Aim: A business ratio is a measuring instrument that companies use in their financial report to show profit and progress. As it is today, there are no standards to follow that shows which business ratio to present in a companies annual report. Our aim with this report is to see if there are any trends in the use of business ratios by looking into how thirty growth companies are applying them.Method: To see what business ratios are used in practice, we have collected information from the thirty companies? annual reports. With help from the literature, we have created an understanding about the most frequently used business ratios.

Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration,Mid Sweden University in ÖstersundSpring term 2008Title: Abolishment of statutory audit ? a qualitative research on banks attitude when credit rating small businessesAuthor: Rima Harouki, Carina HoffmannSupervisor: Anna-Maria JanssonBackground & problem: In Sweden the statutory audit has been mandatory for every corporation since 1983. With the membership in European Union it became possible to allow exception from statutory audit for small businesses, according to the fourth commission of EG. Today, in the European Union, there are few countries that still have statutory audit for smaller businesses, Sweden is one of them. There are discussions about whether Sweden should follow the trend of abolishment and an analysis management by the justice of the Supreme Court Bo Svensson was recently presented, which ended in the conclusion that statutory audit ought to be abolished.

I denna uppsats har vi undersökt möjligheten till övervinster i samband med utdelningar för svenska företag på OMX Stockholm Large Cap och Small Cap mellan åren 2006 och 2010. Genom en statistisk jämförelse mellan aktiekursens förändring i samband med utdelningen undersöker vi marknadens effektivitet. Resultaten tyder på att Large Cap är en effektiv marknad i samband med utdelningar, medan Small Cap visar tecken på ineffektivitet. Resultaten stödjer delvis tidigare studier, som säger att marknaden är effektiv. Vår studie skiljer oss från tidigare forskning eftersom vi undersöker Large Cap och Small Cap som separata marknader istället för hela börsen.

Konceptet kring kluster har fått mycket uppmärksamhet de senaste årtiondena. Dels beskrivet som ett viktigt fenomen, dels som ett bidrag till effektiva nationella ekonomier. I denna kandidatuppsats ämnar vi undersöka några viktiga drivkrafter som driver koncentrationerna av svenska bankers etablering inom kluster för Private Banking i Luxemburg. Finansklustret lever kvar trots ändrade förutsättningar och hårdare regleringar. Genom en kvalitativ studie av två svenska banker som har enheter i finanscentrum i Luxemburg, undersöker vi drivkrafter bakom etableringarna.

Problem: How does project managing appear in small IT-consulting companies and how does the project manager carry out their projects to create successful solutions for their customers?Purpose: The research has the purpose to analyze and review how IT-consults in small companies work and lead their projects to create profitability for the company, which leads to a good development for the company.  Methodology: The research is made on eight research objects in IT-consulting business and the sizes of them are between 1-49 employees. The research is made with a qualitative method to get closer to the research objects. Therefore the research is made in forms of interviews. The analysis is grounded on a comparison between the research data and the theories that are used in the research.Theoretical perspectives: The theories which have been used in the research are Involvement theory (Fill, 1999), PAFF-metoden (Marcusson & Ahlin, 2002), Projektledning (Tonnquist, 2006), Jakten på det effektiva projektet (Engwall, 1999) och Mervärde (Grönroos, 2002)Empirical foundation: The research data are founded from the interviews of the eight research objects, they have the fictive names: Gondor, Minas Morgul, Minas Tirith, Mordor, Osgiliath, Rivendell, Rohan and The Shire. Analysis/Result: Each study object starts their projects with a pre-study phase, as the PAFF-method describes it.

Foreign invested SMEs have recently become increasingly interested in China. The enterprises are in this report categorized as second wave companies since they follow the footsteps of previous pioneers, of which mostly were larger companies. The ambitions of the SMEs are either to sell products on the ever expanding Chinese market or to utilize the potential of low cost production for global markets. The existing literature is fragmented and solely based on the experience of larger companies. We believe that SMEs are facing new and different challenges, and thus a new generic theoretical frame work is desirable.

An investigation of the remedies in the Swedish Public Procurement Law. The result of this investigation shows that the remedies are not satisfactory in upkeeping the Procurement Law. The swedish legislator has not fulfilled the demands of the European Councils Regulations in this area. This results in ineffective use of public funding as well as discriminating actions against private suppliers. I have found that some changes must take place in the legislation and that an electronic procurement procedure makes the legislation easier for both the public and the private parties to understand..

