This is a two years master?s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies, which purpose is to find out what ideas there are about school libraries and to get an idea of how informants interpret the new Education Act, which requires all students to have access to school libraries. Another intention of this paper is to highlight the potential rural-related attitudes of the responents. The study includes the sparsely populated municipality of Krokom and is based on interviews with librarians, the school director, principals and politicians who work there. The theoretical basis for this paper is Loertscher?s model för school libraries and a centerperiphery perspective.

Competition is keen in the fashion industry of today. Homogenous products and prices aredriving competition and most firms are struggling hard to attract customers. Brands havebecome one of the most important assets for success and are often critical for the choices of theconsumers. A strong brand is often considered as a substantial value in the eyes of the consumerand gives the individual firm a competitive advantage in the marketplace. To build a strongbrand it takes that the brand identity not is in conflict with the brand image of a firm or a product.Sometimes one of these conflicts exit and sometimes the firms are not even aware of it.In this thesis we study how two firms, Lindex and Prada, perceive their own image and then wecompare how the images of the firms are perceived by the customers.

The purpose of this thesis is to test whether firms have target capital structure, and if so with what speed they adjust toward this target. Findings that support this purpose are also in line with the trade off theory. One of the key elements of this thesis is the method used, which successfully enables fulfilling the purpose. The panel data method captures the data characteristics of the cross sectional and time series dimension. By using this approach the dynamic effects of capital structure can be studied, thus if there actually is an adjustment towards a target the speed can be estimated.

The purpose of this thesis is to explain one aspect of how and why the development in the third world is lagging behind. The precondition is that development through an agricultural revolution is necessary and that all countries benefit from trading. But these two conditions are not met today. By using the urban-bias and the world system theory I have analysed how the situation appears to be according to the precondition. It appears that both the urban-bias and the world system theory are essential to understand how and why the situation in third world still has not reached the same development phase as most other countries.

This paper describes and develops a trade off model of optimal capital structure by Bradley et al. (1984). The model is then tested to examine how changes in corporate tax rates affect the optimal capital structure of firms. Based on theoretical implications of the model, four hypotheses are derived stating that firms? optimal debt-to-value ratio is (1) negatively related to financial distress costs, (2) negatively related to non-debt tax shields, (3) negatively related to firm volatility and (4) positively related to the corporate tax rate.

Investment aid is a part of the Rural Area Programme, which contains support to Swedish agriculture and the countryside. There is a new programme every seventh year and SLU (Swedish University of Agriculture) has the mission to perform the evaluation of the previous programme, which lasted between 2000 -2006. The investment aid's aim is to support investments that, among other things, support the adaptation or conversion to more environmentally friendly production methods, improves the product quality, develops new or complementing activities, and improves the environment and the animal- and working environment. The question is if it's only money that matters for these kinds of investments to be done and what has happened with the money that was paid? This thesis investigates how the investment aid has affected the receivers.

This is a final thesis in landscape planning, at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). The study examines the current phenomenon of amenity migration and the international discourse applicability of the a "Countryside dream" in a small neighborhood in Käglinge, part of the transit-oriented community Oxie just outside of Malmö in the southern part of Sweden. The critical starting point of the study is the how many planners idealize the dense city with its positive proximity qualities. However, since the late 1900s, many people have instead started to idealize living in more rural or naturally appealing landscapes, often just outside a bigger city, with good transit possibilities (both by car and bus as well as by train). The phenomenon of amenity migration ? the migration to a new, more appealing everyday environment considered to have more amenities, is very relevant today since many smaller communities are becoming more transit-oriented, allowing the inmigrants to work in some bigger, dense town while living in a small-scale, less dense semi-rural community. More dense transit-oriented communities are however also an ideal to planners in Sweden, but to what extent can Käglinge in Oxie ? a neither rural nor urban community - fulfill a possible countryside dream, and what role does the train station have in the in-migrants everyday life? The study has a theoretical starting point in literature regarding amenity migration, countryside ideals, representations of the countryside and the possible migrants themselves, giving a broad perspective on these related issues. The case study of Käglinge in Oxie is then presented, including interviews with Käglinges in-migrants.

