The aim of this research is to examine the determinants of the level of corporate risk disclosure (CRD) in the interim reports of Swedish non-financial companies. A quantitative research approach is used, the sample data of which consist of 166 firms with 4,849 interim reports over a 10-year period. By utilizing the notion of risk and its definition, I have distinguished three categories of risk, namely risk as uncertainty, risk as threat and risk as opportunity. A systematic content analysis is conducted with the use of a software program, which is specifically designed for this purpose. The number of sentences that contain keywords related to the three risk categories is counted as the total CRD score, which is transformed to the disclosure index. I have examined the impact of firms’ characteristics and corporate governance mechanisms on the level of CRD based on agency theory. The ordinary least squares regression method with  control for fixed year effects is used to analyse the data, which show that firm size and audit committee have a positive relationship with the level of corporate risk disclosure. The result demonstrates also that there is a negative relationship between family ownership and the level of CRD, and an insignificant relationship between leverage and the level of CRD.

A template tracker is a tracker based on matching a pre-initialised view of an object with the object's view in an image sequence. Using an error function, the intensity difference between the template view and the templated region in the image is measured. This error measure is used as the basis for a template alignment algorithm that will adjust the template's pose to more accurately register the template view with the view of the object in the image. Some significant problems present themselves with this simple tracker. Extraneous, or non-object, pixels within the template boundaries can cause bias in the registration of the template. Partial occlusions of the object's view in the image can also cause serious bias in the template's pose. Beyond simple occlusions there are transits of occlusions across an object. Occlusion transits are significant because over time they can occlude the entire object in an incremental fashion. If initially the template view is not completely known this kind of occlusion can easily cause a total tracking failure for an object. In this thesis three enhancements of the basic template tracker are proposed: Ownership Masks, Cooperative Templates, and Evolving Views. Ownership Masks are aimed at eliminating the extraneous pixels from the template view. Cooperative templates are used to separate the intensity probabilities when more than one template covers a pixel. Building upon both Ownership Masks and Cooperative Templates, Evolving Views update the template views when occlusion transits are a problem. With these enhancements we have been able to increase the accuracy of tracking objects where large portions of a template contain background pixels. Also occlusions and some types of unocclusions can be detected and discriminated. Finally, some failures in the basic tracker due to occlusion transits have been overcome.

Software reliability has not kept pace with computing hardware. Despite the use reliability improvement techniques and methods, faults remain that lead to software errors and failures. Runtime monitoring can improve software reliability by detecting certain errors before failures occur. Monitoring is also useful for online and electronic services, where resource management directly impacts reliability and quality. For example, resource ownership errors can accumulate over time (e. g. , as resource leaks) and result in software aging. Early detection of errors allows more time for corrective action before failures or service outages occur. In addition, the ability to monitor individual software concerns, such as application resource ownership structure, can help support autonomic computing for self-healing, self-adapting and self-optimizing software. <br /><br /> This thesis introduces <em>ResOwn</em> - an application resource ownership ontology for interactive session-oriented services. ResOwn provides software monitoring with enriched concepts of application resource ownership borrowed from real-world legal and ownership ontologies. ResOwn is formally defined in OWL-DL (Web Ontology Language Description Logic), verified using an off-the-shelf reasoner, and tested using the call processing software for a small <em>private branch exchange (PBX)</em>. The ResOwn Prime Directive states that every object in an operational software system is a resource, an owner, or both simultaneously. Resources produce benefits. Beneficiary owners may receive resource benefits. Nonbeneficiary owners may only manage resources. This approach distinguishes resource ownership use from management and supports the ability to detect when a resource's role-based runtime capacity has been exceeded. <br /><br /> This thesis also presents a greybox approach to concern-specific, dynamic software structure monitoring including a monitor architecture, greybox interpreter, and algorithms for deriving monitoring model from a monitored target's formal specifications. The target's requirements and design are assumed to be specified in SDL, a formalism based on communicating extended finite state machines. Greybox abstraction, applicable to both behavior and structure, provides direction on what parts, and how much of the target to instrument, and what types of resource errors to detect. <br /><br /> The approach was manually evaluated using a number of resource allocation and ownership scenarios. These scenarios were obtained by collecting actual call traces from an instrumented PBX. The results of an analytical evaluation of ResOwn and the monitoring approach are presented in a discussion of key advantages and known limitations. Conclusions and recommended future work are discussed at the end of the thesis.

