<p>Entrepreneurship and Intellectual Capital (IC) have become important concepts for economies around the world over the last decades, even though, due to their multidisciplinary nature, different definitions have been developed concerning these concepts. There are some authors who regard these phenomena as being in strong opposition to traditional theories, such as economics, accounting, finance, to mention a few, but they have played a vital role for a better understanding of the success and/or failure of firms. In this paper we are going to address the factors influencing the success of the entrepreneurial firm, focusing on IC and the entrepreneur as the main contributors to this outcome. A theoretical model of analysis is presented illustrating how entrepreneurs utilize IC to lead firms towards success, which at the same time contributes back to the experience of the entrepreneur. The model will then be tested by applying it on BPM (Bau- & Projektmanagement GmbH), a German project management firm founded by Peter Christa that specializes in administrating small, medium, and large public construction projects, especially in the field of hospital redevelopment and expansion.</p>

<p>The business climate of today, with increasing globalization, has resulted in structural changes in the commercial and industrial sectors. As a result, many large companies have moved their production abroad. Therefore the smaller companies have become increasingly important for growth and employment nationally. Small businesses are a significant contributor to the well-being of nations and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play an important role for Sweden, both in terms of economic contribution and employment.</p><p>Success has been discussed and investigated for a long period of time and the question is how it should be defined and measured. Many theories have been produced including different definitions and research methods. For this thesis, however, success is defined as the growth and financial performance of a firm measured in volume growth, relative change in net turnover, and value growth, relative change in equity. As a side condition, profit margins must be positive for a company to be classified as successful. This thesis hence aims to determine which factors influence the success of small and medium-sized enterprises in Sweden and how they influence the success of these enterprises.</p><p>Eleven manufacturing SMEs, seven successful and four unsuccessful, were investigated and analyzed separately and then compared with one another in an attempt to determine which specific factors contributed to their respective performance. The four unsuccessful companies were included in the investigation for comparison to be able to identify the specific factors for successful companies. The analyses resulted in the following areas: Organization, Vision and Strategy, Characteristics of the CEO, Core Competences, Recruiting, Product Development and Innovations and Market. Among these factors Vision and Strategy, Core Competences and Customer Interaction were identified as the factors that have the greatest impact on success. Additionally, two clear relations between factors could be determined, i.e. between Clear vision and strategy and Defined culture as well as a relation between Flexibility and Customer Interaction.</p><p>The conclusions are generalizable to all manufacturing SMEs in Sweden since the sample selection is representative for the target population. Furthermore, the success factors could be applied to companies abroad as well if the business climate and the conditions are similar. Whether the factors can be applied to firms that act within different SNI-codes (Swedish Standard Industrial Classification) besides manufacturing is yet to be proved.</p><p>For further research we suggest a deeper investigation, where the information is obtained from more than one sources within the company. Also, the external networks of the company could be of interest to interview. Other aspects to investigate further would be potential differences between small and medium-sized firms and whether or not the results are applicable for other industries.</p>

<p>Companies are more and more moving to low wage regions like Eastern Europe and Asia to stay competitive. Instead of lowering the cost of production, it has been argued that a company can stay competitive through making the use of the resources more efficient. In this study the effects a German resource saving concept, involving reorganization towards processes and an Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) module, has on Supply Chain Management (SCM) are investigated. In addition to this a comparison between German best-practice companies and Swedish companies has been done. This comparison was conducted in order to determine the changes needed to be made when taking this German concept to Swedish companies.</p><p>The results of this study indicate that through the German resource saving concept major improvements in delivery performance, responsiveness, supply chain costs, and asset management can be achieved. Further, this study has shown that there are very good possibilities for Swedish companies at reaching these improvements successfully. Barriers to a success in Sweden include a lack of managerial commitment and hierarchies as well as outsourced IT departments at Swedish companies. Recommendations to overcome these barriers consist of training key users more thoroughly and stressing the importance of committed managers.</p>

<p>Affärssystem är en växande marknad och en självklarhet för många företag idag. Ett affärssystem kan medföra många fördelar, bland annat kortare ledtider, ökad datakvalitet och effektivare processer. För att genomföra ett så lyckat affärssystemsprojekt som möjligt behöver företag ta vissa faktorer i beaktning. Dessa faktorer kallas kritiska framgångsfaktorer. Denna studie behandlar sju kritiska framgångsfaktorer i syfte att se hur dessa beaktats i praktiken. Framgångsfaktorerna är projektplanering, projektstyrning, användarinvolvering och utbildning, förändringsledning, stöd från ledningen, korrekt data och övervakning och mätning. Vi har kommit fram till dessa genom att studera vetenskapliga artiklar och böcker. Undersökningen har utförts med en kvalitativ ansats där intervjuer genomförts på två företag, med en representant från vardera projektgrupp, som nyligen implementerat ett affärssystem. Även användare av affärssystemet på respektive företag har intervjuats för att få deras synvinkel på affärssystemsprojektet. Resultatet av undersökningen visar på att inget av företagen medvetet har tagit kritiska framgångsfaktorer i beaktning vid deras affärssystemsprojekt. De har inte tänkt på kritiska framgångsfaktorer i den bemärkningen, men ändå tagit hänsyn till vissa av de punkter som vi identifierat i teorin. Den slutsats vi kan dra är att företag kan lyckas med affärssystemsprojekt även om de inte tagit alla kritiska framgångsfaktorer i beaktning.</p> / <p>ERP systems is a growing market and very important for many businesses today. An ERP system can bring many advantages, including shorter lead times, improved data quality and more efficient processes. In order to execute successful ERP projects businesses need to take certain factors into consideration. These factors are called critical success factors. This study addresses seven critical success factors in order to see if these are taken into consideration in a real project. The seven critical success factors are project planning, project management, user involvement and training, change management, top management support, accurate data and monitoring and measuring. We identified these by studying scientific papers and books. The study was conducted with a qualitative approach in which interviews were conducted in two companies, with one representative from each project team, which recently implemented an ERP system. Users of the ERP system at each company were also interviewed to obtain their view on the ERP project. The result of the study shows that none of the companies deliberately took the critical success factors into consideration in their ERP projects. The companies had not thought of critical success factors in those terms but they still took some of the points that we had identified in the theory into consideration. The conclusion is that companies can succeed in ERP projects, even if they don’t take all of the critical success factors into consideration.</p>

