Wermland was affected by the Spanish flu like the Swedish national average, about a half percentage of Wermlands population would lose their lives to the flu during the autumn 1918. The flu has for many fallen into oblivion. This oblivion is so wide spread that it´s possible to talk about a "collective forgetfulness". The society have selected to remember 1918 for "when the guns went quiet on the western front" and not for the millions who died from the treacherous Spanish flu. The world had already suffered enough from the four years of war that had been fought, thus the victims of the flu would be honored but would soon fade in to oblivion.  When you investigate deeper you get the picture that the national average don´t do Wermland and its cities or rural areas any justice when a large variations seems to occur within regional areas.

Human capital is professional service firms' most valuable resource and its quality is closely linked to the quality of its services. The purpose of this study is to investigate how professional service firms appraise their employees. A comparative study between an architecture firm and a management consulting firm is conducted with the aim to identify and explain similarities and differences in performance appraisal. Two qualitative case studies are performed and interviews as well as documents are used to explore the area. The thesis builds on a critical perspective and it has an explorative approach.

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.

We would like to learn more about how the restrictive policy against incentive programmes affects the board?s of Swedish state owned commercial firms ability to govern management in an efficient way. We also want to find out if there are different consequences in reference to this that are not directly linked to corporate governance issues. Our empiric observations have been made in order to profoundly explore the subject and examine it through the eyes of professional individuals, all expressing different views and standpoints. We conclude that the most efficient structure is when an active board is complemented by a well structured and individualised incentive programme.

Over the past decade, the fashion industry has experienced a relatively high rate of consumption with material and clothing becoming increasingly subject to waste and disposal. As a result of the increased awareness within the industry the interest in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) amongst retailers has increased substantially in an attempt to shy away from the critically amplified media attention. In addition the underlying demand from external stakeholders has forced companies to ensure they focus and act upon each stage of the product life cycle.This study provides a further in depth analysis of the fashion industry and conveys the key messages and steps that firms are taking in response to the external pressures and requirements based on four different merged process areas. This research paper examines the impact of CSR on two Swedish fashion retailers Åhléns and JC and shows how accountability relates to the external expectations and norms that prevail in society. The result shows that the firms do meet the demands within each sub category as a response to market demands.

This study was made to see too what extent Swedes uses consumptive resources such as berries and mushrooms, game meat and meat from fish in their household on a yearly basis. I have also looked into the difference between rural and urban areas in Sweden. Further aim was to determine what factors that correlates with the participation in berry and mushroom picking and the use of game and fish meat within the household. The study was conducted in form of a mail survey that was sent to randomly chosen persons in every municipality in the six northern most counties in Sweden and in the county of Stockholm. In addition a sample was sent to randomly chosen persons on a national level.The results showed there is a difference in use between rural and urban areas in Sweden in all 4 investigated consumptive resources.

Title: Competition for small audit firms ? a qualitative study on possible competitive strategies and how the upcoming changes will influence competition on the audit market    Subject: Auditing Tutor: Margareta Paulsson  Authors: Per Dahlström and Martin Holmberg Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop an understanding how smaller auditing firms use competitive strategies and why. The result aims to work as a support for owners and leaders of audit firms as they make decisions of how to compete in the future. We would also like to explore how smaller audit firms view the change of the mandatory audit, that is, our intentions are also to examine how they think the consequences on the market will be and their view on its affect on the competition of the market.    Methodology: Our methodological approach was characterized by a hermeneutic approach in order to explain and understand why the smaller audit firms do what they do. Our approach is a combination of inductive and deductive as it allows us to develop an understanding of the subject, then gather our empirical data and from that draw valid conclusions.

