This thesis investigates management accounting systems in a Swedish health care environment. Through a qualitative case study of an activity-based cost accounting system that was introduced in 1994 at S:t Görans Sjukhus, a large Stockholm hospital, the following questions are addressed: What benefits can an activity-based cost accounting system offer the Swedish health care providers? What are the potential problems impeding the implementation of such a system? Main findings: an activity-based cost accounting system can improve the understanding of where costs are generated in the production processes. Comparisons between alternative production processes are improved, and the data may serve as a basis for internal pricing measures. Concerning the second question, difficulty in reconciliating the principles of economic control with the culture present in a hospital is identified as the main obstacle to a new management accounting system..

The essay discusses the effects that changes to the office plan have on organizational culture. Information about actual change as well as expected change in organizational culture was gathered before the empirical research was initiated. The empirical research was carried out at the Customer Logistics department at Ericsson through: an interview with a manager in charge of the relocation and design of the office, a manager for the specified department and also five employees of this department. The empirical studies show that there was a significant change in organizational culture and that results were not always as expected. There was a loss in symbolic actions, which needed to be compensated for, a perceived reduction in spontaneous communication, and a mixed response of perceived change in social interaction.

The purpose of this research was to examine the current field of management in non-profit organizations, mainly focusing on managerial approaches, but also the impact of organizational size on the shaping of governance. Non-profits are widely discussed in contemporary research, particularly due to the increasing external pressure on voluntary organization to professionalize the way they work in line with standards in the private sector. Due to this our thesis aims to investigate whether professional, bureaucratic approaches are useful when governing a non-profit organization, or if social structures are enough to ensure goal congruence and efficiency. To conduct this research qualitative interviews were carried out and a case- study was made, using the Swedish Karate Federation as object of study. Results show that formal and more professional structures are useable to achieve efficiency and prevent inertia within the organization.

From a management point of view, enabling organizational creativity is often referred to as reducing immediate control, increasing autonomy and enhancing the access to slack resources. At the same time, the business environment of today is fiercer than it was only a decade ago, and this renders a quest for more efficient approaches to competitively run a business. This paper aims to examine creative industries and more specifically try to identify a set of elements that are common for successful companies. As this industry has not been subject to any considerable array of studies, this thesis seeks to establish a structure for how to take both organizational models and leadership theories into account when developing an understanding for the process, organization and leadership of the creative business. By studying six separate creative companies, our findings suggest that conventional theories on organizational creativity do not adequately account for all factors that contribute to these companies' creative success.

IKEA is probably one of the most well known Swedish companies in the world. During thepast decades millions of people all across the globe have decorated their homes according tothe style of IKEA. But just exactly how big and influential are they? Many, if not to say all,municipalities in Sweden wants IKEA to establish and build their famous stores in one oftheir towns. But at what cost? When deciding on a municipality to establish in, IKEAnormally tends to have an advantage when it comes to controlling the conditions and terms ofthe establishment.To undertake this dissertation I use a theory based upon the inter-organizational theoriescalled resource dependency theory.

Metod/Method: Semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts med kommunchefen, personalchefen, fyra medarbetare och en facklig representant i Sala kommun. Materialet från intervjuerna analyserades sedan bland annat med hjälp av två av Morgans organisationsmetaforer, Kotters 8 steg, agil projektledning och Derbys tidigare forskning inom området./ Semi-structured interviews have been conducted with the local head of government, the human resource manager, four employees and a union member in Sala kommun. The material from the interviews was then analyzed with help from Morgans organizational metaphors, Kotters 8 step, agile project management and Derbys earlier research on the area. Slutsatser/Results: En organisationsförändring enligt agil projektledning innebar att de teoretiska rekommendationerna för hur en organisationsförändring ska genomföras följdes. Att personalen gjordes delaktig i förändringen gjorde att motståndet mot organisationsförändringen kunde minimeras vilket var den största fördelen.

Calculations are an important part of planning around a construction project. From concept to completion of the project calculation is a tool to try to predict the actual cost. During the production stage in particular, deviations occur which makes the actual cost different from the calculations.This thesis is done in collaboration with JM Residential Stockholm. The study includes a cost follow-up in which a comparison was made between the calculated production cost and actual cost for the five projects. The aim of the study was to observe the most common reasons that a project deviates from the calculated production cost and then summing these causes in a number of categories.

In 2003 the libraries of ten municipalities in the northern part of Sweden were each given 10 000 (SEK) by the BIN-project to purchase books on demand instead of making inter-library loans. This attempt was called Köpa på efterfrågan (Purchasing on demand). The purpose of this master thesis is to evalutate Köpa på efterfrågan. The results of the evaluation show that the books purchased on demand were quite popular. Almost all the purchased books were non-fictional with most books being bought within the field of medicin.

