Date: 2022-06-01 Level: Bachelor thesis in Business Administration, 15 cr Institution: School of Business, Society and Engineering, Mälardalen University Authors: Rahaf Alkhadra  & Jessika Melander  Title: Organisational Change in The Pervasive Digitalization Era Supervisor: Konstantin Lampou Research question: How is digital transformation as an organizational change implemented in organizations and how is it perceived by the individuals within the organization? Purpose: The purpose of this study is to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the dynamic digital changes within organizations, by investigating the process of implementing digital transformation and how it impacts organizational structure on both organizational and individual levels. Therefore, the practice of digital transformation, in which it is manifested as individuals’ perceptions of the change process will be pursued to better equip the notion of contemporary organizations when addressing organizational change. Method: Since the goal is to interpret a pervasive phenomenon, an abductive approach along with a qualitative design were followed to enable an accurate clarification of the subject. The data has been collected from 16 participants through semi-structured interviews with different organizations. Conclusion: The implementation process of DT contains three main phases (sensing, sizing, and transforming), where the transforming phase is where individuals’ perceptions can be comprehended since it is the key element of ensuring the goals of digitalization. Also, the duality of individuals’ perceptions manifested in the reasoning and sensemaking of the change and not in the digitalization per se.  Keywords: Organizational change, digitalization, digital transformation, contingency theory, individuals perceptions.

Digitaliseringen kommer sannolikt att ställa andra krav på dagens organisationer. Molnbaserade ERP-system efterfrågas i allt högre grad, vilket innebär att organisationer måste anpassa sina aktiviteter i enlighet med de molnbaserade ERP-systemen. Denna studie undersöker hur åtta konsulter arbetar med organisationer för att ta dem från plastbaserade ERP-system till molnbaserade ERP-system. De åtta respondenterna, som bidrog med det empiriska materialet, representerar olika företag. Studien finner stöd för delar av den teoretiska bakgrunden, och andra delar av studien stödjer inte tidigare forskning inom området. Det finns empiriskt stöd för institutionaliseringsteori och för vad organisationer strategiskt behöver uppnå för att erhålla konkurrensfördelar. Studien presenterar olika utmaningar inom kontextvariablerna: organisationsstruktur, organisationssystem och strategi. Resultatet av studien visar att om organisationer framgångsrikt ska kunna övergå till molnbaserade ERP-system, måste organisationer vara flexibla, vilket organiska organisationsstrukturen är. Resultatet visar också att det finns utmaningar inom den normativa isomorfismen, vilket innebär ett motstånd från organisationens IT-avdelning. Slutsatsen i denna studie är att konsulter som arbetar med organisationer som genomför implementeringar av molnbaserade ERP-system måste överväga kontextvariabler för att få en förståelse för vilka organisatoriska mekanismer som påverkar vägen till molnet. / The digitalization will most likely require other demands on today's organisations. Cloudbased ERP-systems more and more becomes a fact in organizations, and this will mean that organizations have to adapt their activities accordingly. This study examines how eight konsultants work with organizations to take them from on-premise ERP-systems to cloudbased ERP-systems. The eight respondents, who provided empirical information represent different companies. The study finds support for parts of the theoretical background, and other parts of the study does not support earlier research in within the field. There is empirical support for institutionalization theory and for strategy needs to achieve competitive advantages.The study presents different challenges within the contingency variables: organizational structure, organizational systems and strategy. The result from the study is that in order to successfully transcend to the cloud organizations need to be flexible, which the organic organizational structure is. The result also shows that there are challenges within the normative isomorphism, which includes resistance from the organization's IT-department, which has a high probability to occur. The main contribution of this study is that konsultants who work with organizations that is implementing a cloudbased ERP-system needs to consider contingency variables in order to gain an understanding of what organizational mekanisms will affect the journey to the cloud.

