| 1. |
|
|
| 2. |
- Adrem, Anders H
(författare)
-
Essays on Disclosure Practices in Sweden - Causes and Effects
- 1999
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This doctoral thesis examines the causes and effects of corporate disclosure practices. The thesis consists of four independent but related essays that collectively make up a country study for Sweden. The first essay aims to explain why some firms have a proactive disclosure strategy while others devote less resources and effort to disclosure and investor relations. Information about Swedish firms' disclosure strategies was collected by questionnaire. The results show that the probability of a firm claiming it has a proactive disclosure strategy increases with size, ownership dispersion and official listing on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, but decreases with service & retail sector affiliation. To validate the results obtained for the firms' claimed disclosure strategies, analyst ratings of the firms' disclosure strategies were used. These were also collected by questionnaire. The analysis of analyst ratings yielded similar results. Overall, the findings are interpreted to suggest that asymmetric information and agency costs as well as capital market pressures to a great extent determine and explain a firm's choice of disclosure strategy. The second essay investigates the influence of two distinct disclosure strategies, proactive and reactive, on voluntary annual report disclosures by small listed Swedish firms. The findings reveal that, after controlling for factors that may vary with voluntary annual report disclosure level, the proactive disclosure strategy, compared to the reactive disclosure strategy, has a primary influence on strategic information and on stock price information, a secondary influence on financial information, but no influence on social information. The third essay examines whether and how international capital market pressures influence voluntary disclosure decisions by Swedish manufacturing MNEs in the context of the annual report. The results show that, after controlling for size and two important dimensions of the multifaceted concept of multinationality, international capital market pressures significantly influence the extent of strategic annual report disclosure and in particular strategic segmental disclosures. The fourth essay examines the effect of disclosure strategy on analysts' decisions to follow a firm and the characteristics of analysts' earnings forecasts. The findings show that, after controlling for important factors in a firm's information environment, firms with a more active and informative disclosure strategy are followed by a larger pool of analysts and have lower forecast dispersion. The findings also show a positive but insignificant effect of disclosure strategy on forecast accuracy. Further, no empirical evidence of systematic optimism or pessimism in analyst forecasts is found, but there is a tendency among analysts to overreact to information from firms with a more active and informative disclosure strategy.
|
|
| 3. |
- Alpenberg, Jan, 1964-, et al.
(författare)
-
Investeringar i mindre och medelstora tillverkande företag : drivkrafter, struktur, process och beslut
- 2005
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis deals with investment issues in connection to growth and expansion related decision processes in small and medium-sized manufacturing companies. It focuses primarily on the empirical knowledge about the structure of the companies’ investments, the processes involved, and the investment behavior in this type of company. The Swedish sub-contracting companies and the manufacturing industry in general are facing new structural changes. There is also a clear trend towards fewer, but larger and more skilled, suppliers. These changes implies for instance that small and medium-sized manufacturing companies are facing dramatically increased demands with considerable and growing needs for investments. The development of an empirically grounded framework for investments in small and medium-sized manufacturing companies is an important part of this study’s conceptual contribution. The analysis points out the general importance of projects named super investments. This means large investments with great financial and strategic impact and which significantly affect the companies risk exposure. These projects has also proved to be of significant influential importance on the companies overall investment planning process. The results also shows that changes in the internal and external environments tend to influence the companies’ investments, with respect to both the initiation of new investment projects, the progression of these projects, and the management of and principles for decision-making in the form of analysis and investment logic. In short, the present study contributes with knowledge about the investment process by providing an overall picture of how decisions about investments are made in small and medium-sized manufacturing companies. The study indicates that it is important to consider both conceptual and more practically oriented conditions related to the work of developing and finding suitable investment routines.
|
|
| 4. |
- Altshuler, Liliya
(författare)
-
Competitive Capabilities of a Technology Born Global
- 2012
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Since the early 1980s, rapidly internationalizing start-ups have captured attention of the academia, media and institutions. These ’born global’ firms seem to disregard the traditionally established views of firm internationalization. In spite of the significant resource limitations, they manage to reach international markets rapidly and keep their competitive position in the long term, running against international players of various sizes with different levels of resource availability. A great majority of research so far has focused on the early start-up and rapid internationalisation stage of born globals’ development. The question of how these firms uphold a competitive advantage in the long term with their limited resources and a small size, while operating in various countries, remains under-researched. The purpose of this dissertation, therefore, has been to describe and explain the organisational factors and processes that serve as the sources of competitive advantage of technology-based born globals in the long term. The view that knowledge-based capabilities are the key sources of competitive advantage of born globals has been accepted. A longitudinal process study of one successful Danish technology born global has been undertaken over the period of 3.5 years to define and research in detail the key capabilities that have been critical to the firm’s competitive advantage in the long term. The R&D-related, alliance, branding and managerial capabilities have been investigated in separate articles. This dissertation contributes to the field of international entrepreneurship, as well as to the fields of each functional capability in the study: R&D and innovation management, alliance management, brand management, managerial capabilities, knowledge management, and organisational learning.
|
|
| 5. |
- Andersson, Linn
(författare)
-
Pricing capability development and its antecedents
- 2013
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Previous studies have convincingly argued that firms’ ability to efficiently utilize their resources is linked to the effectiveness of their routines and resources for pricing. The ability to appropriate value and achieve a more efficient resource utilization relative to competitors through routines and resources for pricing has been named pricing capability. If an effective pricing capability could enable a firm to achieve a more efficient resource utilization and gain a competitive advantage, the questions if, and if so how, managers are able to design pricing capabilities are highly relevant. However, previous studies have presented conflicting arguments regarding managers’ ability to design pricing capabilities and stated that pricing capabilities are protected by isolating mechanisms. I argue that both the antecedents of pricing capability development and managers’ ability to design pricing capabilities are unclear. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the antecedents of pricing capability development. The findings from this longitudinal case study of pricing capability development in five business units within “Technologica”, a multinational manufacturing firm acting on mature markets within business-to-business relations, provide empirical evidence of how managers are able to design pricing capabilities through their discretionary decision making. I propose that managerial governance choices, originating from individual managers’ perception concerning which pricing governance structure they perceive to be the most efficient and profitable, are key antecedents of pricing capability development. Also, I suggest that managers, through pricing governance arrangements, are able to tackle behavioral aspects among sales representatives that create obstacles for effective value appropriation. This study shows that one such behavioral aspect is sales representatives’ tendency to sometimes favor hedonic intrinsic motives over extrinsic incentives in customer meetings and, thus, prioritize a friendly, pleasant customer relation at the expense of profit maximization. I suggest that a better understanding for managers’ ability to develop organizational capabilities could be gained by shedding more light on the link between managers’ choices regarding capability governance structures and the designability of different types of organizational capabilities. Finally, I propose that different types of organizational capabilities differ in terms of manageability and imitability, and vary in their relevance for different firms depending on industry conditions.
|
|
| 6. |
- Bergendahl, Jaqueline
(författare)
-
Entreprenörskapsresan genom beslutsprocesser i team, en elektronisk dagboksstudie i realtid
- 2009
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A theoretical framework based on the process of how founders and members of a team make decisions during the establishment stage of their respective new ventures, is a relatively unexplored area in the entrepreneurship research field. I develop upon Sarasvathy’s (2001) framework, which is based upon the existence of two decision making processes; causation and effectuation, during the establishment phase of a new venture. I show that the founders and the members of each respective team do not stringently follow either the causation process or the effectuation process: Instead their focus varies between the causation and effectuation processes during the course of the venture establishment phase. I have found four critical factors, which affect the direction towards the use of causation or effectuation; the prototype, new business opportunities, parallel processes and the team. My theoretical development is: that the focus of the founders and the team members varies between causation and effectuation, they also apply causation and effectuation in a parallel manner, and that diverging goals affect the direction towards effectuation. I follow eight new ventures in their establishment stage, by means of electronic diaries, in the “Venture Lab” incubator at Lund University. An electronic diary routine was developed during the study; this was a particularly useful method in attaining information on how the teams were making their decisions in real time. It was apparent however that in diary based research, our knowledge on how to use electronic systems and how to make these systems user-friendly is still limited. In this respect the electronic diary routine was developed together with three groups of new venture founders in the incubator. I received evaluations and experiences of user-friendliness in the use of the electronic diaries from these groups. And conclude that these experiences create conditions for a user-friendly diary, with reliable answers and can be reached through; personal meetings with the users throughout the study, the development of the diary questions with the users and treating the diaries confidentially.