<p>The main purpose of this study is to define important criteria to consider when selecting and implementing performance measures on a strategic, tactical and operational level. The thesis is built around the questions "What to measure" and "How to measure". Generally within the thesis the question of "what" concerns different frameworks and working procedures that can be used to determine what to measure, while the question of "how" concerns criteria to consider when implementing performance measures, such as how to design measure formulas and targets, how to communicate measures, etc.</p><p>The study has been conducted as a qualitative study, where the empirical data has been collected through interviews and by using information material from the case company. The purpose of the case study was to test the theoretical framework. The studied case company was Sandvik Process Systems, a product area within the Sandvik group. The case study was complemented by two minor comparative studies of companies also belonging to the Sandvik group. In total the study comprised interviews with 15 persons within different organizational levels.</p><p>Several different frameworks aiming to help organizations to answer the question of what to measure have been developed during the last decades. The frameworks differ more or less, but theorists appear to agree on several matters. My conclusions of the most important criteria to be taken into consideration when answering the question of what to measure is:</p><p>* Complement the outcome measures, i.e. the financial measures that show the results from past efforts, by pro-active performance drivers - the measures that drive the future performance</p><p>* Ensure linkage between performance measures and company vision and strategic objectives</p><p>* Involve the co-workers in the process of developing measures</p><p>* Use an overall comprehensive view and methodic approach</p><p>* Limit the amount of measures</p><p>* Retain the methodic approach – manage the performance measurement system</p><p>After answering the question of what to measure there are also a number of important criteria to consider when it comes to how to measure and implement measures into the organization:</p><p>* Define measure purposes</p><p>* Assign reasonable targets to the measures</p><p>* Consider the field of application when designing a performance measure</p><p>* Communicate the performance measures</p><p>* Specify the measures</p><p>Despite attempting to simplify a complicated reality the frameworks aiming to help organizations to select measures are all rather complex. Hence, to develop and implement a PMS (Performance Measurement System) by the book will imply an extensive project for any company. How time- and resource demanding the project will become will differ from one company to another. Thus, a general conclusion of this study is that a company must start out from its own conditions in order for the development and implementation not to become too complex a project, where the organization loses focus and fails to manage the project all the way through.</p><p>Companies must consider factors such as the size and complexity of the organization, how the business is controlled and managed as well as the structure and control of an already existing PMS. For large organizations, already possessing a rather unstructured PMS, the best approach could be to look upon the development as a constantly on-going activity in the spirit of continuous improvements, rather than a complex project running over a limited time. A vital success factor is also to communicate the intentions to the whole organization at an early stage. If the whole organization is aware of the intention and the purpose this will facilitate the process of developing and implementing a successful PMS.</p>

<p>Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the innovation process of companies, and to analyse how important success factors and obstacles are in their innovation process.</p><p>Method: The investigation strategy used for this essay was to interview companies that work with innovations. The essay has a qualitative approach. Both primary – in the form of interviews - and secondary data – literature found in books, scientific articles and internet - have been used to achieve our results.</p><p>Results: The result of this essay is: there is not just one inovation process that is applicable to all companies. On the other hand, there are some guidelines that could be followed in the process. Some success factors are more important than others and companies do not take given obstacles into consideration.</p>

<p>International aids, which target socio-development in developing and/or underdeveloped countries, are generally undertaken through projects. These projects, which are named as international development projects (IDPs), are financed mainly by multilateral and bilateral development agencies. However, management of these projects, which have less tangible objectives and deliverables, differ drastically from traditional industrial-commercial project types, that have more tangible objectives and deliverables. Moreover, the intensive investments on IDPs have not yielded the expected progress yet. Therefore, ensuring a successful IDP management through the satisfaction of factors that are critical for project success becomes crucial for both sponsoring bodies and receiving countries. Nevertheless, the current literature provides only a limited number of studies, such as studies conducted by Diallo and Thuiller (2004; 2005), Do and Tun (2008), on this subject area. Then, this study following previous studies by Diallo and Thuiller (2004; 2005), Do and Tun (2008), aims to contribute to this gap in the literature through investigating critical success factors (CSFs) for implementation phase of international development projects (IDPs) in Kazakhstan. Not only the applicability of Do and Tun’s (2008) CSFs for IDP implementation phase to IDPs being implemented in Kazakhstan are tested but also a new set of CSFs is generated for the implementation phase of IDPs being implemented in Kazakhstan.</p>

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Computer Science))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

No description available.