Enterprise content management (ECM) is an emerging research area that is beginning to find attention in academia. While the private sector has a growing industry and community for ECM, academia is starting to address this with direct links to the better-established areas of information systems and enterprise resource planning systems. ECM has been viewed as a higher-level concept of methods and strategies pertaining to content management in the context of the enterprise. Like many other organizational wide systems, ECM systems are complex, difficult to implement and risk failing to meet expected success measures. Definitions for what exactly constitutes an ECM system are still evolving. The major issues with ECM systems are that they are increasingly being implemented by organizations in an attempt to address the unmanageable amount of unstructured content over its lifecycle, compliance pressures, collaboration needs, content integrity and continuity, and controlling costs. However, the implementation problems are many and diverse, such as determining content and business processes to be included, determining technologies to fit the organizational needs, how to integrate with existing systems, and managing organizational culture and change for acceptance. There is currently little academic research in the area of ECM, and research determining the key factors that contribute to successful implementations of these systems is absent. This research addressed the existing gap in ECM research and investigated the key success factors for the implementations of ECM systems with the objectives of identifying a set of success factors. Guided by research in related areas and through developing a theoretical framework and the resulting research model, the study used a qualitative case study method to identify ECM implementation factors and their relationship to organizational culture and people, business processes, technology and organizational content. The results of this research were twofold, first by contributing needed research in the ECM area and second to aid organizations in the implementation of ECM systems by identifying key factors.

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a technology that can revolutionize the healthcare industry in terms of customization. Various studies and ongoing practice have proved the potential of AM in clinical use as enormous. However, to reach a routine level of adoption of AM in patients’ care, there are various things to consider. The purpose of the thesis is to reveal the key factors that will affect the hospital adoption of AM in different Swedish regions. The literature revealed the advantages and disadvantages of different manufacturing systems for hospital AM use and the main benefits and challenges in the different clinical applications of AM. Four exploratory case studies were carried out to identify the key factors in terms of AM hospital adoption, which have a comparative design. The four case studies are four different regions with different levels regarding AM hospital use. Purposive sampling was applied to choose the interested regions, while snowball sampling was used for selecting interview participants. The findings were analyzed via thematic analysis. Results show that key factors will mostly have both pushing and pulling effects regarding AM hospital use. Key factors were divided into the themes of Implementation, Management and Behavior. Aspects falling under Management are mentioned the most frequently in the interviews, suggesting that these factors play an important role in the adoption of AM. Theme Behavior is not previously found in the literature on AM in clinical use. Close communication among different levels and cross disciplines will positively affect the adoption of AM, as it will improve the AM awareness rate and result in more clinical champions. Concluded that a centralized AM adoption faces numerous factors which should be properly evaluated before the initiation. Apart from having an economic model to prove the business possibility, a top-down strategy to build an intensive AM information exchange will lead to a better and smooth adoption in healthcare.

The thesis is aiming to describe a procedure suitable for business valuation of start-up companies. Secondary aim is to provide the value itself. There are several methods described in the theory, which are utilized to define the strategic position of a start-up company. Most of them come from strategic marketing. Chapters about finances and risk follow and work with the conclusions about the strategic position of the company. The application part starts with defining strategy and concludes with market value estimate. In respect to the width of the topic, the application part is aimed at core aspects only.

<p>The increasing complexity of products and systems today has forced new processes, methods, and tools for managing the development of products. It has also forced the development of complex organisations and diverse relationships among functions and peoples within product development organisations. This implies a need for integrated processes. There is a need to study collaborative product development (CPD) from a holistic perspective, where internal as well as external collaboration are studied as integrated parts of CPD settings.</p><p>Thus, the main purpose of the research project is to facilitate the efficient execution of collaborative product development projects in the manufacturing industry. Further, the objective is to provide a supporting model for analysing and setting up projects in CPD settings. This will enable successful product development in terms of lowering costs, increasing the perceived quality of the product, and improving the timing to market. The focus is on the CPD projects, linking internal and external collaboration.</p><p>A systems approach is applied to the research project to obtain the holistic view needed for addressing the CPD setting. Within the research project, case study research is used as the primary method when gathering empirics. The results from four case studies are tested and analysed in a concluding survey.</p><p>The results show that shared visions and goals, the decision-making process, tools and methods, requirement management, and involvement are the most important factors for efficient CPD projects. If the collaborative complexity is high, the first four factors are especially important. The results are presented in a model to be used as a support when setting-up and managing CPD projects. The model is applied together with a process for managing CPD projects.</p>

