Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) related issues has increased in relevance in recent years. To address societal pressures, many firms introduce corporate social responsibility (CSR) committees in their boards. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether CSR committees have an impact on ESG performance in Swedish listed firms. Prior literature has offered inconsistent findings regarding the link between CSR committees and ESG performance, which might be due to the lack of systematic understanding on the topic or the use of varying ESG measurements. This study contributes to the present knowledge by analyzing if CSR committees substantively increase ESG performance, or if it may simply be a symbolic act to enhance legitimacy, meet stakeholder demands, and conform to normative pressures in high stakeholder-oriented countries, such as Sweden. A multiple OLS regression is conducted to analyze a sample of 299 Swedish listed firms on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm for the year 2020. The results indicate a positive and significant relationship between CSR committees and ESG performance, which could be interpreted as CSR committees not being utilized as impression management tools but rather fundamentally contribute to increase the firm’s ESG performance. However, drawing generalizable conclusions is difficult since the study is limited by endogeneity concerns. Nevertheless, these results may have implications for practitioners who consider implementing CSR committees to enhance the firm’s ESG performance.

During the 1990s two contrasting paths to the organization of work have emerged in the Swedish engineering industry: the structure-conservative and structure-innovative. This thesis deals with the latter, and focuses primarily on necessary changes in management control systems that support structureinnovative forms of team-organized work. Three types of management control systems are studied in this thesis: performance management and measurement systems, systems for continuous improvements and wage systems. The empirical base of this thesis consists of data from an exploratory survey study as well as a multiple case study. On a general level, the survey study indicates a lack of congruence between structure and systems. Many companies seem to have started to move along the structure-innovative path but have not changed the management control systems accordingly. However, there are good reasons for doing so. The companies that have chosen the structure-innovative path perform better in terms of productivity, quality and cost reduction. These are also the companies that have changed their management control systems to the greatest extent. The case study provides examples of how management control systems may be changed to fit structure-innovative forms of team-organized work. The main focus has been on the use of Balanced Scorecard. How a strategic continuous improvement capability was developed and sustained in the studied companies is illustrated. The findings extend previous research on new production concepts, which, this thesis argues, are not to be regarded as an issue of technology and vertical division of labour only, but also of supportive management control systems. / <p>QC 20100525</p>

This thesis explores the components of the MCSs in use by two Albanian Mobile Operators AMC and Eagle. The methodology used is that of multiple case studies; the study is interpretative, analyzing qualitative data, and has an inductive approach. There are three MCS frameworks used the Object of Control (Merchant and Van der Stede 2007), Control Package (Malmi and Brown 2008) and Performance Management Systems (Otley and Ferreira 2009). The empirical findings were gathered by using semi-structured interviews. Both managerial and non-managerial staff were interviewed according to their areas of expertise in MCSs. The findings suggest that the MCSs used by the two operators are highly structured as per the three frameworks, that AMC does not use any well known model (such as BSC, Tableau de Bord, Performance Prism etc.), whereas Eagle uses a customized BSC, and that the strategies of each of the companies are translated into action through the respective MCSs.

Title: Discovering the Dark Side: A Multiple Case Study of IOMC Instability in Triadic Relationships Authors: Adam Hargrave, Iqra Ashfaq Mian, and Jan Peter van der Zwet Background: Within IORs, knowledge, activities, and resources are increasing shared amongst organisation members to obtain some sort of strategic advantage. Typically, forming a triadic relationship. Therefore, IOMC practices are regularly used to shape, support and control activities across the triadic relationship, but conversely, literature has not explored the instability certain shared IOMC systems can bring to partners through its complexity, triadic complexity, and instability drivers. Therefore, the investigation of IOMC’s instability influence on triadic relationships is investigated to contribute to the academic literature and organisations studied.  Purpose: The purpose for the research conducted is to investigate the shared IOMC in triadic, inter-organisational relationships that influence instability in buyer-supplier triadic relationships. Methodology: A multiple case study has been conducted through semistructured interviews. A critical realism perspective, descriptive-exploratory, and abductive research methodology was enacted. Analysis and Discussion: The multiple cases show that complexities in the from of triadic complexity and IOMC design complexity may lead to the drivers that introduce IOMC instability in the triadic relationships. The literature discussed is linked to the empirical findings and a research model is proposed. Conclusion: The conclusion discusses the theoretical and managerial implications of the presented research and possible future research opportunities of IOMC instability in triadic relationships.

