This thesis examines the relationship between corporate liquidity and dividend policy. The corporate liquidity is measured by proven liquidity ratios and the dividend policy is divided into cash dividends and share repurchases. In order to examine the possible relationship between corporate liquidity and dividend policy, public European firms are examined. Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and the UK are selected based on the similarities in the regulation and market structure in the countries. The thesis aims at furthering the knowledge on the role played by corporate liquidity for dividend policy. In our ambition to investigate the before-mentioned relationship we use a panel data set over five years extracted from Datastream. Any newfound evidence on the subject can help investors, creditors, and other stakeholders in evaluating firms based on their liquidity.  We used a deductive quantitative method to analyse the chosen relationship. The study concluded a significant relationship between corporate liquidity and dividend, although negative as opposed to our expectations. With regards to share repurchase, no significant effect was found from corporate liquidity. Free cash flow on the other hand appears to have a positive effect on the amount of share repurchases carried through. We discuss mentioned relationships and attribute them to the mature firms in this sample and the liquidity levels of mature firms.The theories supporting these findings are Agency Theory, Pecking Order Theory, Shareholder Theory, Stakeholder Theory, Liquidity Preference Theory.

Varje år går ca 6 000 företag i konkurs och det påverkar intressenter i form av kreditgivare, leverantörer, anställda och staten i form av inställda amorteringar, betalningar, skatteskulder samt löneutbetalningar. Därav är intresset stort att kunna predicera samt identifierav arningssignaler för konkurs. Denna uppsats kommer att undersöka skillnader mellan de finansiella nyckeltalen mellan konkursade och icke konkursade företag i de två mest konkursutsatta branscherna i svenskt näringsliv. Syfte Syftet med studien är att få bättre inblick i finansiella nyckeltalens betydelse för företag som går i konkurs genom att studera sambandet mellan konkurs och nyckeltal på mindre aktiebolag i Sverige inom byggnad och detaljbranschen. Metod Vi har använt oss av en kvantitativ metod där vi analyserat data genom deskriptiv statistik, oberoende t-test, korrelationsanalys och en logistisk regressionsanalys. Urvalet har varit påmindre företag i Sverige som upprättar årsredovisning i enlighet med K2-regelverket. Urvalet på 45 konkursade företag och 90 icke konkursade företag per bransch gjordes genom ett systematiskt urval av varje bransch. Ur varje grupp gjordes ett systematiskt urval på var femte företag som matchade våra kriterier. Slutsats Vår studie visar att det i den univariata och bivariata analysen finns tydliga skillnader mellan konkursade och icke konkursade företag. Studien visar också att nyckeltalen har en negativ trend från en treårsperiod innan konkursen fram tills konkursförfarandet. Ett år innan konkurs var differensen mellan konkursade och icke konkursade företag i byggbranschen signifikant på samtliga nyckeltal medan detaljhandeln endast hade sex av åtta nyckeltal signifikanta. / Every year, about 6,000 companies go bankrupt and this affects stakeholders in the form of creditors, suppliers, employees and governments in the form of canceled repayments, payments, tax liabilities and salary payments. As a result, there is great interest in being ableto predict and identify warning signals for bankruptcy. This thesis will examine differences between the financial key figures between bankrupt and non-bankrupt companies in the two most bankrupt industries in Swedish business. Purpose The purpose of the study is to gain a better insight into the significance of financial ratios for companies that go bankrupt by studying the relationship between bankruptcy and financialratios on smaller limited companies in Sweden in the construction and retail industry. Method We have used a quantitative method where we analyzed the data through descriptive statistics, independent t-tests, correlation analysis and a logistic regression analysis. The sample has been smaller companies in Sweden that prepare annual reports in accordance with the K2 regulations. The selection of 45 bankrupt companies and 90 non-bankrupt companies per industry was made through a systematic selection. From each group, a systematic selection was made on every fifth company that matched our criteria. Conclusion Our study shows that in the univariate and bivariate analysis there are clear differences between bankrupt and non-bankrupt companies. The study also shows that the key figures have a negative trend from a three-year period in bankruptcy until the bankruptcy proceedings. One year before bankruptcy, the difference between bankrupt and non-bankrupt companies in the construction industry was significant on all key figures, while the retail tradehad only six out of eight key figures significant.

