Master Thesis in Business Administration, School of Business Administration, Linaeus University, Finance 4FE03E, Spring 2011Authors: Benni Hansson, Axel SandquistTutor: Christopher von KochExaminer: Sven-Olof CollinTitle: Compensation as a means of monitoring or recruiting ? a study on ownership structure in Swedish listed companies.Keywords: CEO compensation, compensation structure, ownership structure, ownership types, ownership concentration, agency theory, resource dependence theory, managerial theoryBackground: There has been extensive research on CEO compensation, however not a lot on Swedish listed firms. Many studies have an agency theoretical perception on CEO compensation. In accordance with this, compensation is used as a means to solve monitoring and incentives problems.Purpose: The aim of this study is to examine the role of CEO compensation, by studying ownership structure.Method: To examine the role of CEO compensation we use a multi-theory approach, based on agency theory, resource dependence theory and managerial theory. The companies examined are Swedish listed firms the in years 2005 to 2009.

The spruce bark beetle (Ips typographhus) is one of the 25 000 species of insects in Sweden, an insect of great economic importance because it can alone terminate forest of high value. During the past decade, insights of climate change received with increasing attention. If the future brings a milder climate in the north and therefore a longer growing season, one would think that it would only affect the forestry to the better? Yet in recent time, outbreaks after storm felling seems to occur more frequently. The Spruce bark beetle ruins millions of cubic meter of Norway spruce (Picea abies) in Sweden alone, with more frequent storm felling and a larger amount of wind thrown threes in the forests there will also be room for an advancing reproduction.

Agency theory describes the conflict of interest between the principal (stockholders) and the agent (CEO). Aligning the incentives of executives with those of the owners is the most direct way to mitigate the agency problem. If there is no meaningful link between CEO compensation and company performance, it is doubtful that the large sums of assets in public corporations are being managed efficiently. In theory the solution is simple reward the CEO when shareholders wealth increases. The purpose of this paper is to investigate if there is a relationship between company performance and CEO compensation among Swedish companies, in materials and information technology industry.

The usage of temporary work agencies services is increasing in the Swedish labour market and it has also caused some problems. There have been cases where employers have been accused to circumvent the preferential right to reinstatement by using temporary agency workers rather than rehire preference eligible employees during labour need.The purpose of this thesis is to describe, analyse and enhance the understanding of the preferential rights to reinstatement and study when hiring of temporary agency workers, during the period when there is preference eligible former employees, is permitted. The method being used in this thesis has been applied with particular attention to the directives, laws, legislative history and doctrine.The preferential rights to reinstatement in 25-27 §§ of the Employment Protection Act is a protection which states that the employer has to hire employees or former dismissed employees during increased labour needs. The purpose of this right is that an employer should not be able to terminate an employee due to redundancy and then later hire new employees. An employee is entitled to the preferential right as he/she meets the criteria of the Employment Protection Act.

In this paper I study how the repeal of the Swedish wealth tax (1 of January 2007) has affected people´s labour supply behaviour. This particular issue is relevant because it may help us understand some of the effects of the earnings tax changes that have taken place in Sweden. Accoring to standard economic theory a repealed wealth tax is similar to an income effect for the persons who previously paid the tax. That means that they theoretically will want to consume more leisure, that is decrease their labour supply. The method I am using to test this hypothesis is a difference-in-difference approach where the treatment group consists of persons who previously paid the tax and the control group of comparable persons who did not pay the tax.

In this paper I study how the repeal of the Swedish wealth tax (1 of January 2007) has affected people´s labour supply behaviour. This particular issue is relevant because it may help us understand some of the effects of the earnings tax changes that have taken place in Sweden. Accoring to standard economic theory a repealed wealth tax is similar to an income effect for the persons who previously paid the tax. That means that they theoretically will want to consume more leisure, that is decrease their labour supply. The method I am using to test this hypothesis is a difference-in-difference approach where the treatment group consists of persons who previously paid the tax and the control group of comparable persons who did not pay the tax.

It is essential to reuse- and recycles residues to decrease the amount of deposit materials and reach sustainable energy use. Two ways to work towards this is to recycle wood ashes to the forest as nutrient compensation and extract biogas from combustion of biomass.The aim with this study was to decide whether wood ashes that been used for biogas upgrading with accelerated carbonation also can be used as a nutrient compensation in the woods according to recommendations from the Swedish Forest Agency (Skogsstyrelsen).The ashes that were used in this study came from Johan Andersson who works at JTI in Uppsala, who also treated the ashes with biogas. The ashes have, in both untreated and treated condition, been analyzed in this study according to contents of elements, leaching properties, hardening properties and contents of crystalline phases, to evaluate what impact carbonation with biogas has on the ashes.The accelerated carbonation led to hardening of the ash, and decreased amount of CaO- and increased amount of CaCO3. The CO2-uptake also entails a dilution of the elements, and the content of nutrients and trace elements decreases. However the results show an indication of an uptake of S from the biogas to the ash, since the dilution had a smaller impact on S than the rest of the elements.

