In the last couple of decades, corporate law firms have rapidly grown to become both influential and highly profitable corporations in the business world. Today, the largest law firms are assumed to bear far greater resemblance to large and often multinational public limited companies than the small businesses generally associated with legal services. However, one interesting specific set them apart from the majority of other companies; the partnership and its interrelated profit sharing. The aim of this study has therefore been to investigate partner compensation systems in corporate law firms and further examine what implications chosen compensation systems have on the organizations. Using a multiple case study, including 7 of Scandinavia?s largest and most well known law firms, the results show that partner compensation systems are highly individual and the critical question is whether to employ seniority based or performance based compensation systems.

The goal of this thesis was to explore how real estate investment companies are affected by a weaker world economy. The reason to investigate this was that in the 90s in Sweden, the housing market crashed in conjunction with the bank collapse. Therefore I have looked at how the commercial real estate companies would be affected if we were to have a double dip recession, because it has been confirmed by Gyourko that commercial real estate market and the housing market tend to react in the same way on new fundamental information. This was examined through a sensitivity analysis, one investigated the effect of falling rent income and the second analysis looked at the effect of higher interest costs. I found that IAS 40 rule about unrealized profits of properties affected the results in a significant matter and therefore decided to include the regulation in my thesis.

This paper seeks to discern the political factors that determine the results of negotiations in international cooperation. On the one hand, it makes a contribution to the broader theoretical debate on international regimes by combining regime theory and theories on globalisation into an integrated framework for the analysis of international policy results, or in this case treaties (theoretical objective). More generally, globalisation theory will help us understand why it has become important to initiate international cooperation, and regime theory to elucidate how these international cooperations emerge. To many observers, it is the large transnational corporations of the rich North, which have done best out of free trade. Through the huge influence they wield over governments at the WTO (World Trade Organisation), these corporations have won the freedom to move around the globe without restriction, making use of cheap labour, and locating wherever they can best tap into the largest and most lucrative markets.

Background and problem: Financial reports are created for the users as decision support. Stakeholders are often subjects to information asymmetry. Banks represent one of the primary stakeholders and financiers of a company, and place great emphasis on financial reports in their credit assessment process. The question is, however, how useful the financial information actually is. According to previous research, banks consider accounting information as troublesome in some respects, mostly due to accounting choices and judgments.

This thesis discusses the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility, which means that companies are taking a voluntary accountability towards the society with a view to improve it. Today's stakeholders and people in general have higher demands and expectations on businesses and its products or services than before. This is driving more and more companies to consider questions like voluntary responsibility so that they can maintain public confidence. Confidence towards the banking sector is particularly important to avoid financial crises. Our study focuses on leadership impact on CSR.

The aim of this thesis is to form a theory of the green consumer power and to distinguish whether this phenomenon could indicate a movement toward the ecological citizenship. To do so, scientific theories regarding the responsibility of companies have been used, as well as the public choice theory, to link individuals as citizens to individuals as consumers. The motives of corporate environmental responsibility, along with consumers ability to bring pressure in different dimensions, are later drawn on as indicators applied to empirical information. The largest producer of ecological products in Sweden, Arla Foods, is employed as case study to explore if the green consumer power can and does exist. The ecological citizenship uses the ecological footprint, to define in what ways we can minimize our part of environmental degradation.The study seems to strengthen the theory, consumers do have a power to make companies go green and they tend to use it increasingly.

This thesis concerns agreements for the exchange of information relating to tax matters between Sweden and the previous tax havens Monaco and Liechtenstein. Monaco does not apply any tax on income or capital for individuals and Liechtenstein has strict bank secrecy, both aspects are supposed to be counteracted by similar agreements. The purpose is to investigate whether the entered agreements increases transparency and effective exchange of information in accordance with the OECD´s objectives in the area. Furthermore, is there any regulation in the agreements that can be seen as potentially loopholes to avoid the exchange of information and if so; may these loopholes be justified in any way?OECD believe that the tax havens favorable tax regulation is resulting in harmful tax competition and they identify lack of transparency and lack of effective exchange of information as the main reasons.

In the social sciences, geopolitical theory is used in order to analyze states actions and commitments when it comes to foreign policy. This thesis develops a new understanding of geopolitical theory. Firstly, the development and application of geopolitical theory, from its foundations in the early twentieth century to contemporary geopolitical studies is discussed. Secondly a revised understanding of the variables integrated in the concept and how it can be operationalized as an analytical tool is presented and tested empirically.The critical assessment of the research field of geopolitical theory tells us that six different geopolitical perspectives have been considered the most influential (room, strategy, power projection, identity, affiliation and governance) when it comes to analyzing state action. This model is applied as an analytical tool and thus tested on a single case.

