This thesis contributes to the reporting of Intellectual Capital (IC) and includes four papers on the recognition and comparability of IC. IC, often called intangibles in the financial reporting discourse, reflects resources which create value in and for organizations. These resources originate out of human knowledge and capacities, which, through their uniqueness, can provide competitive advantages for an organization. As something intangible, IC is a challenge to report as it is not only a matter of reporting value that has been or can be realized but also a matter of reporting the creative processes focusing on present and future value. This challenge is a particular reflection of how and when to recognize IC as something reportable and is intensified if IC needs to be comparable. The thesis draws on the distinction that is made between mandatory and voluntary reporting when discussing recognition and comparability. Three of the studies relate to firms’ practices of reporting through annual reports. Since these reports contain both mandatory and voluntary sections, reflecting reporting both as a requirement as well as a possibility, different aspects of reported IC is emphasized. Using a wider range of documents, the fourth study relates to the enforcement of the mandatory reporting standards which the firms are required to apply in their reporting. As the overall finding in the thesis, three categories of recognition of IC are developed which reflect differences related to whether the reporting is mandatory, voluntary or, as this thesis argues, something in between. Reflected through the categories, comparability interrelates differently with recognition. The thesis contributes with the description of IC as a foundation for reporting which makes the matter of recognition of IC in reporting complex. It further highlights that through recognition of IC reporting is continuously expanding wherefore it is not possible to identify an end of an already expanded and demarcated reporting regime. In this expansion, by settling what is mandatory reporting through requested characteristics, voluntary reporting is defined.

One of the main factors that spurred the 2008 financial crisis was the trading of securitized products without a clear understanding of the risks that those products bore. I argue that an appropriate regime of mandatory disclosure is the primary instrument regulators should refer to in order to correct the informational asymmetries that are present in the market for securities products. Subsequently, I take into consideration the CSA proposed legislation for the mandatory disclosure of securitized products and analyze its main components under the light of the principles of investor protection and market efficiency. I find that the new legislation should be welcome by market operators because it is a good balancing effort between the necessity to protect the investors and fostering the efficiency of the market.

One of the main factors that spurred the 2008 financial crisis was the trading of securitized products without a clear understanding of the risks that those products bore. I argue that an appropriate regime of mandatory disclosure is the primary instrument regulators should refer to in order to correct the informational asymmetries that are present in the market for securities products. Subsequently, I take into consideration the CSA proposed legislation for the mandatory disclosure of securitized products and analyze its main components under the light of the principles of investor protection and market efficiency. I find that the new legislation should be welcome by market operators because it is a good balancing effort between the necessity to protect the investors and fostering the efficiency of the market.

In this work, we propose Tags, an e cient mechanism that augments microkernel interprocess messages with lightweight metadata to enable the development of new, systemwide functionality without requiring the modi cation of application source code. Therefore, the technology is well suited for systems with a large legacy code base and for third-party applications such as phone and tablet applications. As examples, we detailed use cases in areas consisting of mandatory security and runtime veri cation of process interactions. In the area of mandatory security, we use tagging to assess the feasibility of implementing a mandatory integrity propagation model in the microkernel. The process interaction veri cation use case shows the utility of tagging to track and verify interaction history among system components. To demonstrate that tagging is technically feasible and practical, we implemented it in a commercial microkernel and executed multiple sets of standard benchmarks on two di erent computing architectures. The results clearly demonstrate that tagging has only negligible overhead and strong potential for many applications.

