Bachelor thesis, Business Administration and Economics Programme, School of Business and Economics at Linnaeus University in Va?xjo?.Spring of 2015 Title: Performance measurement from a cost leadership perspective - A case study on Gekås.Authors: Adrienn Csiszer, Hannah Lundberg & Helena WennerströmTutor: Eva GustavssonExaminer: Karin Jonnergård Keywords: Performance measurement, Performance measurement systems, Generic strategy, Cost leadership strategy, Financial and non-financial measurements. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine how a company with a clear cost leadership strategy chooses to work with performance measurements, with a view to comparing a practical example to theorethical approaches. Methodology: The method chosen for this paper is a case study on Gekås AB. The presented data were collected through interviews conducted with four employees on Gekås. Conclusion: The study concludes that for a business with cost leadership strategy the financial measurements are more important than non-financial meausurements. For Gekås it is important to keep the performance measurement simple and understandable for the employees. They only use three measurements (sales, hours and sales per hour) in planning and in evaluation.

As IT service departments in organisations are becoming more complex and customised, the indirect costs are increasing in relation to the total costs. The difficulty of fully estimating and identifying the spread of the cost in the IT service department is increasing. As a result, firms tend to budget the business unit as a total cost rather than as a spread of defined costs. In order to deal with this challenge an ABC calculation will be applied. The Time Driven ABC model will be conducted in OMX´s Servicedesk unit within the IT services.

The goal of this paper is to provide a model for a sustainable electricity system to an island, in the Pacific Ocean near the equator.The method which has been used is to model supply and demand of electricity in the computer program Stella, through the creation of a dynamic system that balances them against each other. The result from the model will then be used to calculate the electricity price per kWh for the island.The result of the work is that electricity from solar energy is comparable with electricity produced from oil, if the oil pays for all its external costs, and the potential for pumped hydro storage plants is located. It also requires that consumers of electricity can be their own producers to avoid the expenditure of tax and reducing the cost of distribution. But since oil is a finite resource and has had a rising cost in recent years, while solar energy has had a declining cost, perhaps this will be a more competitive solution in the future.

Life Cycle Cost, often abbreviated as LCC, is a common tool for comparing the total cost of different alternatives, such as heating and cooling methods. Common heating and cooling methods in Sweden are geothermal energy, district heating and district cooling. This report aims to evaluate how different heating and cooling methods differ from each other while being applied on three different types of buildings, using selected LCC-models. Information about the selected LCC-models wasretrieved from each separate model and its website. Reports and agencies were used as sources for information about the heating and cooling methods.

Driveability analysis of terrain data offers an important technique for decision support for all kinds of movements in the terrain. The work described in this report uses a high resolution digital terrain model generated from the laser radar data and further processed by the Category Viewer program, and information from the Real Estate Map. Properties of features found in a filtering process are calculated and compared with a set of rules in a knowledge base to get a driveability cost. This cost is then visualized in a graphical user interface. An evaluation of what driveability is and what it is affected by is performed, and a general cost function is developed, which can be used even if not all relevant information is available.

Aid effectiveness is a reoccuring theme in the social sciences. Maybe rightfully so, as development is slow in many parts of the developing world. Core literature on the matter seems to suggest that aid effectiveness is contingent on recipients? level of corruption. Assuming this to be true, I examine the EU?s disbursements of Official Development Assistance over the past decade by running regressions: is there a relationship between the level of aid received, and a country?s level of corruption? As the EU is one of the largest donors of foreign aid globally, and has the power to shape the global foreign aid agenda, this question puts to the test whether the EU is leading the way, or rather is an obstacle in front.

The aim of this study was to compare the Query-by-Humming systems Midomi, Musicline and Tunebot regarding their retrieval effectiveness. The aim was to see if there were differences between the systems but also between the user groups common users, musicians and singers. Query-by-Humming system means that the user sings a tune that the system then use to find the right melody.To compare the systems and their users, queries where collected from the different user groups and replayed for the systems. Mean Reciprocal Rank and Friedman test was used to do the comparison.The results showed that the system did not achieve equivalent and that there were no difference between the user groups. The Mean Reciprocal Rank showed that the systems had very different retrieval effectiveness, where Midomi was the system with best result and Musicline with the lowest result..