Disclosure of accounting information is crucial in facilitating efficient contracts in the publicly listed firm and in reducing information asymmetries in capital markets. A well-known perception in disclosure literature is that, as the separation between managers and owners increases, so does the demand for publicly available disclosure. Many publicly listed firms around the world are controlled by a few large owners that obtain information through their insider positions in the firm. Thus, variations in ownership structures have a considerable effect on how firms’ disclosure practices are resolved. Despite the increased attention paid to the identity of controlling owners and their influence on financial reporting practices, little is known about how owner types and governance mechanisms influence corporate disclosures and capital-market effects. This thesis contributes to the disclosure literature by studying a context in which controlling owners have a large influence on the governance and disclosure practices of firms. This contrasts with the much-studied setting in which management influences the governance and reporting decisions of firms. Thus, the aim of this thesis is to examine the determinants and capital-market effects of Swedish listed firms’ annual report disclosure. This thesis uses a self-constructed disclosure index from manually gathered data from the annual reports of Swedish publicly listed firms during the years 2001 to 2013. This includes information on the notes to the financial statements, corporate governance and strategy. The findings of the four empirical studies show that the ownership structure of firms and the various contractual relationships that firms are engaged in, drive the disclosure practices. Additionally, the results indicate that higher levels of disclosure decrease information asymmetries between capital-market participants and increase trading activity. However, the findings also show that firms with controlling owners are less forthcoming with disclosure, even after a new disclosure reform. Considering the large influence of controlling owners in the studied context, these are important findings in the research field and in regulators’ processes of deriving disclosure regulation. The thesis concludes that the variety in firms’ disclosure incentives and local governance structures are important disclosure determinants to understand in framing international accounting standards.

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.

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.

Abstract Obviously, inside mediation through individuals or institutions emerged from the conflict situations becomes an alternative way to end armed conflict as it is regarded to have more local legitimacy with a higher sense of ownership. Surprisingly, researchers in peace and conflict studies have shown more interest to mediation processes dominated by outside mediators, while little has been known about the conditions that contribute to success of inside mediators. This thesis aims to contribute to this understudied research field by answering the question; under what conditions do mediators contribute to the ending of armed conflict in fragile states? In this thesis, I focus on the role of customary leaders, a form of inside mediators. The point of departure of this research question will be the distinction between the mediator’s involvements (Inside vs outside) and how their presence contribute to different outcomes. The variances will be explained with reference to two contending concepts of success and failure of mediation process. Success of mediators’ involvement can be measured by focusing on the following three areas; the initiation of peace process, conclusion of peace process and the sustainability of peace outcomes. The causal argument suggest that mediation processes dominated by inside mediators are more likely to end armed conflicts, as they have  more local legitimacy that can  engender a higher level of ownership, and sustain peace agreements as the actors feel engaged to the peace process. By testing this theory, this thesis applies the structured focused comparison method by selecting three cases of Southern, northwest and northeast regions in Somalia that have developed differently. The empirical findings of this thesis supports the hypothesis testes, as mediation processes dominated by inside mediators in Northeast and Northwest regions displayed a higher level of local ownership and legitimacy than the Southern regions. Finally, further researches on inside mediators success in a different countries is suggested in the future in order to know the level of inside mediators’ effectiveness in ending armed conflict.