Background In 2008 a global financial crisis erupted. Even though auditors were not to blame for the financial crisis the public questioned how auditors could issue a clean bill of health despite the serious weaknesses. This made the Commission release the 2010 Green Paper on audit policy: Lessons from the Crisis. The Green Paper is a consultation paper which received around 700 replies from various stakeholders. In 2011, the Commission presented their proposal on reform of the audit market, in which many of the key elements had been discussed in the Green Paper. The 2011 proposal seeks to enhance auditor independence and introduce a more dynamic audit market. The proposed reforms are very strict and if the proposal is passed in its current form it would imply a major change of the audit market. This thesis has studied the replies made by investors to the Green Paper; investors are the primary stakeholders and those who should be most concerned with auditor independence. It is therefore important and interesting to study their viewpoints to the Green Paper. Purpose The purpose of this study is to understand and explain investors’ standpoints on the proposals mentioned in the Green Paper to enhance auditor independence, and to examine whether the European Commission, as indicted by the 2011 proposal, require more independence than investors as indicted by the replies made to the Green Paper. Method This study has taken a qualitative approach where the data has been analyzed in-depth. The Green Paper consists of 38 questions; four of these have been studied as they strongly relate to auditor independence. Furthermore this thesis has studied the replies made by investors; investors are the primary stakeholders and those who should be most concerned with auditor independence. It is therefore important and interesting to study their viewpoints to the Green Paper. Conclusion The majority of the respondents’ are negative to the ideas presented in the Green Paper but that does not imply that the Commission requires more independence than investors. Both the Commission and investors argue that status quo is not an option and that auditor independence must be strengthened. What separates their views is how to strengthen auditor independence. The Commission seeks to impose strict regulations while investors prefer good corporate governance as an alternative approach to strengthen auditor independence.

Sammanfattning Magisteruppsats i företagsekonomi, Handelshögskolan i Jönköping, VT 2012 Författare: Sigge Kleen Titel: Revisionens vara eller icke vara, Det är frågan? Bakgrund och Problem: 2010 avskaffades revisionsplikten för de minsta aktiebolagen i Sverige, syftet var att hjälpa mindre företag med kostnadsbesparingar då revisionen ansågs som betungande. För att inte förändringen skulle bli för stor för samhället valde regeringen att sätta gränsvärdena för vilka företag som fick omfattas av frivillig revision relativt lågt. Genom SoU 2008:32 kan utläsas att en trolig utveckling i EU är att gränsvärdena för vilka företag som får undantas av revisionsplikten kommer att höjas i framtiden varav frågan är hur de svenska företagen ser på denna utveckling. Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att få ett klarare perspektiv på hur företagsgruppen som idag omfattas av revisionsplikt men som vid en eventuell lagändring till EUs maximala gränsvärden inte kommer att omfattas ser på revisionsplikten och revisionens roll i sin helhet. För att få en helhet i huruvida företagen kan påverkas av att bortse från revision är syftet också att undersöka hur företagets intressenter skulle ställa sig till att företaget inte längre påvisade en revision. Avgränsningar: Uppsatsen berör företag mellan dagens satta gränsvärden och EU direktivets maximala undantag. Företagen som har valts ut är belägna i en mindre stad på västkusten i Sverige. Rapporten har valt att avgränsa företagets intressenter till banker. Bankkontoren har valts ut efter samma utgångspunkt som företagen. Metod: Uppsatsens problematik har behandlats utifrån ett kvalitativt tillvägagångssätt, där datainsamlingen har gjorts via tio personliga intervjuer. Resultatet har sedan ställts mot referensramen med syftet att kunna besvara uppsatsens uppsatta frågeställningar. Resultat och slutsatser: Företagen var väldigt positiva till revisionsplikten och ansåg att den fyllde en viktig funktion i samhället. Företagen hyste en oro att den höga rättssäkerheten som vi idag har i Sverige skulle försämras vid ett avskaffande av revisionsplikten. Till skillnad mot den svenska utredningen SoU 2008:32 var företagen av uppfattningen att ett borttagande av revisionen skulle innebära ökade kostnader. Bland annat trodde företagen med långfristiga lån att deras upplåningskostnad skulle bli dyrare samt att deras möjligheter till utökade krediter troligen skulle försämras. Resonemanget kunde till viss del styrkas utav bankerna, men bankerna kommenterade dock att andra faktorer även hade betydelse kring fastställandet av företagens räntor. Förslag till vidare forskning: Då företagen i denna studie var betydligt positivare till revisionsplikten jämfört med studier av företag i andra EU- länder är förslag till vidare forskning att utforska varför de svenska företagen skiljer sig i sin syn på revisionspliktens betydelse. Då företagen inte är av åsikten att ett avskaffande av revisionsplikten kommer att uppfylla sitt syfte, anses det även intressant att forska kring hur man utefter svenska företag kan minska den administrativa kostnaden utan att påverka rättssäkerheten. / Abstract Master thesis in Business Administration, Jönköping International Business School, Spring 2012 Author: Sigge Kleen Title: Audit´s to be or not to be, That is the question? Background and problem: In 2010, Sweden abolished the audit requirement for smaller limited companies. The aim was to help small companies with cost savings as the audit was considered to be burdensome. In order that the change would not be too extensive for the society, the government chose to set the limits of a voluntary audit, relatively low. From SoU 2008:32 it can be deduced that a likely development in EU is that the limits on which companies may be waived by the audit´s requirement will be increased in the future. The issue is how the Swedish companies will respond to this development. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to gain a clearer perspective of how the group that today is covered by the audit requirement, but at a possible change to EU maximum limits will not be covered, looks at mandatory audit. To get a complete picture of whether companies can be affected by disregarding the audit, the aim is also to examine how the company's stakeholders would react when the company no longer shows an audit. Delimitations: The thesis refers to enterprises between today's limits for voluntary audit and the EU´s Directive for maximum exemption. The companies that have been selected are located in a small town on the west coast of Sweden. The report has chosen to limit the company's stakeholders to banks. Bank offices have been selected with the same basis as the companies. Method: The problem of the thesis has been treated from a qualitative approach, where data collection has been made by ten personal interviews. The result has then been weighed against the reference frame with the purpose to answer the questions of the thesis. Results and conclusions: The companies were very positive about the audit requirement and felt that it fulfilled an important function in the society. The companies had a concern that the high level of legal certainty that we currently have in Sweden, would be impaired by the elimination of the audit requirement. Unlike the Swedish report SoU 2008:32, companies were of the view that removal of the audit would result in increased costs. The companies with long-term loans thought that their cost of borrowing would be more expensive and that their potential for increased credit lines would likely be impaired. The reasoning was partly supported of the banks, but the banks commented that other factors also were of importance when they determined corporate interest rates. Propositions for further research: Because companies in this study were much more positive to the audit requirement in comparison with previous studies from other EU countries is a proposal for further research to examine why the Swedish companies differ in their values. As companies are not of the view that the abolition of the audit requirement will fulfill its purpose, it is considered also interesting to research how the Swedish companies can reduce the administrative costs without affecting the rule of law.

