The financial sector includes insurance business, which is a crucial part of the infrastructure in a modern economy. There are different parts to protect within the financial sector which is the reason for a comprehensive inspection. History shows several examples of disasters a mismanaged financial sector can bring. This also affects the society and stability over all. The inspection is conducted by the Swedish inspection of finance, which ensures that the insurance companies follow the law for its practice.

Companies today are facing more and different kinds of demands from the society and their stakeholders. It is no longer enough to just deliver the products, and not just the quality of the products that matter. The consumers are getting more conscious about the many ways in which companies affect the society and the environment in which we live. The financial sector, that among others includes stakeholders such as insurance companies, banks and fund companies are starting to realise the importance of the non- financial issues that companies are encountering. Analysing the companies sustainability when it comes to social and environmental issues, has become an increasingly important factor when for example choosing companies to invest in.

Background: Accounting of intangible assets have increased during the last years which have created a debate about if trademarks should be accounted as assets with the uncertainty of the value in mind. Valuation and accounting of trademarks are of interest for accountants and investors. These should be able toget information about the assets that are of importance for the company. A solid brand can be of great value for a company, which should be accounted for. Purpose: The purpose of this master is to examine the function of the brand in the different companies in the study and map the definitions that the different companies have of brands.

Companies use different forms of representation to promote business negotiations. The regulations for the right to deduction for the cost of representation are stated in Chapter 16 section 2 of the Swedish Income Tax Act (IL). According to the law there must be an im-mediate connection between the expenditure and the business practice and the claimed de-duction must be reasonable. The Swedish tax authority publishes general recommendations regarding representation which are used as guidelines for the tax payer to follow. The gen-eral provision about tax deduction can be found in Chapter 16 section 1 of the Swedish In-come Tax Act (IL), stating that expenses to acquire or retain income shall be deductible.

Since we all live in an increasingly globalized world where goods and money are transported more easily and with tougher competition, it is a natural step for Swedish companies to establish themselvs abroad in order to increase their gorwth rate and reach more customers. Today all of us belong to the same global network and the purpose of this thesis is to investigate which factors are important for companies when they choose to establish themselvs on a foreign market. The focus of the investigation has been the market of Germany and Spain, since both countries just like Sweden are members of the European Union, but still have quite different characteristics. We, the authors, have also been living in Spain and Germany during the time of investigation and writing. The companies we have chosen to look closer into are Abba Seafood, which now has merged with Procordia Food, and Oatly AB.

Background: A debated subject in today?s society is CEO compensation. Companies which give the CEO compensation mean that it motivates them to maximize the company?s return. The compensations are based on various types of variables, such as financial measures and financial ratio.

The increased specialisation and complexity in products and services has created the need for Swedish companies to focus more on their core businesses. This has resulted in them opting to buy services and products that lie outside of their core business from consultancy businesses or other types of suppliers. When companies describe their offers in internal and external marketing it is done often in terms of company or service attributes that are not based on customer value or offered value for the customer. The reason for this is that companies have not adapted their services to the different needs of their customers. As a result of this, they run the risk of offering the same services as their competitors and communicate values that the customers either do not understand or experience as value adding. By using the theory on the data collection from the case company we have an understanding and shown how the customer values can be developed from a service company?s internal and external prerequisites and competitive advantages.

The Private Equity industry has over the past years been booming and major external environmental changes have made the industry transform rapidly. Increased competition between Private Equity firms is one of the reasons why the industry has been and is being forced to focus more on addition of value through increased operational management. Consequently, the focus of value addition is by some said to be transferred away from deal making and financial skills, and into active operative management. This case study investigates how the portfolio management, and more specifically the measuring and management of performance, is carried out in a number of leading Swedish Private Equity funds with investments in the biotech sector. The biotech sector is characterized by extensive research and development, and many biotech companies often lack income and other measurable financial parameters in the initial phase.

The financial crisis in the beginning of the 1990´s the financial crisis had a strong impact on the Swedish economy. Some of the main actors in the crisis were the largest banks of Sweden which brought a huge amount of losses on themselves. One of the main reasons for this was that the banks focused on volume increases rather than on credit losses. The credit analysis process is performed differently these days and it is the development of this process that is the focus for the authors.This thesis is about the credit analysis process in the four largest banks of Sweden. The purpose of the thesis is to highlight which factors the banks include in the credit analysis process and in how small and medium size companies are treated in this process.