|
|
| 7. |
- Bertilsson, Jon
(författare)
-
The Way Brands Work: Consumers' understanding of the creation and usage of brands
- 2009
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- During the recent years the concept or phenomenon of brands and the importance ascribed to them by the traditional marketing discourse seems to have spread to the every day discourse of ordinary consumers. Consumers are therefore thought to posses some kind understanding of how brands as a phenomenon work. This study sets out to investigate how consumers construct such a brand understanding, and what such brand understanding contains. Prior consumer literature mainly conceptualizes consumers’ understanding construction as a vertical top-down process, where consumers either learn about consumption phenomenon from traditional socialization agents, or when the consumers are subjected to and individually handle the ideological infrastructure of a consumer culture. In this study it is however argued that a substantial part of consumers’ brand understanding construction is horizontal and occurs in consumers’ peer-to-peer micro level interactions. By employing a “Netnographic” method to capture and analyze young Swedish consumers’ online micro level interactions, I have managed to identified three major types of micro interactions, consultative, disputative and normative, in which consumers’ brand understanding is thought to be formed. Their brand understanding contained both cynical reasoning and underlying paradoxes. By being cynical of the workings of brands the consumers creates a cynical distance that enables them to both assume a critical stance towards brands as a phenomenon, simultaneously as they may confess to fully participate in the brand consumption game. Consumer cynicism concerning the workings of brands may not emancipate consumers from the structures of the market, but displaying cynical reason may be important to receive recognition from peers and to gain status positions in ones social group.
|
|
| 8. |
- Bringselius, Louise
(författare)
-
Personnel Resistance in Public Professional Service Mergers: The Merging of Two National Audit Organizations
- 2008
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The human side of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) – with focus particularly on resistance - has puzzled scholars for decades. Still, there is little discussion as regards to how the concept should be defined or understood. Often expressions of resistance, rather than its actual content, are described. What do personnel actually oppose? In this dissertation, the content, process, and context of resistance are explored in a broad and integrative approach. A personnel perspective is adopted. Observations from a longitudinal real-time case study on the merger of two national audit institutions in Sweden are reproduced. Analysis indicates that more attention needs to be directed to the moral side of M&A, in order to understand resistance. In the case study, management took the merger as an opportunity to increase organizational control, thereby breaking a psychological contract with personnel and turning to utilitarian values. Opposition to this united professionals in the two organizations, and resistance rapidly shifted from a horizontal to a vertical dimension. Such a displaced balance between trust and control may be a common reason for resistance in M&A. An evaluation of the competence and morality of the opposite party occurs, in order to establish a level of trust. With distrust comes a competition for control, since parties in this context may experience a moral obligation to optimize the new organization. A new definition of the resistance concept is suggested.
|
|
| 9. |
- Bryntse, Karin
(författare)
-
Kontraktsstyrning i teori och praktik
- 2000
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The general aim of this thesis is to develop an increased understanding of contract management as a mode of governance. A specific aim has been to explore how complex municipal services are managed by contract. A framework for analysis of contract management was developed by combining elements from interorganisational theories with different perspectives, such as transaction cost theories, network theories, and sociological institutional theories. The framework was applied in empirical studies of contract management of technical services in local authorities in Sweden, England and Germany. A follow-up study was carried out after four years. The empirical findings revealed a mixture of different governance mechanisms. Competition and conditionality were combined with trust and continuity. Detailed specifications and formal contracts were combined with a flexible and problem-solving approach to variations. Local agreements were combined with standardised contract conditions. Short contracts were combined with long-term relationships. There were differences in the style of contract management between large and small organisations, between stable services and services characterised by uncertainty and risk, and between countries with different societal systems. The style of management changed significantly within four years, from a stronger emphasis on price competition and adversial pressure to an emphasis on quality and partnership. A general conclusion is that contract management can be regarded as a mixture of governance mechanisms of opposite character, creating a balance of co-operation and competition. It is proposed that formal procedures can be seen as enhancing the evolution of trust in complex relationships. This contradicts the common view of formalism as an obstacle and opposing feature to trust. The use of standard contract conditions also indicates that contract relationships are partially constructed at an aggregate level. This confirms that contract management has to be analysed in a societal context. The general change of style of contract management within four years indicates that there might be general patterns of contract management, which change over time.
|
|
| 10. |
- Carleheden, Sten-Åke B
(författare)
-
Telemonopolens strategier : en studie av telekommunikationsmonopolens strategiska beteende vid liberalisering av teleoperatörsbranschen
- 1999
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this thesis the strategic behaviour of the three operators (Televerket/Telia, PTT Telecom and BT) on strong technological development and deregulation of the business during a period of fifteen years have been described, interpreted and analysed. Some thirty more operators have also been investigated in this respect - however not in depth. The strategic behaviour of the operators have been compared with the behaviour of the operators of the companies in three other businesses. The ananlysis was carried through along two dimensions. In the one dimension the strategic orientation is focused and in the other the strategic method. In this way the PTOs could be classified. The analysis revealed that the PTOs changed their strategies in response to environmental shifts. It further revealed that the PTOs had to pass through certain phases which formed a pattern and could be expressed in terms of Domain defence, Domain offence and Domain creation. In their basic behaviour the PTOs showed great similarities in spite of differences in their prerequisites. On a more detailed level also differences emerged. A comparison between the operator business and the other three industry groupings proved great similarities in the basic behaviour. On a more detailed level the similarities became primarily industry/group specific.
|
|
| 11. |
- Cederström, Carl
(författare)
-
The Other Side of Technology: Lacan and the Desire for the Purity of Non-Being
- 2009
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Against the deeply ingrained belief that technology is instrumental and neutral, this thesis argues that our relation to technology is inextricably bound up with fantasies. But what is the nature of these fantasies and where do we find them? Are they strictly reserved to the domain of Science Fiction, or can we also find them in more mundane contexts, like the business organization? These are some of the central questions of the present study. Combining the work of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan with dominant perspectives within information systems research, this thesis offers an alternative perspective on technology in which fantasy, and not least a fantasy of non-being, plays a central role. With support from an empirical case study these points are further contextualized and conceptually developed. The arguments that follow from this investigation have far-reaching consequences for studying information technology (IT), suggesting a turn towards more affective components involved in IT implementation and use.
|
|
| 12. |
- Cerne, Annette
(författare)
-
Working with and Working on Corporate Social Responsibility: The Flexibility of a Management Concept
- 2008
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Why do some corporations become positioned as socially responsible and others as socially irresponsible? Here, an attempt is made to explore this issue. Within the established management literature it is held that managers do not understand corporate social responsibility (CSR), wherein the focus has been turned towards how corporations can work with CSR inside their organisation as a response to expectations coming from outside. In this book, interviews with managers in one British and one Swedish food retailer are analysed, with the intention to understand how CSR is given meaning in and has become integrated with everyday business practices. The investigation was extended to a study of various stakeholder organisations whose texts published on the Internet were analysed. Based on the outcome of text analyses, it is argued that CSR is not only something which can be worked with inside organisations, but is also worked on, within and between organisations, where various meanings of CSR are constructed. The purpose is to open up the complexity of CSR, suggesting that CSR as a management concept is desired by stakeholders to be flexible rather than fixed.
|
|
| 13. |
- Cieslak, Katarzyna
(författare)
-
The Work of the Accounting & Controlling Department and its Drivers: understanding the concept of a business partner
- 2011
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The role of accountants in organizations is intriguing in the current context of the broad changes in the profession observed by many. Mainly because of technological advancements, what has previously required a considerable amount of time and effort, i.e. bookkeeping & reporting, has been assumed to ‘just happen’ easily, with a corollary that it should not be taken for granted, that the accounting department has to exist in companies in the way it has in the past. Seen in a positive light, the technological changes create opportunities for accountants to develop the management accounting/controlling aspects of their work and become increasingly involved in managing the business, contributing to the company’s performance. However, although the rhetoric of the accounting & controlling department be(com)ing a ‘business partner’ has been present for a number of years in both academy and business, theory about the business orientation of accountants is claimed to be underdeveloped and often anecdotal. Building on previous empirical research and theory about the work of the accounting & controlling department and incorporating thoughts from management control and practice theories, this empirical study of five accounting teams within one international company - a leading supplier of packaging solutions, tries to address this theoretical gap. This is achieved through entering a micro organizational realm, whereas previous literature has tended to look at macro–level drivers of change. In sum, the framework built in this study tries to address two questions: ‘what does it mean to be a business partner?’ and ‘which micro organizational forces drive the work of the department and why?’ The study describes the different dimensions of the work of accountants including activities, interactions and used competences; and it explores and explains how organizational forces influence these dimensions, creating a local environment conducive, or not, to business partnering. The identified organizational drivers include, for example, issues linked to organizational design, organization of the accounting department, schedule of management meetings, attitudes of general managers and IT systems. The study framework hopefully offers an increased understanding of the phenomenon of business partnering, and it may also help practitioners in their transformation journey.
