Especially in public buildings, the requirements for safety andfunctionality must cover the needs of larger groups of people. These strictrequirements have often led to doors and door sections in public buildings being verycomplex and difficult to correctly install without any complications.This diploma work has been carried out in cooperation with Werket Architects,which estimates a high percentage of flaws regarding aforementioned components, inprojects of the type described. The company therefore wanted to investigate howthey could develop their remit in door production, which is the projection and designof blueprints. By taking part of installers opinions on how they want the blueprints ofdoors and door - sections to be designed for the best installation possibilities,develop¬ment areas, and to some extent improvements regarding the company's useof accounting techniques, could be provided to the company.The study shows, among other things, that there is a possibility of development in thefunctional descriptions that entail the doors' fitting components.