Main intention of the thesis is to name and explain budgeting methods of building constructions with main focus on creating budget for water management and engineering structures. The practical part presents itemized budgets for a wastewater treatment plant and a bicycle trail. After that the price determined of the itemized budget is compared to the price determined by budget indicator.

The study focused on the challenges facing school governing bodies in the Vhembe district in the implementation of finance policies. Through the provision of the South African Schools Act, 84 of 1996, the school governing body is entrusted with the responsibilities of establishing and managing the school fund. The research was a multi-site case study of the Vhembe district. Purposive sampling of schools was conducted. Semi-structured interviews, observations and document analyses were carried out. The findings suggest that the finance personnel and committees at school level were not well established, trained and thus became dysfunctional. The researcher recommends that finance policies should be amended, finance committees trained and continuous monitoring of finances provided by the circuit and district officials. The study was also characterized by a number of limitations, including difficulties in understanding financial terminology by some participants and fear of handing in financial documents for examination. / Educational Leadership and Management / M. Ed. (Education Management)

Världen över sker ständiga budgetöverskridanden. Offentliga verksamheter har inte varit något undantag för dessa kostnadsöverskridanden, vilket skapar incitament till att förstå varför de uppstår. I de offentliga projekten drabbas fler än bara de projektansvariga vid budgetöverskridelser. Det är samhället i stort som får betala för arbetet eftersom det är skattefinansierade projekt. Examensarbetet utgör en fallstudie som genomfördes med syftet att skapa förståelse för varför budgetöverskridanden sker i en liten kommun. För att uppnå syftet har både sekundär- och primärdata använts i form av en djupgående dokumentanalys vilken kompletterats av intervjuer. Som fallstudieobjekt har en liten kommun använts för att samla in material. Arbetets dokumentanalys syftar till att sammanställa och jämföra tidigare utförda projekt. Intervjuer med respondenter har kompletterat och förklarat de budgetavvikelser som uppmärksammats från dokumentanalysen. En litteraturstudie av tidigare forskningens resultat möjliggjorde även för jämförelse och ökad förståelse av resultatet. Resultatet av studien är en förklaring till varför budgetöverskridanden förekommer i en liten kommun. De huvudsakliga anledningarna är ändrings-, tilläggs- och avgående arbeten (ÄTA-arbeten) i projekten vilket orsakas av olika faktorer. Dessa olika faktorer kan vara exempelvis felaktiga handlingar eller dåliga markförhållanden. ÄTA-arbeten är väldigt kostnads- och tidsdrivande vilket orsakar budgetöverskridanden. Studien visar också att kostnadsöverskridanden är mer vanligt förekommande än tidsöverskridanden / All over the world budget overruns occur. Public organisations have been no exception for these overruns, which incentivizes creating an understanding to why they occur in the first place. In the public projects there are more people than just the project managers who are affected by these overruns. This is due to the fact that the public projects are financed by tax funds which is paid by the society as a whole. The purpose of this study is to create an understanding of why budget overruns occur where a small municipality has been chosen as the case object to gather data. To achieve this purpose both primary and secondary data has been used to create a document analysis which has been complemented with interviews. The document analysis of the study aims to compile and compare previous projects in the municipality. The interviews are supposed to complement and explain different budget deviations found in the document analysis. Finally, a literature review was carried out in order to enable the comparison of the gathered data and increase the understanding of the findings. The result of the study is an explanation of why budget overruns occur in a small municipality. The primary reasons are change orders in the project plan which is caused by different factors. These different factors are faulty or vaguely formed project plans or even bad conditions of the land. Change orders are very cost and time consuming which causes budget overruns. The study also found that cost overruns are more common than time overruns.

Die Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden stellt sich für die Zukunft auf. Dazu zählt in besonderem Maße die Weiterentwicklung der betriebsorganisatorischen Rahmenbedingungen. Sie sind Voraussetzung für ein dauerhaftes erfolgreiches Agieren des Hauses auf hoch dynamischen Informations- und Wissensmärkten. Unterstützung erhält die Bibliothek dabei vom Sächsischen Landtag, der sich im Januar – einem Antrag der Regierungsfraktionen folgend – einstimmig zur Zukunft der SLUB in der Spitzengruppe der deutschen Bibliotheken und zu dafür notwendigen Anpassungen der Organisations- und Rechtsform bekannt hatte (vgl. BIS 2011/1, S. 9 – 11). Die Staatsministerien für Wissenschaft und Kunst (SMWK) und für Finanzen (SMF) gestalten diesen Prozess aktiv mit.

