According to research applying a social constructionist perspective, the sense of self is not lost in people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). It is, however, greatly influenced by the symptoms and by how they are treated by other people. Without support, it is difficult to preserve a positive sense of self, when living with progressing cognitive impairments. The stigma associated with cognitive impairment also threatens their sense of self. Harré’s social constructionist theories of self and positioning have been used to study how people with AD express their sense of self. As there is a need to expand the previous research by involving additional participants and research contexts, the aim of the present thesis was to describe, in accordance with Harré’s theories of self and positioning, how people with AD expressed their sense of self in personal interviews and in support groups with other people with AD. The research consists of four substudies (I–IV), and has a qualitative, descriptive, and theory-testing approach. Thirteen people with mild and moderate AD were included, 11 of whom had the early onset form of the disease. Two support groups were formed, led by facilitators who supported the communication and the participants’ expressions of self. Each group met 10 times during an eight-month period. Topics were not predetermined, and introduced by both facilitators and participants. Semistructured interviews were conducted before the groups started and after they ended. The interviews and support group conversations were audio-recoded and analysed with qualitative content analysis, guided by Harré’s theories. In substudy I, the initial interviews were deductively analysed. The findings showed that Self 1 (the sense of being a singular, embodied person) was expressed by the participants without difficulties. Self 2 (the perception of one’s personal attributes and life history) was expressed as feeling mainly the same person. While some abilities had been lost, other had been developed. Self 3 (the socially constructed self) was described as mostly supported, but sometimes threatened in interactions with other people (I). In substudy II, support group conversations were analysed abductively with respect to expressions of Self 2. It was found that participants expressed Self 2 in terms of agency and communion, and a lack of agency and communion (II).In substudy III, a secondary analysis of the data from substudy II was performed inductively with the aim of describing how Self 3 was constructed in the interaction of the support group. Five first-order positions, generating lively interaction, were described: the project manager, the storyteller, the moral agent, the person burdened with AD, and the coping person (III). In substudy IV, all the collected data were reanalysed inductively, focusing on how participants expressed the experience of being research participants. Three themes were constructed: contributing to an important cause, gaining from participating, and experiencing risks and drawbacks (IV). In conclusion, it was found that participants constructed positive social selves through the support from each other, the facilitator, and researchers in the support group (III), and as research participants (IV). Agency and communion were central to Self 2, and decreased with the progression of AD (II). In spite of change, participants perceived themselves as basically the same people, with a potential to learn and develop as persons (I).

Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att testa sambandet mellan en koncentrerad aktieägarandel och låg utdelning bland aktieföretag på den svenska börsen. Vad som är unikt för just denna studie är att den genomförs på den svenska börsen samt den skattesats som skiljer sig mellan Sverige och exempelvis Finland där tidigare studier av samma karaktär genomförts. Metod: Studien har genomförts med en kvantitativ metod och en deduktiv ansats. Den finansiella data som används i studien har hämtats via databasen ”Retriever”, information om aktieägande har manuellt hämtats från ”Ägarna och makten” (Sundqvist, 2015). Resultat och slutsats: Slutsatsen innefattar en saknad av direkt samband mellan koncentrerat ägande och låg utdelningsnivå vilket besvarar syftet. Vad som kan lyftas fram som en eventuell förklaring är den skattemässiga aspekten gällande utdelning och kapitalvinst. Tidigare forskning som påträffat samband i andra länder har en skattesats som skiljer sig mellan utdelning och kapitalvinst vilket innebär skattemässiga fördelat att välja det ena framför det andra. Detta var en av de aspekter som var av stort intresse innan studien startade. Studiens bidrag: Denna studies teoretiska bidrag påvisar att sambandet mellan ägarkoncentrationen och företagens utdelning inte är självklart på den svenska börsen. Istället finner vi att det är huvudsakligen företagens finansiella nyckeltal som ligger till grund för företagens utdelning. Förslag till vidare forskning: Resultatet av denna studie föder ytterligare nyfikenhet kring möjligheter att forska vidare. Exempel på intressanta ämnen är Agnblads (2001)teori om det utländska ägandets påverkan på det framtida ägandet i Sverige. Även agentteorin och dess olika påverkan på företagen går att fördjupa sig i och studera på den svenska marknaden då ägandet är koncentrerat och en stor del maktfördelning sker. / Aim: The aim of this study is to test the relationship between ownership concentration and dividends in listed Swedish firms. Method: This study has a quantitative method and a deductive approach. The financial data has been collected via the database ”Retriever”, information about the ownership of the companies was manually collected from the book ”Ägarna och makten” (Sundqvist, 2015). Result and conclusions: The result of the study is that dividends may variate due to the independent variables. However, there is not a significant relationship between ownership concentration and dividends. Contribution of the thesis: The contribution of this study provides further information regarding ownership concentration and dividends, we find that the financial ratios of the companies have a larger impact on the dividends than the ownership concentration. Suggestions for future research: The result of this study adds alot of curiosity to the future studies about this subject. Our suggestions to future research is to elaborate Agnblads (2001) theory about foreign ownership and how it might affect companies in Sweden. We also propose to research further about the Agency-theory and which effects it has on the Swedish listed firms since we have a concentrated ownership.