The increased competition and volatile market today have led to the increased interest in agile management control systems. Previous studies have been made on the subject where researchers argue that there is a need for organizations to become agile. However, many practitioners seem hesitant to only implement agile approaches. This study explores how hybrid management control systems are developed and used over time in a large organization. This is a case study that uses semi-structured interviews to collect data. This study found that an agile management control system was not a one-size-fits-all solution. The reason for this is because organizational context and obstacles prevent the organization from fully committing to one management idea. This study concludes that organizations are hesitant to change long-time used practices. Also, managers and employees have different preferences where managers value traditional approaches more while employees prefer agile approaches. Therefore, organizations incorporate parts from various management systems that fit their organization and develop a hybrid management control system.

Inledning: Tillsammans med globaliseringen har digitaliseringen resulterat i ett så kallat detaljhandelsskifte, det vill säga att den traditionella fysiska detaljhandeln gradvis har utvecklats till e-handel. I dagsläget utgör e-handeln den största tillväxtmotorn inom detaljhandelsbranschen och handel av dagligvaror är en snabbt växande trend. Tidigare litteratur har uppmärksammat e-handelns påverkan på verksamheter och dess styrning. Det har påpekats att vid upprättande av e-handel bör företag besluta kring betydelsefulla, strategiska och styrande frågor, såsom hur e-handeln ska kontrolleras och följas upp. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att komplettera tidigare forskning som behandlat e-handel och ekonomistyrning. Detta genom att studera om och på vilket sätt digitaliseringen har påverkat ekonomistyrningen vid upprättande av e-handel som ett komplement till fysisk butik. Metod: Studien omfattar en kvalitativ intervjustudie. Det teoretiska materialet är hämtat från vetenskaplig litteratur och avser forskning om digitaliseringens och e-handelns möjliga påverkan på ekonomistyrning. Den empiriska materialinsamlingen har erhållits genom semistrukturerade intervjuer, som hållits med relevanta personer från åtta verksamheter inom dagligvaruhandeln. Slutsats: Studien visar att e-handeln har medfört att konkurrenter och kostnadsfrågan har synliggjorts, där effektivitetsbegreppet har fått en annan innebörd. Det framkommer att det har skett en förändring samt icke-förändring beträffande verksamheternas strategier. E-handeln har även skapat ett behov av en bättre ekonomisk uppföljning samt nya nyckeltal. Vad gäller e-handelns påverkan på styrningen avseende beslut har e-handeln genererat mer data för beslutsunderlag kring verksamheten samt att e-handelns snabba tillväxt inneburit förändringar då föreställningar om framtiden fått en större innebörd. Resultatet är att verksamheter förändrat sitt sätt att styra avseende planering, genomförande, uppföljning och utvärdering. Detta då styrningen har antagit en annan riktning för att hantera de beslut och utmaningar som e-handeln innebär. / Introduction: Globalization and digitalization has together resulted in a so-called retail shift, ie the traditional physical retail has gradually developed into e-commerce. Nowadays, e-commerce is the fastest growing in the retail industry and the grocery trade is a rapidly growing trend. Previous literature has drawn attention to the impact of e-commerce on businesses and its management control. It has been pointed out that when establishing e-commerce, companies should decide on important, strategic and governing issues, such as how e-commerce should be controlled and followed up. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to contribute to previous research processing e-commerce and management accounting. This is done by studying whether and in what way digitalisation has affected management accounting in the establishment of e-commerce as acomplement to physical stores. Method: The study is conducted through a qualitative interview study. The theoretical material is taken from scientific literature and refers to research on the possible impact of digitalization and e-commerce on financial management. The empirical material collection has been obtained through semi-structured interviews, which have been held with relevant people from eight businesses in the grocery trade. Conclusion: The study shows that competitors and cost have become more important because of e-commerce, where efficiency has received a different meaning. It appears that there has been a change as well as a non-change regarding the organization’s strategies. E-commerce has also created a need for better financial follow-up and new key performance indicators. Regarding e-commerce's impact on management control and decisions, e-commerce has generated more data for decision-making about the business. Also, the rapid growth of e-commerce has meant differences as perceptions about the future have taken on a greater significance. The result is that businesses have changed their management control regarding planning, implementation, follow-up and evaluation. This is because the management control has adopted a different direction to handle the decisions and challenges that e-commerce entails.

