AbstractTitle:The Impact of Management control systems on the Purchaser Function - A study of Scania and Sandvik Authors: Mohammad Reza Akhbari and Johanna Sullivan Svensson Published: 2011 Keywords: Management control, purchasing function, impact, control, control instruments, Key Performance Indicators, measurement, communication and organizational structure. Background and problem formulation: In order for a company?s business idea or vision to be fulfilled, the management of a company needs assistance from various means to intentionally affect the operation in the desired direction. Management control concerns activities of both financial and non-financial character in order to implement the strategy of a company and to reach profitability. Since the purchaser function is responsible of spending 50 percent of a company?s total revenue, the function has an optimal starting point to be a key actor in the shaping and execution of a company?s strategic plan.

The aim of this study is to examine and analyze how management control mechanisms evolve within an organization when a requirement of return on equity is imposed, as well as why the mechanisms evolve the way they do. A case study was performed on Samhall, a Swedish state-owned company, which has the aim to help people with disabilities develop by providing meaningful work. The framework provided by Samuelsson, defining five means of control in organizations was used to structure the study. Further, theories within New Public Management have been used to provide the reader with a proper background to the research area. Theories from the institutional field of organizational research have also been used to provide further depth to our analysis.

The use of temporary workers gives companies the opportunity to be flexible, by avoiding hiring and dismissing workers because of economic conditions and trends in demand. The management control in use at the company has the purpose of influencing employees? behaviour to act in the company?s best interest and towards its goals. The management control should also influence the behaviour of the temporary worker. The companies have to create motivation and commitment among the temporary workers although they are employed by a staffing agency.

AbstractThis report is about the creation of a test system for development of a control system for a off the shelf RC-helicopter, which can be bought for about two thousand SEK. The test system consists of both electronics for controlling the helicopter and mechanical constrainer. The constrainer is used for mounting the helicopter so that it won´t crash.A circuit board including processor and sensors was manufactured. This was used for doing test of the different control algorithms. In this way were we able to analyze the quality of the sensors chosen, and what other sensors that could contribute to the control of the system.Basic helicopter control have been studied and presented in the report.

In today's globalized world it is essential to achieve goal congruence within a multinational corporation despite the distances between the headquarters and subsidiaries. A case study has been performed to examine how control of sales units within a Swedish multinational corporation is achieved. Otley's framework has been used in the study to provide an overall picture of the control system where the analysis is based on five areas: key objectives and goal evaluation, strategies and plans, target setting process, incentives and motivation as well as information flows. To complement this framework, theories of convergence and divergence by Busco et al. have been used as well as theories of hierarchical control and self-control by Holmström.

The purpose of this thesis is to find means of control that secure cost efficiency regarding the accommodation for the employees on missions abroad of the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Today the ministry?s cost for the employees? rented housing is 100 million SEK and there is a need of improvement in the control of these costs. A work method for organizational development will be used in order to reach the findings presented in the thesis. First we study the strengths and weaknesses in today?s control system.

The purpose of this essay was to examine whether small businesses can avoid ac-counting crimes with a well-conducted internal control system. The questions we asked ourselves was, whether and if so, companies can prevent this from happening by using a internal control.In this essay we used a qualitative approach. Essential information was given to us from four different interviewees. We also worked from an inductive approach which means that we interviewed people without any earlier research to build on. The method also had a hermeneutical approach, which means that we made different interpretations based on the reference framework and the empirics.After the study had been carried out, we concluded that all evidence from this essay suggested that even small businesses need an internal control to protect their business.

By the year of 2007, 97 % of all listed companies in Europe had a CSR strategy described on their website. As the concept of CSR during the last decades has increased rapidly in popularity, a need to understand how such a strategy can be implemented has followed. While working with CSR in an integrated manner shows similarities to other popular management ideas, such as Lean and TQM, companies applying to a CSR strategy has been shown to be under higher scrutiny from media and NGO:s. Through a case study this thesis examines how these special circumstances of a CSR strategy makes The Body Shop use organizational control to avoid being subject to scandals due to not fulfilling the promises made to its customers. The results show that The Body Shop's commitment to CSR creates a need for a stringent bureaucratic control system that highly restricts the freedom of action for its employees.

This document is a summary of my work to create a project management system for a small firm working with computer graphics. The intention is to manage customers, projects, images and invoices in the easiest possible way. To make the system as flexible as possible a web-interface was chosen which makes it possible to access the system from any computer, making it independent of any particular operating system. The only requirement on the user environment is that the computer must have a connection to the Internet to be able to access the system. The different techniques that have been used to develop the project management system is primarily Ruby on Rails and a MySQL database.

Background: Many companies have outsourced their IT-operations and their expectations of what this IT-outsourcing will contribute to the business are high. Cost cuts are not always a natural outcome of IT-outsourcing. Many companies that have outsourced their IT-operations consider it to be problematic and complex to exercise management control and reach cost control which was the purpose of the IT-outsourcing. Purpose: To describe and analyze what affect IT-outsourcing has on a company?s Management control system and a company?s possibility to exercise cost control.

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.

This bachelor thesis aims to analyse the effects of changes in Management control systems following acquisitions, and deduce whether or not these effects are in line with the acquiring firm's objectives of the acquisition. Through a case study of technician consultant firm Energo, acquired in 2010 by ÅF, the study assumes the perspective of the acquired firm. Data has been collected through in-depth interviews at Energo and ÅF and complemented by internal documents to enrich and validate specific facts and statements. Data was then arranged and analysed through Otley and Fierriera's (2009) framework Performance Management Systems to understand how Management control systems were constituted before the acquisition, what changes were made following the acquisition, how this process was accomplished and how it was experienced, in order to come to conclusions about the effects of these changes. The study concludes that the changes in Energo's Management control system following the integration with ÅF, had significant effects on the outcome of the acquisition, primarily as it led to a high rate of Energo's employees resigning.

A cars powertrain consists of everything that is needed for its propulsion. The components in the driveline that transfer the power from the engine to the driven wheels are not absolutely stiff, hence they will wind up due to the torque and act as torsion springs. If you suddenly demand a bigger torque by stepping on the accelerator pedal, a so called tip in manoeuvre, and that torque is acquired from the engine as quickly as possible, the driveline will not be able to transfer that fast torque change due to its weakness and as a result it will start to oscillate. These oscillations will be transferred to the driven wheels and make the car to accelerate jerkily which will be experienced as uncomfortable by the passengers. Furthermore, there is a backlash in the driveline that will make the weakness in the driveline even more excited than it should have been if the backlash did not existed.To avoid too big problems with these oscillations there is a control system that controls the demanded torque.

Title: Co-operative, prevent or complement? - An essay on the relationships between control systems. Authors: Kim Eriksson and Victoria KarlssonPurpose: The essay aims to describe the relations between control systems and how they related to each other, based on an operationalization of the control systems. Research question: What are the control systems relations to each other? With regards whether control systems co-operative, prevents and/or complement each other.Theoretical framework: The essays theoretical framework is based on Malmi and Browns (2008) description of five different control systems and control mechanisms associated with each control system.   Research methodology: The method was based on three different data collection methods. These methods were observations, documentation, and semi-structured interviews.Conclusions: It is concluded that the control systems has comprehensive relations. Control systems have more, than one, relation to each other..

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.