|
|
| 14. |
- Corvellec, Hervé
(författare)
-
Stories of Achievements - Narrative Features of Organizational Performance
- 1996
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Stories of achievements is a study concerning uses of the notion of organizational performance. It shows the variety of meanings given the notion in dictionaries, management literature, sports, and performance indicators; it also explores how such meanings are constructed and how they are attached to this notion in new contexts, such as in the activity reports of public libraries. Examining uses of the performance notion in these various contexts reveals its intricate relationships to such notions as competition, comparison, commensurability, hierarchy and justice, as well as efficacy, managerialism, and measurement. A pattern seems inherent in these relationships, the notion of performance being founded on a tension between the image of a process and that of a result. This can be seen in performing arts, for example, where the term denotes either a spectacle or its outcome; in management literature, where performance refers sometimes to an action/activity and sometimes to a result; and again in sports, where connoisseurs and score-focused spectators differ radically in their approach to the game. Investigating the uses of the notion of performance in various contexts also suggests that performance is a matter of telling, recounting, and communicating an organization's acions or the results of these. The major claim of the study is that the performance of an organization is neither the organization's activity nor its results, but rather is a story or a series of stories about these. A performance is a narrative production: it is a process involving the textualization of an organization. Individual organizational events acquire meaning through narration and the organization begins to be made sense of in this way, its members being provided both a language and an identity. Performances are stories of achievements. The present study identifies, describes and discusses the narrative features of such stories.
|
|
| 15. |
- Ekström, Johan
(författare)
-
Foreign Direct Investment by Large Swedish Firms - the Role of Economic Integration and Exchange Rates
- 1998
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Two important features of the global economy in the last few decades have been the increasing degree of regional economic integration and the increasing volatility of real exchange rates. Due to the EU membership and the single European currency, issues related to regional economic integration and exchange rate changes hold prominence on the business and political agenda in Sweden. This dissertation examines how changes in international conditions for trade and investment, induced by economic integration and exchange rates, influence the FDI decisions of Swedish firms. The study examines which firms are particularly sensitive to changes in these factors in their FDI decisions, and the strategic nature of these FDI projects. The empirical data was derived from structural interviews with the decision-makers behind 36 FDI projects (mergers & acquisitions) undertaken by the 18 largest manufacturing firms in Sweden in 1995. The empirical results show that the policy content of the EU influenced a number of FDI decisions, particularly FDIs undertaken by firms with small plant-level scale economies in production. The results indicate that firms with small plant-scale economies - as opposed to firms with large plant-scale economies - are particularly inclined to undertake intra-regional FDIs in response to economic integration since they experience less transactional benefits from intra- regional trade liberalisation by increasing exports from established production units. The policy content of economic integration in the EU and its market- enlargement and growth-enhancing effects were particularly pronounced in FDIs designed to increase the degree of process specialisation and to reorganise the production structure in Europe, respectively. The results show that actual or anticipated exchange rate changes influenced a considerable number of FDIs. The most profound influences were associated with exchange rate variability - in the host or home country - rather than to exchange rate misalignments. The influence of exchange rates was particularly pronounced in FDIs undertaken by firms with few opportunities to pass through exchange rate changes to customers and by firms with small plant-level scale economies in production. The results show that exchange rate stability in the host country was a particularly important determinant in FDIs designed to broaden the product line. It was also shown that changes in the labour costs, induced by exchange rate changes, were an important determinant in low cost labour- seeking FDIs designed to enter a new national market. Finally, the results show that process-specialisation FDIs were undertaken in foreign locations partly because of anticipation of an unfavourable Swedish Krona.
|
|
| 16. |
- Eneroth, Kristina
(författare)
-
Strategi och kompetensdynamik : en studie i Axis Communications
- 1997
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this thesis is to introduce the concept of distinctive competence in a multi-theoretical setting, consisting of the resource-based view, strategic human resource management and organizational learning, in order to develop a theoretical framework for better understanding of the dynamic side of distinctive competence. The empirical part of the study consists of an in-depth case study of Axis Communications, a high-tech company in the global networking industry, primarily focusing on network connectitvity for non-PC devices. In order to develop a framework for better understanding the development of distinctice competencies, the concepts of vision and identity are introduced in the strategic management setting. This emerging framework, the competence-platform model, enables a distinction between knowledge, the ability to apply knowledge, and the role of motivation when discussing the emergence of competence. The thesis could thus be seen as an attempt to put forward foundations for a more dynamic view on developmental issues of distinctive competencies'.
|
|
| 17. |
- Ericsson, Fredrik
(författare)
-
Säkringsredovisning - Implementeringen av IAS 39 i svenska icke-finansiella börsföretag och konsekvenser för säkringsverksamheten
- 2010
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Since January 1, 2005 all publicly traded companies within the EU must prepare their consolidated financial statements in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The transition to IFRS brought with it major changes in the accounting for financial instruments through the introduction of the highly controversial accounting standard IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement. This applied in particular to hedge accounting, i.e. the accounting for financial instruments held with the purpose of reducing exposures to various kinds of risks. Prior to the transition to IFRS, hedge accounting was a virtually unregulated area in Sweden. With the introduction of IAS 39, hedge accounting instead became subject to a comprehensive, highly complex and restrictive system of rules. This thesis is about how Swedish non-financial listed firms have implemented the rules on hedge accounting in IAS 39. The study shows the problems that arose in the firms when implementing the standard and identifies the reasons why some firms eschew hedge accounting for some or all of their hedges. Furthermore, the accounting consequences of different types of hedges are generally considered to have a considerable impact on firms’ hedging activities. A central question in this thesis is therefore also if the introduction of the restrictive rules on hedge accounting in IAS 39 has had an impact on the hedging activities in Swedish non-financial firms, and if so, in what way.
|
|
| 18. |
- Erntoft, Sandra
(författare)
-
The use of health economic evaluations in pharmaceutical priority setting - The case of Sweden
- 2010
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The production of health economic evaluations of pharmaceuticals is a global, multibillion dollar industry. Despite this fact, little is known about what happens after a health economic evaluation has been produced. Will it be used at all, and if so, how? Who uses economic evaluations and for what purposes? Are there differences in the use patterns between decision makers at macro, meso and micro levels? Are decision makers willing and able to use them, and to what extent can the patterns be explained by contextual factors? This dissertation aims to provide answers to these questions. The concepts "use" and "barriers to use" are developed and the influence of contextual factors, demands for transparency, internal and external institutions, and logics on the use patterns are investigated. The use and barriers to use are addressed by an empirical investigation of Swedish pharmaceutical decision makers at the Dental and Pharmaceutical Benefits Agency (TLV), a county council formulary committee and prescribing physicians. Differences in the use patterns and the barriers to use are found among the Swedish macro (TLV), meso (county council formulary committee) and micro (physicians) decision makers. The findings from the empirical research on Swedish decision makers are also contrasted with decision makers in other countries in a systematic literature review. Through triangulation of observations, interviews and analysis of documents it is suggested that the use may be defined according to the purpose of the use and consequently the phase of the priority setting process (i.e. preparation, expert comments, decision making or launch). In addition, a conceptual model of the use and barriers related to the acceptability of health economic evaluations among decision makers is suggested, integrating findings from research in health economics, priority setting and institutional theory. According to this model, barriers to use may be explained by six factors ; 1) budget restrictions, 2) decision making rules used to reduce uncertainty, 3) demand for transparency, 4) internal institutions, 5) external institutions, and 6) the existence of prevailing templates.
|
|
| 19. |
- Genell, Kristina
(författare)
-
Transforming management education: A Polish mixture
- 1997
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purposes of this thesis are to provide a credible picture of the institutional transformation that I allege is taking place in the field of management education in Poland and to widen the field of application of institutional theory by applying it to the field of management education in Poland. In the study I conceptualise management education as an organisation field. The theoretical framework is based on institutionalism in sociology and organisational analysis. This framework has been modified by introducing some new concepts. In this way the theoretical framework was partly grounded in the field material. The major part of the field material was gathered in two organisations and the main techniques used were interviews and analyses of written documents. One basic assumption is that institutional transformation is taking place in the field of management education in Poland, and the forms most relevant for the field are deinstitutionalisation and reinstitutionalisation. I argue that two important aspects of this transformation process are those of continuity and rupture, indicated by innovations as well as sediments from an old institutional order. Another main point is that the changes that are occurring in the field of management in Poland are ideas that are travelling between various contexts, and that those ideas have to be related to existing institutions in order to become accepted. This process is described by employing the notion of translation. One way of translating changes is by imitation and there are several examples of this kind of process in the field. Furthermore, I claim that there is another side of the imitation process that could be described by using the concept of occupation. One main argument of this thesis is that changes have taken place in the field of management education in Poland, but that the implications of those changes are far from clear. The transformation could instead be regarded as a mixture of several different ingredients, i.e. the old is in various ways mixed with the new. Another main point is that the concepts I have introduced are useful when applying institutionalism to a field that is characterised not only by changes within a certain order but also by a questioning of and transformation of, the entire order itself. I also show that it is possible to conceptualise the field of management education in Poland in several different ways.
