A shift in focus from growing revenues towards managing working capital could be observed in many companies in the recession that followed the financial crisis of 2008. This thesis therefore investigates the relation between working capital management (WCM) and revenue growth by examining 36 Swedish companies within the IT & Telecom, Wholesale, and Manufacturing industries. The results show that there currently is a general gap between the perceived and actual performance regarding WCM and the effects on revenue growth. The studied companies report a belief that no trade-off between WCM and revenue growth exists. However, the actual performance in the studied industries indicates that increases in revenues often are not justifiable in proportion to the increases in net working capital (NWC). The study also shows that responsibility for WCM and implementation of WCM decisions are to a high extent assigned to a centralized organizational level. Recommendations derived from this study are that while companies need a centralized responsibility for WCM decisions, the responsibility also needs to be decentralized for successful implementation. Furthermore, the NWC development in relation to revenue growth needs to be continually monitored.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-246448 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Hagberg, Niklas, Johansson, Viktor |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Företagsekonomiska institutionen, Uppsala universitet, Företagsekonomiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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