A couple of hundred years ago half of the earth?s surface was covered by forest. Today, only half remains and every year an area the size of Nepal is disappearing. Deforestation, together with the burning of fossil fuels, is also one of the reasons for the increasing greenhouse effect. Another relatively unknown problem for the world?s forests is the trade with illegally harvested timber.

China is a unique market that differs from the Western market in many ways. Companies are not required to publicize financial reports, and furthermore a heavy focus on business relationship building can make it hard for companies to have high quality streams of data to get insights about their markets. For a consultant company to successfully enter the Chinese market and helping producing and technological global firms improving their insights on the Chinese market, the consultant company needs to understand which the important factors are and how those factors can help in creating value for their potential customers. To help the analyzing and consultant firm called Kairos Future, a qualitative case study was conducted on 16 different global companies with focus on industrial production. The case study was mainly conducted through face to face interviews with decision makers who had a broad understanding of their respective companies.

This rapport examines six Swedish workplace unions, in manufacturing internationalised companies, degree of internationalised trade union work. The report is based on interviews with local shop stewards. All local workplace unions were in some form internationalised. They were placed in three different groups of strategies: Passive, Tactical and Strategic. The Passive union only tried to get information; the Tactical unions were reactive against initiative from company management and used the channels provided of Industrial Relation laws.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze and examine India's economic reforms which the country introduced on the government's own initiative in the early 1990s after decades of practicing isolationism. The analysis entails a thorough systematic examination of possible factors that determined the decision to implement the reforms. These factors are derived from two models developed by scholars within the field of foreign policy.The research is performed through an examination where the possible factors for the reforms have been examined on a three-level basis; system-, state- and individual level. It is a qualitative case study that seeks to explain not only why the Indian government implemented the reforms but also to evaluate the validity of the models to the extent that they stand in accordance with the case of India.The conclusion presented in this thesis is that one model works better for explaining the case of India. The model lie emphasis on structural changes, a crisis and political entrepreneurs committed to a certain type of reforms as a prerequisite for policy change to take place.

On November 1st 2010 the obligatory audit was removed in Sweden for small companies. What factors influence such companies to have their financial reports audited, and what factors exert the strongest influence. Purpose: The authors would like to investigate factors that affect companies with voluntary audits in Skåne län to continue with the audit. The authors also wish to examine the factors that have the strongest impact on the choice to adopt auditing. Method: A quantitative study has been conducted in which aquestionnaire was sent to companies in Skåne Län Conclusion: The factors that affect smaller companies to continue with audit are as follows: Accounting quality, cost, creditors (loans), suppliers / customers, the tax office and distort competition.

The aim of this essay is to see how the IOGT, local politicians and the local newspaper acted in the city of Hedemora in Sweden in connection with the referendum held in 1922 whether or not to ban the use of alcoholic beverages. To accomplish this I have examined protocols from local IOGT-groups, the town council and the local newspaper Södra Dalarnes tidning. I find that the local IOGT not only worked with the issue of alcohol but served as an institution that deepened democracy and education in the local community through discussions, study circles and applying pressure on local politicians. The locally elected bodies in turn were generally in favour of the good work the IOGT did, although not always overwhelmingly so. Many of the local politicians that handled the issues of alcohol were themselves active members in organisations promoting absolutism.

Taiwan's recent democratization seem to have rallied a wider support of the notion of a national identity amongst its citizens which in the year 2000 led to the election of the pro-independence party DPP and President Chen Shui-bian. Meanwhile, China insists on the "one country, two systems" formula, regarding Taiwan as merely a Chinese province, and continues to fight any Taiwanese initiative towards sovereignty. Through a narrative perspective, this essay analyzes the self-conscious national identity-building quest embarked upon by DPP and President Chen Shui-bian. The analysis consists of three parts. Firstly, a text-analysis of President Chen Shui-bian's speeches is conducted to examine in what way he enforces and legitimizes the identity-building-process through narratives.

During 2008 we experienced an expansion of large scale investments in foreign farmland. This increasing trend has become a political hot-spot, but there is not much research available within the field. Due to a lack of research it remains a vital task to outline the potential effects of this trend. Drawing on existing ideas from some of the main actors within the field, The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), The World Bank, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the latest G8 summit on agriculture, four main purposes are set out for this paper. First, to outline some of the underlying mechanisms behind the trend is considered crucial for the understanding of the nature of these investments.