In this interview study I have examined eleven Swedish advertisers and professional communicators and their view of ethics in the advertising industry. The purpose of the study was to shed light on how they see their ethical responsibilites, as well as trying to understand how they reason in regard to ethics as a whole. The main research questions regard the distinction between business and economic responsibilities towards their clients and societal ethical responsibilities, which ethical questions are of importance to them, and how they believe the industry should be regulated.The theoretical framework of the study uses media ethics, social responsibility theory, media accountability theory, and stockholder and stakeholder theory as its base. The study was performed using a qualitative method through interviews and the interpretation of these. The results of the study finds that the consulted advertisers have set opinions of what they themselves would decline to work with for ethical reasons, and has also been able to identify five main categories of ethical issues that they attach great importance to.

The Animal Protection Agency was in 2006, commissioned by the Government to: Evaluate how free range animals in the winter, can be kept and managed with special emphasis to animal welfare. The Animal Protection Agency was closed later in 2006 and the commission moved to the Swedish Board of Agriculture. The keeping of free range out wintered cattle, certain basic requirement are needed: by regulation, cattle should have access to a lying hall or other building that gives protection against aversive weather and wind and should offer a dry and clean lying area. There is a possibility for farmers that get an exemption from this regulation. But cases regarding farms which have had difficulties for this exemption has led to a discussion about if the animals can get the same protection in the nature which is comparable to a lying- hall.

In organizations today Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is becoming a common means to try to gain legitimacy and credibility for their business. A successful CSR strategy has the potential to generate positive outcomes for a company and reaching out to stakeholders about the corporation?s contribution in the field is an important part of the work. In this study I examine how the employees at Max Hamburgare receive the corporation?s efforts within sustainability, how it is perceived and what this means to the employees.

This thesis focuses on how companies in the textile and clothing industry view or interpret the idea of corporate social responsibility. The purpose of the study is to create an understanding for how this view affects the dissemination and the implementation of the idea in the organization and what might be the effects on the organization of those processes. In order to identify any differences in how the view affected the processes I have studied the current discourse on CSR simultaneously with my theory and conducted a comparative case study of two Swedish clothing brands. The theory focuses on the diffusion of ideas and change management within organizations. My data shows that the two companies have different ways of interpreting CSR and that this indeed affects their dissemination of the idea in the organization.

According to the arm?s length principle, transactions between associated multinational en-terprises (MNE) shall be based on the same conditions as transactions between unrelated parties. This means that intra-group prices on cross-boarding transactions must be at arm?s length range and consistent with conditions in the open market. The arm?s length principle is expressed in article 9.1 of the OECD Model Tax Convention and Chapter 14 section 19 of the Swedish Income Tax Act.When transfer pricing between associated MNEs is not reflecting the arm?s length princi-ple, states face the possibility of losing tax revenue.

Alkoholberoende och missbruk är ett omfattande problem i såväl Sverige som i övriga delar av världen. Med tanke på de fysiska, psykiska och sociala konsekvenser som missbruket leder till för både missbrukaren, och människor i hans eller hennes omgivning, finns det all anledning att undersöka möjligheter för att åtgärda detta. Syftet med detta examensarbete är att kartlägga olika behandlingsmetoder och att med psykologiska teorier om mänskligt beteende som utgångspunkt komma fram till den behandling en alkoholberoende individ behöver. Resultaten visar på att såväl personlighetsfaktorer som det sociala sammanhang individen befinner sig i har betydelse för om han eller hon missbrukar alkohol eller inte. Den sociala miljön bidrar till stor del till en alkoholberoende individs identitet och beteende.

Title: The auditor?s recommendations to small businesses in the choice of K2 and K3Authors: Christopher Dimovski and Dennis Carlsson Published: Spring 2014 Background: The background of this study is the introduction of the new K-regulations. For small businesses, there is a possibility to choose between the rule-based K2 and the principal-based K3. It becomes mandatory to apply the K-regulations from 2014. We want with this study understand and explain the significance of the auditor and its recommendations to small businesses in the choice between K2 and K3. Aim: The aim of this study is to describe how the auditor makes recommendations to small businesses in the choice between K2 and K3 and through that create an understanding of what influence the auditor have when it makes recommendations and at the end contribute to the building of models. Formulation of problem: How can we understand and explain the auditor?s recommendations to small businesses in the choice of K2 and K3?Methodology: We have used a qualitative method where we have interview eight auditors.