Problematisering: Företagsförvärv är en populär strategi bland företag runt om i världen, trots det faktum att närmare 70 % av alla förvärv misslyckas. Tidigare forskning har pekat på integrationsfasen som den kritiska processen för förvärvets framgång. Oavsett om ett uppköpt företag absorberas eller konserveras, är flertalet forskare överens om att ledningen i det uppköpta företaget har en betydande roll för den sammanslagna organisationen och bör därmed involveras i integrationsprocessen. Trots detta, tenderar forskningen att belysa fenomenet ur det förvärvande företagets perspektiv och sällan ur det uppköpta företagets synvinkel. Syfte: Syftet är att beskriva hur ledningen i ett uppköpt företag hanterar och leder förvärvsprojektets integrationsfas, internt. Metod: Med ett induktivt angreppssätt och kvalitativ ansats har studien utgått från ett enskilt fall; det förvärvade företaget Sunne Software. Genom ett “Quick and Dirty” fältarbete där ledningen utgör den undersökta gruppen, blir fallstudien etnografiskt inspirerad vilket resulterar i en detaljerad och innehållsrik empiri och analys. För att uppnå syftet med studien har åtta semistrukturerade intervjuer genomförts med samtliga i ledningen på Sunne Software. Slutsats: Studiens resultat visar att ledningens arbete med integrationsfasen kan anses vara cirkulärt, där arbetet med konservering, anpassning och förändring av organisationen sker simultant. Ledningen har hanterat och lett dessa delar genom att bevara sin identitet, att tydligt kommunicera samt att genomföra olika anpassningar i förhållande till den nya målbilden. / Background: Acquisitions are a popular strategy among companies around the world, even though almost 70 % of all acquisitions fail. Earlier research has pointed at the integration phase as the most critical process for the success of the acquisition. Regardless of whether an acquired company is absorbed or preserved, most researchers agree that the top management team of the acquired company has a significant role for the merged organization and should therefore be involved in the integration process. Despite this, researchers have mainly focused on discussing acquisitions from the buyers’ perspective and not from the acquired company. Aim: The purpose is to describe how the top management team of an acquired company, internally manage the acquisitions integration phase. Methodology: The study has an inductive approach and is based on a single case study of the acquired company Sunne Software. To achieve the purpose of the study, the approach is qualitative and eight semi-structured interviews have been conducted with the top management team of Sunne Software. Because this specific group has been studied in its natural environment through a “Quick and Dirty” fieldwork, resulting in detailed descriptions of the case, the design of the study is therefore ethnographically inspired. Conclusion: The result of this study shows that the management of the integration phase from the acquired company’s perspective, can be considered to be circular; all parts of the integration phase are simultaneously managed. Based on the empirical data from Sunne Software, the three main parts of the integration phase have been identified as conservation, change and adaptation. The top management team has managed these parts by maintaining their identity, through clear communication and by implementing various adaptations according to the new objective.

<p>Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) projects have long been considered as a strategy for organizational growth and gain of market share. Top management teams of companies take M&As into consideration since it is faster and less costly compare to internal growth and development programs. M&A project has variety of benefits such as growth in market share, increase in shareholder wealth, access to new markets, technological advantages and so on and so forth. Another benefit of such projects is the expected synergies which happen in financial, production, value chain and technological aspects of the existing company. However, according to many authors there is a high rate of failure in M&A industry. One of the main reasons of failure identified as the poor performance of post-M&A integration projects. Based on literature, a project perspective to these highly complex projects will reduce the risk of failure and will result in successful performance of new companies. However, there is a research gap in this filed.</p><p> </p><p>After identifying the research gap and formulating the problem statement, research was designed in order to study the applicability of a project management (PM) approach toward M&A and their integration projects. Through performing a case study on a Swedish company who has undergone a number of M&A projects, interviews were conducted with top management team involved in such projects in order to collect empirical data. Based on qualitative data analysis methods, the primary data was integrated into pattern and themes and then analyzed.</p><p> </p><p>Based on the findings of the research, it was identified that in acquisition projects of small and medium size companies the strategic fit is more significant than organizational fit since the new company will dissolve completely and the rest of the integration is in control of the company. Furthermore, after identifying M&A projects as temporary organizations, three aspects: project organization, human resource and governance were verified based on literature. In the context of this study, human resource and governance is considered key elements in terms of acquisition projects. Finally, a framework was proposed in order to implement project management approach by fulfilling three dimension of PM which are project organization, project life-cycle and project governance.</p>

Mergers and acquisitions (M&amp;A) projects have long been considered as a strategy for organizational growth and gain of market share. Top management teams of companies take M&amp;As into consideration since it is faster and less costly compare to internal growth and development programs. M&amp;A project has variety of benefits such as growth in market share, increase in shareholder wealth, access to new markets, technological advantages and so on and so forth. Another benefit of such projects is the expected synergies which happen in financial, production, value chain and technological aspects of the existing company. However, according to many authors there is a high rate of failure in M&amp;A industry. One of the main reasons of failure identified as the poor performance of post-M&amp;A integration projects. Based on literature, a project perspective to these highly complex projects will reduce the risk of failure and will result in successful performance of new companies. However, there is a research gap in this filed.   After identifying the research gap and formulating the problem statement, research was designed in order to study the applicability of a project management (PM) approach toward M&amp;A and their integration projects. Through performing a case study on a Swedish company who has undergone a number of M&amp;A projects, interviews were conducted with top management team involved in such projects in order to collect empirical data. Based on qualitative data analysis methods, the primary data was integrated into pattern and themes and then analyzed.   Based on the findings of the research, it was identified that in acquisition projects of small and medium size companies the strategic fit is more significant than organizational fit since the new company will dissolve completely and the rest of the integration is in control of the company. Furthermore, after identifying M&amp;A projects as temporary organizations, three aspects: project organization, human resource and governance were verified based on literature. In the context of this study, human resource and governance is considered key elements in terms of acquisition projects. Finally, a framework was proposed in order to implement project management approach by fulfilling three dimension of PM which are project organization, project life-cycle and project governance.