This paper examines women's positions in the music industry. By quantitativelyinvestigate ten major companies on the swedish music market, the authors have beenable to mapp positions that are dominated by women and as well as men. The essaydiscusses several theories of both gender in organizations and gender in society inorder to analyze the quantitative results.The aim of the paper is to highlight the current segregation of careers in the musicindustry as well as to lay a foundation for further research on why it is segregated.Clear graphs shows the gender distribution between women and men in business butalso the distribution of gender in occupations / positions in similar companies. In theanalysis the authors reflects on the results using relevant gender theories. In theconclusion, the authors explain the result generated by the analysis and illustrates theprevailing segregation that exists in the music industry.This paper has concluded that a seemingly even distribution between men andwomen in business organisations can sometimes be misleading.

A group of companies that only recently has caught the attention of Swedish designers, enterprises and media are the so -called "furniture pirates". In Sweden it?s mainly two companies that have ended up in the spotlight. The online stores Ikon M and Designers Revolt are two companies which currently sell replicas of famous Swedish and foreign designers. Although the designs sold are copyright protected in Sweden, and most other European countries, the right holders can only stand by and watch as more or less exact copies are sold for a fraction of the price of the originals.The business model - to exploit the EU?s free movement of goods and the UK's short term of copyright protection in matter of mass-produced art (industrial design) - has proven successful for the companies that practice it.

This master of economics paper discuss that the globalization has lead to increasing internationalization among small Swedish IT- companies in the service sector. Sweden has a long history of foreign trade but in the beginning of the industrialization only large companies that produced goods answered for the foreign trade. Before, the Swedish companies begun their operations abroad in fairly nearby markets and only gradually penetrated far-flung countries. Now this is no longer possible. When small companies nowadays seek growth in other countries there is no time internationalize with the same approaches as before, especially when the company offers a service.

Title: The decisive opinion - A qualitative study of consumers opinions of eight Swedish fashion companies.Seminar date: 2008-01-14Course: Candidate thesis media and communication, 15 ECTS,Authors: Micela Danielsson, Frida ÅhsAdvisor: Larsåke LarssonFive keywords: Profile, Image, Brand, Fashion and AdvertisingPurpose: The purpose with this study is to evaluate and discuss the connection between profile and the companies? image in the eye of the consumer.Methodology: A qualitative method has been used in the paper, focusgruops interview with respondents from Örebro.Theoretical perspectives: The overall theory of the paper is describing fashion theory. profile, identity and image and advertising.Empirical foundation: Consumers from Örebro have made a contribution to the basis of our empirical study.Conclusions: The results show that fashion and clothes play a big part for the consumers and they ascribe it the part as a way to show their identity, image and express them selves. For none of the companies profile and image did not have a full connection, but a lot of times there were parts of the profile and image that had a connection. The questioned states that they get their opinions from merchandise, stores, store employees and different kinds of advertising.

Objective: For a long-term and viable economic development to take place in a country it needs to promote creativity and innovation in enterprises. The study applies the process model to study the process of innovation in innovative companies in Sweden. The study also applies the technology commercialization model to indicate the ability of companies to commercialize the technology to the market.Main purpose: The purpose of this work is to study how companies in Sweden proceed with an idea generation and if they manage to commercialize these ideas.Method: This study used a qualitative approach. Multiple case studies & interviews.Conclusion: The innovative ideas in innovative SME:s in Sweden is emerged from randomly events and from systematic developments. Consumer chock is the trigger who draws focus on the idea.

There is a mutual dependency between the business world and the country?s municipalities. The municipalities are dependent on the companies to create work and tax income while the companies are dependent on the municipalities they are located in to provide good infrastructure among other things.Apart from this the municipalities can work activly with creating a strong brand in the eyes of the companies and many researchers in marketing agree that marketing of places will be more common in the future. Marketing of municipalities is however still a rather new and unexplored area and it is uncertain how and to what extent the municipalities work with this.The thesis is formulated:How are the municipalities working to market towards companies and is it possible to make out any positive change from these marketing efforts?The goal of this study is:Our goal is to examine how the view of marketing of places differs from different municipalities in the Stockholm region, how some of these municipalities work with this and how far they have come in this work.