Benchmarking is a well established and respected mechanism that contributes to organisational improvement. Its epistemology demonstrates it to be theoretically underdetermined with literature focusing on pragmatism and praxis. Benchmarking's critics hold it to be a-theoretical; failing to provide its practitioners with a reliable basis for distinguishing between effective and ineffective efforts. The purpose of this thesis is to review Benchmarking's epistemology and identify the necessary or sufficient methodological elements contributing to its effectiveness and to establish them within an acceptable theoretical framework. A causal approach is applied to the objectives of organisational benchmarking's current definitions and implementation frameworks. The resulting theoretical framework is then validated against current exemplary benchmarking praxis to explain its effectiveness and satisfy historical criticisms. Central to the approach is the application of supervenience and entailment relationships between benchmarking parties within the umbrella of Peircean Causation to determine the feasibility of a benchmarking proposition. Benchmarking's a priori effectiveness (sufficiency) can be established from an organisational axiom and five logical conditions. This research establishes a new encompassing definition of benchmarking reduces its typology to a single consistent form and establishes an Effective Benchmarking Process that explains current practices and addresses historical criticisms. These logical conditions also explain the effectiveness of empirical frameworks such as the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and ISO 9000. A theoretical foundation for benchmarking provides a platform for extending the theory of organisational improvement. It also has significant potential to enhance organisational sustainability by reducing wasted effort. This research focuses on the causal linkages between benchmarking and organisational sustainability. The research establishes a new definition of benchmarking, specifies necessary and sufficient conditions for its application and frames practitioner efforts within an Effective Benchmarking Process (EBP).

The aim of this thesis is to assist industry leaders in Australia understand the nature of employee empowerment by identifying the characteristics of employee empowerment, the leadership strategies required to guide employee behaviour changes and the interaction between the two concepts. This thesis argues that in the 1990's the role of leadership needs to change in order to address the threat of increasing competition. The role of leadership needs to focus on employee development and enhancing their ability to adapt to change, be innovative, creative and committed to achieving the goals of the organisation. Effective leadership is therefore reflected in the behaviour of employees. A characteristic identified as employee empowerment. The research for this study had two components. First was the development of the model to investigate the relationship between leadership strategies and employee empowerment behaviour in a workplace setting. The second research component of the study was testing the model. Testing required the development of a multi-component workplace survey instrument. A range of validation methodologies supported the survey instrument. The case study site was a government organisation. Results provided answers to each of the research questions. Among other findings, it was found that factors other than leadership could also moderate empowerment behaviours. The results of the study, if replicated, have important significance to Australian industry. Serious questions are raised concerning the direction of previous leadership research. Furthermore a new focus is provided to explain why TQM fails in organisations. Another key point highlighted in the study was the importance of using practical models that can be tested in the workplace. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>As two former exchange students ourselves and studying the International Business and Economics program we were appealed by writing this thesis on commission for the International Office at Umeå University. The marketing of education is an area of research still in development. This lead us to our problem:</p><p>In what way do International Offices work to market their exchange programs?</p><p>The purpose of the study was to get an understanding of how International Offices in Europe work to market their exchange programs. We wanted to see and compare how the International Offices work to make students go and come on exchange programs. All this to improve the knowledge of the International Offices in Europe to become more effective and achieve greater success.</p><p>We started our theory chapter by writing about service marketing: describing a service and how to work with it. We continued with theories about the marketing of education. Australia turned out to be the country where we found the basis for our study. They are researching the most within the marketing of education. Using the theories as a basis we constructed a model called ‘the European Director’ of how International Offices in Europe work to market their exchange programs.