The executives of a firm possess considerable influence over a company's financial reports. The numbers can be adjusted in a favorable direction by engaging in Earnings Management, which harms the reliability of the financial reporting. Previous research suggests that Earnings Management can differ between genders. In recent years the debate about a woman's role in the business world has received generous attention in media. Moreover, the presence of women in leading positions has become a relevant issue for firms.

Background: The debate about environment, labor conditions and aid to developing countries has the last years been a much discussed subject The pressure on the companies to live up to their responsibility is beginning to be noticed in the market.Purpose: To find out if a retail company investing in Corporate Social Responsibility thereby direct can effect it?s stock value. Using interviews to investigate if and how stock analysts and corporate finance professionals valuate a company?s CSR initiatives.Theoretical perspective: The description of CSR is leading to the main theory, The Brand Value Change, and the Market Hypothesis. Additionally a theory of the Consumer Buying Process and CAPM-model about financial risks is presented.Method: An event study of 30 companies to investigate if there is any change in their stock values and interviews with three professionals from the financial sector to find out about their attitude to CSR.

Purpose: To investigate if Altman´s Z´-score model, which calculates financial distress, can be applied on companies established in Sweden and if the financial crisis in 2008 made previously healthy companies go bankrupt.Methodology: Quantitative studies with a positivistic foundation. Empirical data will be collected in order to examine if there is generalizability among the studied objects. Conclusions will be made by comparing the empirical data with the theoretical foundation. Financial distress in firms will be measured.Theoretical perspectives: Altman´s Z´-score model, designed to predict financial distress in private firms.Empirical foundation: A selection of 93 private firms that have gone bankrupt in the years 2008, 2009 or 2010. The firms selected all have a turnover that exceeds 20 million SEK.

The aim with this study is to investigate the market reactions to announcements of special dividends and redemptions in Sweden and thus if these announcements can signal information. This study is an event study, where the event is the day of the announcement of a suggestion regarding issuance of special dividends or redemptions. The abnormal returns were estimated for two samples with the market adjusted returns model, one including special dividend announcing firms and the other redemption announcing firms. The signalling hypothesis and the hypothesis of a tax induced clientele effect are the most important hypotheses for this study. The efficient market hypothesis is another theoretical base that may explain the market reactions to the studied announcements, especially the pre-announcement activities that may occur.

This paper analyses how Swedish fine-art oil paintings sold at auctions has performed as a monetary investment during the period autumn 1985 until spring 2006. An average price technique as well as a hedonic regression technique, applied to a sample of 19 213 auction sales, is used to construct price indices. The indices show somewhat different results, which is explained by the inability of the average price model to adjust for relative differences in quality between periods. The hedonic regression model on the other hand captures this effect, why the hedonic index is applied in a financial return model. By adjusting for transaction cost, the financial return of an average investment in paintings is calculated.

Municipalities must establish budget annually but they are free to decide how the governance should be designed, this can lead to lack of consistency and measurability within and between municipalities. The purpose of this thesis was to present a proposal for a unified and more measurable financial structure of a municipality where this was lacking. In our theory we describe the issues of traditional management control and we introduce an alternative control with non-financial ratios included, called the Balanced Scorecard. In the empirical data it is investigated how the governance of a municipality could be designed, according to the respondents. In the analysis the information gathered to reach the answers to what are considered to be useful governance in municipality, are examined. In the conclusion, we design Balanced Scorecards with both financial and non-financial ratios to the councils of the municipality..

All inclusive travel has become a popular way to travel abroad. When tourists pay for everything in advance their need for contact with the local people will be reduced. The consequences of this can be dissatisfaction from the local people as they are left out and do not share the financial benefits created by tourism. During the purchasing cycle of an all inclusive travel, it is possible that the tour operator can influence a sustainable development.The aim of this paper is to compare how a large and a small tour operator in their purchase of all inclusive holidays interacts with local players to create sustainable development, thereby creating a surplus value to the customer. The hypothesis is that the amount of knowledge and application of this knowledge regarding sustainable development differs in the purchase process between large and small tour operators.This paper was carried out as a case study.

In this master thesis a robot arm belonging to an automatic milking machine from DeLaval is investigated. The robot arm is controlled by a pneumatic cylinder and a valve. The goal of the master thesis is to investigate instability problems and to find out if it is possible to solve them by using gain scheduling. Gain scheduling is a type of controller where the parameters of the controller are changed during operation, for example depending on the working point. First a nonlinear mathematical model of the system was made.

Title: Nordea Life and Pension during financial crisis Subject: Business administration, Candidate thesis 15 p. Authors: Seyithan Öngörur och Adnan Yari Instructor: Peter Lindberg Date: 2010-01-13 Key words: Nordea, the financial crisis, advice, marketing, customer relationship Purpose: The purpose of the study is to provide an understanding of how the financial crisis has affected Nordea Life and Pensions market growth based on market share. We also want to give an understanding of what factors may be responsible for the outcome that it may be helpful in future financial crises. Method: A qualitative study was the basis for the study, where three interviews were carried out by the respondents from Nordea Life and Pension.  Theory: In this section we have focused on relevant theory and has divided them into different themes, advice, current legislation, marketing, consumption and buying behavior. Conclusion: The study shows that Nordea Life and Pension had a positive growth during the financial crisis and a number of factors are presented that may be the basis for the outcome.Proposal for further research: Since this study was limited to one company it may be intresting to investigate and examine the consuling industry market as a whole affected by the financial crisis. Contributions: This paper has provided an understanding of how Nordea Life and Pensions affected during a financial crisis, based on market share and the factors that may have been the basis for this..

