The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether institutional ownership has an influence on CEO compensation in companies where the institutions have invested. In order to fulfil the purpose of the thesis a quantitative study was carried out within the Swedish corporate context where we have studied Swedish institutional investors and companies quoted on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. Our period of study was the financial year of 2007.The empirical questions at issue is; Was there a connection between Swedish institutional ownership and the size of the CEO compensation, and, does Swedish institutional ownership lead to a certain type of CEO compensation in terms of structure?Our results did not suggest that an increased institutional ownership neither leads to a certain type of salary level nor a certain kind of salary structure. These results contradict earlier American research, which has been done within this area and has previously shown a secured connection.The reasons for our results may be many and it is difficult to state any concrete conclusions to why we received differing results.

The environmental situation is becoming increasingly critical. The energy sector and other industries have a big impact on our climate and the public is raising their voice for companies to admit their responsibility towards the environment and society. Companies engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and happily disclose their responsible performance in annual reports. But what messages are they conveying in their CSR-reporting, and what attitudes towards CSR can be found underneath the explicit content? The aim of this study is to discover which discourses exist in CSR-reports from Swedish energy companies, and how these discourses operate.

The aim with my research is to illuminate the meaning of IKEAs settle in Haparanda, for the region Haparanda-Tornio, its economic growth and its inhabitants. The research has been carried out only through qualitative methods. Some interviews with a range of people from varying companies have been conducted.Haparanda is a smaller Swedish city situated in the north, on the border to Finland and to a city called Tornio. These two cities, Haparanda and Tornio, has realised they are stronger in pairs, so they initiated cooperation across the border. Haparanda-Tornio is not a region of historically welfare and well-being.

Sweden experienced a decline in exports of 16 percent in the period after the financial crisis. The decline has created a lot of question marks regarding the traditional exports which has started a process with the aim of finding Sweden?s next cash cow in export.Sweden adopted stringent environmental laws early which positioned them as a strong nation in environmental awareness. The stringent environmental legislation meant that the Swedish companies were required to minimize the environmental impact, which created a demand for eco-efficient products. Despite the early demand for eco-efficient products, the international success of the Swedish cleantech companies has been modest.The government can increase firms international competitiveness by encouraging, supporting and promoting activities on the domestic market.

The purpose of this thesis is to achieve an increased understanding of factors and considerations of importance to larger companies? purchases of tax consultancy services. Based on a qualitative case study, the thesis more specifically analyzes purchasing companies? perception of quality in tax consultancy services, how the companies organize their purchases of such services and the relationship between purchasing companies and tax consultants. The study suggests that tax consultancy services constitute a heterogeneous group of services which are normally purchased by people in charge of either accounting or tax matters in the purchasing company.

Responsible production is a subject of increasing importance for companies toadopt and communicate to their environment and many companies choose to implementenvironmental ? and ethic considerations into their brand strategy. There is, however, adividing line between companies according to what extent they choose to implementresponsible production into their brand strategy and to which extent they choose tocommunicate it to their stakeholders and surroundings. It is the hypothesis about a dividingline that is the foundation for this essay and something we believed could be interesting forfurther analysis.The purpose of our essay is to find out how the brand strategy of a company is affected by theresponsible production and in what extent they communicate it to their environment. Byanswering those questions we hope to find out why some companies communicateresponsible production more actively than others.We have conducted in-depth interviews with the Swedish clothing companies; MariaWesterlind, Zion and Dem Collective and we have through our analysis reached interestingconclusions.

Stjärnägg is a sales organization operating on the Swedish eggmarket, owned by nine Swedish packing companies. Those nine packing companies are not just owners of the sales organization, but at the same time competitors since they compete in the market when they do not sell the eggs through Stjärnägg.The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the sales organization from a supplier and owner perspective. To answer the purpose of this study, qualitative interviews have been conducted with the owners of the egg packers. This has been done in order to get as fair picture of the sales organization as possible. From the answers of the interviews, a compilation has been made to be able to give Stjärnägg concrete proposals of improvements in the organization.