|
|
| 20. |
- Haraldsson, Mattias
(författare)
-
Accounting and auditing in municipal organisations – Four papers on accounting compliance and audit costs
- 2016
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is a quantitative study of accounting compliance and audit costs in Swedish municipal organisations, consisting of four papers. Three of the papers explore factors that explain accounting compliance concerning financial reporting and revenue recognition in Swedish municipal water, sewerage and solid waste management organisations. The fourth paper explores the determinants of professional audit costs in Swedish municipal administrations. The overall purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the knowledge of what factors influence accounting compliance and audit costs in municipal organisations.Explaining accounting compliance in the water and sewerage and solid waste management sectors reveals that these sectors are influenced partly by different factors and partly by the same factors but differently. The results indicate that the strength and the strictness of the institutional framework (legislation, sanctions, court cases) play an important role in relation to if and how each sector is influenced by certain economic, political and institutional factors. Further, the studies show that factors like market competition, legal form of corporation, regionalisation, cross-sectoral coordination and engaged audit firm alter, replace or introduce new institutional, political and economic forces that influence accounting compliance. These are all factors that can be linked to municipal reforms, thus providing some evidence on the consequences of such reforms. Regarding audit costs the results of the thesis also indicate that audit costs vary dependent upon external stakeholder factors (population, tax base and tax rate), which supports the proposition that audit cost might be influenced by external monitoring demand and political signalling incentives. The implication is that audit might not only be a tool to secure compliance; it might also be a tool to manage stakeholder relations.From a policy perspective, the results indicate that the changing institutional and organisational environment (municipal governance reforms) has not been matched by attention to, and regulation of, reporting structures that secure external vertical accountability reporting, neither at the utility service level and nor at the consolidated municipal level. The general implication for future policy and regulations should therefore be to recognise the influence of different economic and institutional forces and develop accountability models that enable and preserve the benefits of governance forms and structures without losing transparency and accountability. The findings of this thesis suggest that accounting regulation and audit control need to bridge the public–private sector divide, level out sector-specific regulations and possibly connect regulation and accountability to the consolidated municipal organisation in order to preserve organisational freedom while securing compliant accountability information to relevant stakeholders.
|
|
| 21. |
|
|
| 22. |
- Henriksson, Kristina
(författare)
-
The Collective Dynamics of Organizational Learning: On Plurality and Multi-Social Structuring
- 1999
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The notion of organizations as learning entities has gained considerably in popularity over the last decade, and is now regarded an important issue both theoretically and in practice. Many organizational activities and events have been referred to as learning phenomena, and learning theory is being applied to increasingly varied and complex settings of organizational life. This divergence would suggest a flourishing area of research, yet at the same time it also indicates that organizational learning remains a difficult concept in many respects, not least empirically. This study calls for further examination of the concept of organizational learning and its application to pluralistic and ambiguous settings. It takes up a number of unresolved complications in organizational learning theory, such as a restrictive bias towards context-free theorizing and a static level-linking dilemma. In particular, it argues how present conceptualizations with their emphasis on the continued survival of an ongoing organization do not sufficiently reflect ever-changing, nonpermanent realities both within and without organizational boundaries. Indeed, in some cases it is even questionable as to what can and should be viewed as the stable ‘ongoing concern’ and collective identity, i.e. the body of learning that will continue to survive. A more appropriate conception that emerges is one of organizations as temporarily negotiated places and learning as a socially constituted phenomenon. The objective of this study is then to attempt to expand the theoretical construct of organizational learning into a conceptual framework which is able to capture and express the complex social process dynamics entailed in learning in pluralistic settings. A central argument is that this presupposes an ontological point of departure that reconciles the being and becoming of learning — an ontology which allows us to both explore and interpret patterns, to speak of the properties of identities and organizations as orders, as well as the sensemaking dynamics underpinning them. A sociology of knowledge perspective in effect problematizes and makes the traditional view of culture in organizational learning theory accessible for exploration. The arguments and framework put forward in this study are examined empirically in the context of the organizing and implementation of an international collaborative project — the Transmanche-Link joint venture formed to construct the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France.
|
|
| 23. |
- Hohenschwert, Lena
(författare)
-
Making B2B Sales Interactions Valuable - A Social and Symbolic Perspective
- 2013
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Salespeople’s work has always been regarded a crucial contributor to businesses’ value creation by researchers and practitioners alike. As tangible products are not at the core of interactions between salesperson and customer in the context of services-based or non-standardized markets, sales’ role is assigned greater influence in the understanding, creating and delivering of customer value. Underlying this understanding of the sales and traditional business marketing literature is the notion of value being objective and brought into the interaction by the salesperson through actions or tangible products. Alongside this understanding and in line with recent developments in the business marketing literature, this study considers the nature of value to be interpretive, contextual and interactive. Arguably, value is constructed in interaction between those individuals involved in business relationships. The study claims that the discussions in the relevant literature on value and value creation in a B2B context do not suffice to explain the phenomenon of value and its construction in sales interactions that are part of the everyday realities of business relationships. By shadowing 13 salespeople in their day-to-day work in interactions with customers and internal colleagues, this study investigates the activities and processes through which salespeople attempt to make sales interactions valuable. Informed by ideas from symbolic interactionism, the study depicts four themes that describe salespeople’s acts in the attempt to make sales interactions valuable for those involved. Moreover, the study pinpoints the underlying processes of evaluation and influence by which salespeople interpret and imagine customer value and act so as to influence the course of the sales interactions. By introducing a social and symbolic perspective, this study offers an alternative theoretical understanding of value creation in business marketing. The study’s managerial contribution lies in offering a nuanced understanding of the salesperson’s role in value creation.
|
|
| 24. |
- Holmberg, Leif
(författare)
-
Health-care processes - A Study of Medical Problem-solving in the Swedish Health-care Organisation
- 1997
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study is about medical problem-solving within its organisational context, the Swedish health-care organisation. The main purpose is to demonstrate how different types of medical problem-solving are affected by the structure of the health-care organisation. This involves the construction of a typology of medical problem-solving processes, and it is argued that the main characteristics of these processes are that they vary according to differences in medical technology and differences in the obscurity of the perceived medical problem. From this, four main processes are defined and demonstrated through empirical examples of the handling of illnesses. Furthermore, relevant aspects of structure are defined, and applied to empirical material (from hospitals and health-care centres) as examples to demonstrate how the present structure, at different organisational levels, influences the different medical problem-solving processes at the "work-floor" level. The main result of this study is an illustration of how the different ways of organising at different levels work together to restrict the problem-solving processes and deprive them of suitable conditions. When different problem-solving processes take place in the same structural setting they disturb each other. Under norms of efficiency the processes therefore need e.g. to have different integrative mechanisms, different principles for grouping of activities, and to be evaluated according to different criteria.
|
|
| 25. |
- Johansson, Magnus
(författare)
-
Between logics
- 2008
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Industrial organizations rely, to an increasing extent, on intangible resources such as the knowledge and competence of highly skilled workers. This makes them successively similar to organizations closely associated with highly skilled workers, such as professional service firms. But many industrial organizations also share another characteristic with professional service firms, that of customizing their deliveries. Customizing deliveries to the specific needs of a customer requires a different way of working, a different logic, compared to producing and supplying standardized or off-the-shelf products. But although the organization customizes its deliveries, it also strives for reuse and repeatability so that it can utilize the scale benefits associated with the traditional industrial logic. This study is positioned at the intersection of these logics. By means of three cases it reveals how industrial organizations attempt to balance their activities and their competence utilization. It proposes a new value creation logic as part of a set of logics with which to describe an industrial organization’s point of strategic focus. The study also shows how these logics involve the competence resources of an organization through aggregation of two main types of individual resources. Thus, the study contributes to the field of value creation logics, and especially value constellations, as well as to competence based theories, at a time when dependence on highly skilled workers, and the ability to customize, become increasingly important.
|
|
| 26. |
- Kalling, Thomas
(författare)
-
Gaining competitive advantage through information technology. A resource-based approach to the creation and employment of strategic IT resources
- 1999
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Information technology is a central phenomenon in modern society. It is widely used in a variety of settings and commercial firms use it for a variety of purposes. It could be an Internet application, a manufacturing system, office support software, electronic data interchange or something else, applied in order to create economic benefits through improvements of operative work tasks and business activities. But how do firms manage the IT investment? This thesis aims at increasing our understanding of how firms and managers act to create and employ strategic information technology resources, in order for the resources to become sources of competitive advantage. It is concerned in particular with so-called enterprise resource planning systems. Based on the resource-based view of strategic management, the thesis presents and analyses a particular IT project in a manufacturing company. The proposed framework offers an overview of the resource management process and its different phases, as well as a description of potential problems and solutions in conjunction with such processes. There are two overarching phases; the resource phase (including identification, development and protection of the resource) and the employment phase (including distribution and usage of the resource). Apart from a wide set of proposed problems and solutions associated with the different phases, three key properties of the process are addressed: Its cognitive component, the irreversibility of such projects in terms of finance, finance, cognition and culture, and the role of top management.
|
|
| 27. |
- Knutsson, Hans
(författare)
-
Process-based transaction cost analysis: a cost management exploration in SCA Packaging.