Uppsats för avläggande av filosofie kandidatexamen iKulturvård, Bebyggelseantikvariskt program15 hpInstitutionen för kulturvårdGöteborgs universitet2013:24.

Leaders have many tools in their toolbox when it comes to managing their firms, assuring that they are moving in the right direction. One of these tools is vision. Vision can be a powerful tool for steering a company. But to be able to use it fully, you must also understand how vision is best conveyed to employees and followers. If you understand the vision as a tool, you can fully utilize it.

This study aims to investigate how value is constructed in horse business, in order to increase knowledge and contribute to development of theory in this field. This is important since the horse plays a significant role in the rural development in Sweden. The study assumes that value is something created through relationships in the social network. Therefore theories of sensemaking are combined with a discourse analytic method. By interviewing customers to two companies, one with orientation on trotting horses and one with orientation on showjumping horses, it was found that value is constructed through retrospective stories.

This study is about the female entrepreneur in rural areas in Sweden. Five women were interviewed with the aim to examine their way of living (livsform), their motivation, what significance it is to be a woman in business and how female entrepreneurs can be encouraged to start their own business. The conclusions : ? The women in this study live an independent life , but the their way of life (livsform) has changed during their life ? Female entrepreneurship can be promoted trough greater knowledge of the female business, better advice to the entrepreneurs, more networking groups and reducing bureaucracy. ? The driving forces for the women is to do what they like and are interested in, at the same time as they have time for the family and children. They also like to work in the rural areas. ? Female entrepreneurship can be promoted through greater knowledge of female businesses in the community, by creating virtual meeting places such as networking groups and mentor groups on internet.

This paper discusses the strategy and strategic change in the Swedish freight forwarding business and analysis factors that influence the forces of the business. Three companies of various sizes are chosen to be investigated as a case study, outline that cost leadership and differentiation are both important strategies for companies to compete in the market. However, companies outpacing competition do not only pursue either of the two strategies, the need the ability to add one (cost leadership) to the other (differentiation) in relationship to environmental change over time..

Denna kandidatuppsats i landsbygdsutveckling har som syfte att studera hur landsbygden representeras i två livsstilsmagasin; Drömhem & Trädgård och Lantliv. För att kunna besvara uppsatsens syfte utförs en kvantitativ och kvalitativ innehållsanalys, samt en semiotisk bildanalys på materialet. Detta utförs för att kunna urskilja rådande och florerande tankefigurer kring landsbygden, som både medvetet och omedvetet kan påverka människors föreställningar och agerande och som i sin tur kan vara avgörande för den svenska landsbygdens framtid. Den centrala slutsatsen i den här studien är att landsbygden framställs som förskönande och idyllisk, vilket kan sammanfattas med begreppet och teorin kring den lantliga idyllen. I min studie byggs den lantliga idyllen upp och bekräftas av fem sub-tankefigurer och tidskrifternas bilder, dessa bidrar till att den lantliga idyllen inte är tillgänglig för alla..

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.

This paper investigates whether the traditional accrual based trading strategy first documented by Sloan (1996) can be refined using fundamental analysis. Specifically, this is done by implementing the composite signal F_SCORE introduced by Piotroski (2000) to identify financially strong or weak firms. We find that by applying both investment models simultaneously, in a model we call P_KOMB, the mean market-adjusted return earned by an investor exploiting the accrual anomaly can be increased by 14.8% annually. This is achieved by taking a long position in strong firms (as defined by the composite signal) in the lowest accrual portfolio, while an offsetting short position is taken in weak firms in the highest accrual portfolio, repeated annually between 1997 and 2007. Consistent with prior studies, positive market-adjusted returns can be attained through assessment of accruals as well as key value drivers found in historical financial data.