This study aims to examine how the shift from analog to remote work, as a result of digitalization, has affected performance monitoring in organizations and impacted management control systems. Earlier studies within the subject show that a shift results in a reduction in performance monitoring or that classical performance monitoring are replaced with electronic performance monitoring (EPM). In order to examine how performance monitoring changes as a result of the shift and if management control has gotten tighter or looser, this thesis has been based on four semi-structured interviews that were held with managers from three different Swedish organizations. The shift to remote work shows tendencies of a loosening of control in the organizations and to compensate for the loss, managers have implemented different Electronic Performance Monitoring (EPM) systems. The most common EPM systems implemented were video meetings, but other EPM systems were also implemented such as online monitoring. But managers still experience an overall loosening of control as a result of the shift to remote work. Trust seems to be a factor that becomes more important as a result of the shift and seems to have a mitigating effect on the degree of EPM systems the managers choose to implement.

Organizational performance in the healthcare field is of great interest for many stakeholders. Efficient use of resources and delivery of high quality of care should be relevant to any taxpayer hoping to live healthily and grow old in Sweden. Simultaneously, the working conditions for the employees need to be sustainable if the impending lack of 170 000 workers in the healthcare sector by the year of 2030 is to be mitigated (Statistiska centralbyrån, 2012). The scope of this study is to examine how the quality management systems applied to ensure and improve the aforementioned objectives are perceived by the individual employees. Specifically, practitioners in the nursing professions are enquired about the design principles of enabling control as described by Adler and Borys (1996). The study has utilized a quantitative methodology and an online survey to collect personal perceptions and experiences from 400 individuals in the nursing professions on this topic. Major findings are that the majority of the respondents state that they perceive three out of four of the design principles of an enabling system to be present in the quality management system at their workplace. In addition, there is a strong association between the perception of the enabling characteristics flexibility and repair and general job satisfaction. Further studies with larger samples would increase the statistical power of these correlations. In addition, a large proportion of the respondents perceive that the quality management processes is negatively affected by financial constraints. Only a minority of the respondents perceive the workload constituted by tasks connected to quality management as reasonable.

Successful companies that are founded and established in Sweden are likely to at some point look to expand outside of Sweden. When they do so they will need to adapt the company to the environment and circumstances that are present in the local market they are expanding to. The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate Swedish companies’ use of control mechanisms when running a subsidiary in Australia. Applying the theoretical framework by Malmi and Brown (2008), four Swedish companies operating in the Australian market were selected. Ikea using culture as an asset make them an interesting comparison to three highly reputable tech-companies that both differ from Ikea in age and size. It was found that cultural control mechanisms were heavily featured among the respondents' respective companies, and reward and compensation control mechanisms were altered the most when operating in Australia compared to Sweden. / Framgångsrika bolag grundade och etablerade i Sverige kommer sannolikt att någon gång expandera utanför Sverige. När de gör det kommer de att behöva anpassa företaget till den miljö och de omständigheter som råder på den lokala marknaden de expanderar till. Huvudsyftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur svenska bolag styr sina kontrollmekanismer när de driver en filial i Australien. Fyra svenska företag på den australienska marknaden har valts att studeras utifrån det teoretiska ramverket av Malmi and Brown (2008). Ikeas användning av svensk kultur som en tillgång gör det till en intressant jämförelse med tre välrenommerade teknikföretag, som både skiljer sig från Ikea när det gäller ålder och storlek. Det visade sig att kulturella kontrollmekanismer var flitigt förekommande bland respondenternas respektive företag, och belönings- och kompensations-kontrollmekanismerna förändrades mest när man verkade i Australien i jämförelse med Sverige.

