Bakgrund och problem: Det som står klart tidigt i problematiseringen och bakgrunden är vikten av att utveckla adekvat ekonomistyrning när organisationer växer. Med utgångspunkt i att ekonomistyrning utvecklas i takt med att företag växer problematiseras kring ämnet och hur det påverkar SMEs i stark tillväxt. Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att öka och fördjupa förståelsen för hur ekonomistyrningen utvecklas i snabbt växande företag. Syftet är därtill att identifierade kritiska händelser och faktorer som skett under tillväxtresan som gett upphov till förändringar i ekonomistyrningen. Metod: Studien är av en kvalitativ karaktär i form av en flerfallsstudie. Den primära datainsamlingen har skett med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer. Intervjuer har genomförts med såväl ledande befattningshavare som medarbetare för att skapa en uppfattning kring hur styrningen har utvecklats över tid i de båda fallföretagen. Slutsats: Det som karaktäriserar ekonomistyrningen i fallföretagen är dels en rad kritiska händelser som påverkat beslut och framtida utveckling av företagen. Därtill har både externa och interna effekter varit bidragande till de kritiska händelserna och utvecklingen av företagen. Avslutningsvis har företagen agerat för att anpassa ekonomistyrningen i takt med att de har haft en snabb tillväxt, ett arbete som genomgående präglats av en successiv utveckling för att möta de behov som uppstått. / Background: What is clear early in the problem discussion and background is the importance of developing adequate management accounting when organizations grow. Based on the assumption that management accounting develops as companies grow we problematize on the subject and how it affects SMEs in strong growth. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to increase and deepen the understanding of how management accounting develops in rapidly growing SMEs. The purpose is also to identify the critical events and factors that have taken place during the growth which have caused changes in their respecitive management accounting. Method: The study is of a qualitative nature in the form of a multiple-case study. The primary data collection has been made using semi-structured interviews. Interviews have been conducted with both leading people and employees to create an idea of how the management has developed over time in the two companies. Conclusion: What characterizes management accounting in the case companies is partly a series of critical events that has affected decisions and future development of the companies. In addition, both external and internal effects have contributed to the critical events and development of the companies. Finally, the companies have acted to adapt their management accounting as they have had rapid growth, a work that is consistently characterized by a gradual development to meet the needs that have arisen.

När människor åstadkommer något tillsammans innebär det att deras ansträngningar samordnas på något sätt. Samordningen kan vara planerad eller spontan, informell eller formaliserad, medveten eller omedveten och kan ske i samförstånd eller leda till konflikter. Denna avhandling handlar om hur samordningen kan ske inom företag och vilken betydelse ekonomisk styrning och ekonomidatasystem har i sammanhanget. Påverkar eller påverkas deras utformning och funktion av hur samordning organiseras? Har de någon inverkan på företagets ekonomiska prestationer? I avhandlingen redovisas de svar en undersökning av samordningsproblematik i svenska börsnoterade tillverkande företag lett fram till. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk., 2001

<p>The importance of entrepreneurship has been widely acknowledged by many scholars, however, there is an argument that entrepreneurship tends to pose a unique dilemma with management accounting – a part of management control in organizations. The purpose of this paper is to find a solution for the apparent conflict between management accounting and entrepreneurship through a single case study of Litium – a new economy firm operating in information technology industry. The study of Litium reveals that a simple and solid management accounting is an effective way in order to keep management accounting in harmony with entrepreneurial spirit. This finding goes in line with the suggestion of loosely coupled management control in new economy firms by Lukka and Granlund (2003).</p><p>The paper reviews various relevant literatures so as to build a collected framework about management accounting in new economy firms. The framework then provides a guideline for empirical findings and analysis part. We acknowledged that the studies of Lukka and Granlund (2003), Granlund and Taipaleenmaki (2005), Lovstal (2001) and Morris, Allen, Schindehutte, and Avila (2006) are very useful for studying management accounting in new economy firms where entrepreneurship is highly emphasized. In addition, life-cycle perspective is also valuable to understand thoroughly the practice of management accounting in new economy firms. In accordance with the topic and the purpose of our case study, we recognized that qualitative research method is most suitable. Moreover, the interview – one type of qualitative methods – was chosen as a main tool for colleting data in our study since it can provide the authors with important insights into a situation and use-ful shortcuts to the prior history of the situation</p>

