During the 90s most companies organized and adopted routines for their environmental work. This work included for example eco-efficiency improvements and the introduction of environmental managing systems. At the UN conference in Rio in 1992 the concept Sustainable development was defined, but it was not until about the year of 2000 that companies in Sweden shifted their work from environmental management to sustainable management. A consequence of this is that they now have to focus on environmental aspect in conjunction with social and economic aspects.The purpose of this study is to gain understanding of what a change of focus to sustainable development means for companies. Has the environmental work suffered in the competition with social/economical aspects under the new sustainable focus? How will the new way of working affect the balance between environmental and social aspects? Changes were studied in five companies by analysing their annual-, environmental- and sustainability reports and through interviews of sustainable managers.

SUMMARYInventory of raw materials holds an important role in companies within the manufacturingsector. The inventory works as a buffer that secure the supply of materials to the productionunit. The aim of the inventory is to ensure that the company is able to meet the customers?demands despite fluctuations and variations in the material flow. The size of the warehouseand the layout are physical limitations for the quantity of articles that can be stored.

The SMEs? internationalization strategy?Foreign Market Entry Modes selection Title: 1st of June 2006 Date of the Seminar: Bus 809. Master thesis in international marketing Course: Han xiao Author: Ulf Elg, Associate professor, Lund University, Sweden Advisors: Ying Bin, Associate professor, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, China. Guest researcher, Lund University, Sweden Internationalization, entry mode, SMEs, foreign market Keywords: The purpose of this study is to understand the internationalization process of the SMEs, and try to define the motives and internal factors impact their foreign market entry mode selection. Thesis purpose: This thesis is based on qualitative method using case study.

Title: Information storage - A growing problem? Authors: Göran Svanhall Pär Truedsson Erik Ponnert Tutor: Bengt Carlsson Problem: Every day companies, regardless of size, produces new information that needs to be stored. In the information society of today, the characteristics of the information changes both in size and complexity. This results in higher demands on which storage solution that suits the company and their field of business. New and more innovating storage solutions enters the market, but are they necessary to smaller companies of development active in the IT society? Questions to Answer: Is data storage a growing problem for companies of development active in the IT society? How do traditional storage solutions manage the information growth of today? How urgent is the need of a new storage solution? Which features are prioritized in the future storage solution? Method: By performing a quantitative survey we delivered an inquiry to several companies, which answers will help us answering our above mentioned questions.

Fortfarande idag sätter ordet JV skräck i många utländska investerare på grund av GPAC och andra misslyckade JV i Kina . Kina tänker inte göra omvärlden några gratistjänster, utan vill dra nytta av de fördelar man har av den stora billiga arbetskraften. Kineserna är väl medvetna om sin potential och kommer inte att ingå JV som inte passar dem. Motiven för kineserna att ingå JV med utländska företag är i grund och botten bara steg i utvecklingen av bilindustrin. När de väl fått den kunskap de behöver för att kunna gå vidare själva kommer de nog inte att visa någon välvilja mot sina gamla partners.

Discharge of inadequately treated waste water containing nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen as well as organic matter and bacteria is associated with a risk of eutrophication and contamination. The Swedish government has decided upon several Environmental Quality Objectives aiming to reduce the emissions of nutrients to water bodies.In Sweden, there are between 675 000 to 1 000 000 on-site sewage systems. Recent studies have shown that the function of small sewage treatment plants is in many cases insufficient. To prevent this regular service and supervision by a professional is needed. The focus of this study are small sewage treatment plants which use a technique where mechanical, chemical and/or biological reduction of pollutants is being used in the same facility to reduce nutrients in household wastewater.The aim of the study is to investigate how different municipalities ensure that small sewage treatment plants fulfill the requirements and reduce pollutants as efficient as the manufacturers claim.

China is considered as one of the world?s fastest growing economies and the future of China looks promising. Even though the Chinese market attracts many new foreign companies to enter the market there are entry barriers which companies may encounter as obstacles, which will aggravate the market entry in China. As a result companies loose business opportunities and therefore it is of great importance for Swedish companies, which are planning a Chinese market entry, to identify which entry barriers that are considered to be the most difficult obstacles to overcome.The purpose of the thesis is to examine which entry barriers that are generally considered to be the most difficult obstacles for Swedish companies to overcome when entering Chinese markets and to rank the five most difficult entry barriers to overcome.Information about these entry barriers have been gathered from Swedish companies, which have carried out successful market entries in the Chinese markets, through an e-mail questionnaire.The result generally shows that the most difficult entry barriers to overcome in China were: bureaucracy, property laws, language, cultural differences and difficulties finding local partners. The ranking of the entry barriers? result shows that bureaucracy is the most difficult obstacle to overcome, followed by cultural differences, language, relations and access to distribution channels.We conclude that companies experience different difficulties overcoming these entry barriers, which depends on the companies? size, years in China, markets and if the entry barriers were considered controllable or uncontrollable.

