Social capital is a relatively new concept that has received considerable attention in various community branches. The concept relates to people?s contact and relationship with each other, where their social network is seen as a resource. An extensive network of contacts and Trust between people often go hand in hand. People with high social capital have high Trust in their fellow human beings and vice versa.

Background: Power by force and threats used to be the common way to collect taxes, but this procedure is today completely different. It?s now more about building a mutual relationship and with help of laws and controls steer citizens and companies to pay the tax they owe. Thus the way to collect taxes have changed over the years, the collecting of taxes aren?t a popular task to do.

This study focused on how local politicians in Kalmar perceive journalists and their intertwined relationship. We based our study on the theoretical understanding of today?s media-centric democratic society. The ?adversary model? offered an understanding of the intricate relations between politicians and journalists.

Virtual teams are teams where team members don?t sit and work in the same place, they canwork in different countries, cities and buildings. It?s not the distance between team members that defines a virtual team, it's the extent to which the team is dependent on information technology to communicate and carry out a task. Virtual teams is becoming more common in organizations, to use virtual teams organizations can reduced time and travel costs and create a larger knowledgebase.A project manager for virtual teams faces many challenges, they have to build Trust with and among team members they rarely or never meet, create a common understanding of project objectives and manage the challenges that culture and information technology creates.

The aim of this research was to examine how the relationship between consultants and their customers can increase the value for the customer and to see how consultants can act to gain closer relationships with the customers. An empirical study has been performed through case studies with a consultant and six customers to the consultant. The theoretical areas for the analysis are customer value and relationship development between seller and buyer. Our conclusions of the research were that values for the customers are increases with closer relationships. The increased value lays in lesser uncertainty when repurchasing.

The social dimension in the EU, explored through the document texts of the Treaty of Rome, the Lisbon Strategy, the Social Policy Agenda and the Swedish Strategy ReportThis paper explores the social dimension of EU social policy, except the aspects of the economic and labour market. The EU documents reveal an underlying line of thought stemming from the alignment of the six founding countries, spearheaded by France, with the conservative corporatist welfare model. As one of four European welfare models, the conservative corporatist model emphasises labour market issues, corporate social responsibility and the subsidiarity principle in EU social policy. It also influences how the texts define the terms social, social policy and social exclusion. The definitions determine how policymakers combat problems such as social exclusion and identify the policy issues to be included in EU social policy.The Swedish Strategy shows how the country is responding to the objectives that it has been assigned by the EU and how it plans to attain them.

The subject for this paper is the Class Action against Skandia Association, a civil organization formed in 2003 with the aim of claiming compensation for some 1.2 million life insurance customers. The background to its formation was one of the largest financial scandals in Sweden in recent times, involving a number of questionable affairs within the insurance corporation Skandia and its subsidiaries, most notably the life insurance company Skandia Liv. The interests of both the stake- and stockholders of the company seem, in certain ways, to have been grossly misrepresented. The scandal, as well as the reaction it spawned, pose a number of questions. In this study, we focus on two: a possible, and in many ways apparent crisis in the representation of interests in Swedish society, and the role of civil society in upholding the balance between these interests.We argue that what is often held to be the ?greed? or ?immorality? of individuals in scandals such as Skandia is, to a great extent, a mere reflection of the ?rational? underpinnings of modern-day capitalism.We find that Trust has been a key mechanism of control in the relationships between consumers and agents in pension and life insurance markets, and that ?the Swedish model? that distinguished post-WWII Swedish society was a model heavily based on Trust towards existing models of bureaucratic governance.

Background: Competition in the market for non-profit actors has increased significantly. More channels to reach potential donors have been designed, and ways to help has been extended. The industry is scrutinized with critical eyes because of the scandals that have emerged in recent years. It has contributed to making it possible to distinguish a negative trend regarding public Trust in the sector. The market has therefore changed and the conditions for obtaining donations are different.Aim: The purpose of this thesis is to create a better understanding of how non-profit actors motivate individuals to donate money to their business.

Audit is a service of society that takes place in the public interest. To guarantee the quality of auditing a quality control is done with predetermined time intervals. The purpose of this paper is to investigate and analyze the concept quality and the procedure of the quality control and further to tie concepts like Trust and ethics to the audit profession. To make the picture complete the paper also provides an insight regarding what deficiencies in quality, in other words failures, means to the audit profession. By performing semi-structured interviews with seven qualified auditors, active on different auditing firms in Skåne, substantial information was collected.

We have performed a case study on Acne Jeans, a creative Swedish fashion company, which initiated a cooperation with the Swedish venture capital firm Öresund. The aim of our paper was to examine what motivates a venture capital firm to transform the management control system of a creative company, into a more formal system of control. Main results: Öresund did not have an excessive impact on the management control system of Acne Jeans, due to three main reasons. First of all, Acne Jeans had a satisfactory management control system prior to the cooperation. Furthermore, the relationship between the two parties was characterized by mutual Trust.

This essay deals with the subject of the use of news medium amongst the students inKarlstads University. The presentation of the problem is about illustrating the or thosemedium that is the most used amongst the students, and also which one, ore which onesof the news medium the students puts largest Trust in. This subject was chosen with thepurpose to illuminate patterns and attitudes of and to news medium, to make it easierfor eventual research in the future to connect these patterns and attitudes with theparticipation in political elections. The subject in question is interesting because of thefact that the news medium is one of the largest sources of information for the citizensknowledge?s about the society, and the citizen?s attitude to the news medium mightpossibly have the ability to affect people?s commitment in politics.

The Swedish alcohol market has for many years been in the hands of the government. The question of the monopoly, its being or not being, has for a long time engaged both Swedish citizens and politicians. Since joining the European Union it has also been on the European agenda, trying to adapt Sweden to the more liberal alcohol politic in Europe.The suppliers find themselves acting on a completely different market than a market based on free competition. The suppliers are faced with one retail channel to the stores which creates dependence and uneven power balance towards the retailer. In addition to this, their marketing activities are strictly limited due to the laws and claims.

Over the course of the past the agricultural sector has been characterized by radical market changes. Changing market conditions have forced owners of agricultural and forestry businesses to make further investments. This increase in investments has led to a greater need for external capital, which has increased the relationship between banks and owners of agricultural and forestry businesses. The financial sector is characterized by strong rivalry, which forces banks to create strategic positions in the financial market. Since agricultural and forestry businesses are generally seen as secure customers by banks, due to high property and land values, the competition between banks with agricultural and forestry businesses as customers has amplified.

The purpose of this thesis is to increase the understanding about consumer buying behaviour when purchasing books online. In order to acquire data for the study we used a questionnaire that 75 students where asked to respond. The respondents were students at the University of Technology in Luleå. Our findings suggest that the following factors are the most commonly cited reasons for deciding to complete the purchase: Trust, perceived risk, price, convenience, design of the website and experience. The following factors are the most commonly cited rea-sons for deciding not to complete the purchase: Trust, perceived risk, price and the design of the website.

The aim of this paper has been to investigate how accounting firms govern their organizations with regards to the complexity in the service that they offer. The service includes the general accounting tasks which through standardization can be cost efficient, the advisory services that entail flexibility, and the relationship with the customer which needs to be taken into consideration when delivering the financial reports. These three components are important but require different approaches when it comes to governing the organization. The conducted case study has shown that the accounting firms govern their organizations bureaucratically and mainly through behaviour and accounting controls. The advisory services demanded by customers are standardized, not analytical, and therefore do not require the firms to take flexibility into consideration.