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.

Because of among other things the globalization and a focus on core competencies knowledge has become very important for the companies of today, especially for research-intensive companies. The problem is that the companies become more sensitive to how knowledge is created and spread, that is, how organizational knowledge is created. Especially sensitive are companies who are small, young and research-intensive. The purpose with this thesis is to explore how organizational knowledge is created in small, young and research intensive companies.The theory is based on a five-phase model of organizational knowledge creation and four modes of knowledge conversion described by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995). These concepts constitute the foundation of the analytical model used in the thesis.The study is carried out by qualitative, highly structured interviews with low standardization.

This essay deals with the paradox of why the immigrants in Sweden, despite their considerable size of 12 % of the population and common interest and living opportunities, haven?t mobilized politically in any significant way. The aim with this essay is to reach a theoretical understanding of why this paradox exist. By the use of a critical case and a theoretical model, based on theories of collective action, the conclusion of this essay is that, despite the fact that the immigrants have a common interest and an Organizational structure, the immigrants in Sweden has not mobilized politically in any significant way. The main reason for this is that they have a weak common identity and they don?t have the structural opportunities to act..

Nordmaling is a small muncipality that has gotten a lot of critic in media over the last two years. In order to regain a good reputation and to communicate a strong message towards external groups, Nordmaling have decided to develop a branding platform that can represent the organization in both external and internal communications. In order to develop a brand the organization must understand its identity.The purpose of the study was to examine the employees? thoughts of their organization in order to be able to define the organizational identity and give recommendations of core values that the organization can apply to their brand. To understand how the employees perceive their organization and what they think the organization stands for, the main focus was to study their view on values, standards, goals and vision of the organization through focus interviews and a survey.

This report emphasizes the importance of seeing a university as a company that offers a service. It isimportant to see the different quality dimensions that distinguish a service. The customer-focused planninghas also set the structure of this degree project.The marketing investigation is based on recruit questionnaires and interviews with secondary schoolstudents. The questionnaires show that the catalogue still reaches out with most information despiteconstant increase of information search at the Internet. The students seem to prefer University ofKristianstad´s catalogue front.The competition analysis is based on telephone interviews and information material sent from theother universities.

In an organizational change process, motivated employees are considered an asset. Work motivation can both be seen as situational and as a stable individual characteristic. The present study attempts to investigate how the employees at the Social Insurance Office in Scania experience the present organizational change by focusing on work motivation and well-being. Both questionnaires and interviews were adopted to examine the area of interest. Findings indicate that the organizational change is considered chaotic but necessary by the employees.

This is a case study on the functioning of political parties and the aim was to explain ?how? and ?why? the Swedish social democratic party changed their policies in the Middle East politics. I wanted to explain this process of change by using Angelo Panebianco?s framework for the analysis of political parties. Angelo Panebianco´s hypothesis is that all parties must be viewed as organizations to understand their functions.

This report describes the construction work of a radar antenna for the radar systemCARABAS. CARABAS is a long wave airborne ground radar that has been developed bySAAB Microwave Systems and will now be mounted on a small helicopter, Schweizer 300.The antenna should be able to fold up and down. When the radar is in use the antenna islowered and under transport, start and landing the antenna is folded up. An emergency dropfunction should also be included in the design of CARABAS III.The extent of this report includes construction of the antenna, frame structure attached to thehelicopter, mechanism for folding the antenna up and down and mechanism for emergencydrop function. The mechanical design of the antenna and frame structure is based on modaland stress analysis, vibration measurement of Schweizer 300 and frequency analysis, andcalculations regarding aerodynamic drag and mechanics.The exciting frequencies of the helicopter and accelerations at those frequencies weredetermined by vibration measurement and frequency analysis.

This thesis describes how large Swedish companies finance their debt and identifies some factors that affect their decisions. The study is based on 10 well-known companies of which 9 are listed on Nasdaq OMX Nordic. The results show that the companies display several similarities concerning their debt structure and the factors which their choices are based upon. All companies in this study primarily use corporate bonds for their long-term borrowing, commercial papers for the short-term borrowing, and bank-facilities as back-up. There is a tendency that smaller companies in larger extent use bank-loans for long-term borrowing due to larger emissions costs when using market financing.

