Kina, en marknad som började öppnas upp för omvärlden i slutet av 70-talet, har idag minskat på regleringarna gällande utländska företagsetableringar i landet. I och med Kinas medlemskap i World Trade Organisation har yttre påtryckningar från WTO gjort att det idag inte ställs samma krav i alla branscher på Joint Venture för direktinvesteringar gällande företag med produktionsverksamheter i landet. Många stora svenska produktionsföretag har idag valet att agera självständigt med innebörden att de antingen går ur sina samarbeten eller köper upp sin kinesiska partner. Anledningarna till att samarbetena ingicks var självklara, men vilka är premisserna för att företagen ska stanna kvar i dem? Syftet är att finna motiven bakom Joint Ventures i Kina och se för- och nackdelarna med dessa och vilken inverkan de har på de svenska produktionsföretagen efter det att marknaden öppnats ytterligare.

The Swedish household?s savings has increased the last couple of years, according to Statistiska centralbyrån. But the amount of households that trades on the stock market has decreased from the year 2012 to 2013. The diminished interest in stock trading carries a risk by leading to a smaller yield for the private savers, and also effect the business development and the economic growth. High brokerage fees will aggravate the ability to attract venture capital.

This essay studies how and why large sports clubs from sports with a different degree of commerciality interact with their institutional surroundings in the way that they do. It compares two large Stockholm-based table tennis clubs, Ängby SK and Spårvägens BTK, with a large Stockholm-based football club, AIK Fotboll. In order to get proper data, a number of key persons within the organisations were exploratively interviewed using open and semi-structured questions, together with study of literature and other sources related to the subject. One of the key findings was that the non-profit table tennis clubs, who were expected to resemble the institution association closely, were subject to company-ization, and thus acted a lot more like the institution company than expected. The other key finding was that the football club, although driven partially like a public limited company, in many aspects placed a greater value on cultural capital than on economic capital..

Today?s political debate on environmental issues and environmental thinking, alongside the Swedish presidency of the EU and Climate Conferences shows that the environment is an important topic. Environment is important, not only in politics, but also for companies and the demand of environmental strategies and environmental reports has increased. This leads to an increased pressure on firms to begin to report on environmental concerns and to create active systems for environmental thinking.The aim of the present study is to examine why firms in the transport sector, mainly lorry transports, reports environmental aspects and what drives these companies to create these reports.Based on stakeholder and institutional theory we aim to examine to which extent stakeholders affects the environmental accounting and reporting. We also aim to explain how the organization is influenced to incorporate external and societal environmental procedures.

In line with Sloan (1996) but on European data (STOXX 600) we are investigating whether stock prices reflect information about future earnings contained in the accrual and cash flow components. The extent to which current earnings performance persists into the future earnings performance is shown to depend on the relative magnitudes of the cash and accrual components of current earnings. Moreover, we still find a significant positive excess return (Jensen?s alpha and size-adjusted return) by replicating Sloans (1996) hedge portfolio by taking a long position in the stock of firms reporting relatively low levels of accruals and a short position in the stock of firms reporting relatively high levels of accruals. However, we find no evidence of negative excess returns for companies with relatively high accruals, this somewhat lower the total excess returns for all the portfolios.

It is important for firms to continually develop their offerings as the business landscape develops in order to sustain their competitiveness (e.g. Schumpeter, 1934; Ansoff, 1979; Porter, 1985; Trott, 2012). In a context of globalization, rapid technology development and changing customer needs, the paper packaging industry is urged to enhance its product development activities (Hansen & Niskanen, 2007; Björkdahl & Börjesson, 2011). However, there is little research about paper packaging firms? product development processes (ibid).

In line with Sloan (1996) but on European data (STOXX 600) we are investigating whether stock prices reflect information about future earnings contained in the accrual and cash flow components. The extent to which current earnings performance persists into the future earnings performance is shown to depend on the relative magnitudes of the cash and accrual components of current earnings. Moreover, we still find a significant positive excess return (Jensen?s alpha and size-adjusted return) by replicating Sloans (1996) hedge portfolio by taking a long position in the stock of firms reporting relatively low levels of accruals and a short position in the stock of firms reporting relatively high levels of accruals. However, we find no evidence of negative excess returns for companies with relatively high accruals, this somewhat lower the total excess returns for all the portfolios.

That many creative workers have uncertain and uneven incomes is well-established, but how or why they make a living is not. This paper examines the elusive value exchanges between creatives, buyers, consumers, and other economic supporters, and offers a model of how creatives make a living. By mapping income statistics of Swedish creatives together with in-depth interviews some patterns emerge. This, combined with Bourdieu's theories of social, cultural and symbolic capital, and Knorr's objects of sociality, forms a basis for a structured model of value exchange. The paper shows how creative workers create economic and non-economic capital (capitalization), how they advertise this capital (signaling), and how they convert between different types of capital (conversion) in order to make a living.