Introduktion: Blankning är ett sätt för en investerare att tjäna på att bolagets aktiekurs faller och har anklagats för att vara bakomliggande orsak till flera finansiella kriser. Det finns olika anledningar till att ett bolag blankas, likaså kan ett bolag påverkas av blankningen på olika sätt. Den befintliga forskningen behandlar främst den amerikanska marknaden och de tekniska åtgärder bolagen utövar för att minska blankning. Därmed finns det en lucka i forskningen kring huruvida svenska bolag verkställer strategier eller inte för att mildra blankning.   Syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka om svenska bolag verkställer strategier för att motverka blankningsnärvaro och förstå varför bolag har valt att styra på ett visst sätt vid en blankningssituation. Metod: Studien genomfördes med en kvalitativ forskningsansats och nyttjar empirisk såväl som teoretiskt material för att kontrastera den teoretiska referensramen med upptäckter i den empiriska data. Den primära datainsamlingen utgörs av semistrukturerade intervjuer med fyra av de femton mest blankade bolag enligt Finansinspektionen för april 2021 där analysering av den empiriska data har följt en trestegsprocess bestående av beskrivning, systematisering och kombination.   Slutsats: Studien har visats sig att de fyra bolag som har intervjuats inte sysslar med aktiva strategier mot blankning eftersom det finns en överensstämmande bild bland bolagen att det ska vara en fri marknad och att aktörerna får ta egna beslut. Resultatet visar att de svenska bolagen fokuserar på det långsiktiga tillväxt och att bibehålla transparens gentemot marknaden som i slutändan ska rättfärdiga deras värdering. / Introduction: Short selling is a way for an investor to gain profit when a stock drops in price and the practice has been accused of being the reason behind several financial crises. There are various reasons why a company gets shorted, which affects the company in many ways. Previous studies have only processed short selling in the US market and technical actions that companies enforce to reduce short interest. However, there is a lack of studies about the Swedish market and strategies, if any, that Swedish companies work with to reduce short interest. Purpose:  The purpose of this study is to examine whether Swedish firms execute strategies or not to counteract the presence of short selling positions and understand why the firms have chosen to manage in a certain way during a short selling situation.  Method: The study was conducted with a qualitative approach and uses both empirical and theoretical material to contrast the theoretical framework with the discoveries from empirical data. The primary data collection consists of semi-structured interviews with four out of the fifteen most shorted companies according to Finansinspektionen for April 2021, whereas the data was analyzed using the three-step process consisting of description, systematisation, and combination. Findings: The study shows that the four firms interviewed do not actively work with strategies against short selling as there is a consensus amongst the firms that the market should operate freely and that the participants make their own decisions. The result shows that the Swedish firms focus on the long-term growth of the company and to maintain transparency towards the market which in the end should justify their valuation.

This study explores the impact of ESG Scores on firm performance and seeks to establish whether the impact increased since the 2008 financial crisis. This is done by performing regressions on ESG Scores, and the respective pillars of Environmental, Social, and Governance, and firm performance, measured as both accounting-based performance, using ROA, and market-based performance, using Tobin’s Q. The study adopts a quantitative approach, utilising a random-effects model to analyse panel data across two sample periods - a pre-crisis period, from 2003-2006, and a post-crisis period, from 2010-2019. In addition, t-tests were performed to see if the impact changed significantly from the pre-crisis to post-crisis period. The study analyses data from 218 firms from the STOXX Europe 600 index, with four smaller sub-samples. The results indicate that ESG Scores have a positive impact on firm performance, with market-based firm performance being significantly correlated both before and after the crisis. Accounting-based performance, however, was only significantly correlated with ESG Scores before the crisis. In addition, the Environmental pillar was positively correlated with both measures of performance before and after the crisis, and the same was true for the Social pillar, except for with post-crisis accounting-based performance. Interestingly, the Governance pillar was not significantly correlated with performance in any of the regressions. Finally, while the average ESG Score among the observed companies increased in the post-crisis period, the impact of ESG performance on firm performance did not change significantly. The results of this study are supportive of the stakeholder theory perspective over the principal-agent theory, and show that ESG performance does indeed positively impact firm performance. Future research could explore whether other events have played a significant role in the rising importance of ESG, or if the results of the present study can be replicated across different time periods and geographical regions.