<p>According to Atkinson, Banker, Kaplan and Young (1995) management accounting and control practices have an important role within today’s organizations. In order for the organization to be successful, information on the finances and performance are crucial. But in the media industry there are indications that management accounting and control practices are not as accepted as in many other industries (Tjernström, 2002). Since there have not been much research about management accounting in the media industry, compared to what have been done in other industries, like manufacturing and new economy firms, there are less knowledge from this industry.</p><p>The purpose of our thesis is to investigate, explain and analyze the management accounting practices, with focus on performance measurement and what the attitude to performance measurement is within four newspapers in Sweden. This will be done from a management perspective.</p><p>Previous research about agency theory, stewardship theory, budget, responsibility centres, operating- income and margin, reward and incentive plans, balanced scorecard and intellectual capital statement and theories about the newspaper industry are described and used.</p><p>A qualitative research with four interviews was conducted. Three were newspaper managers and one editor in chief.</p><p>From our four researched newspapers we have found that managers described management accounting and performance measurements to be important but still not communicated. Therefore, it is interesting that none of the newspapers measure performances in the editorial department. Journalists have been and are sceptical to management accounting practices and performance measurements but this attitude has changed and is not so strong and not a problem nowadays. Focus on profit has increased but is not considered as a threat to newspaper quality as long as it is not too extreme. Operating margin is the key ra-tio that all four newspapers use.</p>

There is a need to learn more about how managers use accounting information. This thesis investigates how managers make use of business reports; as they are one of the ways managers receive information. Previous research was found to broadly correspond to four important aspects affecting how managers make use of business reports; aggregation, timeliness, flexibility and dimensions. A case study was conducted at NCC Construction. The main findings from this study are that managers have the possibility to view information in the reports at their desired level of specificity and they are not concerned about the issue of timeliness. Furthermore they are satisfied with flexibility in reports, but wish for more capabilities and do not desire non-financial information in reports. Therefore the four aspects are found to no longer be a hindrance to managers in their use of business reports as much as could be expected from previous studies. Technological developments and business practices are found to have changed managerial work. Reporting has become faster and is more accurately reflecting the real world operations, making business reports more useful to managers.

