This study aims to measure the effect of accounting conservatism and to identify thebusiness activities causing firms to undervalue owners? equity. To estimateaccounting conservatism, we have followed the hypothesis that no firm over time cangenerate a return greater than its cost of equity, i.e. CAPM. Thus, if a firm in factgenerates an excess return over time, we assume that the excess return is an estimateof accounting conservatism within that firm.The hypothesis originates from the corporate valuation model ?Economic ValueAdded®? which tries to adjust for accounting bias.

How accessible is the city? Is there more factors than merely the strictly physical that affect how accessible the city is perceived? These questions are the starting point of this study. The greatest emphasis, in this study, is placed on the perceived parameters that affect us humans when we move in our cities. Experiences and internal images can change our behaviour and prevent free movement in the city. The result from this study shows that a city can not be seen as fully accessible unless both the physical and the perceived accessibility are fulfilled.

This survey is about pre-school teacher?s supervision over children?s play. In an earlier study children expressed that they had places they called their own. In those places where they were in charge the adults were not welcome unless they were invited by the children. This aroused our interest to do a survey about children?s influence over their playing time.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate potential associations between usage of the cash flow statement report and time perspective in which companies? acts and set goals. Method: Our approach is quantitative, using empirical data summarized in a statistical procedure. The result is thereafter analysed through the developed analysis model from which conclusion is drawn. Results: We have in the investigation stated that the usage of the cash flow statement report varies depending on the time perspective in which companies? acts.

One of many difficult issues in veterinary medicine is the assessment of an animal's experience of pain. As a licensed veterinary nurse in Sweden you are obligated by law to work by the concept of evidence based medicine. To achieve this the author of this study sees the need for standardized methods of pain assessment. A Swedish version of Short form of the Glasgow Composite Measure Pain Scale (CMPS-SF) has recently been translated and developed. Furthermore, a psychometric validation needs to be performed to ensure its validity and reliability.

The aim of this study is to examine the collection One Thousand and One Nights (also: The Arabian Nights) from a european perspective, by comparing different european translations. The study focuses on three translations into Swedish from different periods of time and how the tales have changed in the translation process - depending on the prevailing line of approach and Western perceptions of Eastern standards. The thesis of the study is that Eastern culture, from a Western perspective, has been seen as exotic and different but not as a high literary culture and that this view has affected the translations into european languages. The study shows, among other things, that Western culture is many times considered normative in the translations and that the translators often give their own voices a prominent role, also that common Western notions of the East affects the translations.The word ?orientalism? is used frequently in the study and it refers primarily to the image of the Orient as it is described in Edward Saids' book Orientalism: as a Western construction whose main purpose is to strengthen its own conception of the Orient and thereby strengthen the Western identity as better than the Orient.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the correlation between hotels, their brands and the frontline staff within the industry. A competitive, international environment characterizes today´s hotel industry where brands are one of the strongest sources for a successful position amongst competitors. In the brand delivery, the front line staff is of utmost importance since they in many ways incorporate the brand values and the projected identity of the hotel. Hotels can use a variety of ways to communicate the brands identity to the front line staff in order to create the desired brand behavior, some more effective than others. At the same time the Swedish hotel industry, as many other, is characterized by a high percentage of staff turnovers.

In the haulage business customers are constantly requesting new features. Hence thedevelopment department must constantly update their system which ultimatelyresults in a variety of versions of the system. The large number of versions creates acomplexity which often reduces product quality and extends the developmentlifecycle time.The work on the following thesis has taken place at Scania?s Fleet Managementdepartment, which develops tools for hauliers to track their vehicle fleet in real time.The purpose of this thesis was to examine how Scania can handle an increasedamount of versions of the Fleet Management System which Scania expect will be seenin the future. The investigation was conducted by preparing a number of differentscenarios that formed the basis for a discussion of what these different scenarioswould mean for different parts of Scania?s business.

This master thesis concerns the occupational safetyenvironment at Outokompu Stainless, Avesta Work.The study is of a sociotechnical approach wherehumans are involved and interconnected in the samesystem with technology and organisation. In order toreach the corporation?s goal of zero accidents with losttime injury, the work of improving and maintainoccupational safety and health has to regard behaviourand cultural aspects. The aim of this study is todescribe the safety culture at a specific production unitand research what work which has to be done in orderto change and improve the safety culture at AvestaWork.There are several opportunities for improvementpointed out in this paper and here are some mainresults presented. First and foremost, the concern ofsafety among blue-collar is often secondary due toproduction.

The purpose of this study is to analyze different aspects of a portraying of individuals from a time past. It is concentrated around questions about why it is important to show the people?s stories in, for example, exhibitions and under which conditions this would serve as a good use of history according to different theories about history and the portraying of it.I have chosen the theories of Freidrich Nietzsche and Georg Simmel as a tool to analyze different aspects of the portraying of people from the past. Nietzsche?s theory about the different ways in which we use the past and Simmels theory about the meeting between a viewer and a cultural experience.

Internet and the digital channels for distribution have meant big changes for the musicindustry. The physical record that has been symbolising this market for a long time is slowlybeing replaced by digital based music. The technical progress during the last ten years has ledto a democratization of music production. The amateur musicians of today can produce highquality music on their laptops and later distribute it via free music sites. MySpace andYouTube are two of the biggest sites for this free distribution and is therefore my main choiseof study.The purpose of this essay was to find out how and if these changes have made a difference formusicians without a record deal to reach an audience by themselves.

Work-Life Balance (WLB) is defined as the ability to manage both work-life and non-work life successfully. WLB can be evaluated by examining individual?s experience of Work-Family Conflict (WFC) and Family-Work Conflict (FWC), both of which can be assessed by a questionnaire developed by Netemeyer, Boles and McMurrian (1996). The aim of this study was to explore if responses to the questionnaire, the amount of time spent on studies, household chores and sick leave, were gender related or not, among civil-accountants students. The survey included 138 respondents (74 woman and 64 men).

Few scientific studies have studied the subject of longevity among horses over a longer period of time. The knowledge about the Swedish riding school horse population concerning injuries and diseases is insufficient. Generally speaking, riding school horses in Sweden have a more undiversified way to work and work more hours in the arena compared to privately owned horses that have more variety in their possible use. Statistical data from the insurance company Agria have shown that horses in riding schools and education facilities have 22 % higher risk to use their veterinary insurance and 79 % higher risk to be put down and use their life insurance, compared to horses in private care. To create an increased understanding for longevity is it important to have knowledge about the different causes of culling. The aim with this study is to increase the knowledge and enable problem solving within the subject of longevity, median length of life and causes of death.

Children of today are surrounded by many different kinds of media. Books have to compete with new media like computers, video games, many TV-channels etc. The aim of this study has been to investigate the reading habits of 9-12-year old boys in their spare time, and their reasons for reading related to their use of other media. Our interest has been to shed light on the boys reading habits, their preferences and motives for reading and their reading functions. Even though our focus has been on their reading, we also have examined their use of other media and the function of this use.

The purpose of this thesis is to see how small differences in a store can affect the customer behavior. The changes consist of auditory and visual sensory cues. Since many companies today makes a lot of changes in their styling element, but without knowing how it really affects the customer behavior we thought it would be interesting to see by doing an experiment at IKEA. The study is therefore based on a quantitative research method, where theories have been described and from which hypotheses have been derived to test the theories. The experience took place at IKEA during two weeks where 5732 observations were made.The result from the experiment is that the sensory cue sight makes individuals spend more time in the environment but not creating attention.