The objective of this paper is to analyse the possible reasons why, in many cases, councils do not comply with the auditors' recommendation not to grant discharge from liability. The paper also examines the consequences of councils making an assessment that is different from the auditor's assessment.    

Syftet med uppsatsen är att ge en översikt över programmet med fokus på bakgrund, forskningsfrågor och metod. Uppsatsen avslutas med några korta reflektioner över det pågående programmet (omfattning 9 sidor).

There is an ongoing debate about the effects of IT investments, and this paper will follow on this debate by discussing the effects of IT investments on productivity as well as the strategic potential of IT. Based on empirical studies on two Swedish value chains, the grocery distribution and the logging industry, this paper discusses the following questions: • Are investments in shared solutions, rather than proprietary solutions, providing the primary contribution to productivity gains? • Are shared solutions contributing to competitive advantage? • Is competitive advantage achieved through the information generated in shared solutions? The results are supported by other empirical studies within the IToP (Impact of IT on Productivity) research programme of Linköping University, Sweden. Copyright © 2006 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

The purpose of this article is to analyze, on the basis of two case studies, the differences and similarities between auditing of local government companies and auditing of privately owned companies, with a special focus on the auditing of nonfinancial information (13 pages).         

   The purpose of the article is to survey and analyze the chain of accountability to be reviewed by the auditors and through the use of principal-agent (PA) theory to identify the problems that may arise in holding persons accountable.  

This book is about competitive advantage and how it is created at the company level. Our theoretical starting- point is that the alignment of strategies and control systems affects the firm's chances of successfully positioning itself in its chosen area of competition. The firm is in a better position to concentrate on activities that create value for the customer if its strategies and control systems are mutually consistent and adapted to expected external demands. This book is thus a contribution to the literature that treats competitive advantage on the basis of the match between the environment and internal resources. Our ambition has been to provide additional knowledge in the area through a comprehensive discussion on coordination and integration of strategies and control systems.   

With the implementation of e-business, customisation is increasingly becoming a competitive strategy for manufacturing companies. From both theoretical and practical perspectives, however, there is limited knowledge about the influence of customisation on the operational level. In this paper, we model two different production systems: the single machine production system with a cyclical production policy and the serial production system with a decoupling point, where customisation is considered. These models provide a theoretical framework for designing a production-inventory system in practice. As for the solutions yielded by the models, the most interesting finding is that capacity requirement increases with customer order lead-time in the serial production system in one of the cases’ solutions, which is counterintuitive. This result is due to the complexity of the relationship between the variables of decoupling point position and capacity requirements and the parameter of customer order leadtime in the mathematical formulation.

Call centres are a key business form in the modern information society. Call centres, based on e-work, allow flexibility in space concerning organisational locations. The long-term aim of our study is to understand factors behind establishments, locations and continued existence of call centres, and this paper is one step in this process. The paper illustrates call centre locations in two rural regions, Ljusdal in Sweden and Kuusamo in Finland. In the analysis we use a model for call centre location, based on our earlier studies in the field. The model consists of five factors that affect call centre location, or relocation, in a specific region; Business Environment and Community Related Factors, Communications and Organisation Related Considerations, Market Existence and Access, Resource Availability and Entrepreneurship. The paper illustrates how two regions give different prerequisites for call centre location.