Bakgrund och forskningsfråga: Målstyrning är ett viktigt hjälpmedel för företag i deras strävan efter att följa sina strategier. Målstyrning kan ske genom användning av formella eller informella styrmedel, och ska anpassas efter varje enskilt företag. Traditionella affärsverksamheter har ofta som fokus att generera vinst och använder sig främst av formella styrmedel. Kreativa näringar har istället sitt fokus på kreativiteten, och använder sig främst av informella styrmedel. Kreativa företag har inte samma möjlighet att konkurrera på marknaden som traditionella affärsverksamheter, men den ekonomiska aspekten är fortfarande viktig då det är ett krav för deras fortlevnad. Flertalet kreativa näringar väljer att diversifiera sin verksamhet inom relaterade områden för att skapa en mer stabil ekonomi. Detta medför dock en utmaning i att behålla kreativiteten inom ett område, trots en diversifierad verksamhetsstruktur. Studiens övergripande forskningsfråga är: Hur håller kreativa företag, inom konstsektorn, med relaterat diversifierad verksamhetsstruktur samman hela organisationen genom målstyrning? Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att beskriva hur kreativa företag med flertalet olika verksamhetsgrenar utformat sin målstyrning med hjälp av olika formella och informella styrmedel. Ytterligare ett syfte är att analysera vilka fördelar och nackdelar de olika styrmedlen skapar för företagen gällande deras målstyrning. Metod: Denna studie utgör en fallstudie av två kreativa näringar. Undersökningen utgår från en abduktiv forskningsansats med en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi. Den teoretiska referensramen är främst baserad på insamlat material från litteratur och vetenskapliga artiklar. Det empiriska materialet utgörs främst av ingående personliga intervjuer, samt viss information från hemsidor tillhörande de organisationer som deltar i denna studie. Slutsats: Kreativa näringar med relaterat diversifierad verksamhetsstruktur använder formella styrmedel för att styra de ekonomiska aspekterna och informella styrmedel för att styra kreativiteten och de anställdas beteenden. Denna målstyrning gör att de kan uppfylla både deras ekonomiska och konstnärliga mål och hålla samman sin relaterat diversifierade verksamhetstruktur. / Background and research question: Performance management is an important tool for businesses in their efforts to pursue their strategies. Performance management can be achieved through the use of formal or informal control instruments, and should be tailored to each individual company. Traditional businesses often have the focus to generate profit and primarily use formal control instruments. Creative industries have instead its focus on creativity, and primarily use informal control instruments. Creative companies do not have the same opportunity to compete in the market as traditional businesses, but the financial aspect is still important as it is a requirement for their survival. Most creative industries choose to diversify their business in related areas to create a more stable economy. However, this means a challenge to retain the creativity in one area, despite a diversified business structure. The study's overall research question is: How do creative businesses, in the arts sector, with a related diversified business structure hold together the entire organization through performance management? Objective: The purpose of this study is to describe how creative companies with several different branches of business activity have designed its performance management using different formal and informal control instruments. Another purpose is to analyze the advantages and disadvantages that the different control instruments create for companies concerning their performance management. Method: This study is a case study of two creative industries. The survey is based on an abductive research approach with a qualitative research strategy. The theoretical framework is mainly based on material collected from literature and scientific articles. The empirical material consists mainly of detailed personal interviews, as well as certain information from websites belonging to organizations involved in this study. Conclusion: Creative industries with a related diversified business structure are using formal control instruments to steer the financial aspects and informal control instruments to steer creativity and employee behavior. This performance management enables them to meet both their financial and artistic goals and hold together its related diversified business structure.

The aim of this diploma thesis is to evaluate the meaning of reported data for users. The evaluation is based on the analysis of the accounting data of P Z P MERLIN s.r.o. The diploma thesis is divided into the theoretical and practical part. The theoretical part is elaborated according to specialized literary publications and sources, which are focused on controlling, reporting, reporting users, information sources for reporting, classification and processing of reports, key performance indicators, models of economic evaluation of the company. In the practical part, the characteristics of the company P Z P MERLIN s.r.o. is described. Then, the analysis of the company's financial situation for the period from 2013 to 2017 follows. using key performance indicators and models of economic assessment. In the practical part, the analysis of the company's current reporting system is performed and evaluated on the basis of the internal audit procedures. At the end of the practical part, there is a recommendation and a proposal how to structure the company's data so that their users can perceive them in all contexts and parameters that are important for their decision making.