The extraction of raw materials has environmental impacts. Forestry and the extraction of coal, oil, natural gas, gold and other minerals can have serious impacts on the environment. Exploration and evaluation, development activities, production and mine closure result in high costs. The years of waiting between the start of exploration, commencement of production and mine closure create specific challenges in accounting for mining organisations. Most of the damages caused by mining activities cannot be hidden because of the processes involved, it is best to prevent it rather than avoidance. It is important to implement Environmental Management Accounting (EMA), which will assist in presenting a decision-making system for corporations. The system measures and promotes environmental performance by identifying effective cost assessment structures. This study assessed the awareness of environmental management accounting in the mining industry. An analytical methodology was used. A questionnaire was administered to a selected group of participants. It was based on the employee’s understanding of their organisation’s practices or point of view on environmental issues to build a case about the awareness of environmental management accounting. Selected participants were mine management or mine production personnel, financial practitioners and environmental practitioners from different mining organisations in the Gauteng, Mpumalanga and North-West provinces of the Republic of South Africa. All participants in the study are employees in the mining industry. Mine management is less aware of environmental management accounting compared to environmental and financial practitioners. Mine production personnel only perceive environmental issues as costs to the operations. This group rated compliance with regulation as the main driver for their organisation’s environmental management system. Gauteng province is more aware of environmental management accounting compared to Mpumalanga and North West provinces. Organisations with high annual turnover tend to disclose more financial environmental information than those with low annual turnover. Organisations explain and classify environment-related costs differently according to the intended use of the cost information. There are standards and measures to collect and record environmental and accounting information stipulated in ISO14001 including environmental management systems (EMS) in different organisations. Systems and measures put in place ensure good environmental performance in the mining operations. The tracking and reduction in the amount of energy, water and materials used by organisations may result in environmental benefits. Employees should have environmental cost information associated with their operations in order to minimise environmental impacts of an organisation. The findings of the study indicated low levels of awareness of environmental management accounting in the mining industry; however, there is a higher level of awareness of environmental impacts and costs, environmental management system and financial environmental information. The level of rating at which organisations generate and record physical and monetary information of environmental management accounting is higher. / MBAm, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Este estudo investiga, sob a ótica da teoria da contingência, os efeitos dos fatores contingenciais sobre o perfil do sistema de controle gerencial (SCG) das empresas brasileiras tendo como objetivo compreender as características do SCG, em função dos fatores contingenciais. São examinados os efeitos diretos e interativos dos fatores contingenciais internos estratégia, estrutura, tecnologia da informação e estágio do ciclo de vida organizacional e do ambiente no perfil do SCG. Avalia-se também o efeito do SCG no desempenho organizacional. Esta pesquisa defende a tese de que os fatores contingenciais internos e externos influenciam o perfil do SCG que possui associação com o desempenho, sendo possível estabelecer arranjos (fit) entre fatores contingenciais, características do SCG e desempenho organizacional. As hipóteses relativas aos efeitos dos fatores contingenciais no SCG preveem que o ambiente, fator contingencial externo, possui associação com os fatores contingenciais internos i) estratégia, ii) estrutura, iii) estágio do CVO e iv) tecnologia da informação; que o ambiente e os fatores contingenciais internos possuem associação com o perfil do SCG e que o SCG possui associação com o desempenho. A amostra envolveu 120 empresas brasileiras de grande porte e os dados para obtenção de informações sobre as mesmas foram coletados através de uma survey (levantamento). Para o tratamento dos dados, foram utilizadas as técnicas estatísticas de análise fatorial, análise de clusters e modelagem de equações estruturais. Os resultados indicaram que quando analisadas em um único grupo de empresas, não foi possível identificar associação entre os fatores contingenciais e o SCG e deste com o desempenho organizacional, rejeitando-se as hipóteses estabelecidas. Entretanto, ao separar as empresas em dois grupos distintos, i) indústria e ii) comércio e serviços, a hipótese de associação entre o fator contingencial ambiente e o SCG foi aceita. Também foram aceitas as hipóteses de: i) associação do ambiente com os fatores contingenciais internos da organização, ii) de associação dos fatores contingenciais internos com o SCG e, finalmente, iii) do SCG com o desempenho organizacional. A validação das hipóteses da pesquisa indica que a escolha e a utilização dos artefatos do SCG sofrem influência dos fatores contingenciais vivenciados pela empresa. Os resultados da pesquisa estão sujeitos a algumas limitações: i) as respostas refletem a percepção dos profissionais de controladoria das empresas, ii) a amostra não é probabilística e, portanto, todas as inferências não podem ser generalizadas para a população. Entretanto, considerando o atual estágio da pesquisa em contabilidade gerencial no Brasil, a pesquisa fornece uma visão importante de um grupo de empresas classificadas entre as maiores do País. Esta análise pode ser o ponto de partida para futuras pesquisas que utilizem a teoria da contingência. / This study investigates, from the perspective of contingency theory, the effects of contingency factors on the profile of the management control system (SCG) of Brazilian companies. The study examines the direct and interactive effects of internal contingency factors - strategy, structure, information technology and stage of organizational life cycle - and the environment in the profile of the SCG. It also evaluates the effect of SCG on organizational performance. This research supports the view that the contingent factors internal and external influence the profile of the SCG that has membership to the performance, it is possible to make arrangements (fit) between contingency factors, characteristics of the SCG and organizational performance. The assumptions of the effects of contingency factors in the SCG predict that the environment, external contingency factor, has association with membership to the internal contingency factors i) strategy, ii) structure, iii) stage of the CVO and iv) information technology, the environment and the internal contingency factors are associated with the profile of the SCG and the SCG has association with the performance. The sample involved 120 Brazilian companies large and the data to obtain information about them was collected through a survey (survey). For the treatment of data, we used the statistical techniques of factor analysis, cluster analysis and structural equation modeling. The results showed that when analyzed in a single group of companies, we could not identify an association between contingency factors and the SCG and this organizational performance, rejecting the hypotheses. However, the separate companies in two distinct groups: i) industry and ii) trade and services, the hypothesis of association between the environment and contingency factor SCG was accepted. We also accept the following hypotheses: i) linking the environment with the contingency factors internal to the organization, ii) the association of contingency factors internal to the SCG and, finally, iii) the SCG with organizational performance. The validation of the hypotheses of research indicates that the choice and use of artifacts from the SCG are influenced by the contingent factors experienced by the company. The survey results are subject to some limitations: i) the responses reflect the perceptions of professionals controlling companies, ii) the sample is not probabilistic and, therefore, all inferences can not be generalized to the population. However, considering the current state of research in management accounting in Brazil, the study provides important insight into a group of companies ranked among the highest in Brazil. This analysis can be the starting point for future studies using the contingency theory.

