Syfte: Företagsledningen har stor möjlighet att påverka innehållet i årsredovisningen eftersom delar av den saknar regleringar. Detta gör att det finns en problematik om årsredovisningen ger en trovärdig bild av företaget. Enligt tidigare forskning används grafer i årsredovisningar för att påverka läsarens uppfattning om företaget och det har visat sig att företagen snedvrider graferna för att grafen ska se bättre ut. Syftet med denna studie är därmed att undersöka användningen av grafer för finansiella nyckelvariabler i årsredovisningar och snedvridningar av dessa variabler för medelstora företag. Metod: Studien har ett positivistiskt och objektivt synsätt och en deduktiv ansats. Utifrån den teoretiska referensramen formulerades hypoteser som sedan testades mot det empiriska materialet. Det empiriska materialet bestod av grafer från årsredovisningar och detta samlades in genom en kvantitativ innehållsanalys. Studien har en longitudinell design där vi studerade 39 medelstora företag listade på Nasdaq OMX Stockholm under två olika år, vilket resulterade i att 78 årsredovisningar studerades. Det empiriska materialet testades genom statistiska tester för att kunna undersöka hypotesernas acceptans. Resultat & slutsats: Studien har visat att medelstora företag har en hög grafanvändning i årsredovisningar och att de använder sig av grafer för finansiella nyckelvariabler konsekvent över tid. Företagen tenderar att visa positiva trender för finansiella nyckelvariabler men studien har även visat att mer än hälften av dessa variabler presenteras felaktigt genom snedvridningar. Denna studie har visat på en högre andel snedvridna finansiella nyckelvariabler jämfört med tidigare forskning som har undersökt stora företag. Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Eftersom denna studie har visat att det finns snedvridningar i grafer för finansiella nyckelvariabler för medelstora företag listade på Nasdaq OMX Stockholm vore det intressant med ytterligare studier inom området för små och stora företag. Detta för att undersöka om små respektive stora företag skiljer sig från medelstora företag gällande snedvridningar för finansiella nyckelvariabler. Vidare vore det även intressant att undersöka snedvridningar för samtliga grafer i årsredovisningar.  Uppsatsens bidrag: Studien bidrar till att öka förståelsen för hur medelstora företag använder grafer för finansiella nyckelvariabler i sina årsredovisningar. Den bidrar även till nya kunskapsområden eftersom inga tidigare studier har undersökt varken svenska eller medelstora företag. Studien visar att grafer för finansiella nyckelvariabler tenderar att visas på ett felaktigt sätt för att ge en bättre bild av företaget. Denna studie ökar därför medvetenheten hos läsare av årsredovisningar att grafer inte alltid presenteras på ett tillförlitligt sätt. / Aim: The management has a great opportunity to influence the content of annual reports as there are elements that do not adhere to regulations. Hence there is a concern whether the annual report is a reliable representation of a company. According to previous research, graphs are used in annual reports with the purpose of influencing the reader’s perception about the company. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that some companies distort the graphs with the purpose of improving their appearance. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the use of graphical representations of key financial variables in annual reports, and the distortion of these variables in mid size companies. Method: The study has a positivist and objective approach with a deductive undertaking. Hypotheses has been formulated based on the theoretical framework, they have thereafter been tested against the empirical findings. The empirical material consisted of various graphs from annual reports which were collected through a quantitative content analysis. The study has a longitudinal design in which we have studied 39 mid size companies during two different years, in total 78 annual reports have been studied. The empirical material has been analyzed through statistical tests with the purpose of investigating the acceptance of the hypotheses. Result & conclusions: The study has shown that mid size companies has an elevated usage of graphs in annual reports, and that they use graphical representations of key financial variables consistently over time. The companies tend to show positive trends for key financial variables, however the study has shown that a majority of these variables are erroneously represented due to distortions. The study has demonstrated a higher share of distorted key financial variables compared to earlier research which has been focused on large companies. Suggestions for future research: As this study has demonstrated the existence of distortions in graphical representations of key financial variables in mid size companies, it would be interesting to conduct further studies in the area of Swedish small and large size companies. Hence investigating if small and large size companies are any different compared to mid size companies regarding distortions of key financial variables. Furthermore it would be interesting to investigate distortions of all graphical representations in annual reports. Contribution of the thesis: The study contributes to an increased understanding of how mid size companies use key financial variables in their annual reports. It also contributes to new knowledge areas as no previous studies has investigated Swedish nor mid size companies. The study shows that graphical representations of key financial variables tend to be exposed erroneously in order to improve the image of the company. Thus, this study increases the awareness of the reader’s of annual reports and alerts them that graphs are not always presented in a reliable way.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Speech Pathology and Audiology, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p.33-34).

