The aim of this master's thesis is to study how gender equity is discussed and worked with at a Swedish public library, and what potential consequences these discussions will bring. By analysing different types of documents and interviews with library staff using discourse psychological theories and methods we show that two dominating discourses coexist and determine the direction of how gender equity is discussed. These discourses are argued to create and uphold gender and gender roles within the organisation as well as in society at large.In our study we find that one of the identified discourses has, as one of its consequences, that it preserves and regenerates traditional gender roles. This discourse is mainly used when discussing personnel policies and when recruiting. We call this the discourse of gender role preservation.The second discourse is mainly seen when discussing the public dimension of the library's functions.

Campaign websites are a growing Internet based type of advertising, dependent upon the advertisement being actively pursued by consumers. The popularity of campaign websites stands in sharp contrast to the increasing advertising boredom among consumers often discussed in both public media and academic contexts. Despite the increasing importance of this kind of communication, little academic research has been conducted on the subject. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the value of campaign websites for advertisers and consumers. Through a quantitative web based field study combined with an exhaustive qualitative study, we can draw conclusions concerning campaign websites and contribute with a theoretical framework for this type of advertising.

The aim of this small thesis is to investigate if the probability of business failure is higher at the time of divestment than at the time of acquisition for portfolio companies that have been subject to private equity ownership. The background for this thesis is the widespread critique aimed at private equity firms, claiming that they increase the risk in their portfolio companies. We have performed a study of 53 buyout transactions, involving Swedish manufacturing companies, covering a time span of 13 years, from 1995 to 2007. We find evidence of an increased risk of business failure for the portfolio companies with a short forecasting horizon (within one year). The absolute increase in the sample is however small.

How capital structure influences corporate performance and value has been in the interest of researchers and scholars for more than half a century, but an answer is yet to be found. The main objective of the present paper is to contribute with data for this cause and hopefully help to clarify this mystery. The method that was used was by analyzing the impact of debt on profitability and market valuation through linear regression. The study examined 17 Swedish property companies listed on Nasdaq OMX Large Mid and Small Cap over a 6 year period (2007-2012). The authors found a slightly negative relationship between debt-to-equity and profitability measured by return on equity (ROE) as well as by return on assets (ROA).

Forecasting is an important part in attempting to predict how companies will perform in the future. The more accurate the prediction, the more valuable are the results obtained from the forecast. This thesis aims to investigate forecasts of return on equity, and whether a disaggregation of the leverage formula into its underlying components affects the forecasting ability positively. This is conducted by comparing a model based on the leverage formula's components with a model solely based on return on equity from previous years. The study includes manufacturing companies on the Swedish Stock Exchange over the period 1998-2011.

Bakgrund: Många konkurrerande produkter liknar idag varandra och därför krävs ofta andra egenskaper än bra produkter för att övertala konsumenterna till köp. Ett sätt att förstärka associationskraften i ett varumärke kan vara att samarbeta med ytterligare ett varumärke. Detta kallas för co-branding och handlar om att man genom samarbete drar nytta av ett annat varumärke för att på så vis skapa fördelar som kan stärka det egna varumärket. Det tilläggsvärde som ett varumärke ger den märkta produkten betecknas av begreppet brand equity. Co- branding skulle kunna öka brand equity men det kan även innebära stora problem som skulle kunna minska brand equity.Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att definiera och beskriva begreppet ?co- branding? ur ett svenskt marknadsperspektiv.

How debt affects companies is an issue that has received much attention. The fact that researchers disagree can make it hard for companies to choose a financingpolicy that maximizes the value of the firm and its return on equity. In a world with investors that are seeking to maximize profits the value of the firm can be affected differently by different economic conditions. The intention of this study is to answer these issues with quantitive methods, with focus on year 2010 and 2009, where the value of the firm is defined as P/E and P/B ratio. The outcome showed that liabilities only affected return on equity significant in one of four cases, and liabilites didn?t affect the value of companies significantly in any of these.

Problem-definition: How companies work with social media to strengthen their brand equity and what other purposes might lay behind this usage.Purpose: How Volkswagen Sweden use social media in order to strengthen their brand equity.Method: Qualitative case- study of Volkswagen Sweden where a number of respondents will be interviewed with the help of a semi structured interview guide.Theories: A number of theories in the field of brand equity and communication theory will be used in this paper, some of these theories are, Post-model, Social technographics ladder, brand equity and word of mouth.Empiric: A semi-structured interview guide will be shaped from theory and answered through interviews with people who have knowledge within the field.Conclusions: Extracted from the results the research members has identified a number of important factors that business should consider when they work with social media or planning to. They have also answered how business can strengthen their brand equity with social media..