Does goodwill affect the cost of capital? Goodwill is an asset which is characterized by much uncertainty regarding both what it is and how much it is really worth. Based on economic theory about information risk and principal-agent problems as well as theory regarding the cost of capital we test for the hypothesis that debt and equity investors perceive goodwill as something risky and hence demand compensation for taking on this extra risk. The proxies used for the cost of capital are cost of debt, beta and the EP-ratio. On a general level we find that increasing the level of goodwill seems to result in higher cost of capital as represented by the three proxies.

Metod/Method: Semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts med kommunchefen, personalchefen, fyra medarbetare och en facklig representant i Sala kommun. Materialet från intervjuerna analyserades sedan bland annat med hjälp av två av Morgans organisationsmetaforer, Kotters 8 steg, agil projektledning och Derbys tidigare forskning inom området./ Semi-structured interviews have been conducted with the local head of government, the human resource manager, four employees and a union member in Sala kommun. The material from the interviews was then analyzed with help from Morgans organizational metaphors, Kotters 8 step, agile project management and Derbys earlier research on the area. Slutsatser/Results: En organisationsförändring enligt agil projektledning innebar att de teoretiska rekommendationerna för hur en organisationsförändring ska genomföras följdes. Att personalen gjordes delaktig i förändringen gjorde att motståndet mot organisationsförändringen kunde minimeras vilket var den största fördelen. De nackdelar som fanns med en agil projektledning vid organisationsförändringen var i princip obefintliga i jämförelse med fördelarna./ Organizational change according to agile project management made sure that the presented theoretical recommendations on how to succeed with organizational change were followed.

BackgroundIncubators are important facilities for economic growth in society. The main purpose of incubators is to accelerate knowledge intensive firms onto their market by both providing resources and an entrepreneurial environment.Problem Companies within incubators are encouraged to share knowledge and experience with each other with the goal to stimulate development and invention of new technology. This exchange involves interaction on an inter-personal and inter-organizational level. Incubators need to create an open and transparent environment in order to enable this exchange on both levels.Purpose The purpose of this study is to enhance the understanding of how knowledge and experience exchange occurs within the context of incubator systems. By understanding how incubators can capture knowledge and learn from the incubator process, this study can contribute by insights of how the incubator process can be further improved.Method This bachelor thesis is written from an abductive approach and is based on a qualitative case study of Ideon Innovation in Lund.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how a valuation model of a Private Equity firm is interpreted into a management control system within the company's different organizational levels. A case study was developed based on the infra-net company Eltel. The management control systems developed by Malmi and Brown (2008)(1) was used to characterize the control systems at each organizational level. The building blocks of this system are planning, cybernetic, reward/compensation, administrative and culture. Miller and O'Learys (2007)(2) theory of mediating instruments and technology roadmaps was applied to analyze the mediating process of the valuation model.

The bulk of the research within the field of media and communication is concentrated at theforefront of development, studies focus on modern companies and modern communication.However, many people work in the industry, where the conditions for communication are partly different. The aim of this study is to explore the possibilities for internal communication that the employees have at the base industrial company of Billerud Gruvön, Sweden. How important do they feel that communication is? Can the internal communication within Gruvön be described as modern, where dialogue between the staff is possible, or as orders from the top down to the bottom of the hierarchal structure?These are our research questions:Which channels are used for communication within Gruvön, and how are they used?How important do the employees deem the internal communication to be?Can the communication within a hierarchal industrial company such as Gruvön be described as modern, where dialogue is at the center, or does the communication consist basically on orders from the top down to the bottom of the chain?Our research is based on the following theories: Communication, Organizational communication, Internal communication and Organizational culture. We have looked to earlier research such as the doctorates of Simonsson (2002) and Johansson (2003) to further our understanding.The methods used are interviews with operators, middle management and the informationofficer at Gruvön.

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of how medium-sized construction companies adapt and how they choose to reorganize their operations in relation to the recession. The study has as its theoretical starting point theories about organizational learning, the impact of the economy on construction companies and strategies for dealing with recessions. The method used to conduct the study was semi-structured interviews with representatives from 15 different construction companies. The results of the study show that they used several strategies to adapt and reorganize the business in accordance with the recession. Some construction companies had to make cost savings as a result of the recession.

How can a multi project organisation use Wiki to support improvement of knowledge management and project evaluation to become a learning organisation? The main purpose of this thesis is to give management and employees a better understanding of how Wiki supports knowledge management and project evaluation. The second purpose is to illustrate possible difficulties and pit falls that comes with the implementation of Wiki based learning. The theoretical framework initiates by explaining multi project organizations, then describes Argyris and Schöns theories about organizational learning and learning organizations. The second half of the theory chapter brings up theories about important areas for a learning organization.