This master thesis is looking into the stories on the internet forum www.resedagboken.se. The stories of Swedish teenaged exchange students in the U.S. are studied and the main purpose is to see both what they are writing about and the reason for why they are spending their time writing down their experiences in a public forum.Even though most of the teenagers here are writing with a specific audience in mind, all the stories are free to anyone to take part of and this causes a difficult position for the teenagers who often seem to forget the public point of view when they are telling about their personal lives.The study is divided into two parts. The first one looks into the content of the stories and the other one focuses on the storytellers and their reasons for writing. The teenagers are writing both a lot about their everyday lives in their new environment, but also a lot of things to keep in touch with what their friends and family in Sweden are doing.

Det har blivit allt vanligare att köpa och sälja företag vilket gör att företagsanalys väcker stort intresse bland revisorer, investerare och analytiker. Syftet med denna studie är att beskriva hur professionella analytiker på investmentbolag i praktiken arbetar inför ett företagsförvärv. Detta kommer förhoppningsvis mynna ut i större förståelse för hur förvärvsprocessen tillämpas i verkligheten. Studien kommer att fokusera på hur värderingar genomförs tills dess köpet är avslutat. Frågan som studien ska besvara är; Hur ser förvärvsprocessen ut för svenska investmentbolag fram tills dess köpet är genomfört?Studien använder sig av en kvalitativ metod och har genomförts med hjälp av intervjuer samt ett beskrivande företag.

The study aims to investigate Swedish fitness companies positioning and strategic choices when internationalising in the Scandinavian countries and what has influenced this choice. Furthermore, the corporate risk and what obstacles they encountered will be examined.The study was conducted as a qualitative study with a deductive approach. The results are based mainly on primary data from interviews, as well as secondary data.The fitness companies? choice of strategy in internationalisation depends largely on its concept and positioning. The main obstacles in the internationalisation process are lack of communication, language difficulties and regulations.

Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att utreda huruvida avkastningar mellan etiska aktiefonder och traditionella aktiefonder är likvärdiga. Vidare avser uppsatsen att klargöra hur etiska fonder definieras ur ett teoretiskt perspektiv med utgångspunkt i rådande forskning. Metod: Studien är av kvantitativ karaktär och utfördes med hjälp av fonddata inhämtad från respektive storbank och Morningstar. Det kvantitativa innehållet består av fondernas årliga avkastningar. Undersökningsperioden sträcker sig från december 2008 till december 2012. Teori: Beta, Sharpekvot och Modern Portföljteori. Slutsats: Studiens slutsats påvisar inga större skillnader mellan de etiska och de traditionella fonderna sett till avkastning. Den traditionella fondgruppen var den som hade marginellt bättre avkastning..

The banking industry is a fundamental part of the economy in Sweden. Despite its importance, the competition and the concentration level within the Swedish banking sector is relatively unexplored. This paper aims to examine the development of the concentration level in the Swedish banking sector during a period of ten years, 2003 to 2013. The examined banks in the study are the four largest banks in Sweden; Handelsbanken, Nordea, SEB and Swedbank, and four selected niche banks, ICA banken, Ikano Bank, Länförsäkringar Bank and Skandiabanken. In order to examine the development in percentage change, there are six selected variables; loans, deposits and borrowings (both public and households), net interest income and return on equity, which are observed during a period of ten years.

Bankruptcy is a problem for the society in form of high costs for including suppliers, customers, employees, investors, banks, insurance companies etc. The purpose of this study is to confirm or dismiss a bankruptcy prediction model that has been developed in a previous Swedish study, in order to predict bankruptcy with help of specific key figures. The model has only been tested in a larger perspective where the population consisted of all small firms in Sweden, in this study the model´s reliability is tested by that it instead been applied to a minor perspective, where the population only includes Stockholm. With a quantitative approach of 12 different key figures from a total of 60 Swedish smaller registered companies in Stockholm between the years 2005-2007, has been studied. The companies are divided into two groups, companies with good financial health and companies that have ended up in bankruptcy.The results shows that the model is applicable in a smaller population, but some of the key figures do not generate essential or any type of information about bankruptcy, but the majority of the key figures in the model did.

The legitimacy of the European Union is being questioned, and this has put focus on the democratic deficit, as the main reason for the negative outcome of the referendum about implementing the last initiated treaties of the union. In this essay the credibility of the problem solving strategy through the communication policy of the commission is being put under the scope. The objective is to treat the credibility of the solution to the main problems of the EU as an important part of how the democratic, political system works and how it deals with taking care of its? supporting and demanding channels of communication. The importance of a citizen platform to form common interests and a strictly European dialogue using media, common debates and several other possible ways to advocate this solution throughout the whole union is stressed here..