This thesis investigates the relationship between sustainability performance and ownership structure, measured using the ESG (environmental, social and governance) rating and ownership structure divided into four different ownerships (family/founder, institutional, corporate and governmental). In the pursuit of analysing the relationship between the ESG rating and the ownership structure, this study investigates publicly listed companies within the Nordic countries.This thesis has the aim of examining if a publicly listed company can use sustainability ratings and ownership structure, to understand broader market dynamics and help the manager thru this maximise firm value. Results from this could help them and the public in decision making processes around sustainability initiatives and how these characteristics influence the Nordic market dynamics, by having a better understanding of how the ESG ratings are prioritised among different ownership structures. This knowledge would allow management and the public to better understand how the ESG rating affects firm’s sustainability value as well as how market dynamics of this information is related to the market as a whole and direct competition.Using secondary data collected from Refinitiv database and Nasdaq, this thesis is a deductive and quantitative research that analyses companies for the target year 2020. In addition, this research can be considered to be a historic study.The findings of this research indicate a causal relation between sustainability performance and ownership structure, leading to the conclusion that a different ownership structure might influence and lead to a different score on the scale of sustainability performance. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the governmental ownership structure has the highest positive effect on sustainability performance.Concluding with discussing how this research contributes to the current field of knowledge on the topic through analysing the results using the legitimacy, shareholder, stakeholder and agency theory. The results are aligned with the legitimacy theory on ownership structure and the stakeholder theory. Additionally, the shareholder and the agency theory help with explaining why some structures put less value on sustainability performance than others.From the results one can conclude that sustainability performance is of importance to a varying degree among the different ownership structures. This tells us that there is still a gap in understanding why different ownership structures engage in different sustainability initiatives and future research is needed to examine why different structures engage in it over others.

rågorna kring företagens påverkan på klimatet, samhället och ekonomin blir allt viktigare. Även frågan gällande vad det leder till för konsekvenser när företag använder sig av okontroversiella metoder för att hänga med i utvecklingen och för att möta intressenternas intresse. Företag använder sig av greenwashing vilket innebär att de vilseleder intressenterna genom att påstå sig göra en sak men agerar på ett annat sätt. Detta för att upprätthålla intressenternas tillfredsställelse för stunden, vilket dock kan komma att skada företaget vid ett avslöjande. Denna studie syftar till att analysera hållbarhetsredovisningar och hur de påverkas när ett företag varit inblandat i en greenwashingskandal. Studien är en kvalitativ innehållsanalys där vi har undersökt och utgått ifrån företagens hållbarhetsredovisningar från året innan skandalen, året under, samt året efter som underlag. Studien fokuserar på totalt tre bolag, Telia, Volkswagen och Stora Enso. Vidare presenteras djupgående analyser som utförs med hjälp av en kodningsmanual som tar stöd i bland annat intressent- och legitimitetsteorin för vardera bolag, för att sedan mynna ut i en jämförande analys där paralleller dras mellan företagen. Studien mynnar ut i slutsatser kopplade till frågeställningarna om hur rapporterna förändras efter en greenwashingskandal. Delvis gällande vilken del intressenterna har i återuppbyggnaden av legitimiteten efter en skandal, samt hur ett företag arbetar för att återställa sin legitimitet efter en skandal. Resultatets innehåll består av information från totalt nio hållbarhetsrapporter som sedan ska besvara frågeställningarna. Analysen konstaterar att företagen anstränger sig för att bibehålla sin legitimitet, vidare framkommer det även att de vill nå ut till sina intressenter och poängterar att de är viktiga för företagen. Flera förändringar presenteras till följd av skandalen, och företagen försöker vara transparenta för att skapa legitimitet. Det framkommer även att greenwashing förekommit i alla berörda skandaler. I slutsatsen fastställs att en viss grupp av intressenter har en speciell roll i uppbyggandet av legitimiteten efter en skandal, vilket är de anställda. Vidare menar studien att antagandet om att hållbarhetsrapporterna genomgår stora förändringar efter en uppmärksammad greenwashingskandal stämmer. / Corporations' impact on the climate, the society and the economy are issues growing bigger day by day. When the corporations use unconventional methods that might not always be according to the books to keep up with the development but also with their stakeholders, what happens then? The corporations use greenwashing to keep their stakeholders satisfied but later get hurt by it. This article aims to analyze sustainability reports and how they are impacted by a scandal that are caused by it using greenwashing. It is a qualitative study focusing on Telia, Volkswagen and Stora Enso's sustainability reports the year prior to, the year during and the year after the scandal was discovered. In depth analyzes are presented comparing the different years but also the companies to one another. The analyzes were made with a perspective out of the stakeholder theory and the legitimacy theory ans a coding manual. There is also a focus on the scandals and how the corporations represent them in their reports. This study finds the answer to the questions how reports change after a scandal, how stakeholders are a part of the reconstruction of the legitimacy after a scandal and also what corporations does to gain back their legitimacy. The result contains paraphrases on the nine reports where Telia's reports focuses on the economic part of sustainability, Volkswagen’s focus on the environmental part and Stora Enso's focuses on the social part. In the analyzes it is stated that the corporations do a lot to keep their legitimacy, the corporations also want to point out to the stakeholders that they are very important to them. There is a lot of changes presented as a result of the scandal, the corporations want to be transparent to gain legitimacy. It appears that greenwashing plays a part in all the companies' reports. Exampels on all of this is included in the article. The study concludes stakeholders are part of the reconstruction after a scandal, especially the employees. The assumption that sustainability reports go through big changes is also shown to be correct.

