We examine the hypothesis that firm size affects the sensitivity of bank term loan maturity to its underlying determinants. As borrower size increases, negotiating power with the lender and information transparency increase, while the lender is able to spread the fixed costs of loan production across a larger dollar value of the loan. We find strong evidence of firm size dependency in the determinants of bank term loan maturity and show that this is unrelated to syndication. Only large borrowers can manipulate bank loan contract terms so as to increase firm value.

Applying microeconomic theory, we develop a forecasting model for firm entry into local markets and test this model using data from the Swedish wholesale industry. The empirical analysis is based on directly estimating the profit function of wholesale firms. As in previous entry studies, profits are assumed to depend on firm- and location-specific factors,and the profit equation is estimated using panel data econometric techniques. Using the residuals from the profit equation estimations, we identify local markets in Sweden where firm profits are abnormally high given the level of all independent variables included in the profit function. From microeconomic theory, we then know that these local markets should have higher net entry than other markets, all else being equal, and we investigate this in a second step,also using a panel data econometric model. The results of estimating the net-entry equation indicate that four of five estimated models have more net entry in high-return municipalities, but the estimated parameter is only statistically significant at conventional levels in one of our estimated models.

Firm growth can be seen as a driving and determinant factor for economical development and employment in Sweden and other counties. SMEs plays an important role and are bearing most of the economical growth and employment on their shoulders and represent 99,4 percent of all the firms registered in Sweden, which in return makes it important that they grow and develop. Every fifth firm established today is run by an immigrant entrepreneur and so far the immigrant entrepreneurs represent 14 percent of the firms in Sweden and most of these firms are considered as SMEs. The interest of immigrant entrepreneurship within academic research and media has increased during the last years and different studies have shown what impact immigrant entrepreneurs have on the Swedish society and how much they contribute to the Swedish economical growth and employment. A study done by Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth (2010a) showed that immigrant entrepreneurs tend to have a more positive attitude towards firm growth than native entrepreneurs. Although immigrant entrepreneurs have a positive attitude towards firm growth there are some barriers to firm growth that they face which in return can prevent or slow down the firm growth. Strategies are important since they allow firms to achieve firm growth and business goals.    The aim of our study is to increase the understanding of strategies that immigrant entrepreneurs’ develop in order to achieve firm growth. Based on one previous study conducted by SCB (Efendic et al., 2012) studying firm growth and immigrant entrepreneurship, we have managed to identify a research gap that needs to be fulfilled. This thesis will contribute will relevant knowledge and data for entrepreneurs as well as individuals to get a deeper understanding of how immigrant entrepreneurs work in order to reach firm growth. The data collection and analysis of the research allowed us to be able to answer the research question; “How do immigrant entrepreneurs in Sweden develop strategies in order to reach firm growth in their business?” To carry on with the study and collect relevant data for the research, we took the direction of abductive approach with a qualitative research strategy.   The interviews and empirical findings consist of six different immigrant entrepreneurs based in Sweden. From the findings, the authors came across different strategies that are commonly used by immigrant entrepreneurs. Furthermore, internal and external factors and barriers provided in the literature also influenced the firm growth. It was really interesting to see that many of the most common prejudices that exist within immigrant entrepreneurship were false in this study. This is proved since none of the immigrant entrepreneurs limit their markets to the ethnical groups and most of the firms did not use the personal network in terms of family and friends when building up the staff base. Outsourcing was a strategy that used within many of the firms in order to continuously to reach firm growth. It was also interesting to see that the personal history of the entrepreneur had a huge impact on the firm growth and the business goals.