Denna uppsats undersöker finansieringsformen equity crowdfunding där onoterade företag bjuder ut ägarandelar till den stora massan i utbyte mot kapital. Equity crowdfunding har funnits i Sverige sedan 2013 och ett flertal företag har sedan dess lyckats erhålla finansiering genom denna finansieringsform. Nystartade företag har i sin uppstartsfas många gånger problem med att införskaffa kapital vilket till exempel kan bero på brist på legitimitet, avsaknad av säkerheter eller att företagaren vill behålla full kontroll över företaget. I denna uppsats studeras equity crowdfunding på grund av att finansieringsformen tycks kunna erbjuda kapital till nystartade företag som ofta upplever nämnt problem. Equity crowdfunding öppnar dessutom upp för privatpersoner att enkelt kunna investera i onoterade företag.

A multivariate cross-sectional model is used in this thesis to proxy for expected earnings and to estimate return on equity for 214 companies over the period 2009-2013, using Swedish data. The model, which has never been tested on Swedish data before, is first confirmed to function as a forecasting model for expected return. Furthermore, the model is evaluated through a comparison with two univariate models based on the assumption that return on equity follows a mean reversion process. Forecast accuracy is calculated as the difference of estimated returns and actual returns. The results show that the univariate models' forecasts are superior to the multivariate model's..

This thesis studies whether private equity owned firms within the Swedish welfare sector distinguish themselves in terms of tax planning and short-termism from a control group consisting of other privately owned welfare firms. For the first time, the comparison is made on the entire welfare sector, between 14 matched pairs within education, health care and elderly care. We use financial metrics associated with tax planning and short-termism in sign tests to examine whether the private equity owned firms differ from our control group. The financial metrics tested are actual and paid tax rates, level of interest, book-tax gap, investments, personnel expenses per employee, and cash earnings. We find that the private equity owned firms in terms of tax planning only differ in the level of interest, while no notable differences are found in terms of short-termism..

Machine-to-machine (M2M) communication is a phase in the digital revolution connecting computing devices with each other bringing along new business opportunities for companies. Although being a fast growing field it has not been researched to any greater extent, particularly not within the academical literature. Consequently, information on how M2M can affect organisations seems strongly needed. This thesis uses three perspectives, derived from already recognised business benefits of M2M, as an aid to select proper theoretical tools to investigate the phenomenon. The purpose of this thesis is to gain knowledge of how an M2M adoption affects a firm?s organisation, customer offerings and customer relations.

Recent years have been very turbulent for most private equity firms. Especially the financial meltdown in global economy has affected the industry, but also the public pressure has made private equity houses change their control strategies towards more conventional methods used in public companies. This thesis aims to put light on the control methods used in listed private equity houses which use a buyout strategy. The paper describes how the control methods change over the different phases the asset experience and how different value generating strategies use altered control methods. Using Merchant's (2003) framework for management control systems and Berg and Gottschalg's (2004) research on value generating strategies in buyouts the thesis shows that action controls as designing instructions for the board and a business plan, together with goal alignment is the commonly used control strategy directly after the acquisition.

Abstract: Since the recession caught the market in fall 2008, multiple companies have suffered due to their former aggressive investment behavior. Huge goodwill piles have been collected ready to be doomed by the market. The aim of the study is to investigate equity analysts? consideration of goodwill in a recession market. An empirical study is conducted, based on interviews with ten Swedish equity analysts that follow companies with relevant goodwill status.

En av de allra centralaste aspekterna vid investerings- och finansieringsbeslut handlar om den risk som en investering innebär och den avkastning som marknaden kräver. Som kapitalplacerare vill man veta risken i en potentiell investering för att kunna beräkna det avkastningskrav man måste erhålla, och om investeringen motsvarar ens egen riskexponering. Investeringsbeslut på olika marknader innebär att olika typer av risker tas i beaktande och resulterar därigenom i att avkastningskraven skiljer sig åt mellan marknaderna. Området för den här undersökningen ligger i risker och avkastning på Private Equity marknaden där skillnader existerar jämfört med investeringar i börsbolag. Förespråkare för Private Equity industrin menar att Private Equity innebär möjligheter till betydligt högre avkastning än investeringar som görs i noterade instrument och då främst i jämförelse med aktier.