We came in contact with the project "Grönplan Danderyd" that aims to create a green structure plan for a municipality of Stockholm called Danderyds kommun. Our thesis is a part of this project and makes it's contribution through the gathering and systematization of the knowledge of the functions of an urban green structure. It also makes a contribution through suggesting how this knowledge can be applied during the construction of an urban green structure plan. We found that "Stadens parker och natur", published by the Swedish National board of Housing, Building and Planning, was a recurrent source of information in the green structure plans that we studied. We saw a need of complementary additions and updates to the rather old report and found literature that adds the developments of the last decade. First of all we have chosen to make themes based on the functions of a green structure that were presented by 'Stadens parker och natur'. The themes we suggest that a greenplanning document manage are: Recreation, Pedagogies and Heath, Biological Diversity, Green structure in the History of Building Cities, Cultural Identity, the Health of the City, Biological Technology in the Municipality and Use and the Users. We found good examples of how to handle these themes in documents that handle greenstructure planning from the municipalities of Göteborg, Strängnäs, Eskilstuna, Malmö, Lund, Västerås and Uppsala.

Capital structure is without doubt one of the most frequently studied and controversial areas of modern financial theory, and will certainly continue to receive considerable attention from researchers worldwide. There is still no universal explanation of how an optimal capital structure would be designed for maximum appreciation, despite the development of several theories focusing on the subject. Equity and debt are the two main financing options that in combination explain the business's capital structure. The results of several research studies conducted in the subject has many times pointed out that there are specific factors that are directly related to the company's capital structure, and that there are clear sectoral differences in corporate debt. A study of the capital structure is considered important and interesting to implement due to the reasons above and the purpose of this study is to analyze and try to explain the similarities and differences between different industries in terms of how growth, profitability and size affect the debt level.

ABSTRACT  Title:                                       Artifacts as transformational leaders ? A case study at SIBA. Course:                                   Bachelor Dissertation - Leadership Authors:                                 Tobias Barin and Victor Eriksson Advisor:                                 Anders Billström Keywords:                             Artifacts, transformative leadership, organizational culture and leadership Problem formulation:          Which artifacts can be transformative leadership in the electronics industry?  Purpose:                                Create an understanding of store managers and deputy store managers' perception of how artifacts can be expressed in the transformational leadership.                                                Creat an understanding of the importance of artifacts in leadership in the electronics industry. Theoretical framework:       The study?s starting point for the theoretical framework has been Schein (2004) earlier theories of organizational culture, and Bass (1985) theories of transformational leadership. The link between organizational culture and transformational leadership is the basis for the chosen theories. Methodology:                        We conducted a qualitative method with a deductive approach for intent a solution for problem. Personal interviews were conducted with two store managers and two deputy store managers at SIBA. Conclusion:                           We have found that the artifacts: role-models, stories and rituals communicate the transformative leadership. Respondents have described how these artifacts conveys organizational culture but also the transformational leadership..

Livestock animals affect their environment in a number of different ways, mostly through grazing and trampling. This study focused on the effects of Gotland pony grazing on forest structure and diversity, and the impact on ground cover. To compare the fenced and grazed area with a reference area outside the enclosure a number of transects were used. The study showed that there was no significant difference in height structure and diversity between the compared sites; however, there were a significantly higher proportion of damaged trees inside the enclosure. The ground cover variables showed a higher amount of bare soil, plant litter and wood-rush (Luzula sp.) inside the enclosure whilst grass was more frequent in the reference area.

The aim of this thesis is to study why Swedish authorities do organizational changes. Two organizations are analyzed; The Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket) and the National Statistics Office of Sweden (Statistiska centralbyrån). A qualitative method, consisting mainly of interviews with key officials, is employed to study two aspects of organizational change: first, the main reasons for changing the organization and, second, how the process that preceded the actual change was carried out. Furthermore, two different theoretical perspectives are used to construct a basis for the analysis. One of the perspectives assumes a social constructivist approach, while the other is rationalistic inspired.

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.