Goodwill accounting has for a long time been, and with the implementation of IFRS in 2005, has become an even bigger issue. Critics mean that reporting of goodwill impairments is subject to discretion that can be used by the managers. We have applied a study made by Carlin and Finch (2009) on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm during 2006-2012. Our study contains 50 of the 255 public companies at 2012-12-31. The purpose of the study is to investigate if companies use an opportunistic discount rate when testing for impairment in goodwill and if the relation between goodwill and net profit before taxes, goodwill intensity, is an incentive for opportunism.

Account receivables tie up large amounts of capital in. Various reports show that the actual time for customer to pay their invoices is getting longer. This is a problem both from a society and a business economic perspective. The purpose of the essay is to find out if Swedish companies have longer credit days than normal contractual terms of payment and if so, can the business cycle or the geographical distribution of sales have an impact and does it make a difference if the companies have an active monitoring of the actual customer credit days. To answer this, we studied 12 listed companies in four different sectors between the years 2000-2008. In the analysis, we reason about the results of the study and how the various factors may have influenced the outcome.

The goal of this thesis was to explore how real estate investment companies are affected by a weaker world economy. The reason to investigate this was that in the 90s in Sweden, the housing market crashed in conjunction with the bank collapse. Therefore I have looked at how the commercial real estate companies would be affected if we were to have a double dip recession, because it has been confirmed by Gyourko that commercial real estate market and the housing market tend to react in the same way on new fundamental information. This was examined through a sensitivity analysis, one investigated the effect of falling rent income and the second analysis looked at the effect of higher interest costs. I found that IAS 40 rule about unrealized profits of properties affected the results in a significant matter and therefore decided to include the regulation in my thesis.

In todays society the demand on companies to deliver better project management is crucial for them to survive. The higher demands from clients make older project management weak and unreliable. In the constructions sector more and more companies are created and the competition is higher than ever. The clients are aware of the higher competition in the construction sector. This has resulted that construction companies must now make their project management more efficient to create better projects and better relationship with clients. The purpose of this thesis arose from this problem in the construction sector.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate possible links between short selling and the stock market movements using econometric test models. Methodology: A quantitative study carried out on the time series stock lending and OMX Stockholm 30 index. Information is gathered through qualitative interviews with specialists in the field of stock lending, and studies of relevant newspaper articles and reports. Theoretical approach: The theoretical frame of reference is a further consideration of supply and demand theory. The empirical study is implemented by the simple linear regression model and a vector autoregressive model (VAR).

Background: During extreme market conditions like the period during fall 2008 the discussion of what affects company value becomes apparent. The capital structure is the relation between borrowed capital and equity in a company´s financing mix. What impact changes in capital structure have on company value is a widely debated subject within the theory of finance. If a relationship between capital structure and company value exists the implication is that an optimal capital structure where company value is maximized also exists.Aim: The aim of the thesis is to study whether a certain relationship between capital structure and company value exists among selected stocks and companies listed on Stockholmsbörsens OMXS30.Implementation: With aim to fulfill the purpose of the thesis regression analysis has been performed among chosen stocks and companies. The empirical results eventuating from this have been analyzed from the view of elected relevant theory.Completion and results: We find that during normal market conditions a positive relationship between debt ratio and enterprise value (EV) can be established.

The number of elderly people has been steadily rising in Sweden for a long time and as a proportion of the population, the increase has been even greater. The population structure in the country means that in the not too distant future, there will be a sharp rise in demand for care and elderly accommodation.A tighter credit market as a consequence of new rules and regulations with a stricter capital and liquidity requirements combined with market turbulence, has made financing property developement more difficult and more expensive which has resulted in many companies using alternative sources of finance.DEmand for safe investments with low risk is high as the market is volatile and banks, pension funds, fund management and life insurance companies are looking for investments outside the stock market that can deliver a safe return in the longer term. There has also been a debate about whether institutional investors as the AP pension funds really should own properties directly.As properties for care and elderly accommodation are definable assets with predictable payment flows, long leases and often a local authority as tenant that would not risk cancelling payments, these would be highly appropriate for securitisation, i.e. to issue bonds or other tradable securities based on the cash flows from the assets.In other words, the securitisation of rent flows would offer the opportunity to create an attractive investment product of the type being demanded, well suited to institutional investor requirements, while at the same time, it can provide an attractive financing opportunity to meet the need for more care and elderly accommodation..

The intention of this final thesis is to look into the improvement of small and run down railway stations. Many railway stations are today derelict and decaying. The purpose of this essay is to propose alternative strategies of action by discussing the ecology, the history and the social function of the railway station. There is also an overview of projects already completed. In the analysis part of the thesis, the genius loci or the spirit of place is put forward as means of reaching a solution.