This study investigates women’s possibilities to actively participate in societal change in Egypt. It aims at enhancing the understanding of structural conditions for women’s agency and how these enables and/or restrains women’s participation in the aspiration for societal change as well as their aspiration to live a ‘full life’. Egypt was chosen as a field for studying women’s understanding of their opportunities of participation and empowerment before and during the revolution. The informants in the study are all consciously working for awareness and equality in society. Formal education in Egypt is criticized and the country suffers from a high illiteracy rate, making informal education an important way to attain knowledge that can assist women in their quest for societal change. The acknowledgment of participation as a human right is one of the issues women are fighting for in Egypt today. A specific interest in this study is what motivates some women to oppose social, cultural and political structures despite the often high personal cost, and how informal (educational) channels are being used in the quest for societal change. The theoretical construction in which the analysis is carried out is based on frictions between societal structures and agency, using the Capability Approach (Sen, 1999) which aims at understanding what agency women have in societal change. The concept of functionings is used to indicate what someone is able to do and be. By analyzing women’s valued functionings, their conditions and thus their sense of empowerment and their experienced opportunity costs emerge. Central to the analytically framed societal structures and how agency can be perceived within each structure are the social conversion factors, the norms that allow or hinder action. To frame the complexity of women’s conditions for active agency and the outcome of their actions, I use a theoretical framework that will comprise both goals and processes. Sen’s (1999) ideas on social choice along with Archer’s (1995) theory on social change, using her model of structural elaboration / reproduction, have proved useful when investigating women’s valued functionings and attained social changes. The results of the study show that when formal education is not adequate, knowledge is obtained outside the formal educational institutions. This is done through both non-formal and informal learning. However, to get access to informal learning, a number of valued functions have to be gained. These functionings are thus both conditions for change and an end in themselves. I try to show that the costs involved in transgressing the prevailing norms are high, but lack of hope, agency and empowerment are also experienced as a high cost for those who have, in fact, imagined another better life and are in opposition to the inhibitory societal structures. This is, however, a part of what motivates some women to continue to be involved in societal change in order to achieve a life they have reason to value.

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This thesis draws on ethnographic research carried out with a group of returned Sri Lankan migrant women who migrated for employment to the Middle East. This retrospective ethnography, based on their time working abroad, brings forth ideas of silent resistance and hidden weapons of women from developing countries, and intends to work against dominant discourses like the human trafficking framework which deems migrant women ‘victims’ of the system of migration, largely ignoring the agency that they exercise throughout the process. The ethnography argues that resistance and resilience are better frameworks with which to characterise the experiences of migrant women. The women in this study showed that through resilience, resistance and agency, they were able to navigate through an immensely oppressive system. They used resourceful and courageous modes of resistance within constrained social situations. The thesis looks at their experiences in the three chronological stages of their migration: pre-departure, life in the host country, and the return to Sri Lanka.