Syftet med den här studien var att undersöka hur ett företags interna kommunikation används som styrmedel inför en ekonomisk kris, för att i sin tur främja medarbetarnas engagemang, tillhörighet, medvetenhet och förståelse. Ett teoretiskt ramverk utifrån Contingency theory, intern kommunikation och intern kriskommunikation har legat till grund för att genomföra studien. Därefter har empiriska data insamlats från två huvudsakliga perspektiv inom ett företag. Studien tar avstamp i en kvalitativ metod med intervjuer på lednings- och skiftledarnivå. Därefter utformades en enkätundersökning på medarbetarnivå för att se hur ledningens vision och implementering uppfattas i praktiken. Resultatet visade att medarbetarna generellt sett är nöjda med hur företaget fungerar och presterar, och känner en känsla av trygghet, tillhörighet och engagemang. Det finns dock tendenser till informationsasymmetri, det kan leda till minskad medvetenhet och förståelse, vilket påverkar den interna kommunikationen negativt. I slutändan påverkar detta medvetenhet och förståelse negativt genom en begränsad information. Sammanfattningsvis omfattar intern kommunikation många olika aspekter och används av ledningen som ett styrmedel för att bygga och upprätthålla relationer med medarbetarna. Det är särskilt viktig att detta är på plats innan en ekonomisk kris inträffar.

Product Costing in the Swedish Engineering Industry - a survey  This thesis is about product costing in the Swedish engineering industry. The thesis is empirical and consists of two studies, one descriptive and one explanatory study. The purpose of the descriptive study has been to make a survey of which product costing methods are used, which elements of product costing that are considered to be problematic and what companies spend time on related to product costing. The purpose of the explanatory study has been to compare and analyze the correspondence between literature and practice regarding design aspects of product costing, by using a contingency theoretical approach. The research method that has been used to collect data has been an e-mail survey. In the 90s, a dissertation was written by Urban Ask and Christian Ax in the area, but since then no major survey has been made either in Sweden or in any other country. Since the 1990s, the production environment has been developed and new production strategies have been implemented, which has contributed to new perspectives on product costing. The results of the descriptive study show that the recommendations given in "Enhetliga principer för självkostnadsberäkningar" (EP) in 1936 still have a large impact on Swedish product costing practices. On the other hand, a trend can be noted which indicates that companies choose to work with new product costing systems such as target costing, activity based costing, value stream costing and kaizen costing. With regard to the allocation of indirect costs, the results show that the companies focus on ensuring that the allocation takes place in an appropriate manner. The outcome of the results shows that the distribution of indirect costs is differentiated, in the majority of cases a number of allocation bases, overhead components and cost centers are used. The product costing elements that are perceived to be most problematic to perform in practice are to: determine causal relationships, determine what deviations from standards are due to and calculate costs for future products. Overall the findings in the descriptive study indicate on a technically speaking well-developed Swedish costing practice. The explanatory study lends support to the hypotheses that the design of cost systems depends on contingency factors. Strongest support for the hypotheses was found between two factors (production strategies and company size) and cost system aspects. Weaker support was found between six other factors (manufacturing complexity, number of products, kind of product, the degree of automation, high- vs low-tech companies and the degree of competition) and cost system aspects. Overall the findings in the explanatory study indicate that companies do not shape their product costing according to the recommendations made in the literature.

Coronapandemin medförde stora förändringar för svenska mikrobryggeriers verksamheteroch resulterade i stora konsekvenser, främst i att krog- och restaurangbranschen i principslogs ut. Den här studien syftar till att undersöka om, och isåfall hur, mikrobryggeriersförsäljningsstrategier förändrades i samband med krisen. Det med utgång i teorier somförklarar två huvudsakliga faktorer - vikten av att reagera och anpassa sig efter omgivningensamt strategier under kriser. För att samla in ett underlag har en kvalitativ metod använts,inkluderandes åtta medverkande bryggerier - med syftet att samla in relevant material för attkunna besvara studiens frågeställning. Resultatet visar att de flesta bryggerier tog till nyatyper av åtgärder för att anpassa sig efter de förändrade omständigheterna, men också attvarje aktör påverkades i olika hög grad - främst på grund av hur verksamheten såg ut innankrisen bröt ut.

Background: In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine and put the world into a state of geopolitical crisis, leading to severe negative spillover effects on the global economy. Corporations were compelled to respond to the geopolitical crisis, while some were indirectly exposed to the war and others directly affected, all corporations had to decide on their strategic actions. Thus, questions arise how and why corporations acted as they did. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how corporations react to a geopolitical crisis, and further explain how they make their strategic decisions. The study adopts a contingency perspective to identify the fundamental basis upon which strategic decisions were made. Additionally, the study tests whether stakeholders’ influences can explain the corporations’ decisions. Method: This study employs a quantitative methodology with a deductive approach in an exploratory and positivistic paradigm. This is done to examine the relationship between corporations’ exposure to Russia, stakeholders’ influences, and strategic decisions regarding the Russia-Ukraine war. Data were gathered from annual reports and various databases, and analyzed using Spearman correlation matrix and linear regression models. Conclusion: The findings show that corporations act differently depending on their contingencies in reaction to a geopolitical crisis. Furthermore, stakeholders influence the strategic decisions in corporations indirectly affected by the geopolitical crisis, however, their influence is diminished in corporations directly impacted. While some stakeholder influences were found on the strategic decisions made by the most severely impacted corporations, other factors seem to ultimately determine the strategic decisions in the directly impacted corporations.

