This exploratory case study used observations and interviews to investigate how the structure of an organization impacts its ability to adopt agile software development methodologies. It also aimed to identify the agile practices that are perceived as helpful or unhelpful by the individuals practicing them. It examined an organization’s attempt to adopt agile methodologies for the first time in a new software product development project. Twelve employees from different teams working on this project participated in the study. . The participants were asked about their perception of the agile process. They were also asked to identify the various teams with which they regularly interact and to provide examples of the helpful and unhelpful patterns of behavior they exhibit. The findings suggest that the structure of the organization was a major limiting factor that affected its ability to adopt agile methodologies. Agile practices rely on the level of flexibility that an organization can demonstrate. However, the organization attempted to adopt agile practices without redefining the project members’ roles, work processes, or departmental affiliations. Participants perceived many aspects of the agile methods negatively, and various symptoms of a misfit between the existing organizational structure and the requirements of agile methods were observed, including poor communication and multiple conflicts between the different project teams, which caused the project to go over time and over budget. Furthermore, it was observed that the teams struggled to follow the agile practices and found various ways to alter and work around them to fit the existing structure, rather than adhering to them and welcoming the new practices. Several potential areas for future research are identified, including: using longitudinal case studies to examine organizations and the relationships between their members before and after adopting agile methodologies, in order to identify and attribute any observed behavioral patterns to the appropriate cause; examining organizations in which the structure was altered to accommodate agile methodologies; and examining how organizations define the roles of highly specialized employees who possess very specific abilities and must be shared across different development projects.

This exploratory case study used observations and interviews to investigate how the structure of an organization impacts its ability to adopt agile software development methodologies. It also aimed to identify the agile practices that are perceived as helpful or unhelpful by the individuals practicing them. It examined an organization’s attempt to adopt agile methodologies for the first time in a new software product development project. Twelve employees from different teams working on this project participated in the study. . The participants were asked about their perception of the agile process. They were also asked to identify the various teams with which they regularly interact and to provide examples of the helpful and unhelpful patterns of behavior they exhibit. The findings suggest that the structure of the organization was a major limiting factor that affected its ability to adopt agile methodologies. Agile practices rely on the level of flexibility that an organization can demonstrate. However, the organization attempted to adopt agile practices without redefining the project members’ roles, work processes, or departmental affiliations. Participants perceived many aspects of the agile methods negatively, and various symptoms of a misfit between the existing organizational structure and the requirements of agile methods were observed, including poor communication and multiple conflicts between the different project teams, which caused the project to go over time and over budget. Furthermore, it was observed that the teams struggled to follow the agile practices and found various ways to alter and work around them to fit the existing structure, rather than adhering to them and welcoming the new practices. Several potential areas for future research are identified, including: using longitudinal case studies to examine organizations and the relationships between their members before and after adopting agile methodologies, in order to identify and attribute any observed behavioral patterns to the appropriate cause; examining organizations in which the structure was altered to accommodate agile methodologies; and examining how organizations define the roles of highly specialized employees who possess very specific abilities and must be shared across different development projects.

This thesis examines the role of school teachers and their experienced prerequisites for working against bullying and harassment among students. Previous research shows that teachers play an important role when it comes to bullying intervention and therefore the aim of this study has been to further examine how school teachers look upon their own role in regards to the work against bullying. What factors do they perceive as support for their work and what difficulties do they encounter are questions that has been asked. The data that has been used consists of in-terviews with teachers from six Swedish schools and the responses has been analyzed through an organizational perspective. The results show that school teachers experience of their prereq-uisites for dealing with bullying and harassment among students vary depending on different organizational factors. The relationship between the organisations structure and culture has been identified as playing an important role for the teachers perceived prerequisites. Future research is necessary to further understand the complexity of bullying and the work necessary for reduc-ing its occurrence.

In a world where multinational cooperation and cross-cultural challenges are part of daily life, understanding cultures has become increasingly important. That people and organizations develop together might seem obvious, but that culture can be studied to understand the structure and approach of organizations, is perhaps less so. In this paper, a major structural difference in the armed forces of Germany and Sweden is examined; having to sign a contract to serve for 13 years or not having to sign a contract with service length restrictions. Hofstede's theory Dimensions of National Culture is applied to the case to see whether the cadets' motivation and behavior is affected by this major difference in the two otherwise very similar organizations. The study aims also to explore whether the findings can be considered correct given that semi-structured interviews were conducted to see if the thoughts of the cadets are in line with what the theory claims. The conclusion is that the theory can be used to understand how cadets' motivation and behavior supports the structural organizations present in Germany and Sweden. However, the interviews show that the theory is very generalizing and that not all cadets' thoughts are consistent with what the theory states in every case. / <p>Erasmus</p>

