Industry 4.0 (I4.0) productions are complex environments driven by production data to make informed decisions affecting the events and items on the production line. This complexity can have a negative effect on the factory workers’ adoption rate of the new technology. More specifically, it can lead to the factory workers feeling passive and lacking influence over the tools used. Therefore, new UX methods and increased UX maturity are called for, to better suit the ever changing environments of I4.0 organizations. To ensure adoption, positive attitudes and intentions regarding user ownership, expertise and knowledge sharing are required. In this thesis project, participatory design (PD) methods are used to evaluate, whether PD has a positive effect on such attitudes and intentions toward new tools introduced on the production line. Five participants, employees from the I4.0 company Northvolt, were recruited to take part in a PD workshop to design a human-machine interface (HMI). The participants attitudes and intentions towards the tool were measured and explored through the PD workshop, surveys and user interviews. The outcome was also compared to the survey results on the tools already in use on the production line. The study resulted in increased positive attitudes and intentions towards user ownership, knowledge sharing and expertise concerning the HMI. Thus, the application of PD in I4.0 environments had an overall positive impact. Researchers are called to assess these effects in the long term, by allowing the participants to use the tool in a practical context overtime. / Industry 4.0 (4.0) produktioner är komplexa miljöer drivna av produktionsdata för att kunna göra informerade beslut som påverkar händelserna och produkterna på produktionslinjen. Denna komplexitet kan ha en negativ effekt på fabriksarbetarnas adoptionsfrekvens av den nya teknologin. Mer specifikt, kan det leda till att fabriksarbetarna känner passivitet och att de saknar inflytande över de digitala verktygen som används. För att bättre passa de föränderliga miljöerna i I4.0 organisationer, behövs nya User Experience (UX) metoder och ökad UX mognad. För att säkerställa adoption, positiva attityder och avsikter angående ”user ownership”, behövs expertis och kunskapsdelning. I detta examensprojekt, används ”participatory design” (PD) metoder för att evaluera om PD har en positiv effekt på sådana attityder och avsikter gentemot nya digitala verktyg introducerade på produktionslinjen. Fem deltagare, anställda från I4.0 företaget Northvolt, rekryterades för att ta del av en PD workshop för att designa ett ”human-machine interface” (HMI). Deltagarnas attityder och avsikter gentemot verktyget mättes och utforskades genom PD workshopen, enkäter och användarintervjuer. Utfallet blev jämfört med enkätresultat gällande digitala verktyg som redan används på produktionslinjen. Projektet resulterade i ökade positiva attityder och avsikter rörande user ownership, kunskapsdelning och expertis gentemot HMIt. Således, appliceringen av PD i I4.0 miljöer hade en övergripande positiv påverkan. Forskare uppmanas att bedöma dessa effekter långsiktigt, genom att tillåta deltagarna att använda det digitala verktyget i en praktiken över tid.

There is considerable evidence of the existence of audit expectation gap between auditors and the public in Sweden. However, conflicting views exist regarding the role of audit education in narrowing this gap. This thesis, therefore, aims to investigate if the teaching of audit courses for civilekonom students contributes in narrowing the expectation gap resulting from the misunderstanding of audit regulations as contained in ISA and ABL.A survey questionnaire containing seventeen semantic differential belief statements measured using the five-point Likert scale was completed by four groups of students; first-year civilekonom students with/without an audit education background and, final-year civilekonom accounting students with/without an audit education background (n=137). The questionnaire covered topics on; auditors’ responsibilities, audit reliability, and decision usefulness.The results of the study indicate audit education partially (at α 0.05) had an impact in reducing the AEG on the responsibilities of auditors especially on issues related to; auditors’ responsibility in maintaining accounting records, management’s responsibility for preparing the annual financial statements and auditors’ judgment in selecting audit procedures. However, audit education had no impact on auditors’ responsibilities in detecting fraud, audit reliability and reliability of financial statements, and decision usefulness. Furthermore, the limited sample size, low response rate and use of convenience sampling may affect the generalizability of the results. Additionally, the Cronbach Alpha would have been more reliable if more participants were involved.This study concludes by calling on educational institutions in Sweden to update their accounting curriculum to encompass topics related to the nature, scope, and limitations of audits based on ISA and ABL. Moreover, this study recommends the audit profession and regulators to design and implement policies aimed at improving users understanding of the nature, scope, and limitations of an audit through audit education, refresher courses and other forms of audit-user communication. This study extends previous studies on the AEG by ascertaining the role of audit education in narrowing the AEG.