Background: Earnings management has been a popular topic of discussion for many decades, and researchers always look for underlying factors that can reduce the phenomenon. A common subject for this has been board independence, and the implications that independent directors have on earnings management. Additionally, researchers have argued that legal protection is a big part in how independent directors can exercise their monitoring, as well as the use of control-enhancing mechanisms (CEM). Purpose: To investigate the relationship between board independence and earnings management. This thesis will also examine if shareholder protection and CEMs respectively affect independent directors´ ability to reduce earnings management. Method: This thesis adopts a positivistic view with a deductive approach using a quantitative method where data was collected using databases, websites, and annual reports. Further, the data was analyzed using a Spearman correlation matrix and an OLS regression for each hypothesis. Findings: The findings show that there exists no relationship between board independence and earnings management. Furthermore, the thesis does not find support that shareholder protection has a moderating influence on the relationship, and thus has no effect on independent directors’ability to reduce earnings management. However, the thesis finds indications that firms who have the CEM of dual-class shares experience increase in earnings management as the share of independent directors increases.

The thesis focuses on those factors which affect firm growth in the setting of the Chinese transition economy, such as size, age, entrepreneurship, resources, and environment. As regards the complexity of the business expansion mechanism, an interdisciplinary approach combining the fields of economics and management is adopted. Using fieldwork methods, new data were gathered in face-to-face interviews with 83 owner-managers of the Chinese privately owned firms in P. R. China in 2004, as well as in follow-up telephone interviews in 2006. The unique body of qualitative and quantitative data in terms of firm operation, human resources management, finance, technology and innovation, enterprise culture and competitive environment, were collected by a specially designed survey instrument, and enabled a number of new hypotheses to be tested in both economic and managerial aspects. With respect to the modern developments of Gibrat’s Law (1931) and Jovanovic’s Learning Theory (1982) in economics, the effects of two “stylized factors”, namely size and age, along with a vector of firm-specific, environmental and selection bias variables, on firm growth, were examined in Heckman’s (1979) two-step selection model with the correction for sample selection bias and heteroscedasticity. The results indicated that the “stylized facts” that smaller and younger firms grew faster were also valid in the setting of China. This thesis also explored managerial factors contributing to firm growth – viz. entrepreneurship theory, resource-based view in strategic management, and contingency theory in organizational behaviour. A variety of statistical methods were utilized to operationalize entrepreneurial orientation (EO), intangible assets (IA), and contingency factors (e.g. structure, environment, strategy, etc), and econometric models were estimated to examine their relationship with firm dynamics. The evidence suggested that IA might be more capable of facilitating firm growth than EO. However, when both were disaggregated into a lower level of attributes, the influences on growth may vary. Further, contingency theory, originally proposed for the case of larger firms in the west, was also validated in this study on the Chinese sampled firm. The combination of organizational forms and contingency configurations presented a higher power to explain business expansion. It implied that “the good fit” of contingency factors influenced firm dynamics only in a moderate way, whereas “the badness of fit” in configuration could engender either the highest or lowest firm growth, subject to their organizational structures.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Commerce)) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / This research aimed to develop a costing model for the African Complementary and Alternative Medicines (ACAM) health practitioners to improve their products and services’ decision-making process. This research aim drew support from fundamental objectives, which includes amongst others, the identification of the current product and service costing approaches used by the ACAM practitioners and how this supports their decision-making, the development, and adoption of a costing model for ACAM practitioners to capture products and services’ cost information for improved health care service delivery. Furthermore, it sought to understand the challenges faced by ACAM practitioners in adopting the proposed costing model. The research applied a qualitative action research method. Data collection was through interview method from twenty-six ACAM health practitioners in six ACAM health care facilities. Data were collected after two research cycles in the field study through action research procedures. The participants were drawn from five South African provinces. The main data was gathered through face-to-face semi-structured interviews, documentation, and direct observation to enhance the research validity and reliability. The data were analysed systematically using thematic analysis The findings reveal that the study succeeded in providing more accurate cost data for each product and assist in the planning, control and decision making for the ACAM practitioners. The research contributes academically and to practice by successfully narrowing the gap between ACAM researchers and cost accounting researchers by providing a practical costing model based on solid practical and academic foundation. The researcher recommends that the South African ACAM facilities need to adopt and implement the ACAM costing model because it will provide them with more accurate cost data for the provision of each service and products and help in making effective and reliable decisions. Key words: Cost accounting practice, ACAM health facilities. ACAM health practitioners, ACAM Colonisation, ACAM Healing, Contingency Theory, Production Theory, Cost Elements, Costs Classification. ACAM Production Process