Sammanfattning Syfte: Med fokus på medelstora och stora svenska företags budgetanvändning syftar denna studie att kartlägga budgetens roll och framtidsutsikter. Detta genom att ta reda på i vilken omfattning budgeten används samt budgetansvarigas uppfattning samt nytta av styrverktyget. Studien syftar även efter att jämföra budgetansvarigas svar mot kritiken för att undersöka hur budgeten eventuellt kan utformas för att hantera den. Metod: En kvantitativ enkätstudie med 226 medelstora och stora svenska företag har genomförts. Studien har använt sig av olika univariata och bivariata metoder för att analysera variabler. Det empiriska resultatet har ställts mot forskares kritik av budgeten, den institutionella teorin samt tidigare resultat från Libby och Lindsays (2010) studie i Nordamerika. Slutsats: Budgetens kritik som studien studerat var från bland annat Wallander (1999), Neely et al. (2003), Hansen et al. (2003), Hope och Fraser (2003a; 2003b) samt Norton och Kaplan (2001). Studiens slutsats visar att kritiken i flera fall var överdriven, med exempel som att budgeten varken för företaget eller chefer tog i närheten av tiden som kritikerna uppgav. Även kritiken om användningen av budgeten som prestationskontrakt och att den skulle vara utbredd var överdriven där endast ett fåtal procent använde budgeten på detta vis. I andra fall används olika lösningar för att hantera kritiken med budgeten, med exempel som att en stor del av svenska företag tillåter revideringar i någon form under budgetåret samt har påskyndandeprocesser på plats för att hantera kritiken om att budgeten hindrar anpassning och är inflexibel.  Den jämförande delen av studien visade på flera skillnader mellan de svenska och nordamerikanska företagen. Mindre tid spenderas av svenska företag samt chefer i budgeten samtidigt som graden av detaljrikhet var mindre. Vidare är det enklare för svenska företag att få tillgång till resurser utanför budgeten samtidigt som budgeten i större utsträckning revideras. Slutligen används budgetar som fastställda prestationskontrakt i mindre utsträckning bland svenska företag. Dessa skillnader skulle kunna förklaras av Ekholm och Wallin (2000) samt Neely et al. (2003) som tar upp att Sverige länge har varit ledande inom alternativa lösningar till den traditionella budgeten. Vidare kan skillnaderna även bero på institutionella påtryckningar då de institutionella faktorerna generellt är starkare för den svenska populationen än den amerikanska (Honig och Karlsson 2013). Institutionell isomorfism kan även förklara skillnaderna mellan länderna (Dacin 1997). Slutligen hittades flera samband mellan enkätens variabler. En statistiskt signifikant positiv hittades mellan budgetens värde och graden av detaljrikhet. De nordamerikanska företagen hade dock nästan samma värde av budgeten som de svenska, samtidigt som de hade en högre detaljrikhet vilket leder till frågan när det extra värdet av en ökad detaljrikhet avtar. En signifikant korrelation hittades vidare mellan värde och budgetens koppling till strategi vilket bekräftar att budgetprocessen bör vara kopplad till strategiimplementering som Norton och Kaplan (2001) rekommenderat. Resultatet visade även en statistiskt signifikant korrelation mellan företagets storlek och företagets veckor till budget, men inte mellan företagets storlek och värde. Detta säger delvis emot Vaznonienė (2012) som menar på att större företag har bättre möjligheter att investera i budgeten vilket resultatet bekräftar, däremot förkastas det att mer resurser i form av tid bland de stora företagen bidrar till att budgeten blir mer relevant efter företagets behov då ingen signifikant korrelation mellan storlek och värde hittades. Större företag bör därför se över hur budgetprocessen kan effektiviseras, då den extra spenderade tiden inte adderar värde till budgeten. Det gick inte att hitta en statistiskt signifikant korrelation mellan värdet av budgeten och grad av förutsägbarhet. Att ingen signifikant korrelation hittades kan bero på att kritiken angående anpassning som hypotesen om korrelationen var baserad på inte var rättfärdigad bland de svenska företagen vilket var en av våra slutsatser under hypotes 3. / Abstract Purpose: With focus on the budget utilization of medium- and large-sized Swedish companies, this study aims to map out the role and future prospects of the budget. This by determining the extent to which the budget is used together with the perceptions and usefulness of the tool among responsible managers of the budget. The aim is also to compare the manager's responses with criticism to investigate how the budget can be designed to address these.  Method: A quantitative survey was conducted with 226 medium- and large sized Swedish companies. The study used both univariate and bivariate methods to analyze the variables. The empirical results were put against researchers' criticism of the budget, the institutional theory, and previous findings from Libby and Lindsays (2010) study in North America. Conclusion: The budget criticisms that were studied were from Wallander (1999), Neely et al. (2003), Hansen et al. (2003), Hope and Fraser (2003a; 2003b) and Norton and Kaplan (2001). The study's conclusion shows that the criticism in several cases was exaggerated, with examples such as that the time to budget for neither the company nor managers took close to the time stated by the critics. The criticism about the use of the budget as a performance contract and that the use is widespread was exaggerated, as only a few percent used the budget in this way. In other cases, different solutions are used to handle the criticism with the budget, with examples such as a large part of Swedish companies allowing revisions in some form during the budget year and having “fast-track” approval processes in place to deal with the criticism that the budget impedes adjustment and is inflexible. The comparative part of the study showed several differences between the Swedish and North American companies. Less time was spent on the budget by Swedish companies and managers while the degree of detail was smaller. Furthermore, it is easier for Swedish companies to access resources outside the budget at the same time as the budget is revised to a greater extent. Finally, budgets as established performance contracts are used to a lesser extent among Swedish companies. These differences could be explained by Ekholm and Wallin (2000) and Neely et al. (2003) who point out that Sweden has long been a leader in alternative solutions to the traditional budget. Furthermore, the differences may also be due to institutional pressures as the institutional factors are generally stronger for the Swedish population than the American (Honig & Karlsson 2013). Institutional isomorphism may also explain differences between countries (Dacin 1997). Finally, several correlations were found between the variables of the survey. A statistically significant positive correlation was found between the value of the budget and the degree of detail. However, the North American companies had almost the same value of the budget as the Swedish ones, while at the same time having a higher level of detail, which leads to the question when the extra value of increased detail decreases. A significant correlation was further found between value and the budget's association with strategy, confirming that the budget process should be linked to strategy implementation as recommended by Norton and Kaplan (2001). The results also showed a statistically significant correlation between the size of the company and the company's weeks to budget, but not between company size and value. This partly contradicts Vaznonienė (2012) who argues that larger companies have better opportunities to invest in the budget, which the result confirms, but it is rejected that more resources in the form of time among the large companies contribute to the budget becoming more relevant to the company's needs as no significant correlation between size and value was found. Larger companies should therefore review how the budgeting process can be streamlined, as the extra time spent does not add value to the budget. It was not possible to find a statistically significant correlation between the value of the budget and the degree of predictability. The fact that no significant correlation was found may be due to the fact that the criticism regarding adaptation on which the hypothesis of the correlation was based was not justified among the Swedish companies, which was one of our conclusions under hypothesis 3.

