This thesis is based on an assignment from a unit within an international group manufacturing industrial products. The purpose of the thesis is to analyze and suggest ways to improve the cost accounting system in use at the unit. The main source of empirical data has been interviews with employees. The theoretical framework is based on a comparison between traditional/standard costing and activity-based costing (ABC). The cost accounting system in use is described in detail and classified as a traditional/standard cost accounting system.

This qualitative case study, made with four companies, looks closer at how more effective information management, with the help of IT-systems, affect companies market communication and relations to customers and suppliers. Customer Relationship Management perspective is used and Enterprise Resource Planning-systems are the ground for new technology change. The main conclusions are that new technology affects the outcome of companies? relationships towards their customers and suppliers and that the processes and activities between the involved parties are more closely linked. Also involving your suppliers and external actors makes the information handling more effective and companies that do so most likely have a competitive advantage..

Today's high oil prices and more stringent environmental requirements have led to that manufacturers of mobile construction equipment try to make their products more energy efficient. With this in mind a project about hybridization of hydraulic systems has been formed. The purpose of this project was to analyze the savings that can be achieved by hybridization of hydraulic systems. A reach stacker truck (Kalmar DRD450-80S4XS) were simulated in some load cases with conventional hydraulic systems and with three types of hybridized hydraulic systems. Different parts of the hydraulic systems were also analyzed separately.

The management of information is a significant competitiveness in companies. Companies stored and save information every day, and it is very common to save de information in different sources. This makes de management of information complex. To mange, monitor and analyze the information, companies can use a system called Business Intelligence. BI system is an analytical system that extracts and converts data into useful information that helps employees to make informed decisions.

There are some key elements which distinguish a general operating system, such as Linux, from a Real Time operating system, such as OSE. The later belongs to the category of soft Real Time systems while Linux is a general operating system, with significantly improved real time properties after version 2.6. These improvements make it interesting to compare the two systems.When comparing two operating systems, there are a number of issues which have to be considered. One way to measure the performance of the systems is by studying the time consumption for the same functionality and hardware.During the study, the items that appeared as the most important for the performance of the systems, were: process primitives, system primitives, interprocess communication, context switches and interrupt latency.This work demonstrates that it is possible and reasonable to do performance testing on two different operating systems. The implemented tests cover a number of basic functionalities, which appeared to be the most crucial ones for the performance of the systems..

 IAS 40 allows two methods of valuation for investment properties, fair value model and cost model. The purpose of this paper is to investigate what drive property companies to disclose their investment properties at fair value. In order to understand their choice, we use accounting choice theory and the three factors this theory describes, information asymmetry, allowing opportunism and agency costs. To answer our purpose, we have from a qualitative approach performed semi-structured interviews with respondents from five of the largest listed property companies in Sweden. The results suggest that firms have chosen the method that is most effective in the valuation of investment properties.

The study examines how efficiency and effectiveness are measured in charity organizations in Sweden. The rules of Svensk Insamlingskontroll, Årsredovisningslagen and Bokföringslagen make up the accounting framework upon which efficiency and effectiveness are measured in charity organizations. The study is based upon interviews with the sector's main actors: Svensk Insamlingskontroll, Frivilligorganisationernas insamlingsråd, auditors and the charity organizations themselves. The interviews are supplemented by studies of the guidelines issued by Svensk Insamlingskontroll. Today's measure of efficiency is the percentage of a charity organization's income that benefits their goals, called nyckeltalet.

Laws, regulations and generally accepted accounting principles hold options on how companies should recognize revenue. Generally accepted accounting principles are determined by standard-setting bodies as the Accounting Standards Board and the Financial Supervisory Authority, which is influenced by international standard-setting bodies as the IASB. Service revenue is generally recognized when performance is completed, but there are variations in when a performance is considered complete. The different accounting options available create difficulties in comparing companies over time and between companies, which in turn creates difficulties to achieve a true and fair view. By clarifying what methods and principles in accounting for service income the unlisted companies in Sweden are using and why these differences exist, we have been able to study how the comparability and the true and fair view is affected by these differences.

The management of information is a significant competitiveness in companies. Companies stored and save information every day, and it is very common to save de information in different sources. This makes de management of information complex. To mange, monitor and analyze the information, companies can use a system called Business Intelligence. BI system is an analytical system that extracts and converts data into useful information that helps employees to make informed decisions.

