Over-investors ? a study of advanced language pupils in the upper secondary school.  The thesis examines the advanced study of Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) from a sociological point of view, inspired by Bourdieu.  Founded in official statistics and a specially designed survey its main findings can be said to be that it is mainly pupils with a high amount of acquired educational capital from higher social backgrounds who avail themselves of this opportunity, predominantly girls. The amount of inherited language and transnational capital in the family seems to be of particular importance for the pupils? choice of advanced language studies. French, German and Spanish are the predominant languages of study.

Depression är vanligt hos personer med Borderline personlighetsstörning (BPS). Det finns risk för att komorbid depression försämrar behandlingsutfall och minskar sannolikhet för remission från BPS, en problematik förknippad med signifikant funktionsned-sättning. Denna studie syftade till att undersöka hur patienter med BPS och samtidig depression, svarade på beteendeaktivering inriktad på att konkurrera ut ohälsosamma beteenden med hälsosamma. I single-case design om fyra patienter, registrerades aktivitetsnivå dagligen samt upprepade mätningar med validerade skattningsskalor under baslinje och aktiv intervention. Resultatet visade att patienterna hade stora svårigheter med registrering och närvaro, och att även om hälsosamma beteenden ökade i vissa fall så påverkades inte grad av depression..

This thesis explores some issues regarding estimations of the cost of capital on the Stockholm Stock Exchange through reverse engineering of the Residual Income Valuation model and through usage of the Capital Asset Pricing Model. Previous studies are in conflict of whether the risk premium changes considerably over time or not. Furthermore, the risk premium estimated by CAPM tends to be fairly stable. In this study, reverse engineering of the cost of capital implied by analysts? forecasts shows a significant difference in the risk premium over time.

The importance of human capital in firm valuation is something Huang and Wang points out in there paper from 2008. We expand Ohlson?s valuation model (1995) in line with Huang and Wang (2008) to enhance a market value that includes proxies for human capital. By using human capital based market value and one of Francis, Nanda and Olsson?s (2008) version of earnings quality, we create a value table which aim to sort for undervalued and overvalued companies during the  economic upswing of 2003 to 2007 in the human capital line of business.

We would like to learn more about how the restrictive policy against incentive programmes affects the board’s of Swedish state owned commercial firms ability to govern management in an efficient way. We also want to find out if there are different consequences in reference to this that are not directly linked to corporate governance issues. Our empiric observations have been made in order to profoundly explore the subject and examine it through the eyes of professional individuals, all expressing different views and standpoints. We conclude that the most efficient structure is when an active board is complemented by a well structured and individualised incentive programme. However, this thesis conclude that this structure is not possible given the current guidelines and policies employed by the state, which in turn might lead to sub optimizations in the governing..

The structural rationalization of the agricultural sector in Sweden has led to many expansive, professional companies orientated towards growth. The agricultural sector is a very capital-intense sector and is characterized by the need for large sums of capital in form of buildings, inventory and arable land. The capital need is especially large for companies who have an ambition of growth and development of the company in the near future. The study is built upon six cases that all can be categorized as large agricultural farms with a turnover exceeding 20 million Swedish crowns. The companies are located in the middle and in the south of Sweden and are in the sector of primary production with focus on dairy-, pork-, egg-, chicken-, beef-, vegetables- and grain production as well as in the business of refining milk towards consumers. The study aims to identify the motives and driving forces that lies behind the growth of a farm-based company. The agricultural companies' motive for growth is studied based on which factors that influence the ambition to grow and to what extent these factors accord to the picture given by earlier research of small companies outside the agricultural sector.

Title: A study about conditions for leadership in knowledge-intensive firms.Authors: Cecilia Ekström and Niklas SandbergKeywords: Leadership, knowledge-intensive firm, hierarchies, followers.Background: Leadership is becoming one of our greatest social myths and is considered a total solution for many problems that occur in an organization. The view of leadership is usually from a top-down perspective, which contributes to an often underestimated view of the follower. Just as it is important to understand the leader's view of leadership, it is important to understand how employees view the structure from which the leader derives its legitimacy. The existing conditions in knowledge-intensive firms, such as autonomy, place special demands on the formal leadership.Purpose: The purpose of this study takes an employee perspective, to understand what the conditions are for formal leadership in knowledge-intensive firms.Method: A qualitative research method was used and empirical material was collected through interviews with employees in knowledge-intensive firms. The empirical material was analyzed by the respondents? mental images which were set against the theoretical framework of the thesis.Conclusions: The conditions for formal leadership in knowledge-intensive firms make it advantageous to have a leader with a withdrawn role.