- 2000
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Firms compete with each other to earn the highest profit. A wide range of issues needs to be considered in order to do so – decisions about products, markets, customers and, not to forget, organisation have to be made. Concerning organisation, a business firm can choose to make a particular thing (a good or service) by itself or to buy it from someone else. The decision determines the way in which the exchange – the ‘transaction’ – is organised. Transaction cost theory explains why some transactions are made within the realms of one company and why others are made between independent firms: the transaction is either ‘integrated’ or carried out over the market. This work is part of a process, in which transaction cost analysis is developed towards a fine-tuned theory of organisation. The thesis is an argument for a process-based cost structure analysis. In a case study, cost incurrence in two paper mills owned by SCA Packaging is explored. The conclusions, based on a detailed study of cost incurrence, indicate that actually incurred transaction costs represent a low share of total cost incurrence and that the cost-efficiency of the company may depend more on how activities are performed than on organisational structure. This contradicts transaction cost theory. Proxies of transaction costs, the ‘transaction cost attributes’, are biased by a structural preoccupation and misses important cost dynamics. The process-based cost structure analysis explicitly takes cost dynamics into account and may in that way improve the analysis and explanation of specific degrees of vertical integration and coexisting mixes of different forms of organisation. Thus, the process-based cost structure analysis may proceed where the transaction cost analysis ends.
|
|
| 28. |
- Kristensen, Henrik
(författare)
-
En studie av prisförhandlingar vid företagsförvärv
- 1999
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Scholars within the Process school assume that cognitive and motivational aspects within the decision and integration processes may systematically effect the outcome of mergers and acquisitions. More specifically, it has been suggested that decision makers use heuristics for simplifying information processing which may introduce bias. The main aim of the present thesis is to add to the understanding of how offers and counteroffers, and information about a fair price affects the process and outcome of price negotiations in mergers and acquisitions. The results from five prestudies and one case study showed that norms of fairness may influence takeover negotiations. The head negotiatiors emphasized that they did not tried to buy (sell) to lowest (highest) possible price, but at a juste price. However, it was not possible to disentangle if the parties had an interest in being ”perfectly” fair, or if they had a more ”egoistic” interpretation of fairness. In order to further investigate whether or not fairness matters in corporate takeovers, simulation experiments was conducted with MBA students. By letting subjects rate their degree of satisfaction with the offered selling prices, it was possible to establish a ”social utility function” which specifies the level of satisfaction with outcomes to oneself and others. The results clearly showed that buyers’ social utility function was affected by information of a fair price. However, it seems like that they were more interested in that them selves were not being treated unfair (steeper decreasing social utility for buying at a price higher than a fair price) than treating others unfairly (flatter increasing social utility for buying at a price lower than a fair price). The behavioral predictions was tested in two additional simulated takeover negotiations. These results clearly showed that the negotiation process and outcome were affected by information about a fair price. More specifically, selling prices were lower when the subjects had received information about a low fair price, and higher when they had information about a high fair price. In addition, as if subjects anchored there counteroffer on the opponents initial offer and insufficiently adjusted from it, buyers first counteroffers were higher and sellers’ first counteroffer lower when the opponent started the negotiation. Furthermore, was the negotiated outcome lower when the buyer started the negotiation.
|
|
| 29. |
|
|
| 30. |
- Link, Fredrik
(författare)
-
Diffusion Dynamics and the Pricing of Innovations
- 1997
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This doctoral thesis deals with two closely interconnected phenomena, the adoption and diffusion of innovations. The research aims at developing both the theory of individual adoption decisions and the theory of the diffusion of an innovation in society. Especially how the pricing of an innovation tends to influence adoption and diffusion is focused. Two empirical studies within the telecommunication product domain are presented. The first study is a test of the prevailing theory, which prescribes a high willingness to pay by the most innovative adopters. This view is complemented by two additional adoption behavior determinants known from pricing theory, the use of price as a quality signal and the use of reference prices in the evaluation of innovations. Based on findings contradicting the prevailing theory, the second study explores the causes behind the market "take-off" phenomenon. Beyond the traditional view of communicated experiences, are also explored the effects of changes in perceived value, network externalities, and technological "lock-in." The findings of the second part of the thesis indicate that the causes of the "take-off" phenomenon can be found in the formation of conditional adoption decisions, especially by the most innovative potential adopters. The statistical analyses and theory tests in both parts of the thesis are conducted by use of structural equation modeling in LISREL.
|
|
| 31. |
- Ljungdahl, Fredrik
(författare)
-
Utveckling av miljöredovisning i svenska börsbolag : praxis, begrepp, orsaker
- 1999
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Before 1990 environmental reporting in Sweden was a marginal and unsystematic activity undertaken by a small number of large companies in high-profile industries. The 1990's have witnessed a dramatic increase in environmental reporting practice, and today a large number of companies in almost all industries annually report considerable amounts of environmental information. Increasingly, companies are publishing this information in separate annual environmental reports. The thesis provides a detailed survey of Swedish listed companies' environmental reporting practices for the years 1990 through 1996. Following this survey the thesis presents a study of possible causes of the development of the environmental reporting trend, and a detailed analysis of financial environmental reporting concepts disclosed by companies. The study of concepts shows that this type of environmental reporting is uncommon in practice and confirms that it is highly problematic. In part, this is due to the difficulty in separating environmental activities from other business activities. The study also shows that these concepts may be disclosed and interpreted in a number of ways, thus limiting their usefulness. The study of possible causes shows that size and industry are prerequisites for environmental reporting during the early part of the period. Pressure by environmental groups has been a direct cause of disclosure in certain companies, but various internal organizational factors determine how a particular company reacts to such pressures. The rapid diffusion of environmental reporting practice may partly be explained by the tendency of companies to mimic the behaviour of their peers and competitors. In this sense, environmental reporting has become a reporting norm among listed companies. It is also an interesting example of how such norms develop through mimetic behaviour among report-makers, rather than as a result of professional debate among accounting regulators.
|
|
| 32. |
- Lundholm, Susanne
(författare)
-
Meta-managing: A Study on How Superiors and Subordinates Manage Their Relationship in Everyday Work
- 2011
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In virtually every organization we find formally appointed managers, but nevertheless we tend to condemn the idea of formal hierarchy and celebrate alternative modes of governance that better respect the discretion of employees. This tension, that seemingly surrounds the vertical dimension of contemporary organizations, forms the backdrop of this study which examines how superiors and subordinates in a Swedish bank manage their relationship in everyday work. The relationship between superiors and subordinates has previously been explored in the literature on management and leadership. In these two streams, the former tends to describe vertical relations as if they were determined by the formal authority of managers, whereas the latter is prone to disregard the impact of the formal context, focusing instead on informal organizing principles that are argued to replace the authority of managers. The present study, in contrast, does not presume a particular organizing principle. Instead it explores how superiors and subordinates construct their relationship in everyday work-interactions, and it shows how those interactions balance formal authority and informal organizing principles. To make sense of this balancing act, the study suggests the notion of meta-managing. The concept draws our attention to how the everyday process of managing work is also a process of managing vertical relations. More specifically, meta-managing allows superiors and subordinates to satisfy the need for both formal hierarchy and employee discretion in work, and in doing so, it helps them to deal with other contradictory demands they face as part of daily life in the organization. Through these propositions, the study provides a link between the two perspectives on vertical relations that we currently find in the management and leadership literature.