The following essay investigates emission rights accounting. Presently there are several methods through which emission rights can be accounted for by companies. The rights can for instance be valued at fair value or nominal value and as marketable securities or intangible assets; due to a lack of consensus or clear standards companies use these or other accounting methods to value their rights. This essay investigates whether there is a relationship between the company?s choice of accounting method, the key ratio number of owned emission rights/total assets, the accounting firm used and the yearly result as a sign of earnings management.Through a quantitative study based on questioners and numbers from the annual reports three hypothesis are tested.

Since January 1st 2005 all companies listed on a regulated stock exchange within the European Union are required to present their financial reports in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The intention of the introduction of IFRS is to achieve international harmonization of accounting rules in order to make financial reports more comparable between companies from different countries. The purpose of financial reports presented in accordance with IFRS is to provide information that is useful to the users of the information. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether the information regarding goodwill and the goodwill impairment test, presented in accordance with IFRS, in fact is useful to a specific group of accounting information users, namely equity analysts. An empirical study is conducted, based on interviews with seven Swedish equity analysts.

The purpose of this thesis is to study how preschool teachers can reach the goal of the swedish educational plan to prevent traditional gender roles for children ages 3-6 through drama in education.This is answered by four hypothesis based on Judith Butler's queer theory, George Herbert Mead's social psychological theory and Gavin Bolton and Dotothy Heathcotes drama pedagogical theories. The hypotheses are tested against four teachers' examples of their work.The hypotheses areHypothesis 1: By using the expert's mantle and active observation in teacher-in-role indrama educational exercises, we can see how the children internalize the heterosexualmatrix and the outline of the internalized other.Hypothesis 2: By using the "mistakes" that occur when children repeat performativeacts that do not fit with the heterosexual matrix, these other possible behaviors can bestrengthenedHypothesis 3: Through drama exercises that are not normative teachers can widen theheterosexual matrixHypothesis 4: Through drama pedagogical methods like teacher-in-role teachers canprovide possibilities of other performative acts and the creation of a more tolerantinternalized other.The analysis show that the respondents work within all these hypotheses in different ways and thathypotheses 2 is the one with the weakest support in the interwievs. The examples are also weakregarding the use of Boltons drama pedagogical methods, but that there are a number of othermethods in use.Some of the conclusions are that more theoretical knowledge in the preschool drama pedagogics tocounteract traditional gender roles and patterns, as well as the drama of educational theory need tobe linked to queer and social psychology research. There is also no monitoring of the long term effects of the work..

This paper includes astudy of the mutual fund market investors during a selected timeperiod. The reader is given a descriptive picture of how people in different age groups have  acted  in  conjunction  with  the  last  major  financial  crisis.  It  has  been  studied whether people in the different age categories have saved,purchased or sold during this time  period  based  on  theories  and  analytic  material  from  one  of  the  largest  fund operators in Sweden. The result enlightens people?s activity and risk appetite in relation to the fund market. The essay results in an explanation of the underlying cause of the behavior        of         the         people         in         the         different         age         categories.The paper assumes that the market is cyclical and that more crises will occur in the future.

Background: The regulation of banks is increasing in order to stabilize the financial market. Despite this increase in regulation, financial crises still continue to occur. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is gradually increasing the capital requirements for banks, yet the increase in capital requirements doesn?t seem to solve the problem. This raises the question: how does capital regulation affect banks? Purpose: The purpose of this study is, primarily to illustrate the effects that capital regulation has on risk and efficiency on banks within the European Union, but secondary also study the relationship between risk, efficiency and capital regulation.Method: To achieve the purpose of this study, a deductive approach has been used, where the problem is assumed to be due to an agency problem.

AbstractTitle: Level/Degree/Grade:Authors:Supervisor:Research question:Purpose:How the bank may improve its financial counselling ? A qualitative case study.Bachelor Thesis; Business administration; Corporate finance.Andreas A?strand, Anton Persson, Kristoffer Wedebrand.Hans Mo?rner.How may the bank improve its financial counselling to private investors using portfolio theory?Our purpose is to examine the advice, with basis in portfolio theory, the bank?s financial advisors provide to their clients, the investors, and how they can improve. If we can identify and point out areas of improvement in the financial counselling, we hope to raise the question and contribute with an improved financial counselling. Another positive effect we are hoping for is to improve the situation for the investors whereas all parties benefit from an improved portfolio selection.This study is conducted through a qualitative case study, where we used a deductive approach and collected our data through personal interviews.The conclusion that emerges is that the financial counselling could potentially be improved if financial advisors improve their knowledge in portfolio theory.The originality shapes through the opportunity to investigate a specific bank and because of that an opportunity to examine a specific case more thoroughly was created. Our thesis contributes with opening La?nsfo?rsa?kringar?s and other banks? eyes to how their financial counselling could be improved through new knowledge in portfolio theory.