</p><p>The study was done using a qualitative method. Three telephone-, and one face-to-face interview were conducted with persons working in International Offices. Our view of knowledge was hermeneutical and we had a deductive approach even though somewhat influenced by the ‘golden middle way’. Our perspective was that of the International Offices.</p><p>The results of our study were a compilation of our model that we constructed. Placing any IO in the head of ‘the European Director’ can tell how an International Office is working on a national- and international level towards students, other IOs and other universities. On an international level towards students the Internet and student ‘recruiters’ are tools that are used. Towards other IO’s and universities the Internet, brochures, personal selling and relationships are important. On a national level the Internet towards students is also an important tool, as is also personal selling and direct marketing. Towards other IO’s and universities the Internet and cooperations in different forms are used. The internationalization and the staff is very important in all offices. The internationalization is constantly on their minds and some offices even feel great pressure from it. The internationalization is evident in all offices since they all, except one, use individual marketing campaigns towards different countries.</p>

<p>Background: Many companies have outsourced their IT-operations and their expectations of what this IT-outsourcing will contribute to the business are high. Cost cuts are not always a natural outcome of IT-outsourcing. Many companies that have outsourced their IT-operations consider it to be problematic and complex to exercise management control and reach cost control which was the purpose of the IT-outsourcing.</p><p> Purpose: To describe and analyze what affect IT-outsourcing has on a company’s management control system and a company’s possibility to exercise cost control. We will also make a suggestion on how a company can arrange their IT- outsourcing to facilitate management control. </p><p>Method: We have through a case study like approach interviewed IT-managers, IT- controllers and IT-maintenance personnel in five large corporations in Sweden. </p><p>Results: It’s common that a company that decides to outsource their IT- operations underestimates the difficulties that occur when the company transforms their operations from producing IT-services in house to ordering from a supplier. After a while the company often realizes that it lacks sufficient competence to order IT-services. There is also a great risk that the company becomes very dependent on its IT-supplier. For the company to reach the optimum order volume of IT-services from the IT-supplier it’s very important to create a competent procurement department for IT-services. A key factor in reaching a successful IT-outsourcing with good competence to order IT-services is to keep the architectural role within the company. Furthermore is the design of the IT-contract one of the most important tools in creating a solution for IT-outsourcing that facilitates management control. Examples of important ingredients in a good IT-contract are rules how to conduct benchmarking and how the company can put competitive pressure on the IT-supplier.</p> / <p>Bakgrund: Det är många företag somhar outsourcat sin IT-verksamhet och förhoppningarna om vad IT-outsourcing ska medföra för verksamheten är höga. Kostnadsinbesparingar och effektiviseringar är dock inte en självklar följd av IT-outsourcing. Många företag som har outsourcat sin IT-verksamhet uppfattar det som problematiskt och komplext att utöva ekonomisk styrning och uppnå den kostnadskontroll som eftersträvades när IT-verksamheten outsourcades. </p><p>Syfte: Att beskriva och analysera hur ett företags ekonomiska styrning och möjligheter till kostnadskontroll påverkas av att IT-verksamheten outsourcas. Vidare vill vi utarbeta ett förslag på hur ett beställarföretag kan konstruera sin IT-outsourcing för att underlätta utövandet av ekonomisk styrning och kostnadskontroll. </p><p>Metod: Vi har i en fallstudieliknande studie intervjuat IT-chefer, IT- controllers och förvaltningsansvariga på fem stora bolag i Sverige som har outsourcat sin IT-verksamhet. </p><p>Resultat: Det är vanligt att beställarföretaget underskattar svårigheterna med omställningen att gå från att ha varit utförare till att bli beställare och efter ett tag upptäcker att det saknas tillräcklig beställarkompetens. Risken är också stor att beställarföretaget hamnar i en mycket stark beroendeställning till sin IT-leverantör. För att beställarföretaget ska hitta den optimala volymen av IT-tjänster är det viktigt att beställarföretaget bygger upp en kompetent beställarorganisation. En nyckelfaktor för att uppnå en framgångsrik outsourcing där beställarkompetensen är god är att behålla arkitekturrollen inom företaget. Vidare är utformningen av kontraktet ett av de viktigaste verktygen för att skapa en outsourcinglösning som underlättar utövandet av ekonomisk styrning. Exempel på viktiga beståndsdelar i ett bra kontrakt är klausuler som reglerar hur benchmarking och en konkurrensutsättning ska gå till samt hur effektiviseringsvinster ska fördelas mellan parterna.</p>