Bakgrund: Banksektorn har en viktig funktion i dagens ekonomiska system, främst genom att erbjuda kapitalförsörjning vilket bidrar till ekonomisk tillväxt (Svenska bankföreningen, 2016). Konsekvensen av Corona pandemin har inneburit att flera företag och organisationer har tvingats stänga ner större delar av sina fysiska verksamheter, samt att anställda tvingats arbeta på distans. Vilket även drabbat Handelsbanken Linköping. De arbetar därför med hälften av personalstyrkan på distans för att följa restriktionerna och undvika smittspridning. Denna plötsliga omställning till distansläge har medfört flera olika utmaningar med bland annat kommunikationen, samarbetet och gemenskapen (Lepsinger, R. 2010). Syftet: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur Handelsbanken Linköping arbetar med ledarskap och styrningen för att få ett så effektivt distansarbete som möjligt. Samt undersöka vad ledarskapet och styrningen får för effekter på den sociala interaktionen, motivationen och prestationen hos de olika anställda inom Handelsbanken. Frågeställningarna: “Vad innebär styrning i allmänhet och styrning på Handelsbanken på distans i synnerhet?” “Hur jobbar ledningen med styrning och ledarskap på Handelsbanken Linköping, som tvingats arbeta på distans?” “Hur fungerar styrningen och ledarskapet, prestationsmässigt såväl som socialt inom Handelsbanken Linköping under distansläget?” Resultat &amp; bidrag: Den här studien har resulterat i hur ledningen, på ett av Handelsbankens kontor, styrs och hur personalen fortsätter att bidra på distans. Ledningen på kontoret är överens om att distansarbetet har fungerat bra, prestationsmässigt och socialt, även om det har varit utmanande. Det har dessutom lett till flera nya insikter och ökad utveckling av socialt och tekniskt kapital. Medarbetarna upplever enligt enkäten att deras prestationen hos de själva är oförändrade och i teamen marginellt försämrad. Studien har även bidragit med olika insikter och varningstecken som organisationen kan ha i åtanke så som bland annat ”anställda upplever brist på tid för att utföra sitt arbete på distans”. / Background: The banking sector has an important function in today's economic system, mainly by offering capital supply, which contributes to economic growth (Swedish Bankers' Association, 2016). The consequence of the Corona pandemic has meant that several companies and organizations have been forced to close larger parts of their physical operations, and that employees have been forced to work remotely, which also affected Handelsbanken Linköping. They therefore work with half of the staff at a distance to comply with the restrictions and avoid the spread of infection. This sudden transition to distance mode has led to several different challenges, including communication, cooperation and community (Lepsinger, R. 2010). The purpose: The purpose with this study is to investigate how Handelsbanken Linköping works with leadership and governance to get as efficient distance work as possible. As well as examining the effects of leadership and governance on the social interaction, motivation and performance of the various employees within Handelsbanken. The research questions: "What does management control in general mean and management control at Handelsbanken mean for telework in particular?" "How does the management work with governance and leadership at Handelsbanken Linköping, which has been forced to work remotely?" "How does governance and leadership work, both in terms of performance and socially within Handelsbanken Linköping during the distance situation?" Results &amp; contributions: This study has resulted in how the management, at one of Handelsbanken's office, is managed and how the staff continues to contribute  remotely. The management in the office agrees that the telework has worked well, in terms of performance and socially, even though it has been challenging. It has also led to several new insights and increased development of social and technical capital. According to the survey, the employees feel that their performance with themselves is unchanged and in the teams marginally deteriorated. The study has also contributed various insights and warning signs that the organization may have in mind, such as "employees experience a lack of time to perform their work remotely".