Foreseeing future changes in economic activity is of up most importance to a wide array of actors. The time lag in the presentation of official GDP statistics means that to somewhat accurately capture a tendency of where the business cycle is heading one need turn to qualitative Sentiment indicators such as Purchasing Managers? Index (PMI) and official Sentiment indicators for valuable clues. This thesis uses in-sample and out-of-sample methods to evaluate how well PMI and official Business Tendency Surveys (BTS) in Sweden and Denmark fair against the year-on-year growth rate of industrial production. Moreover, various Swedish regional Sentiment indicators get examined and a case study of the indicator for the Öresund region is performed.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att få en bättre förståelse för det privata investeringsbeslutet och få en insikt i de vägledande faktorer, fundamental analys och behovet av rådgivning och kunskap kring marknadens sentiment som styr och påverkar den privata investeraren vid köp och försäljning av aktier. I uppsatsen tillfrågas 75 privata investerare som är kunder hos Bankaktiebolaget JP Nordiska att fylla i en enkät med frågor som härrör sig kring vad som styr deras beslut vid köp och försäljningar av aktier. Vi genomför dessutom en kompletterande telefonintervju med ett mindre antal kunder. Vi konstaterar att individen lägger stor vikt vid både fundamental analys och rådgivning baserad på marknadens sentiment inför investeringsbeslutet. Vi konstaterar dessutom att den alltmer volatila och kortsiktiga aktiemarknaden påverkat en majoritet av respondenterna till att bli mer medvetna om att psykologiska faktorer spelar en allt större roll vid investeringsbeslutet.

Syftet med vår studie är att undersöka de problem som kan uppstå vid en överföring av ett styrinstrument, innehållande Key Performance Indicators, från en organisation till en annan i samband med förvärv. Uppsatsen utgår från en fallstudie av ett företag i kemibranschen. I vår fallstudie använder vi ett abduktivt angreppssätt och en kvalitativ metod. I den teoretiska referensramen utgår vi ifrån teorierna om The Balanced Scorecard och Key Performance Indicators. Empiriinsamlingen har skett med semistrukturerade intervjuer..

The purpose of this study is to propose and formulate quantitative indicators to help measure an aspect of the Environmental Objectives in Swedish legislation: ?A Good Built Environment, Interim Target 2.? The governmental bill 2004/05:150 suggests changes to Interim Target 2: By 2010 built environments of cultural heritage value will be identified and placed under long-term sustainable management. Following the revised formulation regarding sustainable management, indicators should be formulated to measure the fulfilment of sustainable management of built environments of cultural heritage value. An important part of management takes place at the municipal level of planning, where detailed development plans include regulations to protect built environments of substantial cultural heritage value. As a result, this study is focusing upon the regulatory function of the Swedish Planning and Building Act in respect to the built environments of cultural heritage value.

This project was conducted on behalf of the organization SABO (Swedish Association of Public Housing Companies). The aim of this project was to investigate which relevant environmental aspects and indicators there are for housing companies to present in their sustainability report. The project consists of three main goals: to decide if there is a need for common guidelines when conducting a sustainability report, determine appropriate environmental indicators and to create a simple model of how the companies can present them. This was done by a literature study, analysis of 13 sustainability reports and interviews with seven housing companies. The result of the project suggests that there is a need for common guidelines to, among other things, make it easier to make a comparison with other companies.

The purpose of this paper was, on the basis of the association?s annual reports, to describe appropriate key performance indicators for non-profit associations. The purpose was furthermore to study how the associations show their goal-attainment. The research was delimited to contain the second category of non profit associations, which include sports associations. The authors choose three non profit associations, which according to the law, shall draw up annual reports. The three ice hockey associations HV71, MODO Hockey and Frölunda Hockey Club, were thereafter chosen on the basis of those delimits.

The aim of this Bachelor´s thesis is to investigate how library statistics, performance measurement and indicators represent the modern public library activity. During the last decades the public library has gone through a lot of changes. Information overall has increased and new technology has been introduced into the library. This new development has had effects on the library users. The statistics reported to the Statens kulturråd (National Arts Council) has not changed in the same way.