Under de senaste åren har produkterna blivit mer invecklade beträffande anslutningen, prestanda och funktionalitet. Därför är syftet av denna studie att undersöka hur komplexa system utvecklas och leds genom att genomföra fallstudie på olika svenska företag som utvecklar mekatroniska och cyber-fysiska system. Resultatet av denna studie har lett till identifieringen av många utmaningar som de undersökta företagen har och som i sin tur har lett till framställningen av ett analytiskt ramverk som diskuterar hur och vad man bör göra för att utveckla komplexa produkter på ett effektivt sätt, så att onödig komplexitet i produktutvecklingen kan reduceras. / In recent years, products have become more complex in terms of connectivity, performance and functionality. Therefore, this study aims at studying how complex products are developed and managed through conducting multiple case studies at different Swedish companies that develop mechatronic or cyberphysical systems. The results of this study is the identification of many challenges that the investigated companies have, which have led to a presentation of an analytical framework that discusses how complex product development projects can and should be managed in order to be efficient, in order to reduce unnecessary complexity in the way companies develop these complex products.

Submitted by Daniele Santos (danielesantos.htl@gmail.com) on 2017-02-23T14:57:58Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Mateo Diaz.pdf: 3502647 bytes, checksum: 19648edcb9982335125316c718b7fe21 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Janete de Oliveira Feitosa (janete.feitosa@fgv.br) on 2017-02-23T20:45:37Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Mateo Diaz.pdf: 3502647 bytes, checksum: 19648edcb9982335125316c718b7fe21 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-03T14:34:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mateo Diaz.pdf: 3502647 bytes, checksum: 19648edcb9982335125316c718b7fe21 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-11-11 / The M&A phenomenon has been study for over three decades, yet over this period, there was been modest improvements in M&A success rate. Many scholars estimate that more than 50% of all M&A deals fail to achieve success and many had cited successful integration as key to avoiding the risk of failure. Why so many M&As fail? What are criteria behind achieving a successful integration? Answering those questions encouraged this investigation. The following is an exploratory study of the positive and negative effects of the integration phase on European logistic firms in Belgium, Poland, and The United Kingdom. The study reveals the importance of having a dedicated M&A integration team that can deal with the most common integration issues such as: effective communication, issues with IT platform and its processes, cultural differences, and dealing with the speed of the integration phase.

Die mikromechanische Gleichspannungswandlung basierend auf verschiebungsabhängigen Kapazitäten stellt eine Alternative zu etablierten rein elektronischen Wandlern für den Spezialfall der kapazitiven oder piezoelektrischen Verbraucher dar. Durch ihre kleine Bauform und den Verzicht auf Induktivitäten bietet sie den Vorteil der On-Chip-MEMS- und CMOS-Integration und ermöglicht die Bereitstellung hoher elektrischer Gleichspannungen aus den verfügbaren Grundspannungen der Elektronik (z. B. 3, 5 bzw. 12 V). Von hohen Polarisationsspannungen profitieren nicht nur kapazitive Sensoren und Aktoren, sondern auch piezoelektrische Messverfahren. Diese Arbeit stellt eine umfangreiche Übersicht und Bewertung der möglichen Bauformen mikromechanischer Gleichspannungswandler sowie die konkrete Umsetzung, Charakterisierung und Modellbildung eines resonant arbeitenden Wandlers vor. Es wird auf Besonderheiten und Probleme im Entwurf eingegangen und ausgehend von den Ergebnissen ein Konzeptentwurf für einen optimierten resonanten Gleichspannungswandler erarbeitet.:1 Einleitung 2 Theoretische Grundlagen 3 Ausführungsvarianten von MEMS-DC/DC-Wandlern 4 Designstudie und Umsetzung des resonanten Funktionsprinzips 5 Zusammenfassung und Ausblick / Micromechanical DC/DC conversion based on variable capacitances is an alternative to established electronic voltage converters, which does not require bulky inductors and is suitable for capacitive and piezoelectric loads. The converters are capable of boosting up the polarization voltage from CMOS and electronic levels (3, 5, 12 V), which is beneficial not only for capacitive sensors and actuators but also for piezoelectric sensing. Advantages of this method are the on-chip- and CMOS-integrability. This thesis introduces a comprehensive overview and evaluation of possible designs as well as the practical application, characterization and modeling of a resonant micromechanical DC/DC converter. Innovative claims include a test board for the characterization of resonant DC/DC converters and a SPICE behavioral model of the device, considering parasitic effects. Characteristics and problems of the design are discussed and the results are used to demonstrate an optimized conceptual design of a resonant DC/DC converter.:1 Einleitung 2 Theoretische Grundlagen 3 Ausführungsvarianten von MEMS-DC/DC-Wandlern 4 Designstudie und Umsetzung des resonanten Funktionsprinzips 5 Zusammenfassung und Ausblick