Titel: Innovate or Stagnate! ? Open innovation in manufacturing small and medium-sized businesses in Småland.The purpose of the study is that, from a leadership perspective (innovationmanagement), create a better understanding of open innovation in manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises. The study therefore intends to contribute to the understanding of how open innovation processes leads to greater innovation in manufacturing small and medium sized businesses.We have used a qualitative research method and adopted an abductiveapproach. We made interpretations and created meaning based on our research results.Our theoretical framework is based primarily on Chesbroughs (2003) research on open innovation. Based on this model, we have selected a number of other theories, which we perceived as prerequisites for small andmedium sized companies in open innovation processes.

En sammanfattning av uppsatsen p・maximalt 8000 tecken..

En sammanfattning av uppsatsen på maximalt 8000 tecken..

With new energy directives in place, the Swedish Social Service (SSS) stands beforethe challenge how to reduce the energy demand in its locales. It is a complex matter,as the locales are rented from various property owners and it becomes a question ofhow to reduce the operational electricity and influence the property owners to workmore with energy efficiency. This thesis takes a balanced research approach in threeparts. Firstly a qualitative part in form of interviews with personnel at the SSS and itsproperty owners, secondly a quantitative part of descriptive nature in form of energystatistics and thirdly a literature review of Energy Management (EM) Supply ChainManagement(SCM), Green Supply Chain Management(GSCM) and EnviromentalPerformance Indicators (EPI). This in order to be able to give normativerecommendations of how the SSS should act to reduce its energy consumption in itslocales and provide new insights on how EM, SCM, GSCM and EPI can be applied ineffect.

Quality Assurance in Service Procurement --- Total Quality and Total Quality Management refer to popular management philosophies in organizations these days. The purchasing department has an important part in the strive for organizational quality as several studies show corporate spend is significant and increasing. In this master thesis I study the actions companies take to ensure quality in service procurement. I argue that managing quality when sourcing services is particularly tricky, because of the special characteristics that belong to services. The purpose of the study is to examine whether different actions are taken to ensure the quality of different kinds of services.

AbstractSeveral of researchers have reflected that the school ought to be developed to a learning organization. A method as proceed from such a perspective and should be able to match a local child- and educations administration is problembased school development. To investigate in which ways a child- and educations administration prosecute a problem based learning inside the organization a case study was used as research strategy. The question this report gives answer to is:In what/which way works a child- and educations administration in a rural district with a method to fulfil a problembased learning.To collect empiric data a canvassing inquiry was accomplished among the child- and educations administrations group of management. According to the research result it can declares that there are good conditions for the organization to prosecute problem based school development, but there is yet a great deal to do before it´s can be said totally fulfilled.

The care for the elderly in the municipalities has recently seen the need for a formalized system for quality assurance. Under increasing demands for monetary efficiency while bound by law to retain acceptable standards in health care, there is need for efficient and at the same time quality-assured management. The municipalities often solve this puzzle by introducing systems and standards influenced by theory-clusters such as NPM (New Public Management), TQM (Total Quality Management) or other quality management theories.This essay focuses on how the public administration in the municipalities defines quality and designs and implements system for formalized quality assurance. Our basic view of organizations is institutionalist and our theoretical framework includes theories about quality, NPM and TQM..

The climate issue is a significant question, and the problem is mainly caused by human activities. Everyone can help to counteract the enhanced Greenhouse effect by reducing the amounts of energy they use and by not consuming more products then they need.Schools are some of societies many consumers and therefore contribute to the Greenhouse effect. The School also has an important task; to teach and disseminate knowledge and information about the climate and the environment. According to the Swedish National Agency for Education, Skolverket, must all schools regularly consider the environment and sustainable development throughout the entire education process. Unfortunately, this is not the case for many schools in Sweden today.One of many tools that can be used to coordinate environmental work and initiatives, and also to make it more efficient, is environmental management systems.

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.

This thesis is based on an assignment from a unit within an international group manufacturing industrial products. The purpose of the thesis is to analyze and suggest ways to improve the cost accounting system in use at the unit. The main source of empirical data has been interviews with employees. The theoretical framework is based on a comparison between traditional/standard costing and activity-based costing (ABC). The cost accounting system in use is described in detail and classified as a traditional/standard cost accounting system.

This essay recognizes and criticizes a commonly held assumption that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) functions as a ?savings account of trust? between corporations and consumers. Based on five focus group interviews, the authors discuss how corporations that engage in society can sometimes raise and sometimes destroy the trust of potential consumers. One of our main findings is that CSR seems to raise the expectations among consumers. We then compare this phenomenon with the classical theory of the disconfirmation paradigm.

The purpose with our study is to investigate in which way a public field of action has succeeded to make the economic management more effective and also find out which factors/activities that have contributed to get the result of the budget in balance. We also want to find out in which degree the balanced scorecard (BSC) has contributed to the positive result of the budget. Method: We had started out from the qualitative method theory which is based on the hermeneutic theory, because we will interpret and understand. With this starting point we have chosen to use a case study with semi-standardised interviews supplemented with information from different documents, and to get the theoretic connection we have studied literature in the subject field. The analyse and even the theoretic connection have then started from, for this study, a special analyse model. Results: Througt systematic and target-concentrated management and through cooperated factors, with stress on a leadership that is both professional, visionary and un-combined, and there the staff´s is seen as a important resource, and there it is a clear strategy and objective to keep the cost of the activity within assigned budgetframe, has a public field of action, as the clinic of hab./rehab.

During the last years the need for real-time database services has increased due to the growing number of data-intensive applications needing to enforce real-time constraints. The COMponent-based Embedded real-Time database (COMET) is a real-time database developed to meet these demands. COMET is developed using the AspeCtual COmponent-based Real-time system Development (ACCORD) design method, and consists of a number of components and aspects, which can be composed into a number of different configurations depending on system demands, e.g., Quality of Service (QoS) management can be used in unpredictable environments. In embedded systems with requirementson high up-time it may not be possible to temporarily shut down the system for reconfiguration. Instead it is desirable to enable dynamic reconfiguration of the system, exchanging components during run-time.

Vårt syfte är att skapa en djupare förståelse och klargöra för användningen avbegreppen management och ledarskap i praktiken. Med hjälp av begreppens innebörd kan vi som forskare få möjligheten att framföra hur begreppen används praktiskt. På så vis kan vi se om teorin reproduceras i praktiken. Vår uppsats visar att intervjupersonerna tror att de utövar ledarskap, men att det inte kan utövas i praktiken. Detta har sin grund i den tvetydighet som omger begreppet ledarskap och företagets organisationskontext.

En sammanfattning av uppsatsen på maximalt 8000 tecken..