The topic of this thesis is economic dynamism. The five articles contribute to the literature on firm entry and firm growth. Studies are based on a dataset covering all Swedish limited liability firms between 1997 and 2010. The first article investigates conditions for firm entry in Sweden, distinguishing regular entrants from entrants that survive for at least two years, modelling the firm entry decision using count data models. While high income and a well-educated population had a positive effect, the effect was more important for surviving entrants. The second article uses a similar method, but focuses on wholesale industries and distinguishes between regular entry and in migration of firms, i.e. when an incumbent firm relocates its operations. Access to a university, many educated workers and low local taxes had positive effects. Better access to infrastructure had a strong positive effect on entrants, but it was smaller for in-migrating firms. The third article investigates if the industry context matters for whether Gibrat’s law holds, i.e. whether firm growth is independent of firm size. The law is found more likely to be rejected in industries with a high minimum efficient scale and a large number of firms located in metropolitan areas, but more likely to hold in industries with high market concentration and more group ownership. The fourth and fifth article contribute to the high-growth firms (HGFs) literature. In the fourth article it is examined whether the way HGFs are defined matters for the policy implications. It is found that the economic contributions of HGFs differ significantly depending on definition. Young firms are however more likely to be HGFs irrespective of definition. The fifth article considers the frequent argument that policymakers should target high-tech firms, i.e., firms with high R&D intensity, because such firms are thought more likely to become HGFs. We examine this assumption by studying the industry distribution of HGFs. Results indicate that industries with high R&D intensity, ceteris paribus, can be expected to have a lower share of HGFs than can industries with lower R&D intensity. By contrast, we find that HGFs are overrepresented in service industries with a high share of human capital.

Cette thèse développe la théorie de l'identité en économie en utilisant les frontières de la firme pour étudier l'effet de l'identification à la firme sur la coopération intrafirme. Nous nous appuyions sur la définition de l'identité personnelle de John B. Davis et proposons un cadre théorique qui conceptualise la relation entre l'identité et la coopération. Dans ce cadre, l'identité personnelle est le produit du management des identités sociales qu'un individu développe et maintient au travers d'effort d'investissement dans ces identités. Nous utilisons les frontières de la firme pour distinguer les identités sociales qui sont liées à l'entreprise de celles qui ne le sont pas. Nous testons les prédictions théoriques avec des expérimentations de terrain dans de vraies firmes et avec leurs employés, et nous contrôlons l'effet des différents degrés d'affiliation à la firme, notamment en étudiant la coopération entre individus de deux firmes appartenant au même groupe. En cohérence avec la théorie, nous trouvons que l'affiliation à la firme a un impact positif et progressif sur la coopération dans un jeu de contributions volontaires. De plus, une plus grande distance sociale entre les individus implique moins de coopération. Notre stratégie théorique et expérimentale permet de surmonter les nombreuses critiques des approches en termes d'identité sociale. Elle rend compte de l'hétérogénéité des stratégies individuelles dans la gestion des identités sociales, l'impact des institutions sur le comportement individuel et la coopération intrafirme. L'identité personnelle ajoute à l'étude traditionnelle de l'identification à la firme les questions de l'individuation et de l'effet des identités sociales multiples. Nous identifions la structure de cette nouvelle approche du lien entre la cognition et la motivation dans la firme. Nous expliquons comment les questions de cette théorie étendue de l'identité sont liées aux questions centrales de la nature de la firme, de l'organisation interne et des frontières de la firme. Nous analysons les implications de l'inclusion de l'analyse de l'individuation et d’identités sociales multiples sur l'analyse de la coopération. Nous étudions également les effets de l'apprentissage et de la culture d'entreprise sur les stratégies identitaires dans la firme / This thesis develops the current theory on identity in economics to study the effect of individuals' identification with the firm on intrafirm cooperation by using the boundaries of the firm. We rely on the definition of personal identity given by John B. Davis to develop a theoretical framework that conceptualizes the relationship between identity and cooperation. In that framework, personal identity is the product of the management of the social identities that an individual develops and maintains through investment efforts in those social identities. We exploit firm boundaries to identify how social identities that are related to the firm can be distinguished from those that are not. We test the theoretical predictions by using framed field experiments involving real firms their employees, and we control the effect of different degrees of firm affiliation, notably by studying cooperation between individuals of two firms which are part of the same corporate group. We find that, consistent with theory, affiliation to firms has a positive and gradual impact on cooperation in voluntary contributions mechanism experiments. In addition, higher social distance among individuals implies less cooperation. Our theoretical and experimental strategy overcomes the numerous critiques of social identity approaches. It accounts for the heterogeneity of individual strategies as regards the management of their social identities, the impact of institutions on individual behavior as well as intrafirm cooperation. Personal identity adds to the traditional study of identification with the firm the questions of individuation and of the effect of multiple social identities. We identify the structure of this new approach to the link between cognition and motivation in the firm. We explain how the questions of this extended theory of identity are related to the central questions of the nature of the firm, of internal organization and of the boundaries of the firm. We analyze the implications of the inclusion of the analysis of individuation and multiple social identities concerning cooperation. We also study the effect of learning and corporate culture on identity strategies.