Stakeholder theory has transcended academia and is infiltrating boardrooms all over the world. However, the literature is divided and lacks a coherent narrative of stakeholder value creation. The purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate the merits of stakeholder management by examining the arguments used by stakeholder researchers. Using argument analysis an overview of the field is created which describes the preconditions, mechanisms and moderators of value creation facilitated by stakeholder management.

In 2018, Revisorsinspektionen (RI) revised the requirements to become an authorized auditor. The new requirement aims to make the education more efficient and to make the auditor profession more attractive. RI considered the previous auditor education both too long and too complicated compared to other high-education professions and sometimes it could take ten years to become an authorized auditor. The reform aims to make it possible for more people to become an auditor because now you only need a bachelor’s degree. The length of the education is now reduced and the bachelor’s degree does not need to be in business administration. The future auditor thus needs less education than today's auditors and not the same demands in business administration. What, in fact, do the RIs stakeholders think of the new requirements to become an authorized auditor? In 2017, RI published a memorandum with proposals for the new requirements and mentioned44 stakeholders who was affected of the revise and gave them a chance to express their opinions. Until 8th of March 2018, 25 organisations had comment on RI revision. The purpose of the study is to examine the stakeholders’ views about the revision of the requirements to become an authorized auditor. By categorize the organisations into stakeholder groups and then analyze every answer, this study contributes with knowledge about which stakeholders’ who had the most influence in the revision. The Comment letters received on RIs memorandum have been categorized by the following stakeholder groups: Authorities, Universities, Accounting firm and Trade association. The results shows that there is different opinions depending on the interest of the organizations and the stakeholder group with least influence were universities. Furthermore the study shows that the universities did not have any influence in the revision and the stakeholders with most influence were the audit firms and authorities. The essay is hereinafter written in Swedish. / Revisorsinspektionen (RI) ändrade 2018 på de formella kraven för att bli auktoriserad revisor. De nya bestämmelserna syftar framförallt allt till att effektivisera utbildningen och göra revisorsyrket mer attraktivt. RI anser att den tidigare revisorsutbildningen var både för lång och komplicerad jämfört med andra kvalificerade akademiska yrken och att det kan ta upp till tio år att bli auktoriserad revisor. Reformen gör det möjligt för fler att bli revisorer eftersom det i nuläget räcker med en valfri kandidatexamen från högskola eller universitetsutbildningens längd reduceras samtidigt som kravet på akademisk examen inom företagsekonomi tas bort. Framtidens revisorer behöver alltså mindre akademisk utbildning än dagens revisorer för att bli auktoriserad och behöver dessutom inte vara ekonomer. Vad har egentligen Revisorsinspektionens intressenter för synpunkter och ställningstagande till de nya reglerna för att bli auktoriserad revisor? RI skickade 2017 ut en promemoria till 44 olika remissinstanser där åsikter och svarefterfrågades på myndighetens framtagna förslag. Av dessa var det till slut 25 instanser som valde att inkomma med remissvar. Syftet med studien är att undersöka intressenters ställningstaganden till de nya utbildningskraven för att bli auktoriserad revisor genom att granska och sammanställa de remissvar som inkom till RI. Dessa intressenter har delats in i olika intressentgrupper utifrån en egen modifierad intressentmodell. Studien har bidragit med att skildra intressenternas ställningstaganden till Ris utbildningsreform. Resultatet visar att det totalt sett var ungefär lika många som tillstyrker som avstyrker förslaget, men inom intressentgrupperna var det mer enhetliga ställningstaganden och det är framförallt lärosätena som är kritiska till reformen. I studiens analys och slutsatser presenteras ett antal mönster bland intressenternas ställningstaganden. Dessutom redogörs för möjliga underliggande orsaker och motiv tillintressenternas ställningstaganden.