Purpose:The purpose of this thesis is to examine how organizations work with crisismanagement in practice, with a focus on lower and middle level managersin the organizations. Background:Crisis within corporations and governmental institutions happens around usmore and more commonly. A survey made by the insurance company IFclaims that Swedish companies are badly prepared within the area of crisismanagement. A more globalized world also increases the effects of crisesfrom all over the world to affect Swedish corporations. We claim thatorganizational structure is a key factor to be able to have a developedcrisis management throughout the whole organization. Method:In order to answer the purpose we have used a qualitative deductiveresearch method. We have conducted semi-structured face to faceinterviews within two different types of Swedish organizations. Therespondents were chosen randomly from a division- or group managementlevel. Conclusion:The empirical study claims that there is a difference when defining a crisis,depending on previous experiences and education. To have the sameeducation and an overall common understanding of crisis management alsoincreases the efficiency when handling a crisis. Organizational structure and hierarchy is vital when it comes to crisismanagement. To have a clear structure and standardized meetings withinthe organization will help vigorous information to be communicated fromtop-bottom as well as from the bottom-top. However it might decreasethe flexibility and entrepreneurial spirit and our findings suggest that thisis an area that needs to involve within further researches.

This research is taking a comprehensive view to discuss the case of one leading IT company for its organizational structure change that has spanned for nearly five years. Using narrative analysis, the research¡¦s thorough discussion covers facets of the organizational structure change. The critical findings of the thesis are as follows: 1.Because the goal of an organizational structure change is to accommodate the organization¡¦s new mission statement, the new CEO is thinking of starting an organizational structure change in order to place staff with the right skills in the right jobs, clarify lines of authority and eliminate duplicate functions. 2.The new CEO¡¦s background and familiarity with the organization will affect the organizational structure change¡¦s scope and activities. 3.An organizational structure change is itself unable to reveal the change status. However, owing to its extraneous characteristics, the CEO is apt to declare his authority by building a new organizational structure and quickly formulating a plan to implement it.

The controller role is a principal part of all bigger organizations and through the years ithas been discussed whether the controllers main responsibility is towards the highermanagement or if its priorities should be towards the local management. The differentinterests can in its turn be incompatible which leads to the view that the controller canbe seen as having problematic dual responsibilities. As a result the role has been definedin many different ways in regards to its involvement in management control as well asits work content. A problematic discussion regarding the dual responsibilities arisewhen a controller is to balance commitments towards both the higher management aswell as its own division, and also the handling of these responsibilities within thecompany. The aim of the study is to shed a light on, and increase the understanding, of thecontroller role in a Swedish, multinational industrial company regarding itsresponsibilities and work content. A contributing aim of the study is to create anunderstanding of the interplay between the controller, its organizational counterpartsand the management of these interactions. The study is conducted with a qualitative method due to an interest towards a greaterunderstanding of the controller role. To better comprehend the controllers’ ownunderstandings of the role, a case study with six semi-structured interviews have beenconducted with active controllers. The results of the study indicate that the role of the controller isn’t affected by the issuesregarding its dual responsibilities as the discourse suggest. A close cooperation with thedivision as well as a hierarchical distance from the higher management results in thecontroller having a supporting role rather than a controlling one. Finally the study pointsto a great deal of significance regarding the controller role and its placement within theorganizational structure of the company. / Controllerrollen utgör en central del inom alla större organisationer och med tiden hardet inom litteraturen diskuterats huruvida controllerrollens huvudsakliga ansvar är atttillgodose intresset hos den högre ledningen inom en organisation eller om den iställetska prioritera den lokala ledningens intressen. Dessa olika intressen kan i sin tur varaoförenliga vilket leder till att controllern på så sätt kan ses ha en dubbelsidig roll medavseende på dess ansvarsområden. Controllern har som en följd beskrivits med enmängd olika benämningar inom litteraturen och det råder således en övergripandeproblematik kring controllerrollen och forskningen på området är inte överens huruvidadubbelsidigheten även är ett problem för controllern i praktiken. Syftet med studien är att skapa en ökad förståelse för controllerrollen inom ett svenskt,multinationellt industriföretag med avseende på controllerns arbetsinnehåll ochansvarsfördelning. Syftet med studien är även att belysa samspelet mellancontrollerrollen och de olika relationer som råder i anslutning till rollen. Undersökningen utgår från ett kvalitativt metodsynsätt då en ökad förståelse förcontrollerrollen är av intresse. För att fånga controllerns egen uppfattning av rollengenomfördes en fallstudie bestående av sex semistrukturerade intervjuer medverksamma controllers. Resultaten av studien indikerar att controllerrollen inte innehar problematik angåendedubbelsidigheten på samma sätt som den beskrivs i den rådande diskussionen påområdet. Genom ett nära samarbete med den egna divisionen och ett hierarkiskt avstånd till den högre ledningen innehar controllern snarare en stödjande funktion än enstyrande. Avslutningsvis pekar studiens resultat på den stora vikt som ligger påorganisationsstrukturen och controllerns placering inom denna.