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is a genre of computerized systems which allows system development corporations to efficiently and more easily manage, maintain and handle the applications lifecycle. These ALM systems have a wide variety of tools which can be integrated to enable and support collaborative work, while they act at the core of the organisation. Todays ALM systems support flexible system development methods throughout the entire development process. This paper focuses on a case-study of a Swedish business- and technology corporation and their use of two ALM systems with an aim to unravel the differences between these systems and their functionality to serve as a basis for decision making regarding their utilization of best practice with their ALM-Systems. Meanwhile we studied their approach to ALM systems to see if they were using them according to the initial idea of ALM systems.

Laws, regulations and generally accepted accounting principles hold options on how companies should recognize revenue. Generally accepted accounting principles are determined by standard-setting bodies as the Accounting Standards Board and the Financial Supervisory Authority, which is influenced by international standard-setting bodies as the IASB. Service revenue is generally recognized when performance is completed, but there are variations in when a performance is considered complete. The different accounting options available create difficulties in comparing companies over time and between companies, which in turn creates difficulties to achieve a true and fair view. By clarifying what methods and principles in accounting for service income the unlisted companies in Sweden are using and why these differences exist, we have been able to study how the comparability and the true and fair view is affected by these differences. The aim was to study the underlying factors that companies do their financial report differently.

Background: The latest development within the business world has been characterized by deregulation and globalization which has made the company bigger and even more influential. The increased power has resulted in a shift of responsibility for the community from the public to the private sector. (Steinholtz och Löhman, 2003) There have been many trends regarding what accountability includes and how financial accounting can be complimented in a useful and reliable way. Some trends have come to stay whilst others have shown to be less successful or the world has not been ready for them. (Larsson, a, 2002) Purpose: The purpose with this paper is to look at the historical development towards accounting for sustainability and to investigate what factors that might have hade an impact on this development.

Problem: How is management accounting change understood via the duality perspective in the field of alternative management accounting research?Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to develop a tool for analysis aspiring to provide understanding for how differences and similarities with regards to the duality perspective may have different consequences for understanding management accounting change.Contribution: This paper aspires towards a theoretical contribution through an in-depth review of existing conceptual literature. This is done to gain clarity in definitions and uses of concepts, with related terms, referring or relating to duality. Through clarifying different meanings of duality, consequences for how to understand management accounting change, and the different approaches to using a duality perspective, the tool for analysis which is developed in this essay aims to contribute to a movement of alternative management accounting research towards increased comparability as well as increased insight into how management accounting change is currently understood through this type of research.Method: Literature reviews based on Booth et al.s SALSA-framework. Creation of a tool for analysis for usage when reviewing material based on a duality perspective.Conclusions: The duality perspective differs, and affects understanding of management accounting change, in accordance with the following five themes:Theme 1: The duality perspective is affected by differences in the use of definitions/descrptions.Theme 2: The duality perspective is affected by different purposes of the agent and different credit given to the agents power/ability to alter change.Theme 3: The content of the duality perspective is affected by the existence and purpose off being inspired by different theoretical approaches.Theme 4: The duality perspective affects the idea and understanding of the form and expression/process of management accounting.Theme 5: Different duality perspectives have the ability to lead science against increased pluralism and/or synthesisIn order to increase understanding for and comparability between scientific contributions through a duality perspective there is to some extent a need for more and better definitions and a more problematizing when combining theoretical approaches.

The connection between management control systems for controlling sustainability and a firm's motivation for engaging in sustainability is not completely understood (Arjaliès & Mundy, 2013). The aim of this thesis is to develop a more profound understanding for management control in achieving sustainable companies. To do this, we raise the question: How and to what extent do companies use management control systems to achieve sustainability compliance Simons's Levers of Control (1995) are applied to this question in order to get a consistent and thorough insight of management control systems. Hence, a case study of ABB:s work to achieve material compliance in accordance with EU-regulation was conducted. The findings of the case study reveal that ABB uses the regulations as explicit goals and implement them in sustainability procedures.

The background to this final thesis is that our mandator, A-hus, was interested to examine which roof system that would be most appropriate to their types of houses. To investigate this, we first conducted an evaluation of the most commonly used roof systems in Sweden today: decking, board, roof cloth and prefabricated roof cassettes.To gather information about the different systems we have conducted interviews with several professionals within the construction industry, done an extensive literature study, and gathered information from the Internet.Based on the evaluation of roof systems and the literature, we analyzed advantages and disadvantages of the roof systems from three main perspectives: system characteristics, economics and other characteristics. We found these perspectives to be the most relevant when selecting a roof system.The main perspectives comprise three categories which are graded. These grades are then added together for a score for each main perspective and a total score for the three main perspectives. Then we compared the systems and, based on the scores, suggested one roof system as the most suitable for A-hus.Our result suggests that the prefabricated roof cassettes probably is the best solution for A-hus, but only if it is possible to standardize the cassettes and still maintain the flexibility to match A-hus? house types.