Site fidelity, the behaviour of animals to return to areas where they have been before is a common trait in many species. The Scandinavian moose is known to show fidelity to its range, but to what extent, is little known. The landscape in Sweden changes in a predictable and unpredictable way and hence gives the opportunity to test the existence of fidelity. I used the kernel Brownian bridge method to estimate the home ranges of individual moose over consecutive years and estimated the overlap at the home range level. I also used Euclidian distance to look on calving site fidelity.

Intention: The purpose of this thesis is to see if an active investment decision in the Swedish Premium Pension System would result in a higher return than a non-active investment decision. A non-active investment decision is equivalent to leaving the money in AP7 Premium Savings Fund.Method: This thesis is a statistical analysis and has a descriptive character in which the calculations are based on secondary data, thus the thesis has a quantitative character. Furthermore three active portfolios in different risk categories have been chosen. These portfolios are compared with the AP7 Premium Savings Fund?s returns.

This study test the short-termism of companies listed on the market OMX Stockholm 30. We will use a deductive point of view where the purpose of this study is to investigate whether corporate short-term returns can be explained by the independent variables related to corporate governance and compensation practices. This is to investigate whether there is an intentional action on raising the short-term return in order to achieve a higher CEO compensation. In the study, theories dealing with corporate governance and agency theory have resulted in two hypotheses. Basic Hypothesis H1 is: if short-termism of Swedish industry due to the company's short-term returns can be explained by the independent variables related to the company's management and compensation. This hypothesis could not be verified through the quantitative study. Alternative Hypothesis H2 is: the compensation of a CEO can be explained by the independent variables related to company performance and size.

In today?s IT-community, consumers use the internet in a increasing rate to find information or to purchase products and services. This has led to a growth in the market, but also a greater competition between e-stores and web shops. To separate yourself from the masses has become more important, the question is; what strategy should the IT-salesman use? The meaning of this scientific study is to find and focus on witch the primary factors/aspects are, that controls and is the very foundation for the consumer making a purchase, by using the internet. The purpose is to give companies a clear view of what it is that influence the consumer into buying theirs products, and how this group responds to different strategies and factors.

This essay examine how temporal claims (past, present and future) are used in two Official Government Reports (SOU) in Sweden considering rape and sexual assault. The Official Government Reports constitute an important and particular system for long-term planning, and the reports are used as an instrument to achieve desirable changes within the nation. The temporal pretensions in SOU 1976:9 Sexual offences: proposed new wording of Penal provisions against virtue, and SOU 1982:61 Rape and other sexual assaults, are analyzed in relation to the concepts realization of the possible and actualization of the virtual, in order to see how the concepts correspond to the process of desirable change in the reports. The temporal claims are used in a spatially sense where space is assimilated to the concept of time which in return create notions of spatio-temporal images of the past, the present and the future. This is partly a problem for the reports in their aspiration to transform old norms and create innovatory values and ideals..

The common literature about strategic alliances offers a very fragmented picture. This thesis gives a theoretical overview on strategic alliances and builds the basis for the following examination of the different dimensions most strategic alliances have. The examination of the different dimensions is the crucial point of this thesis. Here the reader gets a detailed insight into the different dimensions and the implications they have on the design of a particular strategic alliance. This examination leads in the end to a more differentiated view on strategic alliances and the insight that no simple models exist, which give a sufficient basis for decision-making and understanding strategic alliances, today.

The topic of our thesis is Packaging Design as a Brand Building Tool and we are presenting the Scandinavian perspective. We found the topic interesting because, from a theoretical point of view, we identified a scarcity in research focusing on packaging design as a brand management tool, and from a practical point of view, we found out that businesses use packaging design at different levels in their communication efforts. Thus we wanted to provide both academia and business world with a clear picture to what extent and how businesses use packaging design in their brand-building process. Therefore the aim of our thesis is to provide practitioners and academicians alike with a better understanding of how packaging design can be used to create strong brands in the FMCG sector in the Scandinavian market. To reach the stated aim first we provided a solid theoretical background of packaging, its elements and its role in the marketing mix.

Sydkraft Vattenkraft AB owns and operates the Traryd hydropower plant, located in the river Lagan in the southern part of Sweden. The gravity dam is classed according to RIDAS guidelines (Hydropower Industry Dam Safety Guidelines) as a class 1B dam. This means that the dam must discharge a class 1-flow which has a return period of 10 000 years. The inflow into the dam has been calculated in an earlier report to 495 m3/s, with a waterline at an elevation of 126, 3 meters above sea level. The gravity dam has a discharge system with two rectangular weirs, which results in a smaller discharge than the necessary 495 m3/s.