|
|
| 33. |
- Mattisson, Ola
(författare)
-
Kommunala huvudmannastrategier för kostnadspress och utveckling : en studie av kommunal teknik
- 2000
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of the study is to improve the understanding of strategy in politically governed organisations. From the perspective of a specific responsible authority the main purpose of the study is to describe and analyse how strategies emerge and develop. Competitive tendering and inter-municipal co-operation, has been studied as a two principally different strategic approaches to reduce costs and stimulate innovation in the municipal engineering sector. By combining two different theoretical traditions, general strategy theory and political science approaches for public administration, I have developed a conceptual framework that permits the use of the strategy concept in a context of political organisations. According to the framework, it is possible to identify three types of actors within the responsible municipal authority. Each of these is characterised by a specific logic. Political actors act for political purposes, professional actors act for professional purposes and occurring private contractors act for commercial purposes. The three different types of logic are recognised to have a major impact on the emerging strategy within a supply. By confronting the theoretical framework with the empirical data, conclusions concerning the content and application of the strategies of municipal authorities are generated. Traditionally, strategy in political organisations has been considered a matter for hired professionals. By regarding political demands as an external factor, strategy is used as a means to treat and handle the governing effort of elected politicians. This situation is regrettable in view of the arguments for democracy put forward by political scientists. The thesis’ suggested framework casts political actors and professionals in the roles of initiators of strategic approaches. The emergent and realised strategy is a matter of political and professional judgement in interplay with occurring external contractors, thus strategy does not function as a filter between political decisions and implementing executives. Strategy supposedly emerges as the result of actions initiated by the three types of actors. Outcomes vary depending on the actor who’s rationality dominates each specific situation. In the study three hypotheses are presented. Depending on the type of actor, strategic reflection will appear in different arenas. Which problems and solutions appear urgent and interesting will depend on which actor’s perspective we chose to take our starting point in. Finally, most strategy studies of public organisations assume a public production unit. When initiated strategic approaches (politicians and executives) are analytically separated ex ante, a discussion in terms of strategy becomes meaningful, no matter how the production is provided.
|
|
| 34. |
- Melin, Frans
(författare)
-
Varumärket som strategiskt konkurrensmedel - Om konsten att bygga upp starka varumärken
- 1997
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In recent years the importance of strong brands has come very much into focus both among theoreticians and practitioners. In order to gain a better understanding of the nature of brand strength, I have chosen to analyse the branding process. The overriding aim of this analysis is to develop a theoretical framework and typology with which to facilitate our understanding of how powerful brands can be created. As the theoretical starting point of the study, the brand is discussed from the perspective of strategic management and brand management. This discussion leads to the development of a framework which describes branding as a value-adding process aiming at creating and managing brand equity. This process is conceived as six consecutive steps which are represented by the following key concepts: product attributes, brand identity, core values, positioning, market communication and internal brand loyalty. In order to gain a greater insight into how branding can create a sustainable competitive advantage, the brand building process is studied in the cases of Nicorette, Arla and Findus. On the basis of the empirical information provided by these case studies, the theoretical framework is further developed, with the introduction of several new concepts and models. These are summarised by the conceptual model called brand mix, which provides a general picture of the competence required to build strong brands. In order to be able to create and manage brand equity successfully, it is important to establish favourable conditions for branding. This requires a brand orientation of an organisation. Such a process is described by the conceptual model called brand refinement, the objective of which is to provide guidance in the art of building strong brands.
|
|
| 35. |
- Nilsson, Magnus
(författare)
-
A Tale of Two Clusters: Sharing Resources to Compete
- 2008
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- “The death of distance” has become the battle cry of a modern generation of managers, policy makers and scientists who embrace the new globalized economy and its promise of frictionless exchange across the world. While highly influential, this view does not, however, stand unchallenged. Over the last 15 years, there has been a growing interest in the geographical clustering of industry. Well-known studies of such clusters, in for example, Silicon Valley and the industrial districts of northern Italy, have provided accounts that dispute the death of distance doctrine and breathe life into the debate of what has come to be known as the globalization paradox. This book investigates the phenomenon of clustering by drawing on theories from two distinct research areas: agglomeration theory stemming primarily from economic geography, and the resources-based view of the firm originating in strategic management theory. The aim is to explain the way in which clusters of co-located and interconnected companies within a specific field are affected by their location. This is done by investigating two such clusters: one in Southern Ontario, Canada and one in Skåne, Sweden. Both clusters are focused on the food industry. In explaining the effects on firms’ competitiveness from their location in a cluster, the book elaborates on the importance of the process of identifying and evaluating firm-external resources, how firms must work to gain access to such resources, and what the central elements are for utilizing these resources in order to create competitive advantage. With the investigation of the role of the cluster in facilitating the process of identification, evaluation, access, and utilization of firm-external but cluster-specific resources, this book represents a contribution to theories within both strategic management and economic geography.
|
|
| 36. |
- Nilsson, Sven-Arne
(författare)
-
Redovisning av goodwill : utveckling av metoder i Storbritannien, Tyskland och USA
- 1998
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Every conceivable manner of accounting, in the same country, at the same time! This is how-with no great exaggeration-the accounting of goodwill in Sweden in the late 1980s might well be described. Many companies still followed the Accounting Act, amortizing their goodwill over no more than ten years. Some, however, referred to the rules in the United States, extending the amortization period to forty years. Yet other companies were influenced by British accounting, writing off goodwill immediately against owners' equity. There were even a couple of companies which recognized goodwill as an asset and retained it indefinitely, with no amortization whatsoever. Thus, the methods that came together in Sweden were - besides writing down the value - the traditional Swedish rule (originating in the German rule of the period between the World Wars): acquired goodwill may be capitalized, and if so must be amortized, over no more than ten years; the American standard: goodwill must be capitalized, but may be amortized over an extended period which, however, must not exceed forty years; the British standard: goodwill need not be capitalized at all, but may be written off immediately, against owners' equity. This is the background for the description and analysis given here of the several developments, in Britain, Germany and the USA, of methods in the accounting of goodwill from the mid-19th century to the present day. These divergent methods were the result of specific circumstances in these countries. The present-day principles of profit determination, which in Germany were established by the Act of 1884, the accounting principles agreed upon in Britain in the late 19th century, and the principles which were finally accepted in the USA between the wars, were not sufficiently similar, or not sufficiently precise, to generate identical methods for the accounting of acquired goodwill. In the concluding chapter, an explanation is given of why, even today, such disparate methods of accounting acquired goodwill are recommended. Common to all the various methods is our deficient knowledge of the precise economic import of acquired goodwill. Few, if any, studies are being made, and investigating it involves considerable difficulties. There is, moreover, usually a choice of definitions of assets and criteria for matching, etc., which are not sufficiently precise to indicate one specific method for accounting goodwill. Still more important is the fact that there are-at least in practice-within the frame of conventional accounting innumerable possibilities of altering or adding to the present definitions. These factors make it possible to develop alternative methods for goodwill, but on the other hand they make it impossible to use arguments from conventional accounting to exclude a particular method, or to determine that there is a single correct method. Lastly, an answer is suggested to the question whether a single internationally accepted standard is at all conceivable.
|
|
| 37. |
- Norén, Catharina
(författare)
-
Framgång i säljande - om värdeskapande i säljar- och köparinteraktionen på industriella marknader
- 2007
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The research focus in this dissertation has been on success in selling as created in the seller and buyer interaction on and between macro-, meso- and micro levels. Success seen as a value has consequences for the exchange process, since it affects the actor's action in the seller and buyer interaction on different levels in companies. The study of value is limited to success in selling as a value; how it is reached, transmitted and used in the selling context. Sense making in the process of creating success in selling will be in focus in the analysis, that it may be understood both through the actor's interactions and in the way he acts and talks. The purpose is: To distinguish aspects that seller and buyer interpret as affecting on the process of creating the value success in selling on industrial markets. In-depth interviews and observations etc. were used as multi-methods to study actors like sales representatives, sales managers and buyer representatives. Rhetoric is used in the analysis to interpret actor's talk, and their interaction with other actors. Double interaction, habitus, field, capital and schema are the models used to analyze sense making related to interaction, as well as action between sellers and buyers on and between micro , meso- and macro level. The analysis of the interactions and interviews resulted in several aspects showing success in selling as a value. In the model these aspects form a model with two central themes, the selling group's knowledge management and buyer's needs. These affect the other four aspects that are peripheral in relation to them. They are social exchange, relationships on and between different levels in companies, cooperation, problem solving and risk management and competition management. They are important results from the analysis of success on and between micro-, meso- and macro levels, since the aspects makes it is possible to show how the seller and the buyer interact to solve different problems and developing selling and buying. The result shows that success in selling is a multilevel phenomenon and tight cooperation between the sales person, the buyer and other parties from both companies and network. The results of the study contribute to different areas of research, the main areas being industrial marketing and cognitive selling.