This thesis studies the concept of balance in the management control systems (MCS) of a small Swedish company within the IT-sector. The aim is to evaluate the importance of balance and dynamics in MCS and investigate which factors affect them. The frameworks used are Simons (1994) four levers of control, and the five-factor model for balance and dynamics by Mundy (2010). The small IT company - the object of the case study - has grown extensively in the last years and needs to develop more formal MCS without losing efficiency and creativity in their fast-moving industry. The case study reveals that balancing MCS is important also in smaller companies with less formal MCS.

The structural rationalization of the agricultural sector in Sweden has led to many expansive, professional companies orientated towards growth. The agricultural sector is a very capital-intense sector and is characterized by the need for large sums of capital in form of buildings, inventory and arable land. The capital need is especially large for companies who have an ambition of growth and development of the company in the near future. The study is built upon six cases that all can be categorized as large agricultural farms with a turnover exceeding 20 million Swedish crowns. The companies are located in the middle and in the south of Sweden and are in the sector of primary production with focus on dairy-, pork-, egg-, chicken-, beef-, vegetables- and grain production as well as in the business of refining milk towards consumers. The study aims to identify the motives and driving forces that lies behind the growth of a farm-based company. The agricultural companies' motive for growth is studied based on which factors that influence the ambition to grow and to what extent these factors accord to the picture given by earlier research of small companies outside the agricultural sector.

I Sverige pågår idag en samhällsdebatt angående huruvida private equity?industrin bidrar till den ekonomiska utvecklingen genom att skapa långsiktigt starka och lönsamma bolag eller om de förstör värde genom nedskärningar och bolagsuppdelningar. Med private equity menas riskkapitalbolag som investerar i onoterade företag, så kallade portföljbolag, med avsikten att tillföra värde inför en avyttring några år senare, vanligen 3-5 år. Syftet med denna studie är att studera värdeutvecklingen på ett antal av dessa svenska portföljbolag, från riskkapitalbolagens avyttring till och med två år efter försäljningen. I studien har nyckeltal med fokus på lönsamhet, tillväxt och kapitalstruktur tagits fram för portföljbolagen.

Our study is focused on how the public sector can collaborate with the private sector on a certain issue. The public sector wanted to create a project to increase bicycling in the municipality of Kalmar. Our problem was to develop a sustainable way to collaborate between the two parties. We managed to present a suggestion on how the public sector with communication could improve their Public Relations with the private sector and therefore letting the parties benefit from their differences, thus making it possible to release synergy.Using semi-structured interviews and a workshop, we could clarify the values and attitudes of the parties to bring forth the core values to develop a shared vision. Where the identified differences were found, we used a dialog strategy based on intercultural conflict management as a communication tool.

World wide globalization and the rapid development of the Internet have lead to significant changes for companies around the world. The world has ?shrunk? and increased supply of goods and services has lead to a more intense competitive situation. As the market changes, so does consumer behavior. Today?s consumers do no longer wish to be treated as a group, rather they are looking for products and services that specifically fit their personal values.Recent years, the consumption of digital consumer electronics has sky-rocketed.

In the digital era, new services have entered the public libraries, like seeking information on the Internet, in databases, newspapers online etc. But many citizens do not know that these services exist. The libraries have a democratic responsibility to inform about them. In the county of Östergötland a project started in 2001 where libraries in five small municipalities built websites in which they present all their electronic services available. One of the aims was with the help of different kinds of marketing to reach special groups of people, like adult students, small companies and politicians.

The pupose of this study is to qualitatively study how teachers at a high school work with the schools demokratic mission under the management by objectives and what the policy document says and how the students can partcipate in different issues. My question fomulations are: What does it say in the governing documents about schools democratic mission and student influence? How do teachers concretely work to implement the values of democracy and student influence? How can the class councils used as part of the school's democratic mission? The theoretical frame of the study is about the school democracy mission and the possibilities and limits.  Futhermore a brief review of the fundamental values of the school are presented, followed by how the democratic process works.I used the qualitative analysis in order to find a lot of information about a small amount. Its strength is to convey a lot of information about a small number of observations and if the material is small in size.

The purpose of this thesis was to get a deeper understanding of why and how companies work with background music in event marketing and also how it can affect on companies image. In our research a case study was conducted and based on interviews with four respondents who all have experience working with background music throughout their careers. The study has shown that background music can be a very effective promotion tool in event marketing when it's used in the right way. Furthermore this study has shown that companies consciously use background music to enhance the experience and emotional affect the attendant through choice of music and the music can affect companies' image. Event marketing combined with background music is an effective tool for companies to generate positive associations to image and to reach their target group when right music is correctly conducted..