Este trabalho teve como objetivo ampliar o entendimento de como a Contabilidade Gerencial se desenvolve ao longo do tempo em uma organização, tomando como base um modelo de estágios de ciclo de vida. Pressupõe-se que, em cada estágio de ciclo de vida, a organização assume características particulares e tem necessidades de informações específicas, o que impacta em suas práticas contábeis gerenciais. O modelo de ciclo de vida de Miller e Friesen (1984), para organizações em geral, e o trabalho de Moores e Yuen (2001), que o aplicou ao estudo da Contabilidade Gerencial, ambos baseados na Teoria da Configuração, formam o principal referencial teórico deste trabalho. A estratégia de pesquisa utilizada foi a de um estudo de caso único, que se justifica pela complexidade do tema e pela abordagem longitudinal retrospectiva. A empresa objeto deste estudo foi uma indústria de transformação com mais de 40 anos de idade. O horizonte de análise compreendeu o intervalo da história da empresa que iniciava de 1994 e findava em 2006, o momento presente, conforme os relatos dos profissionais da empresa selecionados como participantes da pesquisa. De um modo geral, as características observadas nos períodos identificados foram compatíveis com a descrição dos estágios correspondentes no referencial teórico. Foi possível constatar como a evolução dos estágios de ciclo de vida afeta o desenvolvimento da Contabilidade Gerencial dentro do mesmo estágio e na transição entre estágios distintos. Observou-se que o processo de transição não é necessariamente linear, em que o novo estágio se estabelece e daí os atributos de Contabilidade Gerencial são alterados. As evidências coletadas permitiram suportar as proposições nos estudos de Miller e Friesen (1984), mas apenas parcialmente aquelas derivadas do trabalho de Moores e Yuen (2001), já que nem todos os estágios de ciclo de vida puderam ser observados, neste caso. O trabalho conclui com sugestões para estudos futuros, na expectativa de que se continue ampliando o entendimento do tema do desenvolvimento da Contabilidade Gerencial. / The objective of this work was to expand the understanding of how Management Accounting develops through time in an organization, taking a life cycle stage model as reference. It is assumed that, in each life-cycle stage, the organization takes in particular characteristics and has specific information needs, which impacts its management accounting practices. Miller and Friesen (1984) life cycle model, for organizations in general, and Moores and Yuen (2001) work, that applied it to the study of Management Accounting, both based on Configuration Theory, are the main theoretical references of this work. A single case study research strategy was utilized, justified by the complexity of the theme and by a retrospective longitudinal approach. The subject of this study was a manufacturing company of over 40 years of age. The analyzed time horizon comprised a span of company history that started in 1994 and ended in 2006, the current period, in accordance to the interviews with the company professionals that were selected as participants of this research. In general terms, the observed characteristics in the identified periods were compatible with the corresponding life cycle stages descriptions as found in the referenced theory. It was possible to verify how life cycle stage evolution affects Management Accounting development within the same stage and in the transition between distinct stages. It was observed that the transition process is not necessarily linear, where a new stage establishes itself and then Management Accounting attributes are changed. The gathered evidences allowed the support of the propositions based on the Miller and Friesen (1984) studies, but only partially of those derived from the Moores and Yuen (2001) work, since not every life cycle stage was observed in this case. This work concludes with suggestions for future studies, hoping that the understanding of the Management Accounting development subject continues to grow.

Diploma thesis is focused on reporting process in the sale company BSH domácí spotřebiče s.r.o. In the beginning it explains differences between management, financial and tax accounting. There is the aim to emphasize the importance of management accounting in the broader sense, in the process of strategic, tactic and operative cost controlling. The source of information for cost accounting is controlling. Controller, in retrospect to content of diploma thesis, intermediate the results through reporting. Goal of my diploma thesis is to familiarize reader with reporting in leading international company to help him apprehend the idea of the work so he could use the skills in practice.

Many studies report a gap in the inter-relationships between different factors and the acceptance of, or resistance to, an ERP system. Specifically, there is lack of literature on the individual factors that drive or delay the adoption of advanced technologies such as the Enterprise Resource Planning system ERP. It motivated me to carry out a study that investigates the non-linear views of change, in order to provide a general picture of how external and internal factors influence employees to accept or reject an ERP system. My thesis explores individual choices and behaviours and the socio-cultural context in which the cases are set to identify the factors that influence individuals’ actions and to determine from an employee perspective whether reactions to using ERP systems are intentional or unintentional. The thesis follows an interpretive approach using two case studies in Saudi Arabia where multiple sources of evidence including interviews, document analysis and observation have been employed. Pattern matching, logic models and cross-case synthesis are used for thematically organising and analysing the case studies. The thesis discusses the relationship between factors including politics, economics, religious social culture, the culture of the company and technical issues and the behaviour of employees towards change. I will argue that those factors directly affect the behaviour ofemployees and indirectly affect the acceptance or rejection of the ERP system. The thesis extends the scope of institutional analysis by explaining how the behaviours of employees influence both the acceptance of, or resistance to, an ERP system. The thesis adds to the knowledge in the literature by showing the relationship between external and internal factors and the acceptance of, or resistance to, an ERP system in Saudi Arabia as less developed countries LDCs. Also the thesis shows how the effects of the socio-cultural landscape of the middle east cannot be ignored when exploring the factors that initiate and shape management accounting change. Practical implications: the thesis provides some examples on how external and internal factors influence the behaviour of employees in Saudi Arabia. The thesis suggests that companies can exploit the behaviour of employees to influence change and avoid resistance.