The thesis aims to examine the occurrence of Earnings Management (EM) preceding Seasoned Equity Offerings (SEOs) on the Swedish capital market. EM refers to activities and adjustments carried out by managers. The underlying purpose of these actions is to adjust net income. The procedure is typically done by borrowing income from future periods. Evidence of EM around SEOs has been documented on capital markets around the world, and the effects on firms' post-offering performance are severe.

In order to accomplish that a construction is correctly built, it is critical to obtain a well functioning control mechanism throughout the project. The way to enable this is not by having an independent inspector constantly at your side. Today it is praxis to use check lists and have people responsible of quality to make sure that these are followed. This is where Discretionary inspections play their part. These among others are documents needed to com-plete the check list.

Background: The devolopment in the exchange market has attract a large number of investors. The information flow is extensive and it might be hard to follow the dynamic market. Some investors therefore choose to place their capital in a stock portfolio which is manged by a professional firm with no influence from the capital owner, this management is called Discretionary managing. Purpose: the purpose of the thesis is to examine the working methods and the rationality regarding the management of the Discretionary portfolios. The purpose is also to try to examine whether there is a relation between the selected risk, return and fees.

Prior studies have shown that earnings management can be used either to inform or to mislead investors about the future performance of a company. However, few studies have examined the impact of earnings management on forecasting return on equity (ROE). The aim of this thesis is to investigate whether the ability to forecast next year's ROE is improved when taking earnings management, measured as Discretionary accruals, into account. This is examined by comparing a forecast model that takes the magnitude of Discretionary accruals into consideration with a model that does not. The study is based on companies that were listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange during 2002-2012.

A company may use different accounting techniques to adjust accounting information and thereby attract investors. Big Bath Accounting is defined as a strategy used to make changes in the financial statements and reduce the results further when the companies expect negative results. This phenomenon has been observed empirically and occurs when including CEO change and negative results. The aim of this study is to test whether there is another factor affecting Big Bath Accounting, namely remuneration of the CEO. The CEOs should, by changing the accounting information, be able to influence their compensation.

The executives of a firm possess considerable influence over a company's financial reports. The numbers can be adjusted in a favorable direction by engaging in Earnings Management, which harms the reliability of the financial reporting. Previous research suggests that Earnings Management can differ between genders. In recent years the debate about a woman's role in the business world has received generous attention in media. Moreover, the presence of women in leading positions has become a relevant issue for firms.

By using univariate analysis, tobit and logit regressions, this thesis investigates determinants of asset writedowns. After controlling for variables indicating reductions in asset values, the results show that changes in senior management are significant in explaining the writedown decision and magnitude, which is in line with previous research. The explanatory power of changes in senior management has not increased with the transition to IFRS in 2005. No evidence is found supporting the hypothesis that the explanatory power of management incentives is higher for more Discretionary types of asset writedowns..

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka om hög respektive låg Generell Arbetsrelaterad Identitet (AI) hade effekter på Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB). Totalt 147 personer inom offentlig sektor, fördelade över två organisationer, deltog i en enkätundersökning om identitet och frivilligt organisationsbeteende.Resultatet visade på signifikanta effekter för hög och låg AI på OCB, associerat med fyra av de fem deldimensionerna av OCB (altruism, samvetsgrannhet, hövlighet, och delaktighet). Försöksdeltagare med hög jämfört med låg AI skattade OCB högre (p < .01, ?2= .16). Generellt indikerar resultatet att organisationer potentiellt kan öka anställdas OCB genom att främja AI. .

The thesis main objective is to establish the determinants for granting executive stock options and to examine their impact on performance for firms listed on OMXS30. The analysis is based on accounting data gathered from annual reports and Thomson Datastream. The empirical results display that firms grant stock options to mitigate the principal-agent problem. Furthermore, risk proves to be positively significant with executive stock options, implying that either executives increase the level of risk after being granted stock options or influence the decision of the remuneration towards stock options when the firm increase the level of risk, in purpose to boost the expected value of their options. No relation between executive stock options and firm performance could be established..

Syftet med examensarbetet är att tillföra ny kunskap inom den svenska earnings management forskningen genom att undersöka kapitalstrukturens eventuella korrelation med earnings management. Uppsatsen har en kvantitativ metodansats, paneldata regressionsanalys används för att genomföra studien. Arbetet grundar sig i tidigare forskning på earnings management området. Vidare prövas Debt-to-Equity teorin mot den svenska marknaden. Den empiriska undersökningen utgår från 231 företag listade på den svenska börsen under tidsperioden 2003-2007 och en negativ korrelation konstateras mellan earnings management och kapitalstruktur.

Syftet med denna studie är att jämföra hur förekomsten av resultatmanipulering ser ut i företag med olika ägarstrukturer noterade på de svenska börslistorna under åren 2005-2008. Vi har valt att definiera tre grupper av företag: familjeägda företag, företag ägda av investmentbolag och övriga företag. För att identifiera skillnader i resultatmanipulering väljer vi att jämföra medelvärden på godtyckliga periodiseringar hos de olika företagsgrupperna genom ett oberoende t-test, sedan utförs regressioner för att försöka förklara potentiella skillnader. Studiens resultat visar i likhet med tidigare forskning att förekomsten av resultatmanipulering är lägre i familjeföretag i jämförelse med övriga företag. Vårt resultat tyder även på att det inte existerar någon signifikant skillnad mellan företag ägda av investmentbolag och övriga företag vad gäller förekomsten av resultatmanipulering..

The purpose of this essay is to outline the aspects of the rule of law that can be applied to credibility assessment in the asylum procedure, and more specifically what factors influence the assessment of credibility in practice. To evaluate this procedure, a multidisciplinary method has been used. Secondary data has been collected from previous academic research and from legal documents such as the Swedish Aliens Act. Since the area of study lacks a reflection on how credibility issues are dealt with in practice, primary research in the form of qualitative interviews has been conducted.Key findings suggest that the Swedish asylum system does offer a fairly inclusive refugee law and rights protection relating to the rule of law. However, the study also suggests that the decision maker's own subjectivity, lack of training relating to trauma and torture victims as well as a rigid system of regulations contribute to credibility assessments being arbitrary and Discretionary, in violation of the rule of law..

Denna studie fokuserar på effekten av IFRS/IAS på earnings management. Huvudsyftet är att identifiera earnings management före och efter införandet av IFRS/IAS för att klargöra om de internationella redovisningsstandarderna har påverkat förekomsten av resultatmanipulering inom svenska börsbolag. Perioden som studeras är åren 2002-2008. För att identifiera earnings management används den modifierade Jones-modellen som går ut på att detektera förekomsten av godtyckliga periodiseringar som ett mått på resultatmanipulering. Vi kontrollerar även för om variablerna storlek och bransch kan förklara förekomsten av företeelsen före och efter införandet av IFRS/IAS.

The implementation problem refers to the situation when political decisions are not implemented as intended by the decision makers. In this thesis I examine how one part of the new school reform GY11 has been implemented in Social Science in high school in Sweden. The part that interests me is entrepreneurial learning. Using implementation theory, and the actor properties understand, can and will, as described by Lennart Lundquist, I have interviewed five high school Social Science teachers in Malmö and Lund. The result was that they all understood the concept of entrepreneurial learning.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate whether accounting quality is a priced factor by investors. The event studied is the release of year-end result and the release of the annual report. To assess accounting quality a sample of 30 companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange during 2003 to 2007 are studied. We assess accounting quality by the absolute size of Discretionary accruals using the modified Jones model developed by Dechow et al. (1995).