The objective of this study is to determine if and how Swedish businesses measure the efficiency of their purchasing departments.In this study I have interviewed six medium to large successful companies and asked them· Which ratios they use to measure the efficiency of their purchasing departments· Why they use these ratios and· How the results of these measurements are usedI can conclude that although there are no ratios or other measurements that directly measure the efficiency of purchasing indirect measures do exist.The measures applied are usually the result of demands from management and the results are reported back to management and used to follow development within a particular field of purchasing. Benchmarking, especially external benchmarking, is unusual..

Although Lean has received an increased amount of attention in the service context, research still has not established how successfully Lean manages to increase service productivity; since service productivity consists of both efficiency and quality. Research regarding productivity discusses the risk of a tradeoff between efficiency and quality in service production processes. Therefore, this thesis aims to explore if the tradeoff in a production setting with low variability in demand and low customer participation exists, after Lean has been implemented. With a qualitative approach, a case study has been conducted at Scandinavian Airlines Ground Handling to evaluate the effects of Lean in the baggage handling process. The result of the study shows that the tradeoff has not been overcome; efficiency has increased at the expense of quality.

The study is based on a new approach on how Swedish healthcare is supposed to be controlled and organized. There is a renowned administration problem within Swedish healthcare, which seems to be an obstacle to exploit the resources to the fullest. The latest venture within the healthcare system is patient involvement, where the patients become co-producers of their own care, which aims to both improve and make healthcare more efficient. A few wards in Sweden have implemented this new approach whereupon the study intends to discuss the effectiveness and efficiency in some of these.The study is restricted to three wards, whereof two of these are inpatient wards and the other one is an outpatient ward, within the medical clinic in Jönköping County Council, which has implemented the patient involvement approach in their daily work. The methodology for this study is qualitative in its nature where a time study of personnel time allocation and supplementary interviews with managing nurses on the wards have been conducted.

The study is based on a new approach on how Swedish healthcare is supposed to be controlled and organized. There is a renowned administration problem within Swedish healthcare, which seems to be an obstacle to exploit the resources to the fullest. The latest venture within the healthcare system is patient involvement, where the patients become co-producers of their own care, which aims to both improve and make healthcare more efficient. A few wards in Sweden have implemented this new approach whereupon the study intends to discuss the effectiveness and efficiency in some of these.The study is restricted to three wards, whereof two of these are inpatient wards and the other one is an outpatient ward, within the medical clinic in Jönköping County Council, which has implemented the patient involvement approach in their daily work. The methodology for this study is qualitative in its nature where a time study of personnel time allocation and supplementary interviews with managing nurses on the wards have been conducted.

I transportbranschen finns behov av ett gemensamt och standardiserat mått för mätning av effektivitet och trots avancerade IT-system och moderna verktyg råder det idag avsaknad av detta. Transportföretagen behöver inte bara ta fram egna, interna mått utan också accepterade och vedertagna mått som kan användas för att kommunicera med kunder, myndigheter och andra externa intressenter..

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.

The purpose of this study is to highlight how a ring road and an external retail establishment may affect the city commerce. Umeå is the study object with interesting undergoing changes including a new external retail area south of the city and a new transport route that will lead the through traffic around the city.The study is based on a review of previous studies and a qualitative method. Four interviews were conducted with people who have a connection to commerce and/or municipal planning and where considered able to contribute with rich and relevant information. The result shows that the commerce in Umeå will be significantly strengthened in the context of a new external commercial establishment when the city?s overall attractiveness increases.

The interest in businesses active on the countryside and their funding situation has increased in recent years. In a survey, conducted by Leif Berndtsson (2003), it was reported that there is a lack of external capital in rural areas. According to Berndtsson (2003) the lack of external capital inhibits the rural firm?s growth. The essay attempts to answer whether the shortage of external capital is a factor that inhibits development for rural businesses.

The motivation to conduct the study was that external project managers have become more common the last decades. At the same time trust is considered to be a key factor for efficiency and good results for the organisation. The group members? trust in the leader is built on past experiences of both the leader at a personal level, and the leaders? relationship to the task. Trust can also be built over time, when the leader earns trust from the group members.

The effect of the salary system and age on the internal and external motivationThe purpose of the study was to examine how a fixed salary with commission and only a fixed salary, and age affect the internal and external work motivation of sellers. This was studied by a questionnaire and participants were sellers in the call center industry in Sweden. In total there were 112 sellers from nine different companies that responded to the survey. The respondents were divided into groups based on pay systems and age. The measuring instrument used was the Work Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation Scale which classifies the motivation of internal and external based on six subscales.

Abstract We have in this thesis examined two elite hockey clubs in the Swedish Elite League, Brynäs IF and Linköpings HC. Our questions revolve around how they set themselves to bring in an external owner of the club. Our aim was to examine how Linköping and Brynäs stands on the issue of the external owners of the club, which is currently regulated by Riksidrottsförbundets 51/49%-rule which means that the club must control at least 51% of the club while external shareholders can take up to 49 %. Then, we compare the clubs with each other. Interviewees have been clubs club CEO:s and supporters club chairman.

The Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engine is promising in terms of lowNOx, low particulates and high efficiency. Due to its homogeneous charge, where thecombustion starts almost simultaneously from a number of points in the combustion chamber,only lean mixtures are possible to burn because of the resulting rapid combustion, which is muchfaster than the combustion in an SI-engine or a diesel engine. When richer mixtures are used thecombustion will start earlier and also be more violent.To phase the combustion later and lower the combustion speed, external cooled EGR can beused. The EGR-system used in this thesis uses a divided exhaust channel where one channel andits corresponding valve are used only for transporting EGR back to the intake system.Consequently the EGR-valve is connected to the intake pressure. This system is called Direct-EGR (D-EGR).Engine tests verified that the CA50 indeed is phased later when cooled EGR is used.

This thesis examines the relationship between OECD-DAC and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) within an aid efficiency context. The ability for these two actors to cooperate is highly important and determines the outcome for a major part of the development aid in the new millennium. The development agenda for the new millennium emphasizes aid efficiency as a key to a more successful aid, and this requires increased cooperation between all actors. The analysis made is a discourse analysis. The discourse of aid efficiency is analyzed, both its preconditions and results.The analyze finds out that there is a gap between OECD-DAC and CSOs in terms of how to handle aid efficiency.

Intelligence is an elusive concept with strong links to business intelligence , in which organizations have recently more and more have incorporated the use of IT (Information Technology). A research carried out recently have identified the importance of effective monitoring, but there are few studies showing how organizations actually work in the field.A qualitative study consisting of the interviews with employees at an IT company was done to see how external monitoring is carried out in practice, in a specific company and how it would help the company to develop. The company we visited did not work with special procedures of any kind regarding external monitoring but still knew about the term and its meaning.The conclusion account for detected patterns as well as difficulties, including the definition of external monitoring which differs a lot between individuals. The patterns discovered points to the importance of clarity and objectives regarding the use of external monitoring for it to be effective and measurable.Keywords: External monitoring, Business Intelligence, Competitive Intelligence..

To measure losses in a transformer with today?s methods is either slow or insecure. There s a new method developed by Alstom that hasn't been actualize in to a test-system and that has been the assignment in this project. The idea is built on a switched system and a CLR- circuit in the resonant frequency. The test-system has a calculated power-loss that make the efficiency to be as high as 99,8% and in reality over 95%.