The increasing complexity of products and systems today has forced new processes, methods, and tools for managing the development of products. It has also forced the development of complex organisations and diverse relationships among functions and peoples within product development organisations. This implies a need for integrated processes. There is a need to study collaborative product development (CPD) from a holistic perspective, where internal as well as external collaboration are studied as integrated parts of CPD settings. Thus, the main purpose of the research project is to facilitate the efficient execution of collaborative product development projects in the manufacturing industry. Further, the objective is to provide a supporting model for analysing and setting up projects in CPD settings. This will enable successful product development in terms of lowering costs, increasing the perceived quality of the product, and improving the timing to market. The focus is on the CPD projects, linking internal and external collaboration. A systems approach is applied to the research project to obtain the holistic view needed for addressing the CPD setting. Within the research project, case study research is used as the primary method when gathering empirics. The results from four case studies are tested and analysed in a concluding survey. The results show that shared visions and goals, the decision-making process, tools and methods, requirement management, and involvement are the most important factors for efficient CPD projects. If the collaborative complexity is high, the first four factors are especially important. The results are presented in a model to be used as a support when setting-up and managing CPD projects. The model is applied together with a process for managing CPD projects.

Maintenance has evolved over centuries and has played significant role for growth of organizations. Maintenance history is differentiated by three generations, the development of maintenance considered from being “necessary evil” to “profit contributor”. Many literatures have discussed maintenance for optimization and increasing profitability but little on the factors which influence on the future of maintenance. Maintenance should be considered as a “competitive factor” in the future. Many trends have evolved in production and every trend had a major contribution towards production development. The successful implementation of the trends is considered to be a major challenge. Little literatures have talked on the emerging trends and challenges in production. The thesis reviews the historical development of maintenance over generations and presents the key factors which play a major role during the fourth generation, and also identifies the emerging trends and challenges to be faced by production. The literature review, interviews and surveys were used in this thesis. Academic researchers and industrial experts from both maintenance and production department answered the interview and survey questions for this research. The key factors for the proposal of fourth generation of maintenance and the emerging trends and challenges to be faced by production are presented. The result from the research questions and the empirical findings are summarized in a framework that will enable readers to know the historical development of maintenance, the key factors to be considered for the fourth generation of maintenance and the emerging trends and challenges to be faced by production in future. In addition, the thesis also discusses the impact of information technology on the future of maintenance and the effect of sustainability in the future of production.

Made available in DSpace on 2009-11-18T19:01:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ACF33.pdf: 2083859 bytes, checksum: 362a051870691b9105bd132dfd52cae4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / The world is going through great changes which are affecting the social, technological, business and mental aspects. Companies have been threatened by various factors such as speed in launching new products, interference from governments, customers increasingly aware and demanding, increasing competition, globalization and the emergence of new technologies. These changes require from companies a more flexible structure capable of absorbing the rapid needs of the environment, and the current format of organizations seems to be inadequate to overcome these challenges. In this scenario, the process based management has shown to be promising as a component of the main management technologies like BSC, NBR ISO 9000, costs management with ABC, among others. Like every new approach, the process-driven technologies (or models) face many problems, some of them already known, as resistance to change, lack of preparation and insufficient support from the high direction. Studies of these factors are scarce and mostly do not deal with their impacts on public companies. This work aims to identify precisely these factors in the literature (theory and case studies) and confront them with those found in a public company (case study), examining their relevance. The results, besides confirming the factors, suggest that its use, in the form of a checklist, can benefit businesses in preventiing, reducing or eliminating problems that impact or stop a project. / O mundo está passando por grandes mudanças que vêm afetando as esferas sociais, tecnológicas, empresariais e mentais. As empresas têm sido ameaçadas por diversos fatores como rapidez no lançamento de novos produtos, interferência dos governos, clientes cada vez mais conscientes e exigentes, aumento da concorrência, globalização e o surgimento constante de novas tecnologias. Essas mudanças exigem das empresas uma estrutura mais flexível capaz de absorver as rápidas necessidades do ambiente, e o formato atual não tem se mostrado adequado para vencer estes desafios. Nesse contexto, a gestão baseada em processos tem se mostrado promissora ao ser incorporada nas principais tecnologias de gestão como BSC, NBR ISO 9000, gestão de custos com ABC, entre outras. Como toda nova abordagem, as tecnologias (ou modelos) baseadas em processos sofrem de vários problemas, sendo alguns já conhecidos, como resistência às mudanças, falta de preparo e apoio insuficiente da alta direção. Os estudos desses fatores são incipientes e em sua maioria não tratam de seus impactos em empresas públicas. Esse trabalho tem como objetivo justamente identificar esses fatores na literatura (teoria e casos de estudo) e confrontá-los com aqueles encontrados em uma empresa pública (estudo de caso), analisando sua pertinência. Os resultados encontrados, além de confirmarem os fatores, sugerem que a sua utilização, na forma de um checklist, podem beneficiar as empresas na prevenção, redução ou eliminação de problemas que impactam ou inviabilizam um projeto.