|
|
| 38. |
- Nylinder, Pia, 1973-
(författare)
-
Budgetary control in public health care : a study about perceptions of budgetary control among clinical directors
- 2012
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Health care expenditures have increased rapidly in most OECD-countries, and several reforms have been considered for the improvement of cost-containment in the health care sector. Physicians in particular have been recognized to have considerable impact on health care expenditures and as a result they have become increasingly involved in budgetary control with the hope of a more efficient use of resources. Until 1997 only physicians were allowed to take clinical directional positions in Sweden. Then a new regulation made it possible for non-physicians to become clinical directors of a hospital department or primary care centre. Most often it has been nurses who entered such positions in the Swedish health care. The overall aim of this thesis was to analyse perceptions of tight budgetary control among clinical directors with different professional backgrounds in public health care organizations. Three questionnaire surveys of clinical directors in both hospitals and primary health care have been conducted. The results suggest that the perception of budgetary control differs between groups of clinical directors. The nurses often perceived the budgetary control as tighter than the physicians. The findings adhere to previous theories that nurses in directorial positions adopt administrative principles more easily; they accept and feel more bound by budgetary control than physicians in the same position. An alternative interpretation is that nurses in these positions actually are more controlled by the hospital management than the physicians. The nursing profession has a lower status and nurses in directorial positions may have less autonomy for managing their department.
|
|
| 39. |
- Pierce, Paul
(författare)
-
Using Alliances to Increase ICT Capabilities
- 2013
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is perhaps the most important, emblematic and ubiquitous technology of contemporary society. ICT is used increasingly in new product areas and help resolve problems and challenges to mankind; it has even gotten to a point where life without ICT is hard to imagine. Over the last decades ICT has become a core technology within the music, literature and media and many other industries, and reshaped the way we consume these services. For many incumbent firms, the infusion of ICT into their industries poses both threats and opportunities. It might drive significant shifts of financial wealth and make firm performance change drastically. It entails managerial challenges of a kind we might not have seen before, but where knowledge of what possibilities and limitations reside in ICT will be a key success factor. There are several possible ways to approach this challenge from ICT: recruitment, education, training, socialization and M&A are but a few examples. Another way is for the incumbents to team up with ICT firms and seek to learn, or at least access, the knowledge required to utilize the inherent power of ICT. This means that having an alliance, or even an alliance capability that lets you develop an ICT capability will be important. This thesis deals precisely with the challenges that arise when incumbents ally with ICT firms – our case is the security industry, which has had a strong analogue technology base in the past, but where ICT offers opportunity for business development now as well as in the foreseeable future. Based on a theoretical frame of reference, this book then uses empirical observations from four alliances within the evolving, global security industry to validate and develop an alliance framework that can be a great help to both practitioners as well as academia. Even though we suggest to approach the question of alliances with a three-legged model including Transfer Capacity, Relationship Governance and Cultural fit the framework in essence the framework caters for attempts at accessing knowledge and, thanks to the empirical conclusions made, alliances where the main benefit in the end might differ from initial aspirations. It also highlights the sometimes serendipitous and unexpected results of alliances, and that higher aspirations might have to be replaced by more modest ambitions. The fact of the matter is that that sometimes, grand visions of knowledge exchange and accumulation are simply not reachable. In fast-moving industries such as ICT, there might not be time and incentive enough to actually transfer knowledge, but instead ally to access finished products.
|
|
| 40. |
- Planander, Agneta
(författare)
-
Strategic alliances and trust processes - a study of strategic collaborations between high-technology companies.
- 2002
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this thesis is to develop an increased understanding of strategic alliance processes. A specific aim has been to explore the trust processes involved, and to better understand the dynamics of the strategic alliance processes. The study includes socio-cultural elements and captures both the manager´s and the employee´s perspectives in everyday life. The theoretical discussions were based upon strategic alliance literature as well as sociological theories. The empirical part of the study consists of in-depth case studies of two strategic alliances: a joint venture and a strategic partnership between high-technology companies. Interviews were conducted with people from the organizations which actually formed the alliances as well as with people that belonged to the parent companies. The study revealed the importance of high-lighting the social context which in this study of R&D alliances included a risk for a high degree of opportunism and fierce competition and was characterized by rapid technological development. This, together with the temporary character of the alliances, contributed to the contradictory situations in the alliance processes. The study also indicated the importance of considering the disparate conceptions the mangers and the employees had about important elements in the process. These elements were conceptualized and discussed in terms of the time dimension, and the frames and interactions of the everyday life of the actors. Unlike most present research which often focuses on trust at the partner level in a stable context, this study discusses trust in a complex and contradictory setting. The study showed the emergent and fluctuating character of trust and the need for continous confirmation of trust in the everyday life of the employees. The collaborations seemed to grow more unstable, uncertain and contradictory especially at the transitions between the different phases in the alliance process which also had an impact on the trust between the actors.
|
|
| 41. |
- Ramberg, Ulf
(författare)
-
Utformning och användning av kommunala verksamhetsmått
- 1997
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this study is to develop a frame of reference within which formal control system performance measures can be described and their design and use can be analyzed for control systems in municipalities. From a cybernetic control approach measures are used as instruments to plan and gain feedback from employee actions, and adjust them to the internal and external environment of which they are a part. From a so-called institutional perspective we see the criticism that the formal control system is not adjusted to the environment, but rather formed by the environment. Instead of influence employee behavior, the measures are used to grant legitimacy and thereby ensure the existence of the organization. The empirical data is gathered from four municipal engineering departments and has been collected through document studies and interviews. The performance measurements are divided into four sub-measurements, which describe the various parts of the departments’ resource transformation (resource, activity, result and social indicators measurement). The thesis frame of reference stated that measures can have either an intended or an assigned use. When the measurement has an intended use, it is included in the formal control system’s planning and feedback activities, and is used as a point of reference in four areas: budgeting, rewards, defining responsibility and external comparisons. When the measurement is given an assigned use, it deals with the environment’s demands for appropriate action. This assigned use are divided into five areas: identity creation, legitimacy creation, myths, power and conflict. The intended uses were fairly similar between the departments and were centralized and coincided with the departments’ formal feedback meetings. The departments’ assigned use of measures was both offensive and defensive, and was used to handle both internal and external relations. It is possible to state, from a contingency-based approach, that the measure design and use was affected by factors internal and external to the departments. The analyses of the departments’ efforts at measurement clarified two dimensions of the formal control system: the signal and translation dimensions. The fact that the organizational levels which designed and used measures requested data from the levels that did not use these measures constituted a clear signal regarding the importance of taking account of the demanded data in their activities. The section heads worked interactively with the control system and were well equipped to understand the signals transmitted through the system. This translation dimension’s purpose is to ensure that individuals working within different control systems with differing terminology can adequately inform and understand each other. It is the position of this study that the existence of the signal and translation dimensions calls for further thought before one states that the formal control system is not used and does not affect employee behavior.
|
|
| 42. |
- Risberg, Anette
(författare)
-
Ambiguities Thereafter - An Interpretive Approach to Acquisitions
- 1999
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- While the human side of mergers and acquisitions is increasingly focused in both research and practice, it still suffers from several forms of oversimplifications. This study addresses the problem of how various employees interpret objectives, corporate identity and other meanings associated with the post-acquisition process, and what roles these multiple interpretations play during this critical process. The overall purpose of the study is to contribute to the acquisition literature by using an ambi-guity approach to further the understanding of how employees interpret the post-acquisition process. This ambiguity approach is intended to highlight previously neglected aspects of mul-tiple interpretations in the post-acquisition process--interpretations that are more or less incon-sistent and confusing. The concept of ambiguity is introduced here as a means to grasp the mul-tiple interpretations that occur in acquisitions. Unlike much present research which relies on stereotypical experiences gleaned from management, this study examines these ambiguities largely from an employee viewpoint. Rather than denying such inconsistencies and confusion through more or less simplified stereotypical interpretations (e.g., culture clashes), an ambigu-ity approach is used as a conceptual lens to bring these inconsistencies to the surface and ex-amine them as potential key characteristics for a more nuanced understanding of the human side of acquisitions. Two acquisitions have been used as cases to illustrate ambiguities in acquisition processes. These cases turned out to be good examples of how previous acquisition research was insuffi-cient to understand the difficulties of this particular post-acquisition process. Interviews were conducted with people from both the acquiring as well as the acquired companies, with a focus on the acquired companies. Case studies of these two acquisitions show the additional understanding that an ambiguity ap-proach can provide by embracing contradictory, confusing, and inconsistent employee inter-pretations instead of only capturing the employees’ shared experiences. Ambiguities of purpose and communication were particularly prevalent throughout the two post-acquisition processes. Moreover, the study found that the acquisition process is experienced very differently depend-ing on the person’s background, present situation, position, and other external factors. Some interpretations are unique to individuals, while others are shared in and between groups. The recognition of such ambiguities can shed new light and add important nuances to the under-standing of employee reactions to acquisitions.