Titel: Redovisningskonsulternas arbete - hur har det påverkats av revisionspliktens avskaffande? Nivå: Kandidatuppsats i ämnet företagsekonomi, redovisning och revision, 15 Hp, FÖA300 Författare: Jenny Barkman Lövdal, Maarit Jansson, Cholticha Pruekwatcharakun Handledare: Ulla Pettersson  Datum: 31 maj 2012 Problemformulering: Revision har genomgått lagändringar under en lång tid och kravet på kunskap om revision har ändrats i takt med detta. År 2010 infördes en lagstiftning om avskaffande av revisionsplikt för små bolag i Sverige, vilket ökade efterfrågan på redovisningskonsulter. För att ta redan på vilka konsekvenser det fört med sig har följande frågor formulerats: Har redovisningskonsulternas uppdrag ökat i antal och omfattning?  Har branschorganisationerna SRF och FAR påverkat kompetenskravet på redovisningskonsulterna?  Har kontrollen av redovisningskonsulternas kunskap och arbete ändrats? Syfte: Huvudsyftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur de valda redovisningskonsulterna anser att avskaffandet av revisionsplikten påverkat deras uppdrag, arbetsuppgifter, kunskapskrav och kontrollen av detta. Delsyftet med studien är att ta redan på hur SRF och FAR, men även de valda revisorerna uppfattar förändringarna av avskaffandet av revisionsplikten i avseende redovisningskonsultens uppdrag. Metod: Genom att studera teori och insamlad data från både personliga och nätbaserade intervjuer får vi en kvalitativ undersökning som leder till pålitliga och relevanta slutsatser.  Empiri: Intervjusvaren vi fått från redovisningskonsulter, revisorer och representanter för branschorganisationen presenteras genom en sammanställning för varje yrkesgrupp. Slutsats: Vår slutsats är att det är för tidigt att uttala sig om hur vida redovisningskonsulternas uppdrag har ökat i antal och omfattning, att branschorganisationerna har påverkat kompetenskravet genom införandet avReko och auktorisationer och att kontrollen av redovisningskonsulternas kunskap och arbete har ökat. Nyckelord: Redovisningskonsult, revisor och revisionspliktens avskaffande. / Title: The accounting consultants work - how has it been influenced by the abolition of audit requirement? Level: Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration, accounting and auditing, 15 ECTS, FÖA300 Author: Jenny Barkman Lövdal, Maarit Jansson, Cholticha Pruekwatcharakun Supervisor: Ulla Pettersson Date:  31st May 2012 Problem description: The audit has undergone changes in the law during a period of time. The essential knowledge of the auditor would be changed based on the law changes. The law that carried out recently (2010) through the abolition of mandatory auditing for small companies in Sweden, increasing demand on accounting consultants. To find out which are entailed consequences, the following questions are formulated: Have the accounting consultants assignments increased in quantity and scope?  Have the professional institutes of SRF and FAR influenced knowledge requirement for the accounting consultants? Has the control of the accounting consultant's knowledge and work changed? Purpose: The main purpose of this paper is to investigate how the selected accounting consultant’s consider that the abolition of the audit requirement has affected theirs knowledge and work, as well as the control of those. The aim of this study is to find out not only how the selected auditors but also how SRF and FAR perceive the changes of the abolition of the audit requirement considering on accounting consultant's duties. Method: A qualitative research is used to study various theories. Collecting data from questionnaires and interviews lead to find out reliable and relevant conclusions. Empirical: A statement of each occupational group will present the answers that are collected from accounting consultants, auditors and the representatives of the professional institute. Conclusion: It is too early to express an opinion regarding an increase of assignments for accounting consultants. The professional institutes of SRF and FAR have affected the skill requirements for the accounting consultants through the introduction of Reko and authorizations. The essential knowledge and profession of accounting consultants has increased. Keywords: Accounting consultant, auditor and the abolition of mandatory auditing.