Småskalig vattenkraft är en stor användare av reaktiv effekt då de ofta har asynkrongeneratorer. Det gör att det finns ett reellt behov för faskompensering, dels för att minska distorsion i nätet samt för att förbättra deras ekonomiska ställning, då elbolag ofta tar ut en avgift för överskridande användning av reaktiv effekt. Det ligger också i allmänhetens intresse att ha en god elkvalitet och hålla störningar och avbrott nere, vilket kan erhållas med faskompensering och filtrering av övertoner. Det finns olika tekniker för faskompensering med sina respektive för- och nackdelar som specificeras efter anläggningens krav och förhållanden. Dessa tekniker är ett kondensatorbatteri, passiv och aktiv reglering, övermagnetiserad synkronmaskin, static var compensator (SVC) och static synchronous compensator (STATCOM). Med hjälp av simuleringar och ekonomisk kalkylering har deras egenskaper och investeringspotential analyserats. Det har resulterat i att ett kondensatorbatteri är en ekonomiskt god investering men med nackdelen att det blir en stor transient vid inkoppling. Aktiv reglering bistår med en snabb, kontinuerlig faskompensering men har större driftkostnader och en kortare livslängd. Övermagnetiserad synkronmaskin har en god ekonomisk framtidsutsikt men med en något långsammare reaktionstid. SVC och STATCOM är mer applicerbar på större anläggningar, eller för nät som har en större nytta av dess flexibilitet. / Small scale hydropower is a big user of reactive power, mainly because of their use of asynchrounous generators. Power companies are charging their customers a fee for an extensive use of reactive power. Which gives rise to a need of correction of the power factor as well as reduction of distorsion in the network. It is also in the interest of the general public to acquire a good electric quality in terms of keeping distorsion and interruptions in the network to a minimum. This can be achieved by using different methods for power factor correction and filtration of harmonics. These methods have their own inherent advantages and disadvantages described after the facility’s specific needs and requirements. These methods are a capacitor bank, passive and active regulation, overexcited synchronous machine, static var compensator (SVC) and static synchronous compensator (STATCOM). Simulations and economical calculations have been used to determine these properties. A capacitor bank has been proven to be a good economical investment, but it has high transients during switching conditions. Active regulation also shows a good profitability and provides a fast, continuous regulation of the reactive power, though it has higher operating costs and low life expectancy. The overexcited synchronous generator has a positive outlook in economic terms, with the drawback of a slower response time. SVC and STATCOM are more applicable to larger facilities or weak networks.