In this thesis, I answer the gamer's dilemma or the inability to find a moral distinction between virtual pedophilia and virtual murder. I expand virtual pedophilia to virtual rape to address increasing rates of sexual harassment and assault in virtual reality. In this thesis, I 1) explain what occurs when one engages in virtual rape; 2) identify relevant moral differences between physical rape and virtual rape; 3) challenge the existing relationship between committing harm and wrong in the case of rape; and 4) argue that virtual rape is morally reprehensible due to the agent’s intention to utilize a person as a mere tool for pleasure.

The following dissertation contains two distinct empirical essays which contribute to the overall field of Financial Economics. Chapter 1 titles as “Corporate Lobbying, CEO Political Ideology and Firm Performance”. We investigate the influence of CEO political orientation on corporate lobbying efforts. Specifically, we study whether CEO political ideology, in terms of manager-level campaign donations, determines the choice and amount of firm lobbying involvement and the impact of lobbying on firm value. We find a generous engagement in lobbying efforts by firms with Republican leaning-managers, which lobby a larger number of bills and have higher lobbying expenditures. However, the cost of lobbying offsets the benefit for firms with Republican CEOs. We report higher agency costs of free cash flow, lower Tobin’s Q, and smaller increases in buy and hold abnormal returns following lobbying activities for firms with Republican managers, compared to Democratic and Apolitical rivals. Overall, our results suggest that the effects of lobbying on firm performance vary across firms with different managerial political orientations. Chapter 2 titled as “Corporate Lobbying and Labor Relations: Evidence from Employee” Litigations. We utilize employee litigations and other work-related complaints to examine if lobbying firms are favored in judicial process. We gather 27,794 employee lawsuits (after initial court hearing) between 2000 and 2014 and test the relationship between employee allegations and firms’ lobbying strategies. We find that employee litigations increase the number of labor-related bills in our sample. We document that the increase in employee lawsuits may drive firms into lobbying to change policy proposals. We also find robust evidence that the case outcome is different for lobbying firms compared to non-lobbying rivals, which may protect the shareholder wealth in the long run. Our results present that lobbying activities may make a significant difference in employee allegations. Our findings highlight the benefit of building political capital to obtain a biased outcome in favor of politically-connected firms.

Background: Sweden has a tradition of a concentrated ownership structure where many owners use dual asset classes to maintain corporate control by possessing small portions of the dividend rights. Financial literature has shown that these controlling owners find more incentives to divert corporate resources for private use, at the expense of shareholders. Recent studies also show that involvement in extraction of private benefits leads to long maturity debt as controlling owners avoid frequent monitoring by lenders. As this causes a conflict over corporate debt maturity between controlling and minority shareholders, we investigate if the presence of multiple large shareholders (MLS) mitigates this conflict through control contests. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine and analyze how different ownership structures affect the informative environment within a firm. In addition, the thesis investigates how ownership structure affect debt maturity structure and what this mean for large and minority shareholders. Method: The study uses a quantitative approach with panel data of 74 publicly traded non – financial Swedish firms over the period of 2006 – 2014. A deductive approach has been applied in order to explain empirical results from theory and previous literature. Results: We find evidence that controlling owners with a separation in control and cash flow rights tend to insulate themselves through long term debt, creating a bad informative environment with information asymmetry and agency costs. Furthermore, our results show robust evidence that MLS mitigates these problems since control contest between large shareholders leads to a shorter debt maturity, yielding a better informative environment. In addition, our results imply that MLS may be an important factor in facilitating financing as investors associate these firms with less risk of extraction of private benefits.

The aim of this study is to nuance the stigmatized image through which sex workers are often portrayed in today’s society. To this end, we describe and analyze female sex workers' thoughts on and experiences with sex work. Our analysis of these experiences sheds light on how the agency of sex workers can manifest itself within the structure of the environment they live in. We use Goffman's (2011) theory on stigma and Gidden's (1984) structuration theory as our theoretical framework, and conduct four interviews with female sex workers in Stockholm (Sweden). All participants demonstrated agency inter alia through different strategies but, at the same time, had to adjust to society's structure and the stigma attached to it. However, our study suggests that sex work in itself did not have a negative impact on the participants. Instead, the negative aspects that the participants in some cases had experienced through selling sex were consequences of factors both unrelated and indirectly related to sex work, stigma being one of them.