It is well known that small businesses and entrepreneurs in the initial phase has difficult to gain access to external capital and bank loans. With the background of the problems that entrepreneurs face when they ask for capital has since the financial crisis the phenomenon of crowdfunding developed and evolved. Crowdfunding is an alternative source of funding for entrepreneurs to fund their ideas through small or medium-sized capital contribution from a larger amount of investors, often investors who have any kind of relationship with the entrepreneur or to the very idea. This study examined the factors that motivate and guide an investor's decisions when they select their projects. The results of the study show that the motives of the various existing forms of crowdfunding is big.

AbstractWork to develop the Eurocodes started in 1975 by the European Commission adopted a program to eliminate trade barriers within the construction area. The goal was to create common European design standards that would replace the member countries' own rules. Eurocodes will replace The National Board of Housing Building and Planning, National Rail, The National Road Administration and other agencies' calculation rules for the buildings structures. The transition to the use of Eurocodes looks like this:Eurocodes set to Swedish standards  between 2002 ? 2007They can be used parallel with national standards 2006 - 2009 The total transition is at the end of 2010/2011.Right now is going on a lot of work for replacement of the existing standards to Eurocodes.  The transition to the new calculations` standards, many construction companies and consulting firms facing a big changes and competitions.

Today´s debate in farming is being focused on tourism, outdoor life and hobbies in the rural areas. This is of interest also for the general public as a way of counteracting the depopulation of the rural areas. Within the last years, the farming has become more technically advanced and hence efficient. This has led to increased production volumes and wider selection of products with lower margins for the farmer as a consequence. When the profitability is reduced, the farmer is faced with the choice of either increasing efficiency or diversification of the business.

The survey describes a number of risks that Swedish farming companies are exposed to. The risk areas covered by the survey are currency risks, price risks and financial risks. The survey further describes why these risks have a great impact on the future development of the farming companies. The survey highlights the interrelation between the risks and the measures which can be used to minimize the risks, so-called financial instruments. The aim of the survey is to put focus on above mentioned risks and describe how these risks can be reduced to prevent the Swedish farming industry from stagnating in the future. The survey is a secondary survey whereby existing knowledge about risks and risk management is applied to farming companies. The written information on price risks and hedging is primarily derived from foreign sources.

This master thesis examines sport habits among young people and a view of their future in sports. Research has shown that the majority of youth leave sport clubs during adolescence. The thesis questions were: How physically active are young people? Which sports do they practice? Regarding their future in sports, what kind of aspirations do the young people have? Are there any barriers that could complicate their involvement in these activities? These questions were examined by analyzing if there were any differences between boys and girls, youth in different grades and youth with Swedish or foreign backgrounds. Pierre Bourdieu´s theoretical framework about sports and economic capital has been used as a research framework.

The thesis aims to increase our understanding about parents reasoning about the elementary school choice by studying which factors parents perceive as important during the decision making process and also by giving meaning to Pierre Bourdieu?s concept of capital through the parents perspective. The empirical material comes from seven BNIM-interviews made with parents, which has been analyzed according to the thematic field analysis.The results show that the parents are not especially concerned about making an active school choice. Stability, closeness, friends, rumors, development and adaptability to the reality are the factors that are perceived as the most important in the decision making process. The school choice has a limited meaning as an investment in social capital, from Bourdieu?s perspective.

SammanfattningUnder 2000-talet har hotet mot miljön och klimatet nått oss med stormsteg och en omställning till ett hållbart samhälle är ett krav och omställningen förväntas bli lång. I ljuset av miljöhotet utvecklas nya investeringssektorer med fokus på att stilla den ökande efterfrågan på produkter och tjänster som minskar miljöpåverkan, en av de mest populära investeringssektorerna med fokus på miljön är Cleantech. Cleantech är en ny investeringskategori som kom till Sverige runt år 2005.Begreppet och investeringskategorin, Cleantech härstammar från USA och organisationen Cleantech Group LLC. Cleantech Group delar upp Cleantech i elva olika segment på följande sätt; (1) Energiproduktion, (2) Energiförvaring, (3) Energiinfrastruktur, (4) Energieffektivitet, (5) Transport, (6) Vatten & Avfallsvatten, (7) Luft & Miljö, (8) Material, (9) Tillverkning/Industriell, (10) Jordbruk, (11) Återvinning & Avfallshantering. För att Cleantech-bolag skall utvecklas så används ofta riskkapital från VC-bolag.