SAMMANFATTNING Datum:2023-05-31 Nivå:Kandidatuppsats Företagsekonomi, 15 hp Akademi: Akademi för Ekonomi, Samhälle och Teknik, Mälardalens Universitet  Författare:Earl Jerwin Sarte Alizah Malik                  (93/12/19) (00/09/17) Titel: Att navigera i det nya normala – En undersökning av Covid-19:s påverkan på arbetssättet och digital transformation inom redovisning. Handledare: Leanne Johnstone Nyckelord: Covid-19, arbetsförhållande, arbetssätt, Ekonomistyrning, Contingency theory, redovisningsekonom Forskningsfråga: På vilket sätt har arbetet för redovisningsekonomer anpassats till de förändrade omständigheterna som följt av covid-19-pandemin? Vidare, vilka av dessa anpassningar kan anses vara fördelaktiga och bör övervägas att bibehålla efter att pandemin har passerat? Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur pandemin har påverkat redovisningsekonomens arbetsmetoder och att identifiera vilka av dessa nya metoder som kan bli permanenta och fortsätta att användas efter pandeminär över. Genom en omfattande empirisk undersökning med hjälp av kvalitativ metod är målet att kunna dra slutsatser om hur pandemin har påverkat redovisningsekonomens arbetsmetoder. Resultaten från studien kan användas för att hjälpa ledningen att bestämma vilka arbetsmetoder som ska genomföras i framtiden.  Metod: Studien tillämpar kvalitativ metod samt semistrukturerade intervjuer med fem redovisningsekonomer har genomförts. Slutsats: Studien har belyst konsekvenserna av covid-19 för redovisningsekonomensarbete. Resultaten visar att övergången till distansarbete och ökadanvändning av digitala verktyg har varit betydande förändringar.Vidare har lednings implementering av action controls som respons påpandemin påverkade arbetsmiljön för redovisningsekonomer.Denna forsknings bidrar till en ökad förståelse för hur pandemin harpåverkat redovisningsekonomens arbetsförhållande och identifierar möjligaarbetsprocesser som kan behållas på längre sikt. / ABSTRACT Date: 2023-05-31 Level: Bachelors Thesis in Business Administration, 15 hp Institution: School of Business, Mälardalens University Author: Earl Jerwin Sarte Alizah Malik              (93/12/19) (00/09/17) Titel: Navigating the new normal – An examination of the impact of Covid-19 on the way of working and digital transformation in accounting. Supervisor: Leanne Johnstone Keywords: Covid-19, work conditions, work method, management control, contingency theory, management accountant, Research question: How has the work of accountants been adjusted to the changing circumstances brought by the COVID-19 pandemic? Additionally,which of these adjustments can be seen as beneficial and should be considered for continuation after the pandemic is over?  Purpose:The purpose of this study is to examine how the pandemic has impacted theworking methods of professional accountants and to identify which of thesenew methods may become permanent and continue to be used after the pandemic.Through a comprehensive empirical investigation utilizing qualitativemethodology, the aim is to draw conclusions about how the pandemic hasinfluenced the working methods of professional accountants. The findingsfrom the study can be used to assist management in determining whichworking methods should be implemented in the future. Method: The study uses a qualitative method and semi-structured interviews have been conducted with five accountants. Conclusion: The study has examined the impact of COVID-19 on the work of accountants.The results show that there have been significant changes, such as transitioningto remote work and increased use of digital tools. Additionally, the management'simplementation of action controls in response to the pandemic has affectedthe work environment for accountants. This research contributes to a betterunderstanding of how the pandemic has influenced accountants' work conditionsand identifies potential work processes that can be maintained in the long run.