Som en reaktion på ökad globalisering och teknisk utveckling har antalet samarbeten överorganisationsgränser ökat. När två eller flera samarbetsparter går samman och skapar ett gemensamtbolag benämns samarbetet som ett joint venture, vilket är en vanlig form av interorganisatorisksamverkan. För att kunna dra nytta av de fördelar som ett interorganisatoriskt samarbete erbjuderkrävs en ändamålsenlig ekonomistyrning. Antalet studier rörande styrningen i interorganisatoriskasamarbeten har ökat, men få behandlar den speciella problematik som föreligger i joint ventures, därrelationen mellan ägarna såväl som relationen mellan ägarna och det samägda bolaget skall beaktas.Studien syftar till att utveckla kunskap om vilken typ av styrning som tillämpas i relationerna, hurstyrningen utvecklas över tid och vad som påverkar styrningens utformning. En fallstudie av ett jointventure-bolag genomfördes och resultatet visar att styrningen i den horisontella relationen mellanägarna till övervägande del var förtroendebaserad som en följd av restriktivitet i val avsamarbetspartners.

This thesis studies private equity firms' implementation of management control systems in their portfolio companies and whether the systems are affected by cross-national differences. A comparative case study examines five different private equity firms to derive if there are any differences between the private equity firms' management control systems in the United States, Europe and China. The empirical observations are categorized according to the framework developed by Merchant (1985) and further developed by Merchant and Van der Stede (2003). Theory on the effect of multinationality on management control systems, also developed by Merchant and Van der Stede (2003), are used to explain possible findings. The applied theory includes the cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede (1984) and Hofstede and Bond (1988).

Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att genom en komparativ studie jämföra venture-capitalmarknadens utveckling i Sverige, Storbritannien och USA. Med denna internationella jämförelse vill vi undersöka huruvida några trender kan urskiljas med avseende på investeringsbeteendet och därefter belysa bakomliggande orsaker och händelser till dessa eventuella trender. Metod: Vi har genomfört vår uppsats genom kvantitativa och kvalitativa studier i form av insamling av data och intervjuer. Teoretiskt perspektiv: Teorierna utgörs av en beskrivning av riskkapital i stort, transaktionskostnadsteorin samt intressentteorin. Empiri: I vår empiri ingår dels data över investeringsbeteendet, dels beskrivning av de olika venture-capitalmarknaderna i Sverige, Storbritannien och USA.

The purpose of this research is to examine some historical aspects of Robert Putnam?s thesisabout voluntary associations and social capital. According to a micro perspective theory ofsocial capital the trust and reciprocity required and created by associations is important toexplain the disparity between institutional performance and socioeconomic development ofsocieties. The social patterns governing this therefore set a precedent for the future. Using themutual sickness benefit societies in Sweden as variable for voluntary associations around1884, the essay discusses the possible links between social capital, associations and long termeconomic development.

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..

Som en reaktion på ökad globalisering och teknisk utveckling har antalet samarbeten överorganisationsgränser ökat. När två eller flera samarbetsparter går samman och skapar ett gemensamtbolag benämns samarbetet som ett joint venture, vilket är en vanlig form av interorganisatorisksamverkan. För att kunna dra nytta av de fördelar som ett interorganisatoriskt samarbete erbjuderkrävs en ändamålsenlig ekonomistyrning. Antalet studier rörande styrningen i interorganisatoriskasamarbeten har ökat, men få behandlar den speciella problematik som föreligger i joint ventures, därrelationen mellan ägarna såväl som relationen mellan ägarna och det samägda bolaget skall beaktas.Studien syftar till att utveckla kunskap om vilken typ av styrning som tillämpas i relationerna, hurstyrningen utvecklas över tid och vad som påverkar styrningens utformning. En fallstudie av ett jointventure-bolag genomfördes och resultatet visar att styrningen i den horisontella relationen mellanägarna till övervägande del var förtroendebaserad som en följd av restriktivitet i val avsamarbetspartners.

The title of this study came about from the title of Robert Putnams book Bowling Alone, where Putnam mentions that less people are bowling in teams than before. Bowling is still a large leisure activity in the USA but people tend to bowl more and more in small groups and less in organized teams. This study deals with social capital and leisure time. Its aim is to find out if some Swedish people create social capital on their leisure time and also how do they spend their leisure time. Robert Putnams book Bowling Alone serves as main background material along with the work by Bo Rothstein.

Background: During extreme market conditions like the period during fall 2008 the discussion of what affects company value becomes apparent. The capital structure is the relation between borrowed capital and equity in a company´s financing mix. What impact changes in capital structure have on company value is a widely debated subject within the theory of finance. If a relationship between capital structure and company value exists the implication is that an optimal capital structure where company value is maximized also exists.Aim: The aim of the thesis is to study whether a certain relationship between capital structure and company value exists among selected stocks and companies listed on Stockholmsbörsens OMXS30.Implementation: With aim to fulfill the purpose of the thesis regression analysis has been performed among chosen stocks and companies. The empirical results eventuating from this have been analyzed from the view of elected relevant theory.Completion and results: We find that during normal market conditions a positive relationship between debt ratio and enterprise value (EV) can be established.