M. Tech. (Department of Accountancy, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / The minibus taxi industry in South Africa is one of the biggest, fastest growing, and riskiest industries in the world. The minibus taxi industry contributes to the economy by creating over 600,000 jobs, providing fast and cheap transport and fighting poverty and unemployment. However, the recent COVID 19 pandemia restrictions has caused a sudden and movement of economic growth and competition has forced the minibus taxi industry to be competitive in all aspects. This has resulted in intense competition for minibus taxi owners. Minibus taxi owners are constantly in rivalry amongst themselves and with other public road transport providers. In early 1988, the minibus taxi industry started seeing an influx in the number of new minibus taxis and minibus owners. This influx created problems of competition within the industry and among minibus taxi owners. Due to the importance of this industry, this research study investigated whether minibus taxi owners in the Emfuleni Local Municipality apply selected management accounting principles in the management of their minibus taxi businesses. Selected management accounting principles in this study refers to cost volume profit analysis, cost structure, and budgeting. This research study followed a quantitative research design and a questionnaire was used to collect primary data from a census of 500 minibus taxi owners from the following five associations: Get Ahead Taxi Association (GATA), Vaal National Taxi Association (VNTA), Vanderbijlpark Taxi Association (VTA), Sharpeville to Vereeniging and Vanderbijlpark Taxi Association (SVVTA) and Civic Centre Taxi Association (CCTA) operating in the Emfuleni Local Municipality. Using descriptive statistical analysis to present the findings, the study used Statistical Package for Social Sciences Version 27. Findings obtained using an online questionnaire and printed questionnaire distributed revealed a lack of management accounting principles application among these minibus taxi owners. Furthermore, the minibus taxi owners do not apply cost volume profit analysis and most do not use budgets. However, it was found that some minibus taxi owners apply very basic cash budgeting through a pen-on-paper approach. It was also found that minibus taxi owners understand the application of cost structures. This research study recommends that minibus taxi owners should be offered training by skills sectors to apply the selected management accounting principles. The limitations of this research study included that the census was geogracial restrictions, level of education, and corona virus restrictions. Despite these limitations, the research study was able to fulfil its main objective by determining that majority of minibus taxi owners do not apply the selected management accounting principles.

Сегодня развернут процесс масштабной реструктуризации оборонной промышленности. Чтобы выстоять в конкурентной борьбе, предприятия оборонно-промышленного комплекса (далее - ОПК) должны включиться в процесс интенсивного развития, который заключается в широком использовании инновационного потенциала, активизации инновационной деятельности и усилении доминанты конкурентных преимуществ. Именно эти предприятия обладают способностью создавать и воспринимать новшества. Создание интегрированных структур является основным направлением организационно-институционального реформирования ОПК и направлено на повышение эффективности и обеспечение устойчивости деятельности предприятий комплекса. Работа содержит следующие положения научной новизны: - предложена усовершенствованная организационная структура предприятия ОПК с внедренной системой позаказной организацией деятельности, позволяющая сформировать реестр центров финансовой ответственности, адаптированных к отраслевой специфике деятельности предприятий ОПК; - разработана схема формирования сводного бюджета предприятия ОПК с позаказной организацией управления, призванная обеспечить получение более точных прогнозных данных. / Today, the process of large-scale restructuring of the defense industry has been launched. In order to withstand the competition, enterprises of the military-industrial complex (hereinafter referred to as the defense industry complex) must join the process of intensive development, which consists in the wide use of innovative potential, activation of innovation and strengthening the dominant of competitive advantages. It is these businesses that have the ability to create and embrace innovation. The creation of integrated structures is the main direction of the organizational and institutional reform of the defense industry complex and is aimed at increasing the efficiency and ensuring the sustainability of the activities of the enterprises of the complex. The work contains the following provisions of scientific novelty: - an improved organizational structure of a defense-industrial complex enterprise with an implemented system of order-based organization of activities is proposed, which makes it possible to form a register of financial responsibility centers adapted to the industry specifics of the activities of defense enterprises; - a scheme for the formation of a consolidated budget for a defense industry enterprise with a custom-made management organization has been developed, designed to provide more accurate forecast data.

