Det finns i management control-litteraturen en efterfra?gan pa? studier som tar ett helhetsperspektiv pa? styrsystem (Management Control Systems, MCS) och som fo?rklarar hur dessa system bidrar till effektivitet hos organisationer. Utifra?n ett contingency-synsa?tt underso?ker vi i denna studie hur kulturell styrning och prestationsma?tning som delar av MCS, tillsammans med den kontextuella variabeln osa?kerhet i omgivningen, pa?verkar hur effektiva organisationer a?r. Vi antar en systemansats och o?nskar studera relationen mellan fler variabler, och da?rfo?r tilla?mpas en klusteranalys da?r datamaterialet delas in i grupper med liknande karakta?ristika.

The purpose of this Master?s Thesis is to examine the information use and information behavior of the scientists at the company ?Forskningsbolaget?. For this purpose an Information Audit was carried out using both interviews with six managers and a questionnaire, which was sent out to the entire population of 213 scientists. After finding out what information the scientists use and how they obtain it the aim was to answer the question of to what extent the company?s Information Centre can meet these needs.

In this essay I examine how a municipal- and an independent upper secondary school compare to the ideal types the Company and the Political organization and how that affects the school practise as it?s described in policy documents. The conclusions are that the municipal school on a number of variables correlate to the ideal type the Political organization. At the same time the school reforms of the 1990s are considered as an intention to ?companylize? the municipal school and a number of tendencies how that have affected the municipal school are shown.

Design Thinking är ett spännande och fortfarande relativt outforskat område med rötter i Service Management. Med hjälp av designerns verktyg och metoder och en mångvetenskaplig grund med fokus på kundens behov kan Design Thinking bidra till att utveckla produkter och tjänster och genom detta öka lönsamheten för företag. Syftet är att göra en deskriptiv studie av området Design Thinking som metodiskt arbetssätt vid tjänsteutveckling. Detta appliceras sedan på verkligheten för att komparativt se hur tre svenska bolag arbetar med tjänstutveckling inom en av världens största tjänstebranscher utifrån områdena Service Management och Design Thinking. Uppsatsen beskriver utvecklingen från Service Management till Design Thinking och hur man har gått från att utveckla tjänster till att designa tjänster.

The industry of management training programs is increasing rapidly. Every year numerous organizations sponsor expensive management training programs for their managers, hoping that this will pay off and make the organizations more profitable. The companies that offer these management training programs could be seen as important conveyers of conceptions of leadership. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to identify similarities between a number of management training programs and see how they are related to different leadership theories , and based on this try to recognize the conceptions of leadership that are conveyed. The study is of qualitative nature and is based on interviews with representatives from five management training companies in Sweden along with a text analysis of written material presented by the companies.

Recent years have been very turbulent for most private equity firms. Especially the financial meltdown in global economy has affected the industry, but also the public pressure has made private equity houses change their control strategies towards more conventional methods used in public companies. This thesis aims to put light on the control methods used in listed private equity houses which use a buyout strategy. The paper describes how the control methods change over the different phases the asset experience and how different value generating strategies use altered control methods. Using Merchant's (2003) framework for management control systems and Berg and Gottschalg's (2004) research on value generating strategies in buyouts the thesis shows that action controls as designing instructions for the board and a business plan, together with goal alignment is the commonly used control strategy directly after the acquisition.

This paper presents a project and literature overview about how risk management and quality sometimes goes hand in hand and sometimes in two different directions. Meaning that the risk management can affect product or process quality differently depending on what risks an organisation chooses to control.The purpose with this paper is to get a deeper understanding about how risk and quality works together with IT-support and therefore we have been actively participating in a project with a risk management company called Zert. A literature study and a qualitative interview study have also been undertaken to see what the customers and the other researchers have written, to be able to make proper conclusions on the subject.To easily work together and get the information that was needed, four methods where used. Besides the qualitative interview and literature study the think-out-loud, card sorting and a variation on the extreme programming method where used to help visualize and improve communication both with Zert, the costumers and among ourselves.Zert is a risk management company that helps other organisations to control their different types of risks that they might be taking, by offering a system where the risk management process is held and providing consulting services by helping within the processes. Both Zert and their customers see the communication, knowledge and teamwork as something important as well as the quality within the work, processes and the end result.

