The work of the board in owner-managed firms often differ compared to the work of the board in large listed companies. Since the owners are working in different roles, the board in owner-managed firms might discuss topics outside the typical boards agenda, such as questions relating to ownership structure and operational matters. This thesis examines what External board members can contribute with in owner-managed firms, and which the most frequent difficulties are for the owners when deciding to recruit External board members. Through qualitative interviews, three owner-managed firms have been studied, which together with two expert interviews and five seminars, creates the empirics. In the analysis, the empirics are compared to what the earlier theory states.

This paper is about the composition and function of boards of social enterprises. A social enterprise can be defined as a company, which is founded by users or external stakeholder in order to create jobs (or a work place), a meaning in live or to further integration. One tries to achieve this goal by a business activity and/or subsidies and/or neighbourhood projects. The amount of social enterprises grew steadily after the restructuring of social welfare in Sweden since the 1980. Alternative forms of welfare ? such as a social enterprise ? will probably grow further in importance.

During the past two decades a new expression has emerged in Swedish business linguistics: Styrelseproffs (appr. Board Professional). The aim of this paper is to study whether a board member legitimately can be considered a professional. This is investigated through the eyes of the theoretical framework of professionalization. The empirical data is collected through interviews and presents the perspective of people considered to be Board Professionals.

The aim with this study was to describe how the board members of athletic clubs view and value their youth program. A qualitative approach was used in form of interviews. The interviews were made face to face as well as being taped, this to facilitate the analysis. When the board members viewed their youth program to be in alignment with the overall club philosophy there was a discrepancy between their views and the ?de facto? conditions of the youth program.

This paper examines the interpersonal and intercorporate networks of interlocking boardmembers among Sweden's 50 largest publicly traded companies in 1985 and 2005. We find that both the interpersonal and intercorporate networks of 1985 are considerably more coherent and densely connected than those of 2005. The observed changes in social network structure are compared to changes in company ownership in Swedish publicly traded companies during the same period, and it is found that the observed changes in network density and cohesion can be related to a notable increase in the number of foreign board members. These results imply that the social organization of the Swedish system of corporate governance has changed notably during the period. Social network theory suggests that these changes can explain the greater demand for external regulation, decreased homogeneity of board members and increase in board member compensation observed under the period.

Corporate governance intensified due to the corporate scandals in the USA which led to a new law the so called Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).In 2005 the "Svensk kod för bolagsstyrning" (The Code) was introduced. The main purpose of The Code is to strengthen the confidence in Swedish companies quoted on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. The Code focuses on the working process of boards. The rules set by The Code places higher demands on the board.  Among many other duties the board has to establish long term operational goals and strategy.

Corporate governance intensified due to the corporate scandals in the USA which led to a new law the so called Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).In 2005 the "Svensk kod för bolagsstyrning" (The Code) was introduced. The main purpose of The Code is to strengthen the confidence in Swedish companies quoted on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. The Code focuses on the working process of boards. The rules set by The Code places higher demands on the board.  Among many other duties the board has to establish long term operational goals and strategy.

Since July 2005 the major companies listed on the Swedish stock exchanges are required to apply the Swedish Code of Corporate Governance. The code states that companies shall have a nomination committee responsible for nominating new board candidates and seek to obtain gender equality in the Board of Directors. This paper examines the trend of board as well as nomination committee composition among Sweden's 60 largest publicly traded companies between 2005 and 2008. Our overall finding is that neither the board nor the nomination committee composition has changed to a notable extent during the period and that the share of newly appointed female board members has actually decreased. However, the trends vary between different sectors.

Background and problem:Theory and literature in the field of board recruitment are limited. The theory and literature that existed focused primarily on the recruitment of senior management and CEO. It was identified that no one had examined the factors that influence the recruitment of board members. The underlying factors might cause the board recruitment is not done from a purely efficiency perspective and therefore it is of interest to be examined.Purpose:The purpose of this thesis is to examine and give an insight into the underlying factors affecting the choice of new directors in large Swedish companies.Method:The thesis has had a deductive approach and been based on existing theory and literature to explain the factors that affect board recruitment. The study was quantitative and the sample consisted of all the major Swedish listed companies.Results and conclusions:The survey indicated that board members ethnicity and number of other board assignments were factors that influenced the board recruitment.

During the last decade several cooperatives have struggled against many problems. Especiallyin North America several cooperatives have been forced to reconstruct, merge or have beenpurchased by other firms. There are many reasons behind these problems, but one observationmade on these cooperatives implies that they have one thing in common. The cooperatives areall very large and have a complex business structure.Lantmännen is one of the largest cooperatives in the Nordic Countries with its main office inSweden. In Nilsson et al.

?Have the young members? of Save the Children Sweden got increased possibilities to influence the organization since the founding of the youth-organization?? The purpose with the thesis is to investigate if the founding of a youth-organization by Save the Children Sweden has led to increased possibility for the young members to influence the organization. I have two research assignments; change since the founding of a youth-organization? politically since the foundation of a youth-organization and how?Did the norms and values in the organizationand Did the organization change I have analyzed protocols from the general assembly between 1997 and 2008 and how the rules in the organization have changed over time. I have also interviewed four board members to get a more diversified view of how the board meetings proceed.

During the last decade several cooperatives have struggled against many problems. Especiallyin North America several cooperatives have been forced to reconstruct, merge or have beenpurchased by other firms. There are many reasons behind these problems, but one observationmade on these cooperatives implies that they have one thing in common. The cooperatives areall very large and have a complex business structure.Lantmännen is one of the largest cooperatives in the Nordic Countries with its main office inSweden. In Nilsson et al.

In order to survive constant economic, environmental and political challenges, it has appeared to become increasingly important for a firm to recognize the significance of corporate governance. In this thesis, the structure of the board at Smartner Ltd will be outlined and the relationship between the board members and the CEO will be clarified. In addition, the aim is to analyze the corporate governance system at Smartner Ltd to be able to outline and clarify the distinct relationship between the CEO and board of directors..

The Swedish system of environmental quality objectives is a so-called MBO, Management By Objective and has the purpose to guide the Swedish society towards sustainable ecological development. The system involves the whole society from the parliament and the government down to individual citizens. At the regional level, it is the county administrative boards that are responsible for the work with the system of environmental objectives. At the County Administrative Board of Västmanland County, it is the environmental unit who is in charge of work with the environmental objectives and they want input for how to improve their work with the environmental objectives, both internally at the Administrative Board and externally with external parties.The main purpose and goal of the study is to present the work of four other county administrative boards regarding their work with the environmental quality objectives and to identify external parties? opinions of how they want the County Board of Västmanland county to work with them in this matter.The work is designed as a case study of four county councils, where the environmental objectives coordinators at the four county administrative boards were interviewed about their work with environmental quality objectives.

The motivation to conduct the study was that external project managers have become more common the last decades. At the same time trust is considered to be a key factor for efficiency and good results for the organisation. The group members? trust in the leader is built on past experiences of both the leader at a personal level, and the leaders? relationship to the task. Trust can also be built over time, when the leader earns trust from the group members.