This research examined 50 financial education programs within the state of Florida. The purpose of the research was to survey financial education program providers to see how they are evolving to meet the sociological, psychological and behavioral factors that affect individual’s financial decision making. In constructing the survey I referenced articles, journals and publications regarding how certain factors can affect an individual and their ability to apply financial education to their daily life. This review of previous research showed that tailored education, to determine a participant’s means, ability and goals, is the best way to help participants achieve financial independence. In this literature review no specific details were found on how programs are evolving or how existing program offerings are filling the need for tailored financial education. This topic is important because financial decisions that people make will not only affect current generations but also future generations. I contacted 50 agencies with a 27 question survey regarding their basic organizational structure, funding, program details, success determinants, primary program goals and focus, and marketing strategies. 36% of those contacted, or 18 organizations, responded. All responses were compiled and compared to determine relationships among program structures, offerings, and goals. The primary findings were that most organizations opened after 2000, have budgets under $100,000 funded primarily by two main sources, and their main goals are to provide basic knowledge and education to help participants improve financial decisions. In addition, most programs conduct a pre-post survey or get participant feedback to evaluate programs and use the number of participants at meetings as their main success factor. The majority of programs do not collect financial information, however they provide one-on-one counseling to focus on tailoring education to 501+ participants per year. Recommendations for future research are to increase the number of respondents, look deeper into funding requirements, the program lifecycle, marketing strategies employed and their effectiveness, and what specific financial education topics programs are addressing. This will add to existing research by providing a broader view of the financial education landscape and help programs to evolve to meet the need for tailored education.

<p dir="ltr">Statistical arbitrage is a prevalent trading strategy which takes advantage of mean reverse property of spreads constructed from pairs or portfolios of assets. Utilizing statistical models and algorithms, statistical arbitrage exploits and capitalizes on the pricing inefficiencies between securities or within asset portfolios. </p><p dir="ltr">In chapter 2, We propose a framework for constructing diversified portfolios with multiple pairs trading strategies. In our approach, several pairs of co-moving assets are traded simultaneously, and capital is dynamically allocated among different pairs based on the statistical characteristics of the historical spreads. This allows us to further consider various portfolio designs and rebalancing strategies. Working with empirical data, our experiments suggest the significant benefits of diversification within our proposed framework.</p><p dir="ltr">In chapter 3, we explore an optimal timing strategy for the trading of price spreads exhibiting mean-reverting characteristics. A sequential optimal stopping framework is formulated to analyze the optimal timings for both entering and subsequently liquidating positions, all while considering the impact of transaction costs. Then we leverages a refined signature optimal stopping method to resolve this sequential optimal stopping problem, thereby unveiling the precise entry and exit timings that maximize gains. Our framework operates without any predefined assumptions regarding the dynamics of the underlying mean-reverting spreads, offering adaptability to diverse scenarios. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate its superior performance when comparing with conventional mean reversion trading rules.</p><p dir="ltr">In chapter 4, we introduce an innovative model-free and reinforcement learning based framework for statistical arbitrage. For the construction of mean reversion spreads, we establish an empirical reversion time metric and optimize asset coefficients by minimizing this empirical mean reversion time. In the trading phase, we employ a reinforcement learning framework to identify the optimal mean reversion strategy. Diverging from traditional mean reversion strategies that primarily focus on price deviations from a long-term mean, our methodology creatively constructs the state space to encapsulate the recent trends in price movements. Additionally, the reward function is carefully tailored to reflect the unique characteristics of mean reversion trading.</p>