Der 39. Band der Leipziger Beiträge zur Informatik setzt sich mit den Herausforderungen im Zusammenhang mit der zunehmenden Industrialisierung der Dienstleistungswirtschaft auseinander. Eine hohe Komplexität der Dienstleistungsportfolios sowie eine zunehmende Dienstleistungsorientierung ehemals rein produktionswirtschaftlich ausgerichteter Unternehmen bedürfen leistungsfähiger und angepasster Methoden und Werkzeuge. Voraussetzung dafür ist die präzise und umfassende Modellierung von Dienstleistungen, die Berücksichtigung von Aspekten der Produktivität sowie die Entwicklung geeigneter Softwarewerkzeuge. Das vorliegende Buch beschäftigt sich mit diesen Herausforderungen und Fragestellungen und schlägt verschiedene Lösungsansätze vor.

This thesis is focused on research of available resources about applicable methods and approaches of implementation of Business Intelligence in sales department of mid-size local company focused on information technologies. The solution is aimed on controlling and performance measurement. Local specifics and company culture of innovation and creativeness are considered during the whole work. The next part of the work is analysis of the company environment and appropriable process of implementation matching current maturity level of company. The goal is to define appropriable set of indicators for performance measurement of sales representatives in order to reflect the reality and allow the relative comparison of individuals. This solution is applied in specific company and as a result there are identified issues of this proposal and suggested recommendations for the future modifications. The work is based on research of available resources and identification of the best practices methods of design and implementation of this system. The next part contains detail analysis of the company, application of conclusion of the theoretical part and suggestion for optimal process of successful adaptation. As a result the structure of metrics has been built and it was verified that the detail analysis is required for relevant definition of the scope of the project, identification of risks and preparing the real schedule. It has been verified, that implementation of performance measurement system requires complex changes in company culture and close coordination to other triggered changes in workflow and quality of recorded data in information systems.

Almost two decades after the burst of the Dot-com bubble, investors are opinionated as to whether a new technology bubble has formed in the equities market. Similar to the late 1990's and early 2000's, many Internet firms today go through initial public offering without yet turning over a dollar of earnings, but boast certain revenue-associated performance metrics to investors promising of future success. However, investors are known to hold sentiments sensitive to earnings announcements (Seok, Cho & Ryu, 2019) and reward firms which meet or beat earnings with higher stock returns (Bartov, Givoly & Hayn, 2002). That raises a question on the content of earnings announcements: Besides earnings and cash flow, are there other factors that may influence investor decisions to trade some Internet stocks? My primary hypothesis is that the voluntary disclosure of specific non-financial key performance indicators (NFKPI) during earnings announcement by Internet firms influences the investors' investing/trading decisions. My motivation for this research is to understand better whether there is a strategic element in the voluntary disclosure of NFKPI in Internet companies and how it may impact investors' decisions. The results could be useful to firms in their evaluations of whether to release NFKPI or similar information and to equity research analysts as well as investors in measuring their expectations and valuations of the firms' stocks. The intention of the study is not to generalize the findings to the full market, as the number of companies with the practice of voluntary disclosure of NFKPI is comparatively few compared to those without the practice. Instead, this study examines the effects of NFKPI on the stock returns of those companies which choose to disclose it. I use event study methodology to test the statistical significance of disclosure of NFKPIs during earnings announcements. By controlling for earnings surprise and other meaningful financial ratios, I also examine how the signaling effect of NFKPI could be distinguished from the signaling effects of important information concurrently released during earnings announcements. I focus on two types of NFKPI within the Internet industry: Gross Bookings for online booking agency services and Daily Active Users for social media. As earnings reports and quarterly filings often do not necessarily come together on the same date, I hand-collected data to estimate the surprise effect of NFKPI per earnings announcement, by using available broker forecasts of the respective NFKPI as a proxy for the investor's NFKPI expectation. The results show that while revenue surprise remains consistently the most influential variable to investors, NFKPI Surprise has a positive, statistically significant relationship with the firm's abnormal returns. Additionally, despite being insignificant when expected earnings is beat or in line with consensus, NFKPI Surprise is found statistically significant with a positive relationship to abnormal returns when expected earnings is missed. In line with existing research on management's motivation to prevent negative earnings surprises (Matsumoto, 2002), these findings imply that if firms could employ the voluntary disclosure of NFKPI to manipulate investors' impression and to cushion their stock prices against potential negative market reactions when earnings is missed.