In this thesis we study the development of post-earnings announcement drift (PEAD) in the Swedish equity market from 2000 to 2009. By forming portfolios based on the stock price reaction to quarterly reporting we show that the characteristics of PEAD have changed. We demonstrate that negatively surprising companies show a positive drift during a holding period of six months sufficiently large to render the trading strategy unprofitable. This development holds from 2005 and onwards and these results contradict many a study which finds the same portfolio construction to be indeed profitable. We argue that this development is a trend that will not only affect our study but future studies as well..

The purpose of this essay is to examine how two riding schools work with their safety. Riding is one of the most popular sports in Sweden but also very dangerous. Sweden has a lot of riding schools and almost half a million that rides. Therefore it?s very important that riding, and especially riding at riding schools has the highest level of safety with regards to harmful events.The purpose leads to the overarching research question for this essay, which is: How does the Safety work look at two riding schools in the area of Karlstad? Out of this question, seven specified research questions have been constructed.

The interest in providing a post 9/11 image of Islam to contrast the media?s frequent focus on its practitioners? alleged tendencies toward hostility and violence has in Sweden manifested itself (among other things) in an increased range of courses on Islam given by denominational Muslim organizations. In this paper I examine the construction of Islam by two Muslim organizations that offer education in Islam to non-Muslims in the context of the management?s stated goals of the education. My aim is to illustrate how discourses within these organizations are a result of the combination of local and global conditions..

Abstract Titel: Budget development ? a study of multinational industrial companies Date: 2011-05-27 Authors: Daniel Claesson & Tobias Kronvall Supervisor: Fredrik Karlsson Examiner: Lars-Göran Aidemark Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to follow up and to do a comparison                of a study of Arwidi & Samuelson (1991) where we describe and explain budget change, from the traditional budget to today´s modern business management, in some of the leading listed Swedish industrial companies. We will also examine which objectives of the budget are highlighted in the companies. Further, we examine the relationship between                         organization, strategies and budgeting and how it affects the company            management. Method: In this study we used a qualitative approach. We used a multiple case                  study to examine corporate approach to budgeting.

Uppsatsen, Kriskommunikation i ett förändrat medielandskap, är en fallstudie på webbplatsen www.krisinformation.se. Utgångspunkten för uppsatsen är det förändrade medielandskapet och vad det innebär för kommunikation i kris. Uppsatsen berör flera olika hörnstenar som är viktiga för framgångsrik kriskommunikation. Hörnstenarna rör bland annat vilken tillit och vilket förtroende användarna har för Krisinformation.se, dess innehåll samt Internet som medium i den förändring som skett i medielandskapet när det gäller kriskommunikation.Fallstudien undersöker även om det är privatpersoner eller yrkesverksamma som besöker Krisinformation.se. Den undersöker även vad användarna anser är viktigast när de ska ta del av information i en krissituation gällande om informationen är snabb, kortfattad, relevant eller tydlig.

Syftet med föreliggande studie var att undersöka sambandet mellan självkänsla, perfektionism, tävlingsängslan och självförtroende. Dessa fenomen samspelar och ger antingen positiva eller negativa utfall för atletens prestation och känslor inför tävling. Vidare var syftet att undersöka eventuella skillnader i ovan nämnda variabler mellan individuella idrottare och lagidrottare samt ta reda på om det finns några skillnader mellan könen. En enkätundersökning genomfördes med 101 deltagare från totalt sex olika sporter. Resultaten av PSPP-R visade att individuella idrottare hade högre fysiskt självvärde och global självkänsla än lagidrottarna.

Fo?rfattarna till detta examensarbete har intresserat sig o?ver hur innovationer kan sprida sig till olika nationer genom exempelvis sma? innovativa verksamheter. I denna forskningsstudie underso?ker fo?rfattarna hur innovationer sprider sig till andra nationer och om innovationsspridningen kan relateras till en internationaliseringsmodell, delforskningsfra?gan grundar sig i Rothwells femte generationens innovationsprocess. Fo?rfattarna har valt att anva?nda sig av en kvalitativ metod, med en deduktiv ansats da?r underso?kningen har sin utga?ngspunkt fra?n teorin.