This thesis analyses the cost accounting system KPP and its use within the Swedish health care. KPP is designed to calculate and assign health care costs to individual patients. This would facilitate evaluations and comparisons of the costs for certain diagnosis, patient groups or clinics with a different mix of diagnosis. The study investigates the following questions: 1. Does the KPP-model theoretically work as a cost accounting tool for health care purposes? 2.

Tomo Hugglink (TOMO Skog) is an innovation for harvest and transport of biofuels. The system consists of a truck, a chipping unit and crane mounted on a link and a wood chip trailer. The system works in such a way that the chipping unit is disconnected and placed on the site and wood chips are loaded directly into the wood chip trailer.The aim of this study was:- To examine the performance of the TOMO Hugglink system under different conditions such as the size, placement and quality of the pile.- To calculate the cost per raw ton for two vehicle combinations at different transport distances and to examine the effect of a reduction in set-up time and an increase in load weight.- To identify possible improvements with the TOMO Hugglink system.A time study was conducted within the thesis work to make it possible to determine production and time consumption. In the subsequent economic analysis the cost per tone at different transport distances was calculated for two different lorry concepts. Furthermore the effect of a reduction in set-up time and an increase in load weight was calculated.Under current conditions the utilization of the chipper is low and only 29 % of the total system time is occupied by chipping.

Title: The component approach - From the harmonization process as a background to the perception of benefits and costs as effects.Authors: Elin Börjesson & Emma KarlssonTutor: Titti EliassonKey concept: Harmonization, Component approach and Benefit/CostBackground: With IFRS for SME's as a basis, the Accounting Board developed K3 which shall apply from financial year 2014. Upon introduction of the K3 companies will be forced to apply the component approach. When K3 with the associated component approach went out for consultation it resulted in a debate where some actors opposed the imposition of a requirement and not an option. It was questioned whether the costs with the component approach would be greater than the benefit of the implementation.Formulation of the problem: How is the introduction and use of the component approach seen by different operators from a benefit-, cost perspective?Aim: The aim of this essay is find out how the introduction and use of the component approach is seen by different operators from a benefit-, cost perspective.

The aim of this study is to describe and analyse the knowledge of three of the treatment methods used in youth welfare and this is accomplished through a knowledge review. This study contains an analysis of three different treatment methods described in eleven different peer reviewed articles. The articles are all internationally published between the years 2006 to 2012 and they are all effectiveness evaluations. The articles deal with treatment methods concerning Motivational interviewing (MI), Aggression Replacement Training (ART) and Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and these are three of the most common in youth welfare in Sweden. There is not much knowledge of Swedish conditions and that is why this study focuses on international research.

With the elevated oil prices of today it is necessary to look for other heating alternatives. If the oil price continues to develop in the same way it has done the last years it will soon be impossible for many producing garden companies to survive. The purpose of this diploma work is to compare three different fuel options in order to find the most economic one considering the conditions of Katrinebergs Handelsträdgård AB. In relation to oil it is profitable to change to any of the three alternatives: wood chips, wood pellets and grain. The most profitable option is to change to wood chips. This alternative has a payoff time less than three years and after that the annual saving compared to the oil is relatively high. The annual cost is 65 % of the cost of the oil alternative.

Since 1996 the Swedish households have ten folded their volume of loans for own homes that is attached to a floating interest rate. Also in 1996 the Swedish electric market was deregulated. These two facts have increased the volatility in the household expenses for these two commodities. This thesis studies the risk for homeowners attached to the exposure against the electric and the credit market. The risk model used is Cost-at-Risk which is usually used by public authorities for analysing the risk involved with national debt.

There is consensus in research, policy, business and many other areas around the benefits of creativity. Previous research shows that creativity is only spurred under certain conditions. Usually creativity is not associated with concepts such as control, deadline or cost effectiveness. Companies, by contrast, have the need for control and management of their operations, which implies that the two processes can be difficult to reconcile. A company that wants a high creativity while maintaining control and management is forced into a series of organizational compromises.

As IT service departments in organisations are becoming more complex and customised, the indirect costs are increasing in relation to the total costs. The difficulty of fully estimating and identifying the spread of the cost in the IT service department is increasing. As a result, firms tend to budget the business unit as a total cost rather than as a spread of defined costs. In order to deal with this challenge an ABC calculation will be applied. The Time Driven ABC model will be conducted in OMX´s Servicedesk unit within the IT services.