The aim of this study was to comprehend and explain the idea and function of Case Management and its diffusion in Swedish municipalities. More specifically its aim was to investigate factors for the diffusion of Case Management and its differences to similar professional roles. The study was based on interviews with four managers at various levels and two case managers representing two municipalities in Sweden. Five themes were identified that were especially interesting when discussing the function of Case Management, its differences to similar professional roles and its diffusion in Swedish municipalities. The themes were: shortcomings in the welfare system, the functions of Case Management, differences to similar professional roles, descriptions of Case Management and factors for the diffusion.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how key performance indicators are being used as performance management tools within the production industry. Specifically the purpose is to investigate how the KPI:s within the telecommunications industry drives reusability regarding production test systems. This thesis will also highlight today?s cost models and suggest improvements of the KPI and what new ones could be introduced. A case study at Ericsson AB has been performed.

Immune stimulating complex (iscom) matrix is a formulation that is used as anadjuvant within research. The capability of the iscom matrix to elicit an immuneresponse when not present together with an antigen has not been extensivelyinvestigated. One way to evaluate the status of the immune system is to measure theamount of cytokines that usually are produced by various cell types during an immuneresponse. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the early immune responses inporcine peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) after stimulation in vitro with theiscom matrix, AbISCO®-100. The immune response was evaluated by measuring themRNA expression for various cytokines, a chemokine receptor (CXCR4) andregulator of G-protein signaling (RGS16) in porcine PBMC after stimulation withAbISCO®-100 or other inducers like a lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and a CpGoligodeoxynucleotide (ODN 2216) used as controls.

The purpose of this essay is to further the understanding of contemporary management theory by conducting an analogy-study of the source to many of the terms today used in knowledge-intensive companies. The way a football club deals with knowledge work differs from how a conventional company deals with it. However, many of the terms, such as teamwork and coaching, are shared by the two types of organization. By using the analogy-method we hope to create a wider understanding for the shared concepts. We have used a hermeneutic perspective throughout the essay, which first and foremost means that we focus on understanding and explaining social phenomenons.

Biological pest management is defined as control of pests using their natural enemies. This method has been used in Sweden since the 1970´s and it has been developed ever since. Biological pest management is today relatively common among commercial growers but there are good possibilities to apply this method in the home gardens as well. The aim with this thesis is to compile a report from both the companies that are marketing the products and the home gardener´s point of view. This should give a better understanding of the market and how it could be improved. We will give examples of products that represent the different kinds of organisms that are being used in biological pest management. Our hope is that this will be an introduction to all interested in biological pest management. The legislations regarding registration of organisms are still a matter of discussion and are causing problems to producers, distributors and the market in general. Why isn´t biological pest management more common in the home garden? The main reason appears to be the lack of knowledge in the subject. What are the benefits using biological pest management when it requires so much knowledge and it´s more expensive than conventional pest management? With the environmental problems we face today, we hope that every single gardener has an interest in developing an environment as clean as possible, even if only in one's own backyard..

This master thesis deals with problems in the arc length control in Pulsed MIG/MAG Welding. The main problem is that it is not possible to measure the arc length. In the present solution the voltage over both the electrode and the arc represents the arc length. To improve the arc length control a model of the electrode melting has been built. One output from the model is the voltage over the electrode and with this voltage together with the measured voltage it is possible to calculate the voltage over just the arc.

Today we live in an interconnected world. Through globalization and the development of information technology one can say that, today everyone is our neighbour. The result of our actions can easily spread and affect people on the other side of the world within seconds.Meanwhile, Third World countries are developing into stable economies and Western European corporations are expanding like never before and setting up their organizations in these new markets.This of course is not unproblematic, it creates new challenges for international organizations especially when it comes to communication. An example of that same problematic communication presented itself for Arla Foods in what came to be called the Cartoon Crisis.In late September of 2005 a number of cartoons depicting the holy prophet Muhammed were published in a Danish newspaper. This event sparked scores of protest ranging from Morocco to the Philippines.

Background: Despite the time and money invested in relationships with other companies, it is a fact that many of them fail. Considering this, remarkably little research has been done regarding how inter-organisational relationships are controlled, given that control can function as a solution to the problems involved with collaboration, which arise since such a relation exists in the interface between organisational boundaries, where the companies? often conflicting interests and points of view meet. If one part is stronger than the other in a relationship, the weaker however tends to give way for the stronger?s will.