The Master's thesis "Application of an Integrated Model of Management and Design of Balanced Scorecard in the Organization" focusing on the definition of internal management analysis with target to evaluate the economic success of the company TOPAZ s.r.o. with using of Balanced Scorecard method. The analyzed entity operates in the glass industry and is engaged in the production of luxury domestic glass. Thesis is devided on three parts. First theoretical part defines the current company problems and the potentials for the solving of. The second part - practical, uses an genuine integrated model of management together with Balanced Scorecard method as a tool for definition, continous measurement and performance monitoring of company growth. The results and outputs from should brings the real feed-back to the company with target to prepare strategic map and benchmark for the right strategic company objectives and goals definition. As a key point for performance measurement system was set up Economic Value Added (EVA) indicator. Third part includes conclusion and complete evaluation of the thesis from the view of value added positives reached on.

Das Fachbuch „Der Stellenwert des Marketings in deutschen Konzert- und Opernorchestern“ liefert eine profunde empirische Untersuchung des Marketings deutscher Konzert- und Opernorchester. Es wird erstmals ein Vergleich von Konzert- und Opernorchestern hinsichtlich der System-, Finanz- und Strukturdaten sowie der Marketingorganisation und Marketingaktivitäten durchgeführt. Auch der Vergleich anhand der Orchestergrößenklassen sowie der Standorte im Westen bzw. Osten Deutschlands ist neu. Das zweite Kapitel liefert die theoretischen Grundlagen, es fragt nach der gegenwärtigen Bedeutung von Marketing und Marketingmanagement und erläutert vorherrschende Organisationsstrukturen des Marketings. Das dritte Kapitel widmet sich den Orchestern in Deutschland: Ausgehend von der Orchestergeschichte sowie den Förder- und Orchesterbetriebsstrukturen wird das Orchestermarketing umfassend vorgestellt. Im Rahmen der empirischen Untersuchung werden ferner die Methoden zur Messung des Marketingerfolges anhand der Kriterien Entwicklungsstufe des Marketings und Arbeitsweise des Marketings weiterentwickelt.

Considering the long term target set by the Swedish government of having an energy system basedexclusively on renewable sources, the potential for different renewable sources need to beinvestigated. When analyzing the sources used for electricity production in Sweden today, solarPV represents a very small share. This relatively small share also mainly consists of grid-connecteddistributed PV systems, and to analyze the possibilities of making solar energy a larger share inthe electricity production in Sweden this study will focus on grid-connected centralized PV farms.The main purpose of the study is to identify the potential for grid-connected centralized PVsystems for large scale production in Sweden. This will include an identification of the mostimportant key factors influencing the profitability, an investment calculation to be aware of theprofitability, a prediction of the future development of the PV industry in Sweden and lastly themain challenges that the PV industry is facing.To conduct this study a collaboration with Vattenfall Vind AB has been made, where a case studybased on three specific locations has been implemented when analyzing both the profitability andthe key factors. These three cases are based on places where Vattenfall has existing wind farms orhas assigned for upcoming ones. These areas could be seen as a potential benefit since the companyalready has started to inspect the land area, and that wind and PV farms might be able to sharenecessities such as infrastructure.The results of the study mainly indicate that the PV industry most likely will continue develop andgrow, but the profitability of investing in grid-connected centralized PV farms does not lookpromising today or in the next coming years. This mainly due to low prices for electricity anduncertainties in the future development of the financial support policy. The location is also veryimportant for this type of installation. There are places in southern Sweden with enough insolation,but these areas can be seen as limited. To make solar energy a larger share of the electricityproduction in Sweden in a profitable way today, more investments should be made in gridconnecteddistributed PV systems rather than grid-connected centralized PV farms. PV farms forlarge scale production might though be more profitable in the future when the prices for modulesand inverters will decrease further and when the spot price increases.