This essay is based on a mission from Anna Schibli, Director of Tourism at Solliden Palace. The thesis aims to investigate the image that Solliden Palace has, and the picture that local and regional tourist offices have of the Sollidens Castle brand and what position Solliden include in these markets. A total of six in-depth interviews with tourist offices, at local and regional level, has been carried out and an initial in-depth interview with Anna Schibli of Solliden Palace. The responses of the respondents have since been interpreted and processed based on an inductive approach, in order to interpret the image that Solliden Palace has. Scientific papers have been studied and analyzed in order to generate an explanation and understanding of the research area.

The interest in businesses active on the countryside and their funding situation has increased in recent years. In a survey, conducted by Leif Berndtsson (2003), it was reported that there is a lack of external capital in rural areas. According to Berndtsson (2003) the lack of external capital inhibits the rural firm?s growth. The essay attempts to answer whether the shortage of external capital is a factor that inhibits development for rural businesses.

Abstract Title:                       Grades at Primary School ? A study of local politicians' arguments in                       connection with the division into grades at Swedish primary schools.Author:                       Annie LinderUniversity of KalmarC-essay in Social StudiesAutumn 2011 The study aims to investigate local politicians' decisions since municipalities took overSwedish primary education in 1990/91. The arguments put forward in support of how stages are organised have been studied, likewise whether municipalities have acted rationally when making their decisions.Six municipalities are included in the survey. They were divided into three educational categories: lower, middle and high level schools; previous and recent schools and F9 schools with pre-schools and primary schools integrated.Minutes from politicians' and civil servants' meetings have been studied and categorised according to arguments for and against. The most common supportive arguments are about economy and organisation, others concern school premises, trends and the wish for a comprehensive compulsory school.

I wrote this essay with the aim to explore, understand and get some insights into what it is that effects the possibilities to plan for ecological sustainability and make it happen. There is no clear definition of sustainable development but world top meetings and reports have developed goals and strategies. I will present some of the theory at hand but most of this essay is based on six interviews with planners at local governments from around the country. Several of the local governments are using the goals issued by the state government by putting them into their large scale plans. During the interviews some obstacles were identified, like a lack of resourses, disadvantaging powerstruktures, conflicts with marketeconomy and simply different meenings about what ecological sustainability is in practice. My method of getting information through interviews and documenting them by taking notes had, as all methods, it?s weakneses.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the competitiveness of family firms is affected by governance mechanisms. The thesis addresses four governance mechanisms: inefficient labor markets, inefficient capital markets, self control and altruism. We have conducted an abductive method to be able to perform a qualitative research study. In this study two family firms have been examined, ROL and Indiska Magasinet. We conclude that the presence of inefficient labor and capital markets within the studied family firms give rise to negative effects in terms of difficulties of hiring talented employees.

The objective of this thesis is to examine the capital structure of Swedish small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Accounting data from Swedish game developers, combined with the result from a survey, is used to examine their financial conditions and capital structure decisions. We find that non-debt tax shield, firm size, growth opportunities and age are, to various extents, the determinants of capital structure in the game industry, while effective tax rate and asset structure have marginal effects. Our study also implicates that most of the existing capital structure theories can explain SMEs leverage decisions to some extent; however, some adaptation is needed to fit these theories into the SME context. Additionally, we find the existence of a financial gap in the game industry which might need efforts from both demand side and supply side to eliminate..

The main purpose of this essay was to study the program "Nationellt stöd för kunskapsutveckling inom socialtjänsten" ("National support for knowledge development within the social services") from the National Board of Health and Welfare on the basis of how such a development, as represented by the program, could affect clients' possibilities to participation and influence within the social services.To respond to the purpose I used the following questions at issue:* How is client participation and client influence defined in the program?* What arguments for and/or against client participation and client influence are stated?* Which patterns and similarities/differences are possible to discern between the municipalities and universities that participated in the program when it comes to client participation and client influence?The study was conducted as a document analysis. I studied documents from the program both on a national and a local level. The essay uses empowerment theories and theories concerning client participation and client influence. The main conclusions were that on the national level the authors of the documents spoke with caution about their view on client participation and client influence and expressed that it had to be balanced against the rights of the citizens and the social workers for example.