Problem:      Companies need to maintain a competitive position in the market to financially perform, and in order to do so, the companies need to have a good corporate governance structure. In the latter years, the ethical discussion about gender diversity has gained a lot of attention in society, which influence norms, standards and legislations, and also the business. Today, Swedish and Danish firms are obligated to strive for gender diversity in their corporate boards according to the corporate governance codes in the respective countries. However, the financial aspects should be taken into concern, since a company needs to financially perform to keep its operations. It is not established whether an increased gender diversity is related to financial performance, since studies on the field are contradictive. Due to the different results, it is interesting to see what the relationship looks like in the Nordic countries, especially in Sweden and Denmark where quota-based legislation has not yet been established. This thesis investigates the issue to provide evidence for the companies in similar countries if an increased gender diversity is financially supportable.   Purpose:      The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the gender diversity in the board of directors and its relationship with the financial performance of a corporation. Further, the study will investigate the financial performance dependency on the gender diversity in the board of directors.   Method:       A sample of 104 Swedish and Danish companies was chosen as observation objects. To investigate the relationship between the gender diversity and the financial performance, a Pearson correlation analysis was made. To identify the financial performance dependency on the gender diversity regression analyses were performed. Hypotheses that were built on agency theory, resource dependency theory, upper echelons theory and previous research were tested in the statistical analyses.   Results:        The statistical analyses show that there is no statistically significant relationship between gender diversity and financial performance, neither that the financial performance is dependent on the gender diversity. This evidence implies that increased gender diversity in board rooms should be motivated for other reasons than strictly financial success. Companies should consider these findings in the attaining process of directors and focus on other factors than financial progress in the proceeding involvement of women in the board. Thus, a company cannot increase its financial performance only by attaining more women to the board room. / Problem:      För att prestera finansiellt behöver företag bibehålla konkurrenskraft, och för att göra det är företagsledningen viktig. På senare tid, har den etiska diskussionen kring könsdiversitet fått stor uppmärksamhet i samhället, vilket påverkar normer, standarder och lagstiftning. Svenska och danska företag är förpliktigade att sträva efter könsdiversitet enligt den svenska och danska koden för bolagsstyrning, men även de finansiella aspekterna av könsmångfald bör tas i beaktning eftersom ett företag behöver prestera finansiellt för att kunna fortsätta sin verksamhet. Ännu är det inte fastslaget att en ökad könsdiversitet är relaterat till finansiella framsteg, då studier på området säger emot varandra. Därför är det intressant att se hur denna relation ser ut i de nordiska länderna, speciellt i Sverige och Danmark där kvoteringslagar ännu inte har införts. Denna uppsats undersöker frågan för att skapa bevis för företagen i länderna om en ökad könsdiversitet är finansiellt försvarbar.   Syfte:            Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka könsdiversitet i bolagsstyrelser och relationen till finansiella prestationer av företaget i fråga. Dessutom ämnar studien undersöka de finansiella prestationernas beroendeförhållande till könsdiversiteten i bolagsstyrelserna.     Metod:         Ett urval av 104 svenska och danska företag valdes som observationsobjekt. För att undersöka relationen mellan könsdiversitet och finansiella prestationer görs en Pearson korrelationsanalys. För att upptäcka om finansiella prestationer är har ett beroendeförhållande till könsdiversiteten i bolagsstyrelserna gjordes regressionsanalyser. Hypoteserna som testades baserades på agentteori, resursberoendeteori, och övernivåteori och tidigare empirisk forskning.   Resultat:      De statistiska analyserna visar att det inte finns något signifikant samband mellan könsdiversitet och finansiella prestationer, och inte heller att finansiell prestation har ett beroendeförhållande till könsdiversitet i bolagsstyrelsen. Dessa resultat indikerar att en ökad könsdiversitet i styrelserummen bör motiveras av andra faktorer än strikt finansiell framgång. Företag bör ta ställning till resultaten från denna forskning i tillsättandet av styrelseledamöter och inte förvänta sig en förbättrad finansiell ställning enbart genom att tillsätta fler kvinnor till styrelsen.