Bakgrund: Svenska företag har visat sig vara bland de bästa i världen på hållbarhetsredovisning. Tidigare studier har försökt hitta förklaringsfaktorer för att definiera vilka faktorer som ökar den mängd hållbarhetsupplysningar företag rapporterar frivilligt. Ägarstrukturens påverkan på hållbarhetsredovisning är ett relativt outforskat område och ska därför förklaras i den här studien.   Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att genom en kvantitativ metod förklara hur ägarstrukturer påverkar hållbarhetsredovisning hos Large-Cap- och Mid-Cap företag noterade på Nasdaq OMX Stockholm.     Metod: Ämnet har testats utifrån skapandet av hypoteser och empiriska observationer. En innehållsanalys har gjorts genom granskning av 173 företags års- och hållbarhetsredovisningar, noterade på Nasdaq OMX Stockholm. Hållbarhetsredovisningen har studerat dels utifrån det ekonomiska perspektivet och dels utifrån det miljö och samhällsmässiga perspektivet.   Resultat/slutsats: Utifrån vår analys av de olika ägarstrukturerna och deras påverkan på hållbarhetsredovisning har slutsatsen blivit att det inte finns något större samband mellan de två.   Bidrag/framtida forskning: Ägarstrukturens förklaringsgrad visade sig vara låg då få signifikanta samband fanns mellan ägarstrukturer och hur de redovisar hållbarhet. Framtida forskningsförslag är att genom en kvalitativ och kvantitativ metod jämföra skillnader gällande hållbarhet som företag redovisar och deras faktiska hållbarhetsaktivitet.

Context: Software development is a complex socio-technical endeavor that involves coordinating different disciplines and skill sets. Practitioners experiment with and adopt processes and practices with a goal of making their work more effective. Objective: To observe, describe, and analyze software development processes and practices in an industrial setting. Our goal is to generate a descriptive theory of software engineering development, which is rooted in empirical data. Method: Following Constructivist Grounded Theory, we conducted a 2.5 year participant-observation of eight software projects at Pivotal, a software development company. We interviewed 33 software engineers, interaction designers, and product managers, and analyzed one year of retrospection topics. We iterated between data collection, data analysis and theoretical sampling until achieving theoretical saturation and generating a descriptive theory. Results: 1) This research introduces a descriptive theory of Sustainable Software Development. The theory encompasses principles, policies, and practices aiming at removing knowledge silos and improving code quality, hence leading to development sustainability. 2) At the heart of Sustainable Software Development is team code ownership. This research widens our understanding of team code ownership. Developers achieve higher team code ownership when they understand the system context, have contributed to the code in question, perceive code quality as high, believe the product will satisfy the user needs, and perceive high team cohesion. 3) This research introduces the first evidence-based waste taxonomy, identifying eight wastes along with causes and tensions, and compares it with Lean Software Development’s waste taxonomy. Conclusion: The Sustainable Software Development theory refines and extends our understanding of Extreme Programming by adding principles, policies, and practices (including Overlapping Pair Rotation) and aligning them with the business goal of sustainability. One key aspect of the theory is team code ownership, which is rooted in numerous cognitive, emotional, contextual and technical factors and cannot be achieved simply by policy. Another key dimension is waste identification and elimination, which has led to a new taxonomy of waste. Overall, this research contributes to the field of software engineering by providing new insights, rooted in empirical data, into how a software organization leverages and extends Extreme Programming to achieve software sustainability.

This study examines landownership structures and settlement during the Middle Ages in the province of Östergötland in Sweden. It departs from a critical approach to the established view of social structure and property in the Scandinavian medieval society. The investigations are made at two levels. The first level is a cross section of the mid 16th century. This investigation shows that lay aristocrats and ecclesiastical institutions controlled most of the land, especially in the core areas of the parishes. The second level is a detailed investigation at the farm level in six parishes starting from the middle of the 16th century and working retrogresively to the early Middle Ages. This study shows that the landowning structure of the 16th century can be traced back to about AD 1300. For the early Middle Ages reconstructions are made through inheritance successions and genealogies of the aristocratic families. These reconstructions show that, in some parishes, most of the land was probably controlled by a few very rich families or dynasties during the early Middle Ages. The results lead to a question about the Viking Age and medieval society in general. This question is answered in a hypothesis stressing the development of the concept of land ownership in combination with the development of the land tenure system as one of the important factors for reproduction of local power during the Viking Age and early Middle Ages.