<p><p>Benchmarking of DSP kernel algorithms was conducted in the thesis on a DSP processor for teaching in the course TESA26 in the department of Electrical Engineering. It includes benchmarking on cycle count and memory usage. The goal of the thesis is to evaluate the quality of a single MAC DSP instruction set and provide suggestions for further improvement in instruction set architecture accordingly. The scope of the thesis is limited to benchmark the processor only based on assembly coding. The quality check of compiler is not included. The method of the benchmarking was proposed by BDTI, Berkeley Design Technology Incorporations, which is the general methodology used in world wide DSP industry.</p><p>Proposals on assembly instruction set improvements include the enhancement of FFT and DCT. The cycle cost of the new FFT benchmark based on the proposal was XX% lower, showing that the proposal was right and qualified. Results also show that the proposal promotes the cycle cost score for matrix computing, especially matrix multiplication. The benchmark results were compared with general scores of single MAC DSP processors offered by BDTI.</p></p>

<p>Allt fler statligt drivna verksamheter övertas av privata aktörer. Privatiseringen av bland annat vård och utbildning har stått i fokus för diskussion och debatt. Anledningen är delade åsikter om huruvida det ska vara möjligt för företag att omvandla skattemedel till vinst. Andra menar att konkurrens leder till kostnadseffektivitet och högre kvalitet. Antalet fristående gymnasieskolor har under de senaste åren ökat drastiskt, och trenden ser ut att hålla i sig. Ökningen av den privata verksamheten tillsammans med minskade elevkullar kan komma att leda till hård konkurrens om eleverna. Att de fristående gymnasieskolorna har kommit att göra en vinst med samma anslag som den motsvarande kommunala verksamheten finns det ingen tvekan om.</p><p>Uppsatsen tar riktning mot hur styrningen och resursfördelningen i såväl de kommunala som de fristående gymnasieskolorna leder till de olika resultaten, samt hur kvalitén har påverkats och redovisas.</p><p>Studien visade på att styrningen är likvärdig i samtliga undersökta gymnasieskolor. Den procentuella fördelningen av resurser skiljer sig inte nämnvärt mellan verksamheterna. Alla skolor har en vision som de strävar mot. Skillnaden här ligger i att de fristående skolorna siktar högre, vilket också kan leda till att de når längre. Profilering och marknadsföring är också en faktor som skiljer den kommunala respektive fristående gymnasieskolan åt. De sistnämnda anser informationen om skolan vara det primära, eftersom det leder till att få "rätt" elever till skolan.</p><p>Andra resultat som framkommit är att den kommunala skolan är politiskt styrd, vilket leder till en inneboende tröghet för att upprätthålla den demokratiska säkerheten. Flera instanser krävs för ett godkännande, emedan besluten i de privata skolorna kan tas med kortare tidsfrist. Till följd av detta är den privata verksamheten mer flexibel.</p><p>Det finns inte heller några indikationer på att kvaliteten på utbildningarna skulle vara sämre eller bättre i den ena eller andra driftsformen. Därmed kan utefter undersökningen synteser dras om att kvaliteten inte behöver bli sämre med mindre medel om de förvaltas på ett marknadseffektivt sätt.</p>

<p>Today many professional property holders use different types of software for monthly energy analyses. The data is however often limited to energy and water use, that is paid for by the property holder. In year 2001, financed by the Swedish Energy Agency, the first steps were taken to create a national web based data base, eNyckeln. A property holder may then enter consumption data together with about 50 other building specific parameters to this data base in order to enable benchmarking and energy performance evaluations. Due to EU-regulations and the increasing awareness of energy and environmental issues there is a large interest in evaluating the energy performance and also to identify effective energy retrofits. The used energy performance indicator is still only the annual energy use for heating per square meter of area to let, kWh/m²,year, despite the fact that monthly data often are available. The main problem with this indicator, which is the stipulated measure, is that it reflects a lot of user influence and that only a part of the total energy use is considered. The main focus of this thesis is to explore the possibilities, based on the national data base, to extract additional energy information about multi family buildings (MFB) using monthly data in combination with different assumed consumption pattern but also to identify potential for energy savings. For