|
|
| 43. |
|
|
| 44. |
|
|
| 45. |
- Styhre, Alexander
(författare)
-
The Pleasure of Management Ideas: The Discursive Formation on Kaizen
- 1998
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The administration and management of organizations and companies is based upon the belief in the rationality of certain ideas Ð here referred to as management ideas Ð that is, the belief in these ideas1 ability to solve problems and provide opportunities for betterment. The talk of and writings on management ideas (lexis) constitute discursive formations that precede and shapes practices (praxis), i.e. activities, processes, and movements that take place on the shop floor, in administrative departments, in the boardrooms of organizations. When departing from a modernistic logocentric ontology, discursive formations do not merely represent individuals1 thoughts and preferences for organizational activities, but rather precede and construct the subject and enable various utterances to be expressed legitimately. Discursive formations thus serve to construct truth, knowledge, and power which guide individuals in their daily lives, that affects their thoughts, preferences, and desires. Since the viable management idea cannot fully reject previous ideas and practices, they have to be integrated into the existing grids of the organizational field. Yet, they have to contribute with new insights Ð some novelty Ð or they will perish; thus, management ideas are pleasurable due to their ability to make certain behaviours and desires taken-for-granted and appear as being given from the outset, at the same time as they put forth new qualities as being of importance. Pleasure is therefore the non-repressive, gratifying side of power due to its ability to provide individuals with a set of legitimate actions. This thesis present a study of how the notion of kaizen is employed discursively by academic writers, practitioners, and consultants. By arguing that kaizen is emancipative, that it is departing from scientific management, that it is applicable in a Scandinavian management setting, that it is mutually beneficial to employees as well as employers, and so forth, kaizen is infused with values, and, as a consequence, provides various individuals with a rationale for certain behaviours and modes of thinking. The notion of kaizen thus serves as one of the polymorphous techniques of power, shaping society and its individuals through the use of the pleasure.
|
|
| 46. |
- Sveningsson, Stefan
(författare)
-
Strategisk förändring, makt och kunskap : om disciplinering och motstånd i tidningsföretag
- 1999
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The dissertation examines power and knowledge in strategic changes. It is a study of changes in three Swedish newspaper companies which developed from single-business to multi-business corporations. It is suggested that this transformation was based upon the establishment and reproduction of a new knowledge formation. This knowledge was the knowledge of strategy, particularly the classical perspective as it had emerged during the end of the 60s and the beginning of the 70s. A central theme in that knowledge was diversification which became more common in newspaper companies during the 70s. In the study it is suggested that the changes can be interpreted as forms of isomorfism based on both professional and imitative aspects. However, the diversification efforts also disclosed historical editorial norms that were provoked and challenged. Newspaper companies had historically avoided diversification in order to sustain the editorial integrity of independence. When diversification efforts were pursued in the 70s and 80s, a resistance was thus mobilized. The study describes the opposition between those favouring diversification and those resisting it. It was in those struggles that the disciplinary forms of power emerged. In that emergence some people became locked into specific norms and knowledges, subsequently governing their behavior. The development created conflicts which obstructed and to some extent inhibited communication between central actors in the companies.
|
|
| 47. |
- Svensson Kling, Katarina
(författare)
-
Credit Intelligence in Banks - Managing Credit Relationships with Small Firms
- 1999
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The competition in the banking industry has during the last decades been intensified resulting in smaller interest margins. As a consequence, the resources spent on each credit customer have had to be decreased, resulting in less interaction and a perceived limited access to valuable information. This has especially been the case in the banks´credit management of small firms. Earlier research approaches to credit management have in some respects been insufficient due to a limited focus on the credit intelligence production, that is, the process of planning, collection and analysis of credit customer data and information, and the role of the interaction with the credit customer and other actors in this process. This thesis suggests an interaction oriented approach to credit management with an emphasis on qualitative factors as a complement to the traditional financial orientation. A conceptual framework for credit intelligence is developed. This framework integrates credit management with complementary research areas - information management, human information processing and service management - and empirical findings. The empirical findings are based on interviews with 86 bank officials from 22 European banks as well as an in-depht study of credit relationships in two Swedish commercial banks. The overall contribution of this thesis is made by conceptually broadening credit management to include human aspects and in particular focusing the credit intelligence production process. In doing this it explores different patterns, purposes and results of the bank officials´interaction with the small firm and other actors during different phases of the credit relationship. The thesis further explores the impact of individual information processing habits and the credit service design on interaction. Finally, it categorizes matching credit intelligence systems to credit intelligence requirements and discusses how credit intelligence blindspots might occur due to the banks applying a marketing rather than intelligence orientation in their credit service design for small firms.
|
|
| 48. |
- Sweet, Patrick L
(författare)
-
Designing Interactive Value Development: Perspectives and Strategies for High Precision Marketing
- 2001
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation addresses the design of value productive episodes at the customer/firm boundary. Its purpose is: To provide perspective and help articulate strategies for increasing precision of the design of interactive marketing and value productive efforts at firm/customer boundaries. Many observers, thinkers and practitioners of marketing and management are: (1) Struggling to comprehend and manage the impact of new IT/media on what they do; and (2) Striving to actively shape the development and use of these technologies and perceptions of them in marketing and other contexts. Comprehending the impact of technology and striving to shape its 'cause,' the dissertation argues, is largely an act of design. Not design of technology, but rather their use. In this case, their use in value productive episodes at firm / customer boundaries. This dissertation identifies and advances some basic value configuration logics and places the design of value productive episodes in the center of focus, rather than technology, individuals, segments, or structures. Basic value configuration logics are identified and defined. These are value adding, value capturing, value extracting, and value creating. They are collapsed into two strategic dimensions: value generative and value distributive. Using these logics and strategic dimensions, a robust platform for understanding and designing value productive episodes is presented. The design of value productive episodes as a substantive and productive domain of inquiry, and as a methodology of knowledge construction itself, is advanced. Formal and substantive design generation is compared with formal and substantive grounded theory generation. Formal design develops formal principles that can be applied in numerous substantive design exercises. Substantive design tasks are more concrete exercises addressing a specific and often localized context, like that of designing and marketing a particular offering made by a given firm using various customer interfaces. Substantive design domains explored in cases in this dissertation include information intensive services in the energy industry, and others using IT/media as the primary channel of service delivery, like the world-wide-web. Value configuration logics are expanded to explore 'business models' built upon portfolios of value offerings exploiting different value configuration logics.
|
|
| 49. |
- Sörgärde, Nadja
(författare)
-
Förändringsförsök och identitetsdramatisering. En studie bland nördar och slipsbärare
- 2006
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- There is a vast amount of normative literature on change, which primarily focuses on how to manage change in an efficient and successful manner. What actually happens when management attempt to put their plans into practice is more seldomly investigated. Moreover, the prevailing literature on change primarily takes a management perspective. Other organizational members are usually treated as supporting actors or even walkers-on, even though they might play an important part in the outcome of a change initiative. In response to these shortcomings, this interpretative study presents a rich and nuanced picture of the events following reorganization attempts in an IT company. The ethnographically inspired study pays attention to various actors' points of view, not only those of management. The social dynamics that might arise from change attempts (which affect the possibility of implementing the change) are the focus of the investigation. Furthermore the conception of "resistance to change" is problematized and an alternative framing - identity dramatization - is proposed.
|
|
| 50. |
- Tagesson, Torbjörn, 1969-
(författare)
-
Kostnadsredovisning som underlag för benchmarking och prissättning : studier av kommunal va-verksamhet
- 2002
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Den tekniska infrastrukturen i ett land rymmer en rad verksamheter vilka är att betrakta som naturliga monopol. För att hindra att monopolställningen missbrukas har verksamheterna ofta lagts under offentligt huvudmannaskap och regleringar har införts bland annat för att styra prissättningen. Priset regleras vanligtvis genom att avgiftsuttaget måste stå i någon form av relation till kostnaderna för produktionen av varan eller tjänsten. I normalfallet får avgiftsuttaget inte överstiga självkostnaden. I geografiskt avgränsade monopol kan man genom analys av olika mått skapa jämförande konkurrens i syfte att bevaka effektiviteten. Kostnadsdata är en viktig datadel som ofta används i jämförande mått. För att mått innehållande kostnadsdata skall vara jämförbara krävs det emellertid att redovisningen i de jämförda verksamheterna är likartad och harmoniserad. I avhandlingen redovisas tre studier som samtliga, om än med olika infallsvinklar, behandlar problem avseende kostnadsredovisning och kostnadsfördelning inom kommunal va-verksamhet. Studierna visar bland annat att de taxor som används inom va-branschen inte på ett relevant sätt speglar förorsakade kostnader på abonnentnivå. Vidare visas att flera av de mått som används i jämförande syfte inte är relevanta, tillförlitliga och jämförbara. Viktiga orsaker är låg grad av harmonisering och olika brister i redovisningen. Flera av de redovisningsprinciper som används leder inte till att redovisningsmodellen blir robust i så mån att jämförbara kostnadsdata redovisas. Dessutom är flera av de uppskattningar och bedömningar som görs tveksamma.
|
|