Cette thèse se propose d’explorer les rapports entre enfance et sentiment poétique pour considérer la manière dont l’impression enfantine peut se faire le modèle, en filigrane, d’une esthétique narrative moderne. Un corpus composé de récits de Pierre Loti, Marcel Proust, Colette, Virginia Woolf et Katherine Mansfield permet d’analyser l’inscription fictionnelle de personnages enfants pour montrer la similitude de caractéristiques supposément enfantines et de traits relevant d’une certaine conception du récit moderne, au tournant des XIXe et XXe siècles : le primat de la subjectivité, une pénétration du texte par le sentiment poétique et une esthétique de la discontinuité cristallisant le récit sur des moments privilégiés. L’analyse convoque également des représentations de l’enfant, tant scientifiques que littéraires, du XVIIIe au XXe siècle. Les écrits des premiers psychologues de l’enfance, les textes romantiques mettant en scène des enfants poètes, et l’affirmation baudelairienne qui fait du génie une « enfance retrouvée » sont interrogés pour mettre au jour les conceptions fantasmatiques de l’enfant implicitement activées par les auteurs de ces récits. La croyance et l’imagination proverbiales de l’enfant, la supposée authenticité d’un âge proche des origines, sont autant de projections utopiques que charrie la littérature, et que cautionnent, dans une certaine mesure, les pensées philosophiques et scientifiques jusqu’au premier tiers du XXe siècle. Cette étude sonde les sources et les enjeux de ces représentations pour comprendre ce qui les motive et explorer leurs résonances avec certaines modalités d’écriture, entre poésie, mysticisme et impressionnisme. / This thesis explores the relationship between childhood and poetical feeling to consider how childhood impressions can implicitly model a modern narrative aesthetics. A corpus of narratives by Pierre Loti, Marcel Proust, Colette, Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield serves to analyse the fictional inscription of child characters and show the likeness between allegedly childish characteristics and traits related to a certain conception of the modern narrative, at the corner of the 19th and 20th centuries. Among these characteristics : the predominance of subjectivity, a poetical feeling pervading the text, and a discontinuous narrative focusing on moments of being. The analysis summons both literary and scientific representations of the child, from 18th to 20th century. It convokes the theories of the first child-psychologists along with Romantic texts figuring child poets and questions the premise, according to Baudelaire, that genius is based on « childhood recovered ». In doing so it means to shed light on the phantasmatic conceptions of the child implicitly activated by the authors of these narratives. The child’s proverbial imagination and credulity, the presumed authenticity of an age closer to origins are as many utopic projections conveyed by literature and cautioned, to a certain point, by philosophic and scientific thoughts until the first third of the 20th century. This study examines their sources and their stakes to understand what accounts for them and to investigate their resonance with certain writing dimensions, such as poetry, mysticism and impressionism.

Users in social networking sites, such as Facebook, are increasingly receiving friend requests from strangers and accepting strangers as friends. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the Big Five personality traits and strangers' gender in affecting Facebook users' decisions to accept the stranger's friend request by adopting a 2 (gender of the stranger: male vs. female) x 5 (stranger's personality: Neuroticism vs. Extraversion vs. Openness vs. Conscientiousness vs. Agreeableness) factorial design. Results revealed that participants were more likely to accept the stranger's friend request when the participant's and stranger's personalities matched. This effect was more pronounced when the stranger was a female. Participants accepted female stranger's friend request due to the inflated perception of stereotypical female characteristics, which supported the hyperpersonal effect. Majority of the participants accepted the stranger's friend request based on textual cues that were displayed in the friend request message, which supported social information processing theory, suggesting that impression formation of the stranger was not constrained to the lack of nonverbal cues setting.