the latter a multivariate method was used to identify relations between the energy use and building specific parameters. The analysis gave clear indications that the available area, the area to let, is not appropriate for normalization purposes since the remaining heated area can be significant. Due to this fact, the analysis was mainly limited to qualitative conclusions. As measure of the buildings energy characteristic, the total heat loss coefficient, <em>K_tot</em>,(W/ºK) is determined and the robustness for the estimate of<em> K_tot</em> to different assumptions of user behaviour is investigated. The result shows that the value of <em>K_tot</em> is fairly insensitive to different indoor temperature, use of domestic hot water and household electricity. With the addition of m² it can of course be used for benchmarking. Using the mentioned measure of the buildings energy characteristic for validating the energy performance has a clear advantage compared to the traditional kWh/m², since the user behaviour is of minor importance. As a result of this an improved analysis of the energy performance will be obtained. A guarantee for new buildings energy performance based on this method is therefore a challenge for the building sector to develop.</p>

Background: Many companies have outsourced their IT-operations and their expectations of what this IT-outsourcing will contribute to the business are high. Cost cuts are not always a natural outcome of IT-outsourcing. Many companies that have outsourced their IT-operations consider it to be problematic and complex to exercise management control and reach cost control which was the purpose of the IT-outsourcing. Purpose: To describe and analyze what affect IT-outsourcing has on a company’s management control system and a company’s possibility to exercise cost control. We will also make a suggestion on how a company can arrange their IT- outsourcing to facilitate management control. Method: We have through a case study like approach interviewed IT-managers, IT- controllers and IT-maintenance personnel in five large corporations in Sweden. Results: It’s common that a company that decides to outsource their IT- operations underestimates the difficulties that occur when the company transforms their operations from producing IT-services in house to ordering from a supplier. After a while the company often realizes that it lacks sufficient competence to order IT-services. There is also a great risk that the company becomes very dependent on its IT-supplier. For the company to reach the optimum order volume of IT-services from the IT-supplier it’s very important to create a competent procurement department for IT-services. A key factor in reaching a successful IT-outsourcing with good competence to order IT-services is to keep the architectural role within the company. Furthermore is the design of the IT-contract one of the most important tools in creating a solution for IT-outsourcing that facilitates management control. Examples of important ingredients in a good IT-contract are rules how to conduct benchmarking and how the company can put competitive pressure on the IT-supplier. / Bakgrund: Det är många företag somhar outsourcat sin IT-verksamhet och förhoppningarna om vad IT-outsourcing ska medföra för verksamheten är höga. Kostnadsinbesparingar och effektiviseringar är dock inte en självklar följd av IT-outsourcing. Många företag som har outsourcat sin IT-verksamhet uppfattar det som problematiskt och komplext att utöva ekonomisk styrning och uppnå den kostnadskontroll som eftersträvades när IT-verksamheten outsourcades. Syfte: Att beskriva och analysera hur ett företags ekonomiska styrning och möjligheter till kostnadskontroll påverkas av att IT-verksamheten outsourcas. Vidare vill vi utarbeta ett förslag på hur ett beställarföretag kan konstruera sin IT-outsourcing för att underlätta utövandet av ekonomisk styrning och kostnadskontroll. Metod: Vi har i en fallstudieliknande studie intervjuat IT-chefer, IT- controllers och förvaltningsansvariga på fem stora bolag i Sverige som har outsourcat sin IT-verksamhet. Resultat: Det är vanligt att beställarföretaget underskattar svårigheterna med omställningen att gå från att ha varit utförare till att bli beställare och efter ett tag upptäcker att det saknas tillräcklig beställarkompetens. Risken är också stor att beställarföretaget hamnar i en mycket stark beroendeställning till sin IT-leverantör. För att beställarföretaget ska hitta den optimala volymen av IT-tjänster är det viktigt att beställarföretaget bygger upp en kompetent beställarorganisation. En nyckelfaktor för att uppnå en framgångsrik outsourcing där beställarkompetensen är god är att behålla arkitekturrollen inom företaget. Vidare är utformningen av kontraktet ett av de viktigaste verktygen för att skapa en outsourcinglösning som underlättar utövandet av ekonomisk styrning. Exempel på viktiga beståndsdelar i ett bra kontrakt är klausuler som reglerar hur benchmarking och en konkurrensutsättning ska gå till samt hur effektiviseringsvinster ska fördelas mellan parterna.