Introduktion EU:s nya krav på obligatorisk byrårotation för bolag av allmäntintresse kommer medföra fler revisionsbyråbyten. Detfinns därmed ett behov av att kartlägga vilka faktorer bolagfinner relevanta vid byte av revisionsbyrå. Syfte Syftet med studien är att beskriva och förklara vilka faktorersom påverkar publika bolags attityd till byte av revisionsbyrå,i relation till nya krav på obligatorisk byrårotation. Metod Studien har en deduktiv ansats innebärande att befintlig teorioch forskning ligger till grund för uppställda hypoteser.Datainsamlingen har skett genom en enkätundersökning, ikombination med sekundärdata från årsredovisningar. Slutsatser Studien visar att variablerna Rykte, Låg revisionskostnad,Faktisk revisionskostnad, Bolagsstorlek, Skuldsättning,Relation samt Erfarenhet av byråbyte har signifikanta sambandmed bolags attityd till revisionsbyråbyte. Dessutomvisar studien att bolag som är positivt inställda till att bytarevisionsbyrå också tenderar att vara positivt inställda tillEU:s krav på obligatorisk byrårotation. / Introduction The EU’s new requirements for mandatory audit firmrotation for companies of public interest will lead to moreaudit firm changes. There is thus a need to identify whichfactors companies find relevant when changing audit firm. Purpose The purpose of this study is to describe and explain thefactors that affect listed companies’ attitude towardschanging audit firm, in relation to new requirements formandatory audit firm rotation. Method The study has a deductive approach, meaning that existingtheory and research are underpinning the hypotheses. Thedata has been collected trough a survey, which has beencombined with data from the companies’ annual reports. Conclusions The study shows that the variables Reputation, Low auditingcosts, Actual auditing costs, Company size, Leverage,Relationship and Experience from audit firm change hassignificant correlations with the dependent variable. Inaddition, the study shows that companies that’s positivetowards changing audit firm also tend to be positive towards

Using a sample of 45,283 firm year observations between 1993–2012, I examine the influence of different types of diversification and M&A accounting on firm value. I find that there are different explanations for earlier variations among documented discounts. I find different value effects for geographical and industrial diversification. These effects vary over time, with decreasing discounts for geographical diversification. Furthermore, I find different value effects of M&A accounting between industries. Controlling for firm fixed effects leads to insignificant results for most regressions, which indicates that underlying firm characteristics play an important role in the determination of the discount. Together, these findings explain earlier documented differences in the literature on the diversification discount.

This paper investigates the influence of hedging on firm value and stock return exposures in U.S. oil and gas industry from 1998 to 2004. Previous empirical results show that the relationship between firm value and corporate hedging activities is mixed. We find that the trend and volatility of oil and gas prices play important roles in the issue. Our results indicate that corporate exposures to oil and gas prices are asymmetric. We also find that gas reserve hedging has significant impacts on firm value when volatility of gas price is high. In conclusion, our results show that corporate hedging policies may add firm values in some special situations.

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