Abstract Car Insurance is the largest part of source of revenue for property insurance companies and is accounted for 50-60% of the revenue of total property insurance. In 2002, the total premium revenue for the industry is NT$48.532 billion, hence is closely related to the survival, growth and profit of the industry. Therefore, all the property insurance companies place their effort in this type of programs. The paper subjected the consumers of car mandatory insurance to investigate the subscription decision of consumers by applying concepts, techniques and loyalty in customer relationship. The statistical methods employed in this paper are logistic regression and multiple regression and the Excel and Sas computer package software are used to analysis, investigate and infer the probability and subscribing amount of general consumers in subscribing car 3rd party liability coverage based on variables including age, sex, living area, marital status, age of car, level of educations, renewed years and the car insurance premium. The findings of this research are as the following: 1. The logistic regression analysis indicates that the decision on subscribing car liability insurance is not affect by the status variables, except level of education, and is not affected by age, sex, marital status and living area. 2. The logistic regression analysis also indicate, in the transaction data statistical variables, the decision of subscribers of mandatory car insurance in subscribing car liability insurance is significantly different in age of car, years of subscribing car liability insurance and marketing channel. 3. The linear regression analysis indicates that in the decision for amount of car liability insurance will not be affected by the status variables, except level of education, and is not affected by age, sex, marital status living area. 4. The linear regression analysis also shows that in the transaction data statistical variables, the decision in of subscriber of mandatory car insurance in subscribing car liability insurance is significantly different in age of car, years of subscribing car liability insurance, but not the marketing channel. 5. Multiple regression conducted on the basis of the above analysis has come up with the following outcomes: The age of car and the year with car liability coverage have significant effect on whether to subscribe and the amount subscribed. Therefore the regression equation is established as the following: 3rd Party Liability Insurance Premium = - 10551 + 128 car age + 740 car liability insurance subscribed years. Key Words: Customer Relationship Management, Loyalty, Mandatory Car Insurance, Car Liability Coverage.

none

<p>When anyone acquires control over a listed company the mandatory bid rule is triggered. This means that the person who acquires the control has to make an offer to buy the remaining shares in the company. The purpose of the rule is to protect the minority shareholders from the buyers. This rule has been considered to be burdensome and thus it is followed by an exemption rule which under some special circumstances may make the mandatory bid rule void. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze if the exemptions given by the Swedish securities council (in Swedish Aktiemarknadsnämnden) are in accordance with the purpose of the mandatory bid rule and if a review of these rules are needed.</p><p>To answer the purpose, the Swedish securities councils statements has been analyzed, to determinate if the exemptions are in accordance with the purpose of the mandatory bid rule. The result of the analysis is that the rules need to be changed because exemptions from the mandatory bid rule are given to arbitrary in Sweden.</p>