Earth?s resources have been exploited unsustainably. If an entire conception of exploitationof natural resources does not change now, this will entail enormous costs in the future.This insight has lead to a recently increased interest in clean technologies among privateequity capitalists. In the fourth quarter of 2006 about 10 percent of all private equityinvestments made in the US market were placed in the cleantech industry. Despite a goodinvesting climate in Sweden, Swedish capitalists have shown little interest in cleantechinvestments.

Those companies that have taken a stand in corporate social responsibility and work with these issues often experience difficulties orienting themselves in these areas. There is a picture of how companies want to be in their CSR commitment on corporate websites and a different reality which is reflected in the media. These different images are not in harmony with each other.The purpose of this study is to revise the CSR work of Sweden?s largest clothing companies.To answer the problem of this study a qualitative method has been used. The choice to explore a few clothing companies resulted in a multi-case study.

Background: Once upon a time the most important resources in an economy were tangible goods. Historically, Swedish company culture has been dominated by engineering and techni-cal innovation has been the focal point. Today, Intangible values drive product development and form a company?s differentiation. Intangibles have therefore become the most prominent resources in a company.

The first company to send TV-commercial was the American company NBC, it was in the year of 1941. In Sweden, TV-commercials were first shown in 1987/88. TV 4 was the first channel to send commercial in Swedish television.TV has the advantage of showing both sound and picture, which makes TV the strongest channel of communication to mediate a message between a company and the consumer. Although TV-commercial is the most expensive choice to mediate a message, it is also the most effective one. (Persson, 1993)Almost everyone is exposed to TV-commercial daily.

Problem formulation: This paper will examine how the capital structure of firms affects their market valuation by applying the Modigliani-Miller theory on Swedish listed companies in a boom and a recession. The study will examine whether it is possible to draw any conclusions as to whether companies with high debt to equity ratios are valued lower in a recession, in comparison to companies with low debt to equity ratios.Purpose: To empirically test the Modigliani-Miller theory of capital structure in a boom and a recession in order to see if the companies? market value is affected differently depending on whether they have a high or a low debt to equity ratios.Methodology: The essay has a deductive and a quantitative methodological approach. Data analysis was done through a correlation analysis, a regression analysis and a hypothesis testing.Theory: The Modigliani-Miller theory of capital structure with taxes states that companies with a high debt to equity ratios has a higher value. One of the risks with a high level of debt could be that during a financial downturn companies have more difficulty realizing capital and are thus more likely to go bankrupt.Conclusions: The study shows results that are contrary to the Modigliani-Miller's theory; all the correlation analyses between debt to equity ratios and market value are negative.

Time has passed since the new standards regarding goodwill were introduced. Duringthe period that occurred pre the financial crisis several companies managed to creategreat goodwill assets on their balance sheet. These assets were highlighted during thefinancial crisis and the aim of this study is to evaluate analysts contemporaryconsideration of these assets. The study will be of interest due to the fact that we nowfind ourselves in-between periods, post financial crisis and pre euro crisis. Ourempirical study has been carried out by interviewing analysts covering IT-companiestraded on the Swedish stock exchange.Our analysts were chosen with consideration to the fact that they were coveringcompanies where acquisitions are common.

Background: As the economy turns up and down, and companies sometimes face loosing employees, it is important for them to make sure they do not loose competence at the same time. Therefore a need to handle competence efficiently exist. Purpose. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate what measures companies take to minimise the risk of loosing competence from the company, at times of layoffs and in general. Methodology: We mainly used interviews to gather information.

This thesis investigates and analyses the social media strategy of eight companies. How the companies measure and evaluate their activity and investments in social media channels in general, and Facebook in particular is studied through qualitative interviews. The findings are then compared and analysed. Findings indicate that companies' social media presences to a large extent are dependent on individual employees with high levels of interest for the area and that companies that have integrated social media into their others operations see more value from their efforts..