As two former exchange students ourselves and studying the International Business and Economics program we were appealed by writing this thesis on commission for the International Office at Umeå University. The marketing of education is an area of research still in development. This lead us to our problem: In what way do International Offices work to market their exchange programs? The purpose of the study was to get an understanding of how International Offices in Europe work to market their exchange programs. We wanted to see and compare how the International Offices work to make students go and come on exchange programs. All this to improve the knowledge of the International Offices in Europe to become more effective and achieve greater success. We started our theory chapter by writing about service marketing: describing a service and how to work with it. We continued with theories about the marketing of education. Australia turned out to be the country where we found the basis for our study. They are researching the most within the marketing of education. Using the theories as a basis we constructed a model called ‘the European Director’ of how International Offices in Europe work to market their exchange programs. The study was done using a qualitative method. Three telephone-, and one face-to-face interview were conducted with persons working in International Offices. Our view of knowledge was hermeneutical and we had a deductive approach even though somewhat influenced by the ‘golden middle way’. Our perspective was that of the International Offices. The results of our study were a compilation of our model that we constructed. Placing any IO in the head of ‘the European Director’ can tell how an International Office is working on a national- and international level towards students, other IOs and other universities. On an international level towards students the Internet and student ‘recruiters’ are tools that are used. Towards other IO’s and universities the Internet, brochures, personal selling and relationships are important. On a national level the Internet towards students is also an important tool, as is also personal selling and direct marketing. Towards other IO’s and universities the Internet and cooperations in different forms are used. The internationalization and the staff is very important in all offices. The internationalization is constantly on their minds and some offices even feel great pressure from it. The internationalization is evident in all offices since they all, except one, use individual marketing campaigns towards different countries.

Allt fler statligt drivna verksamheter övertas av privata aktörer. Privatiseringen av bland annat vård och utbildning har stått i fokus för diskussion och debatt. Anledningen är delade åsikter om huruvida det ska vara möjligt för företag att omvandla skattemedel till vinst. Andra menar att konkurrens leder till kostnadseffektivitet och högre kvalitet. Antalet fristående gymnasieskolor har under de senaste åren ökat drastiskt, och trenden ser ut att hålla i sig. Ökningen av den privata verksamheten tillsammans med minskade elevkullar kan komma att leda till hård konkurrens om eleverna. Att de fristående gymnasieskolorna har kommit att göra en vinst med samma anslag som den motsvarande kommunala verksamheten finns det ingen tvekan om. Uppsatsen tar riktning mot hur styrningen och resursfördelningen i såväl de kommunala som de fristående gymnasieskolorna leder till de olika resultaten, samt hur kvalitén har påverkats och redovisas. Studien visade på att styrningen är likvärdig i samtliga undersökta gymnasieskolor. Den procentuella fördelningen av resurser skiljer sig inte nämnvärt mellan verksamheterna. Alla skolor har en vision som de strävar mot. Skillnaden här ligger i att de fristående skolorna siktar högre, vilket också kan leda till att de når längre. Profilering och marknadsföring är också en faktor som skiljer den kommunala respektive fristående gymnasieskolan åt. De sistnämnda anser informationen om skolan vara det primära, eftersom det leder till att få "rätt" elever till skolan. Andra resultat som framkommit är att den kommunala skolan är politiskt styrd, vilket leder till en inneboende tröghet för att upprätthålla den demokratiska säkerheten. Flera instanser krävs för ett godkännande, emedan besluten i de privata skolorna kan tas med kortare tidsfrist. Till följd av detta är den privata verksamheten mer flexibel. Det finns inte heller några indikationer på att kvaliteten på utbildningarna skulle vara sämre eller bättre i den ena eller andra driftsformen. Därmed kan utefter undersökningen synteser dras om att kvaliteten inte behöver bli sämre med mindre medel om de förvaltas på ett marknadseffektivt sätt.