Sociala och miljömässiga frågor är ämnen som spelar en central roll för hur synen på en hållbar och rättvis värld ska fungera i framtiden. Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur branschtillhörighet och företagsstorlek i form av antalet anställda påverkar mängden hållbarhetsinformation företag rapporterar i sina hållbarhetsrapporter. Uppsatsen undersökte femton företag som är listade på Stockholmsbörsens Large Cap, där finans-, industri- och telekombranschen studerades. Studiens syfte och hypoteser undersöktes utifrån en kvantitativ forskningsansats i form av en multipel fallstudie, där en innehållsanalys genomfördes av respektive företags hållbarhetsrapporter för året 2019. Innehållsanalysen utgick ifrån en checklista som skapades utifrån GRIs uppställda riktlinjer för hållbarhetsrapportering. Insamlad data flyttades sedan över från checklistan till en kodningsmall. Detta gjordes i syfte att visa en tydligare bild över antal rapporterade parametrar och att kvantifiera studiens frågeställning till siffror. Den insamlade empirin analyserades sedan utifrån den givna teoretiska referensramen, där studiens syfte och material kopplades till legitimitet- och intressentteorin. Studiens slutsats visar på att både branschtillhörighet och företagsstorlek i form av antalet anställda är en avgörande faktorer på mängden information en hållbarhetsrapport innehåller. / Social and environmental issues are topics that play an important role in envisioning a sustainable and fair future. The purpose of this study was to investigate how industry affiliation and company size, measured by the number of employees, affect the amount of information a company reports in its sustainability report. The thesis examined fifteen companies listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange's Large Cap, which included companies in the finance, industrial and telecom sectors. The purpose and hypotheses of the study were examined by using a multiple case study through a quantitative research approach, where a content analysis was conducted on each of the respective companies' sustainability reports for the year of 2019. The content analysis was built upon a checklist based on GRI's established guidelines for sustainability reports. The collected data was then transferred from the checklist to a coding template. This was done in order to show and to quantify the study's research topic in to numbers. The collected empirical data was thereafter analyzed based on the given theoretical frame of reference, where the purpose and materials of the study were linked to the legitimacy and stakeholder theories. The study's conclusion indicates that both industry affiliation and company size in terms of the number of employees are a crucial factors in the amount of information a company puts in its sustainability report.

Public sector organizations have practiced strategic management for more than 30 years. Strategic management in the public sector is subjected to political influence, as resources and major decisions are typically managed by elected and appointed officials. The purpose of this descriptive phenomenological study was to identify and report the lived experiences of public sector employees who have been subjected to political influence while engaged in the strategic management of their organizations in the State of Maryland. The study's conceptual framework was based on stakeholder theory and economic theory of the firm. A purposeful sample of 15 Maryland State Government employees shared their experiences through semi structured in-person interviews. Data were collected and transcribed using the Rev.com mobile application and was loaded into Dedoose software for analysis. Giorgi's descriptive phenomenological method was employed for data analysis. The findings revealed the lived experiences of the participants with results in 5 thematic areas: leadership tenue, managing for results, strategic management resources, influence, and political skills. The findings further revealed that legislation that required strategic planning and performance management in Maryland's government has influenced its public sector employees to think strategically. Application of the findings of this study through positive political influences may align careerist actions as they prepare for the future needs of their organizations.