Huvudsyftet med denna studie är att mäta sambanden mellan de svenska indikatorerna DVIS samt Konjunkturbarometern Hushåll gentemot Stockholmsbörsen, och jämföra resultaten mot observationer från tidigare studier på utländska marknader. Studien belyser samtidigt svårigheterna med att mäta marknadssentiment på ett sådant sätt som eftersträvas för att kunna förklara irrationella marknadsrörelser eller uppkomsten av bubblor. För att uppnå huvudsyftet analyseras månadsvisa medelvärden mellan 2001 och 2008 genom bivarat analys, där de tidigare nämnda indikatorerna, som antas motsvara marknadssentimentet, jämförs mot OMXS30 samt fyra urval av aktier, som representerar aktiemarknadens avkastning. Totalt analyseras 40 aktier utifrån omsättning och börsvärde. Signifikanta samband påträffas mellan båda indikatorerna och Stockholmsbörsens utveckling, vilket givet antagandet att dessa speglar marknadssentiment indikerar att marknadspsykologi har en väsentlig påverkan på aktiemarknadens prisnivå.

This master's thesis aims to explore the field of evaluative bibliometrics. In short, this field of research uses bibliometrics - i.e. the application of mathematical and statistical methods to books and other media of communication - as a research assessment tool. In recent years, evaluative bibliometrics has been an increasingly used method in research evaluation and is today used and implemented in many countries worldwide. Today, in Sweden, we can also see that evaluative bibliometrics is highly recognised and, in some cases, used in practice.

This essay deals with risk management and social risks, which have received increased attentionin recent years. Methods for dealing with social risks, for example within local Risk andvulnerability assessment (RSA), are currently under development. The purpose of this paper is toexamine if and how social risk can be quantitatively assessed and mapped using GeographicInformation Systems (GIS). The definition of social risk that the essay is based on states: "Theprobability of unwanted events, behaviors or conditions originating in the social conditions thathave a negative impact on the objects that are worth to preserve.? A number of social riskindicators that can be used for a spatial analysis have been operationalized based on thisdefinition.

This paper describes a factor analysis applied at the data of the European Union structural indicators. These are the official indicators for wealth and economic development in the European Union with main use to evaluate the outcomes of the year 2000 Lisbon goals for making the European Union the world?s strongest economy by 2010. The purpose of the data is to serve for comparing and ?learning by doing?-policies, but have, due to size and format, so far been hard to use for a good compare between member countries.

In recent decades, demands has emerged that the companies shall take a greater social responsibility for the impact that they have on their environment and that this impact shall be reported, which is known as Sustainability Reporting. The Sustainability Report is based on a number of general principles that ensure the content and the quality of the Sustainability Report. One of these principles is the principle of completeness. In the research, this principle seems to have been interpreted in terms of number of reported aspects and indicators, which can be a limited view where only the existence of the aspects and indicators is observed. By including the degree of the reporting in terms of full, partial and no reporting as well as a comparison between the real and the alleged reporting, our intention is to extend the principle of completeness and to develop a tool that we also apply through an empirical survey in a particular area.

This study has a double purpose. First, it explores and maps out the use of quantitative key indicators in social performance reporting within a microfinance portfolio. This was done on behalf of Storebrand Asset Management, who would like to aggregate and report the social results of their microfinance investments to their customers. The study concludes that the extent of social reporting and types of indicators used varies, meaning that it is hard to aggregate data for use in further reporting. Thus, the work towards the goal of social reporting has only just begun.

The world's natural resources are constantly being reduced, which increases the pressure on companies to actively engage themselves in environmental activities. Meanwhile, stakeholders focus is being broadened and it is now important not only to supply a particular product or service but also show that they are actively pursuing an environmental agenda. Companies can use various tools to aid in environmental efforts, but also to demonstrate to the world that the company is actively engaged in environmental activities. One such tool is the environmental standard ISO14001 which provides the company with guidance and support on how the business must manage its environmental efforts. To show a business' progress in environmental performance, it is advantageous to use environmental performance indicators as they enable stakeholders to easily understand how the business works with environmental issues.Authors in the field explain that the environmental management system propagation is limited in service organizations.

The research regarding the six day war and the aerial operations named Operation Moked is extensive but there are certain shortcomings in the research that examines both the operation and the principle of surprise.The aim of this paper is to contribute to this research by utilising existing military theories on the principle of surprise in order to identify indicators that are representative of surprise.  These indicators are thereafter used in a study of Operation Moked in order to examine the extent of in which the principle was utilised.The result of this research goes to show that the principle of surprise was utilised in great extent by Israel during Operation Moked..