In line with Sloan (1996) but on European data (STOXX 600) we are investigating whether stock prices reflect information about future earnings contained in the accrual and cash flow components. The extent to which current earnings performance persists into the future earnings performance is shown to depend on the relative magnitudes of the cash and accrual components of current earnings. Moreover, we still find a significant positive excess return (Jensen?s alpha and size-adjusted return) by replicating Sloans (1996) hedge portfolio by taking a long position in the stock of firms reporting relatively low levels of accruals and a short position in the stock of firms reporting relatively high levels of accruals. However, we find no evidence of negative excess returns for companies with relatively high accruals, this somewhat lower the total excess returns for all the portfolios.

We investigate if the size of goodwill compared to total assets has any effect on the shareholders return on companies listed on the Swedish Stock market. We put up two different hypotheses with a foundation from previous research and later dismiss one of them. Our evidence does not show any indicators that the size of goodwill have an effect on the shareholders return, which brings us to believe that there, from a share holders point of view, isn?t any need for concern regarding the standards about accounting for goodwill as stated by IFRS. .

Background: Operating on the stock market is associated with risks. If a particular asset is not traded with the same frequency as the average market asset, this particular asset is exposed to a liquidity risk. It means that the investor might not be able to sell the asset at a desired time without incurring expensive transaction costs. The query is whether or not the investor is compensated with a liquidity premium for bearing the extra risk. Earlier studies on the Stockholm Stock Exchange have failed to prove that there is a relation between stock return and liquidity.

The law firm industry has during the last years met new demanding conditions and one tool to handle these new conditions has been to implement a Knowledge Management system. Large investments have been made in these Knowledge Management systems but the implementations have met many challenges from within the organizations.With a multiple study, based on interviews with Knowledge Management Managers included in a Knowledge Management network, this thesis aims to study the challenges with Knowledge Management and the underlying causes. The result, based on McDermott's theories shows challenges within technical, personal, social and management areas where the law firm need to shift a focus from Information to Knowledge Management, create a culture of trust and integration and use the informal powerbase.The causes for these challenges are found in the base of Mintzbergs theories of Professional bureaucracy where the Knowledge Management is affected by strong self-regulated individualist, a divided organizational structure and industry conditions..

The purpose of this study was to identify the positive and negative aspects of the work and dynamics of a management team and from that recommend how the team can improve. The aim was also to investigate whether there was a gap between how the members of the management team comprehend themselves and how the project, section and team managers comprehend the management team. The management team contains of seven core team members and is the head function of a research and development site in central Sweden. The results are based on interviews with the present members of the management team and three former members, a survey among the project, section and team managers and by participating observation on meetings with the team. The results show that the management team is an overall well-functioning team that with some changes and improvements, especially concerning communication and information, can reach even further.

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to in a comparative and causal way explore whether there is a relationship between risk and return and also how it is perceived on the Nordic financial markets.Theory: The theoretical frame of reference applied in the thesis is considered relevant inthe perspective of the study?s purpose and research questions. We have among other theories used The Capital Asset Pricing Model, The Efficient Market Hypothesis and various Behavioural finance theories.Method: The study has its starting point in a quantitative approach with a quantitative data analysis supported by secondary data extracted from Thomson Reuters.Empirics: The empirics contains regression analyses made from calculated secondary data of 240 randomly chosen companies from Nasdaq OMX Stockholm, NasdaqOMX Copenhagen, Nasdaq OMX Helsinki and Oslo Bors.Conclusion: The study conclusions show that there are both a negative and positive relationship between volatility and actual return on the investigated markets. Considering this prior statement we can conclude that the Capital Asset Pricing Model can?t correctly describe the actual relationship between the parameters investigated on the current sample.

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Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the difference in return between Swedish and Russian hedge funds while considering the risk taken.Method: This study is based on quantitative data on funds' historical returns from the electronic database Morningstar.se. Additional data is taken from the funds websites, the Swedish National Bank and Fondbolagens förening.Result and conclusion: All hedge funds, both the Russian and Swedish performed better thanthe index. The Russian hedge funds nevertheless performed better than their Swedishcounterparts in all three evaluation methods..

In recent decades, mental illness has increased in Sweden, and in parallel to this there has been an increase in unemployment. This implies that it is harder for people who have been away from employment for long periods due to ill health to return to work. The purpose of this study was to examine the work situation of people with mental illness who had undergone prevocational training, and to identify psychosocial factors relevant to their current work ability. The aim was also to describe how those who had undergone prevocational training perceived that it had affected their work ability. The study involved 19 participants who were interviewed and assessed with the Worker Role Interview, and an open question was asked about how they perceived that the prevocational training had affected their current work ability.

This thesis discusses the theory of securitization in relation to the issue of irregularmigration, from EU level to national level. By using discourse analysis, the purpose isto explore whether the discourse leads to practice when it comes to nationalimplementation of EU debates on return policy. The material used in this workconsists of policy documents regarding the Return Directive from the EuropeanCommission as well as the Reva Project in Swedish migration policy. The mainobjective of the Reva Project is to make the process of returning irregular immigrantsmore effective and it has been strongly criticized, both by media and public opinion.The conclusion of this case study is that even if the security rhetoric may appearstronger on the EU level, the main elements of the security discourse are stillportrayed in the implementation on the national level. Based on this analysis we canmake the presumption that discourse develops into practice in the case of returnpolicy in the EU-member state relation..

The public service within health and care has changed remarkably during the last 30 years. It has been inspired by management ideas from profit-making businesses. Those thoughts are an umbrella term called Nex public management. In what way has New public management influenced the public service in Sweden? Important concepts in the change of public service are quality, effektivity and goals.

In this thesis, I enquire into how the USA ? our world?s wealthiest and most powerful nation ?  and its federal government has dealt with two of its most severe natural disasters: the drought and dust storms that plagued the Great Plains during the 1930?s, i.e. the Dust Bowl, and Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in late August 2005. I attempt to identify differences and similarities and analyze if and, in that case, how the hegemonic politico-economic paradigm affected the federal management of these crises. This comparison is made relevant by the fact that two differing paradigms were at play during these events. In the thirties, President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched his ?New Deal?, a series of counter cyclical measures in line with the Keynesian school of economics, as a response to the overwhelming economic depression as well as the raging drought.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate if the companies listed on Nasdaq/OMX Stockholm Large Cap use the earnings management phenomenon Big Bath Accounting to a greater extent when a change of management (CEO) is made.Management tends to use earnings management when there is a bonus plan linked to the result of the company. To gain maximum bonus the management will try to manipulate the result in a way that in a long term maximize their utility. Through the earnings management technique Big Bath the management is given the possibility to take one large cost as a one-time expend, even though the cost is supposed to run over several financial years. This, of course, within the legal framework. A big bath may occur when there is an impairment of goodwill, tangible and/or intangible assets or larger provisions for future expense, or both of them at the same time..

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There is limited research done in the area of management control in the relationship between companies. This study investigates management control in outsourcing relationships and the decision to change sourcing strategy and to insource functions. The empirical research was conducted at an international company, which in this study has been anonymized. The research is mainly based on interviews. To extend and verify the conclusions drawn, another company, AB Ph.