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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Fabrications of desirable fixed or removable dental prostheses depend upon accurate casts or dies. Recently, the most frequently used impression materials have been polyether (PE) and polyvinyl siloxane (PVS). However, both have their limitations: PVS is inherently hydrophobic, and PE is rigid. In order to take advantage of the desirable qualities of both PVS and PE impression materials, a new generation of impression material is being developed called vinyl polyether silicone (VPES, GC). The purpose of the present study was to compare the properties of hydrophilic PVS, PE, and VPES in regard to surface detail reproduction, contact angle, and tear strength. The hypotheses to be tested were: 1) VPES will show a significant superiority insurface detail reproduction compared with PVS and PE impression materials; 2) VPES will show a significant superiority in wettability compared with PVS and PE impression materials; 3) VPES will show a significant superiority in tear strength compared with PVS and PE impression materials. In order to test the surface detail reproduction, impressions were made of stainless steel dies with a parallel series of 15 different width lines on the surface and tested under dry and moist conditions. The wettability was assessed by contact angles of saturated CaSO4 aqueous solution drops on flat impression surfaces. A trouser tear test was employed to test the tear strength. The trouser-shaped specimens were prepared and tested in the Instron Universal Testing Machine. The data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA and Pearson‘s Chi square, (p < 0.05). All the materials showed better detail reproduction under the dry conditions than the moist conditions. There were no differences between the three materials in detail reproduction when impressing under either moist conditions or dry conditions. All the materials showed good wettability in the contact angle test. PVS rendered a contact angle as low as 34.19º. The contact angle of VPES was 44.84º, which was lower than 54.76º for PE. In the tear strength test, PE showed nearly two time higher tear strength than the other two impression materials. VPES showed slightly lower tear strength than PVS. The tear strength of the three materials tested in increasing order was VPES, PVS, PE. VPES showed comparable detail reproduction to PVS and PE and better wettability than PE, but showed the lowest tear strength compared with PE and PVS.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and working from home conditions, hybrid work is becoming an increasingly common practice among companies. However, the mix of employees working from home and from the office creates a new environment for communication between employees and supervisors. Physical interactions in the office have proved to be important in allowing employees to present themselves and their work to colleagues and supervisors. Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate how hybrid work affects employees’ opportunities to make themselves and their work visible on equal terms. The method used is semi-structured interviews with employees and supervisors at two large Swedish companies. Results show that employees use continuous dialog, fostering close relations, and supporting colleagues to create favorable impressions in the hybrid workplace. These impression management tactics were motivated by both wanting to look good, as well as do good in the organization. Supervisors likewise agree these behaviors create favorable impressions, although supervisors are more likely to acknowledge behaviors that directly or indirectly assist the supervisors’ work. The study identified four aspects that affect employees’ impression management: routines for mutual meetings, trust and openness within the group, transparency in the work environment, and informal channels for interactions. The results indicate that a hybrid workplace with equal opportunities for managing impressions will decrease the risk of employees experiencing impression management as a sacrifice. However, the biggest challenge to create equal opportunities was identified as providing adequate informal channels for interaction - both generally in the remote environment, as well as informal channels that connect to the wider organization and higher ups in the physical office. / I kölvattnet av COVID-19-pandemin och påtvingat hemarbete, har hybridarbete blivit en alltmer vanligt förekommande arbetsform bland företag. Däremot skapar blandningen av att medarbetare arbetar delvis hemifrån och delvis från kontoret nya förutsättningar för kommunikation medarbetare emellan och med ens chefer. Fysiska interaktioner på kontoret har tidigare visats vara viktigt för medarbetare för att framställa sig själva och sitt arbete inför kollegor och chefer. Denna studie ämnar därav besvara hur hybridarbete påverkar medarbetares möjligheter att på lika villkor synliggöra sig själva och sitt arbete. Metoden som används är semistrukturerade intervjuer med medarbetare och chefer på två stora svenska företag. Resultaten visar att medarbetarna använder kontinuerlig dialog, främjande av närhet, och att stötta kollegor för att inge positiva intryck på den hybrida arbetsplatsen. Dessa taktiker för att skapa intryck motiveras både av viljan att se bra ut, och att göra gott för organisationen. Cheferna instämmer med att dessa beteenden skapar ett positivt intryck, även om cheferna är mer troliga att uppmärksamma beteenden som direkt eller indirekt underlättar deras arbete. Studien identifierar fyra aspekter som påverkar medarbetarnas möjligheter att skapa intryck: rutiner för gemensamma träffar, tillit och öppenhet, transparens i arbetsmiljön, samt informella kontaktvägar. Resultaten indikerar att en hybrid arbetsplats med jämlika möjligheter för medarbetarna att skapa intryck minskar risken av att medarbetarna uppfattar sina ansträngningar som uppoffringar. Däremot identifierades den största utmaningen i att skapa jämlika förutsättningar som att förse medarbetarna med lämpliga informella kontaktvägar - både generellt i distansarbetet, men även informella kontaktvägar till den större organisationen och högre uppsatta chefer på kontoret.

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Master of Arts / Department of Communication Studies, Theatre, and Dance / Nicole M. Laster / Goffman (1959) suggests that it is through communication that we are able to form impressions of self and express our identity to society. With the emergence of computer-mediated communication and social network sites we’ve witnessed a new form of communication online, and as a result, the traditional forms of impression management used to construct and display identity have shifted to include not just speaking or writing our identity, but displaying who we are through photographs online. This research investigates the connection between the use of a particular social network site, Facebook, and the pattern of impression management techniques through the management and addition of photographs on the site. A two-month ethnography of 16 participants was conducted followed by 3 interviews. Results indicate that digital natives (individuals who have grown up heavily in the presence of technology) tend to convey a variety of conflicting online identities through images, resulting in a “no consequences” generation that, while concerned with privacy, are more concerned with communicating an impression that fits within their primary social roles.