This research explored the causal relationships among strategies, corporate structure, and performance of the largest U.S. non-financial firms using Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs). Corporate strategies and structure have been analyzed as major variables to influence corporate performance in management and organizational studies. However, their causal relationships in terms of which variables are leaders and followers, as well as the choices of variables to configure them, are controversial. Finding of causal relationships among strategic variables, structural variables, and corporate performance is beneficial to researchers as well as corporate mangers. It provides guidance to researchers how to build a model in order to measure influences from one variable to the other, lowering the risk of drawing spurious conclusions. It also provides managers a prospect of how certain important variables would change by making a certain strategic decision. Literatures from agency theory, transactional cost economics, and traditional strategic management perspective are used to suggest variables essential to analyze corporate performance. This study includes size and multi-organizational ownership hierarchy as variables to configure corporate structure. The variables to configure corporate strategies are unrelated and related diversification, ownership by institutional investors, debt, investment in R&D, and investment in advertisement. The study finds that most of the variables classified as corporate strategy and corporate structure variables are either direct or indirect causes of corporate accounting performance. Generally, results supports the relational model: corporate structure® corporate strategy® corporate performance. Ownership hierarchy structure, unrelated diversification, advertising expenses, and R&D intensity have direct causal influences on corporate accounting performance. Size and related diversification affected corporate accounting performance indirectly, both through ownership hierarchy structure. Theoretical causal relationships from agency theory are less supported than those from transaction cost economics and traditional strategic management perspective. Further my study suggests that, in general, good corporate performance in 1990s was mainly achieved by internal expansion through investment in R&D and advertisement, rather than external expansion of firms through unrelated diversification, related diversification, and expansion of ownership hierarchy.

Abstract ______________________________________________________________________ Title: A study about creating understanding for different kinds of empowerment Level: Bachelors thesis in Business Administration, 15 credits Author: Fredrik Legovic Supervisor: Tomas Källquist Date: 2014 - June Aim: The main purpose of this study is to increase the understanding for different kinds of empowerment and how it affects the staff in the public sector. Method: The choice of method was based on the research aim. The method used to meet the objective was qualitative. The qualitative study was conducted with a hermeneutic basis, where individuals were asked to describe their experience of empowerment and how they feel affected of it. This thesis has a deductive approach, where existing theories dealing empowerment formed the basis for the design of interview substrate, which is then paired with the empirical evidence, based on this the conclusions was drawn. Result &amp; Conclusion: What separates the different kinds of empowerment and how it affect the staff depends most of all on how the management chooses to communicate and share information with their staff. Suggestions for future research: A study regarding managers that works with different kinds of empowerment, and how that affects them, could be regarded as an interesting future research. Contribution of thesis: It shows that different kinds of empowerment affect the staff in different ways, which I made clear to the readers. Keywords: empowerment, thinking skills, relations and organizational - structure and theory

ABSTRACT Title: Local Management Culture Overseas: Handelsbanken Sweden and Handelsbanken UK Level: Final assignment for Master Degree in Business Administration Author: Rosa Bergheim and Michael Ings Supervisor: Maria Fregidou-Malama Examiner: Akmal Hyder Date: 2014 – January Aim: The aim with this study is to investigate what management practice Handelsbanken is using in Handelsbanken Sweden and Handelsbanken UK. In order to find out if Handelsbanken has adapted the same management practice in the UK, the focus has been on researching Handelsbanken’s organizational structure, decision-making and motivation, through comparing the two countries national culture with each other. Method: A qualitative research was used for this study, which included ten interviews with branch managers from Handelsbanken Sweden and Handelsbanken UK. Result &amp; Conclusions: Handelsbanken has applied a standardized management approach in both UK and Sweden, highlighted by decentralization in both countries. Autonomy, trust and responsibility together with the pension fund Oktogonen were seen as central motivation factors. Furthermore the study shows that the Swedish long-term approach to business was implemented in Handelsbanken UK. Suggestions for future research: This study focused on two of Handelsbanken’s home markets, further research could be conducted through including Handelsbanken’s other home markets, more branch managers and subordinates. Contribution of the thesis: Although existing research discusses companies that are doing business outside their domestic market, the relevant literature concentrating on the banking industry in one bank focusing on the managerial practices is still relatively sparse. These topics are covered in this study. Key words: Banking industry, Culture, Management, Organizational structure, Motivation