Agency theory describes the conflict of interest between the principal (stockholders) and the agent (CEO). Aligning the incentives of executives with those of the owners is the most direct way to mitigate the agency problem. If there is no meaningful link between CEO compensation and company performance, it is doubtful that the large sums of assets in public corporations are being managed efficiently. In theory the solution is simple reward the CEO when shareholders wealth increases. The purpose of this paper is to investigate if there is a relationship between company performance and CEO compensation among Swedish companies, in materials and information technology industry.

In this paper I study how the repeal of the Swedish wealth tax (1 of January 2007) has affected people´s labour supply behaviour. This particular issue is relevant because it may help us understand some of the effects of the earnings tax changes that have taken place in Sweden. Accoring to standard economic theory a repealed wealth tax is similar to an income effect for the persons who previously paid the tax. That means that they theoretically will want to consume more leisure, that is decrease their labour supply. The method I am using to test this hypothesis is a difference-in-difference approach where the treatment group consists of persons who previously paid the tax and the control group of comparable persons who did not pay the tax.

Denna studie visar hur det fungerar att använda sig av Montessoripedagogik i högstadiets kemi- och biologiundervisning. Kan man använda sig av dessa metoder på en vanlig, traditionell skola? Vi har besökt två Montessoriinspirerade högstadieskolor i Stockholms län, intervjuat tre NO-lärare samt observerat själva undervisningsmomenten. Vi har sett att Montessoripedagogiken skulle kunna vara en stor hjälp för lärare på en vanlig, traditionell skola. Montessoris grundtankar finns redan hos oss lärare, det gäller bara att tillämpa dem mer konkret.

 The purpose of this thesis is to study the education of newly arrived 16-20 year old immigrants and how their education in the towns of Södertälje and Malmö matches up with national inquiry into the subject.The research questions in this thesis are as follow: What type of documents shape the work with newly arrived students? What's the preferred development surrounding the education of the newly arrived students nationally? What does the latest study, which is a proposed reform of the Gymnasium system, say about the education of newly arrived students?How does the local work connect with proposals of national investigations? Do the cities take responsibility for evaluating the education of newly arrived students? From arriving to graduating, what does the road to graduation look like for a newly arrived student? What is the curriculum of a newly arrived student?The methods used here are studies of investigations made primarily by Skolverket (The National Agency for Education) and Myndigheten för skolutveckling (The Agency for Development of Education), studies of local documents such as annual reports of quality and promotional material for programs at local Gymnasiums (High Schools), and interviews with local persons in charge of shaping the work with newly arrived immigrants.This thesis has not used theory as a foundation for structuring the analysis, but postmodern theory and the use of three dimensional power inspired the thesis.The conclusions made focuses on the future of the education for these teenagers at large and makes connections between the national investigations and the local work with immigration education.In order for these teenagers to be allowed to join the Swedish national Gymnasium, they need to learn Swedish, and integration seems to be an important part of learning Swedish quickly. .

Syftet med detta arbete är att undersöka hur elever och deras lärare uppfattar kemi-laborationer. Genom litteraturstudier har jag sökt vad som ligger till grund för det laborativa arbetssättet. Jag har därefter använt mig av en kvalitativ metod och intervjuat sju elever samt deras klasslärare, i år fyra och fem, om hur de upplevt ett antal kemilaborationer och vad de lärt sig genom att utföra dessa. De flesta elever tyckte att det var roligt att laborera. De kom ihåg vad de hade gjort, men visste oftast inte varför resultatet blev som det blev.

Under våren 2009 genomfördes för första gången nationella prov i fysik och kemi i grundskolans årskurs 9. I dessa prov ingår en laborativ del där elever själva ska planera, genomföra och utvärdera en naturvetenskaplig undersökning. Syftet med studien är att belysa lärares erfarenheter av, och föreställningar om, arbete med labo-rationer kopplat till den laborativa delen i de nationella proven i fysik och kemi. Dessutom belyses lärarnas förhållningssätt till de nationella proven i undervisningen. I studien har en kvalitativ undersöknings- och ana-lysmetod använts.

Den här studien använder Agency-teorin och Stewardship-teorin för att undersöka hur motiverande ett Resultatandelssystem (RS) är för de anställda på en mindre svensk bank. Mer specifikt så undersöks hur påtagliga så kallade Free rider-problem är och vilka bakomliggande orsaker som påverkar vikten av sådana problem. Detta bygger på en rent kvalitativ undersökning baserat på intervjuer med anställda på Leksand Sparbank. Resultaten visar att förekomsten av Free rider-problem inte är så vanlig som Agency-teorin antyder och att detta beror främst på att monetära belöningar inte är den primära motivatorn på banken. Resultaten visar också att RSet inte motiverar på det sätt som det är tänkt, RSet har dock en del andra positiva egenskaper..

The independent audit function plays an important role in our modern society as it strengthens the credibility of information given out by firms. A fundamental condition for the maintenance of confidence towards the audit function is the auditor?s independence. This phenomenon has been acknowledged threw several well-known audit scandals during the last decade, including the classical Enronscandal. In the repercussions of these huge auditing scandals, governments all over the world were now founding more restrictive rules and laws about audit independence.