<p>This thesis explores and explains the existence of a best practice model to optimise the transfer of funds (&ldquo / the transfer funding process&rdquo / ) between funders and service providers in the public sector. Using ideas about best practice in a specific context, the Health environment, it investigates the perceptions of managers about the transfer of funds between the Provincial Government of the Western Cape and the Local Authority of the City of Cape Town, the existence of a formula that will indicate appropriate amounts to transfer to service providers, and how information systems might assist with the process and the formula.</p>

Die Produkte von Maschinen- und Anlagenbauunternehmen stellen in der Regel langlebige, kundenspezifische Investitionsgüter dar. Je umfangreicher die Konstruktions- und Montagezeiten des Investitionsgutes, umso frühzeitiger muss der Kunde sich festlegen, welche Leistungsmerkmale gefordert werden und unter welchen Bedingungen die Maschine oder Anlage arbeiten muss. Hierbei kommt es regelmäßig zu Divergenzen zwischen dem Bedarf des Kunden zum Lieferzeitpunkt, der Nachfrage zum Zeitpunkt der Kaufentscheidung und dem Angebot des Anbieters. Um diese Divergenzen ab dem Zeitpunkt des Kaufs zu beheben, sind mehr oder weniger kostenintensive technische Leistungsveränderungen – so genannte Modifications – erforderlich. Die Arbeit zeigt zum einen Erkenntnisse aus der Untersuchung von Modifications. Zum anderen bietet sie ein theoretisch und insbesondere ein empirisch orientiertes, umsetzbares System (Modification- Management), mit dem dieser Problematik nachhaltig begegnet bzw. der Umgang damit optimal gestaltet werden kann.

<p>This thesis explores and explains the existence of a best practice model to optimise the transfer of funds (&ldquo / the transfer funding process&rdquo / ) between funders and service providers in the public sector. Using ideas about best practice in a specific context, the Health environment, it investigates the perceptions of managers about the transfer of funds between the Provincial Government of the Western Cape and the Local Authority of the City of Cape Town, the existence of a formula that will indicate appropriate amounts to transfer to service providers, and how information systems might assist with the process and the formula.</p>

Performance Measurement is necessary in order to support the implementation of a Continuous Improvement approach within a company. Performance Measurement has been a subject of increasing interest for researchers and practitioners. The questions addressed in the literature especially evolved from “what” to measure to “how” to measure. The present thesis follows this evolution by exploring how companies can successfully implement Performance Measurement. The thesis follows a parallel research design including a literature review and a case study. From one side, a literature review aims at explaining the main theories behind Performance Measurement, such as the concept of Performance Measurement System, as well as giving some recommendation for its implementation. On the other side, an empirical case study, conducted in a construction industry company, presents a practical implementation of Performance Measurement including some of the indicators dashboards built in several factories and departments of the company. The results of this case study are also supported by several interviews conducted at different steps of the implementation with the different actors involved. Then a theoretical verification is conducted by comparing the theory from the literature review with the empirical results from the case study. It especially allows to verify some recommendations as well as to identify a few gaps. The results of this study can be seen as a set of verified recommendations in order to successfully implement Performance Measurement within a company. These recommendations come from the comparison between theory and practice and they are divided in three main parts: the Key Performance Indicators identification, the Performance Measurement System design, and the practical implementation of Performance Measurement. Regarding this last part, five key success factors (e.g. perceived benefits of performance measurement, top management commitment) and five barriers (e.g. time and effort required, human behaviour) have been verified. Moreover, some Performance Measurement issues are discussed, such as the reduction of the complexity, the potential gaps between local approaches and global consistency, as well as the concept of organisational learning. Finally, the thesis identifies three kinds of trade-offs (e.g. accuracy of the data and cost of collection) that need to be considered when implementing Performance Measurement.

In the accomplishment of good governance South African municipalities need to develop measurable objectives related to performance measures and targets that capture strategically important aspects of performance. This allows performance to be easily monitored and aligned with municipal Integrated Development Plans (IDPs). Performance information should be used in conjunction with strategic planning, budgeting, policy analysis and evaluations, organisational reviews and performance appraisals for the managers. This is necessary in order to improve performance and for assuring the public that they are receiving value for money. A Performance Management System (PMS) is the principal management mechanism intended to determine outcomes and impact of municipal service delivery on the communities they are commissioned by legislation to service. The PMS measures should always be relevant, meaningful and informative to political and administrative decision-makers. The data gathered from the PMS should be presented in a balanced, comprehensive and credible manner. The aim of this study is to analyse the challenges that influence the implementation of the local government PMS in the Dr Kenneth Kaunda District Municipality. The analysis entails identifying the challenges, evaluating them and then suggesting possible solutions to the challenges. / Thesis (M. Development and Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.