I have studied the suburban municipality of Botkyrka, south of Stockholm, from a rural perspective. Through that I`ve compared how countryside comes into being with the planning and building of suburbs. I have looked for a definition of Countryside, and found that it is often explained or defined in negative terms, as what it is not. In that it says nothing about what it really is, or about the qualitiies it has to it. Botkyrka is a suburb, but it does in large parts consist of countryside. Apart from defining countryside and rural I´ve been searching for a definition of suburbia, of it´s structure and the mental picture we have of it as a cultural phenomena. In order to understand the role that suburbs have in planning I describe their history from Italian renaissance villas to sprawl. By opposing urban and rural, modern urban planning and how rural areas are created, I´ve come to a definition of rural planning and the making of countryside. To make countryside, planning and building should come from individual needs and desires. A relationship to the surroundings based on continous interaction between the human beeing and it´s environment, a constant process of shaping and reshaping. To put my thoughts to the ground I have collected examples of projects and ideas, that fits into my view of what rural planning and making countryside is all about. They are put in different categories according to the possibilities of influence and to what degree it is put into private hands. The first category is ?allemansrätten?, every mans right. That is the rigt to use private land as long as you don´t disturb or destroy.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to find out how much influence underlying factors have in connection to the internationalization of Born Global firms. Methodology: This study has a qualitative approach in which data is obtained mainly through interviews and secondary data which consists previous theories about the internationalization in small and medium sized firms and recent theories that entitle these firms as Born Global. Conclusion: Based on the existing theories and the qualitative data, we have concluded that the underlying factors for the Born Global firm?s internationalization are abilities and opportunities to create insidership in relevant networks. The most crucial underlying factors for Born Global firm?s internationalization are the ability to create processes to break old patterns of thoughts and the ability to ally with right partners. .

AbstractProblem: This thesis was made by a commission from Svensk Logistikanalys AB (SLA). SLA is a relatively new firm who is working as a freight broker for firms that wants to lower their freight costs. SLA contacted Jönköpings international business school because they experienced a problem with too many firms, that had SLA?s concept introduced to them, but turned down their services. On the basis of this, following purpose of the report has been stated.Purpose: In this thesis we will study companies that have said no to the services of SLA.

Purpose: To investigate if Altman´s Z´-score model, which calculates financial distress, can be applied on companies established in Sweden and if the financial crisis in 2008 made previously healthy companies go bankrupt.Methodology: Quantitative studies with a positivistic foundation. Empirical data will be collected in order to examine if there is generalizability among the studied objects. Conclusions will be made by comparing the empirical data with the theoretical foundation. Financial distress in firms will be measured.Theoretical perspectives: Altman´s Z´-score model, designed to predict financial distress in private firms.Empirical foundation: A selection of 93 private firms that have gone bankrupt in the years 2008, 2009 or 2010. The firms selected all have a turnover that exceeds 20 million SEK.

This paper examines the reasons behind firms considering backsourcing. While firms experience problems with their outsourcing activities, backsourcing emerges as an alternative solution. Firms primarily take cost considerations into account when reconsidering their outsourcing practices, but this only scratches the surface. A deeper analysis is needed, since cost increases arise from issues such as quality defects and cooperation problems. Even though production costs are low, outsourcing always implies transaction costs.

Cambodia is located in Southeast Asia with a tropical monsoon climate and distinctive wet and dry seasons. Poverty is a widespread problem in Cambodia and 30 percent of the population were classified as poor in 2009. About 80 percent of the populations live in rural areas where poverty is an even greater problem. In agriculture, rice cultivation is dominating and the crop is cultivated on 85 percent of the arable land. Livestock keeping is also a traditional part of Cambodian agriculture.

This master thesis concerns whether Swedish non-financial listed firms act in accordance with the optimal capital structure theory and/or pecking order theory. The examined period is 1998-2004 and we discover that Swedish companies neither follow optimal capital structure theory nor pecking order theory. From our results we conclude that there exists no single point of the capital structure which is optimal. Rather it seems as if the optimal point lies in-between an interval from 0 to the industry average, where firms tend to be indifferent to their debt-ratios. Our results show that Swedish companies prefer internal financing followed by equity and as last choice debt issuance..

The purpose of the thesis is to examine why women face greater difficulties than men in the management consulting industry when advancing as well as to identify potential success factors that enable women to overcome the existing difficulties. In order to fulfil the purpose, a theoretical framework including gender and organisational theory has been applied to a qualitative case study of two Swedish management consulting firms. A number of difficulties have been identified related to women's career advancement, which are the following: the male leader and the stereotypical male leadership, firms having higher expectations on women's performance, women's reluctance to self-promotion and to play "the organizational game", women's preference of social networks, men's tendency to promote other men, and the choice and conflict between a career and family life. The identified success factors that enable women to overcome these difficulties are: adapting the male leadership style, having an extrovert behaviour, becoming more active in professional networks, promoting one self, actively seeking to gain more attention, and prioritising one's career. These success factors can be summarised as women adapting a more male-like behaviour.