In an effort to strengthen democracy in the union, the EU in 2005 took a new approach to communications policy to reach out to the citizens. The strategic document "Plan D for Democracy, Dialogue and Debate" was accompanied by two other documents, and the three of them were the core of this policy. Both democracy and communications work means at EU level a higher complexity than in the nation-state arena. Objective of this study is to examine how the implementation of Plan D has turned out in a democracy renewal perspective. To achieve that answers are sought to questions concerning the goals of Plan D, how they are still present today, what happened in practice regarding the efforts that are highlighted, and how the substance of the activities can be judged from a democratic theory perspective.

The aim of this work is to understand the recruitment of candidates to the local representative assembly in the municipality of Täby. The method used is qualitative interviewing, of a total of eight local politicians in Täby. The theory in which this work rest upon is based on a new-institutionalist perspective. Of great importance is the thoughts of the politicians involved in the recrution process, what do they think were the reasons that controlled the order of priority in the party list among the pool of candidates? Were there any obstacles for minorities in the politics like for example foreigners, women or young people? The study is taking it?s departure from the politicians who candidated in the election of 2002-2006 and the ones which are candidating to the election this coming autumn.In conclusion the aim is to understand the reasons that gives some of the candidates electable places to the assembly, and what the actors themselves think are the conclusive qualities that matters the most.

The purpose of this master thesis is to examine some information aspects of decision-making in Swedish municipal committees. Which are the information needs and how do they emerge? How is the needed information sought and received and which are the sources? How do the members of the committees use information when making decisions? To answer these questions qualitative interviews were conducted with four politicians (two chairpersons representing the political majority and two vice-chairpersons representing the opposition) and three officials in a municipality with a population of about 50 000. The politicians were interviewed in capacity of decision-makers, whereas the officials from the local administration are of interest through their decision-supportive role, which includes providing of reports and other information. The examination indicates that even if the conditions to some extent differ between the committees, the administration is highly influential: Notions and proposals about action may come from inhabitants, organizations, politicians etc., but are handled by the administration, which often is the problem formulating actor, through which the informational needs nearly always are canalized.

BackgroundA cost that lately has been discussed related to audit is the higher cost for auditing of small stock company. The question is if this cost is higher than the total utility of statutory audit and should it in that case be statutory. SRF says that the condition for small stock companies development is an abolishment of statutory audit. FAR consider that auditing is important for development and continuation.PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate whether there are any winners or losers among auditing firms and accounting firms in Sweden if the statutory audit for small stock companies abolish.MethodThe paper is both a qualitative and a quantitative study that is based on primary data made from an interview and a questionnaire investigation. ConclusionOur conclusion is that the big Winner is the accounting trade.

The purpose of this study explains the relationship between corporate governance and the auditor's role in Swedish family firms with the definitions micro, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and how this relationship is affected by the firms strategy. The study is based on a survey sent out to 3000 Swedish SMEs, of which 280 responses from family firms could be used. Our findings showed that the auditor in the family firms didn?t have a specific role or contributed added value to the firm, and that the strategy didn?t affect the outcome. Furthermore, we found correlation between the perceptions of the auditor's role and added value depending on the family firms type of corporate governance.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the co-creation process and how value is created based on a service orientation using a network perspective. The thesis is studied from a social-constructionist philosophy, using a qualitative approach of data collection and the theoretical framework includes network theories, theories of service-orientation and co-creation. We have conducted semi-structured interviews with a small firm and its network, which consists of a customer, a supplier and a partner. We found that Håkansson?s ARA framework combined with Ballantyne and Varey?s triangulation of value-creating activities help to acquire an understanding of the actors? bonds, the resources? ties and the activity links that exist in a network.

Today most people are in agreement that the media industry is in crisis. Many newsrooms cut down on staff. At the same time the PR industry is growing. We wanted to research if this could affect the unbiased and independent news in our news media today. Today's newsrooms receive a lot of press releases every day.

The thesis has two aims to first describe the phenomena by explaining how interim management works and what the charachteristics of an interim manger are. The second aim is to look at the value issue of interim management; What value does an interim manager provide to a company and how do interim managers try to capture and cultivate this?The qualitative method has been used. The interim management market analysed in this thesis can be stated to consist of three parts; the interim manager as a provider of knowledge, a client firm in need of a temporary manager, and an interim agency in between working as an intermediary/supplier. The characteristics of interim managers are; they are in general self-employers and rather generalists than specialists, meaning they are experienced and have great knowledge skills.