BIRGITTA OLSSON, MAJVOR KARLSSON and ELLEN SHARMA
There are several ways to implement and work with the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). The company Ericsson Data AB was one of the pioneers in employing the BSC in Sweden. As early…
Abstract
There are several ways to implement and work with the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). The company Ericsson Data AB was one of the pioneers in employing the BSC in Sweden. As early adopters, they were interested in obtaining an evaluation performed by external researchers. We were fortunate to have that opportunity. During the autumn of 1998, Majvor Karlsson and Ellen Sharma had full access to the developmental department dealing with the implementation of BSC at the company. The present article is based on interviews with managers and developers with the aim to determine how the BSC was implemented and how it functions in the day‐to‐day life of the company. The BSC model introduced in Ericsson was given the name Cockpit. As one might expect, implementing BSC requires a great deal of time and energy. We found that it resembles the process in other organisational changes as well. In our research, we found that there were many aspects of the implementation of BSC with which we could interpret and explain our observations with the help of theories of organisational change. Our findings led us to formulate a theory concerning the implementation process of the BSC. It was a relief to discover that we could use a method that allowed us to listen and learn from the persons involved in the implementation process at Ericsson Data.
This article is based on a content analysis of intellectual capital (IC) in annual reports from 1998 to 2002. The aim of the study was to compare the content of voluntary…
Abstract
This article is based on a content analysis of intellectual capital (IC) in annual reports from 1998 to 2002. The aim of the study was to compare the content of voluntary information on IC in the corporate annual reports covering a period of 4 years. The results from the study, based on 15 Swedish companies in the retail sector, show that for the year 2002 the information on human capital in the annual reports was, on average, 8.4% of the total text mass, with 14.9% pertaining to external capital, 21.2% to process capital and 7.4% about innovation capital. Further, the amount of IC information in 2002 increased when compared with the amount of information in 1998. The findings indicate that companies dealing with daily goods provide more information about IC in their annual reports than fashion companies.
The Swedish government decided in 1994, as part of the so‐called 50,000 Swedish crowns scheme, to set aside a portion of the labour market budget for the further training and…
Abstract
The Swedish government decided in 1994, as part of the so‐called 50,000 Swedish crowns scheme, to set aside a portion of the labour market budget for the further training and retraining of local government and country council employees. The present article reports on the experiences of the training effort that took place in 1994–1995 and provides a theoretical framework for discussing staff training as an alternative to redundancies in the case of “economic overstuffing” and as part of a strategy for lifelong learning. Staff training and further development can be viewed as direct labour market measures instead of as redundancies. This article is based on a large empirical study in municipalities and county councils that have used these measures. In the study it was shown that these market measures can be defended both economically and humanly in the sense that both contribute to strengthening internal mobility and increasing the worker's adaptability to the external labour market. At the same time, this conform part of a strategy for a more flexible structuring of working time.
In this article, the author discusses the implications of a 6+6‐hour model for the production economy of the Finnish Company Essilor Oy. The theory of returns to scale has been…
Abstract
In this article, the author discusses the implications of a 6+6‐hour model for the production economy of the Finnish Company Essilor Oy. The theory of returns to scale has been used to analyse the results of the change from one 8‐hour shift to the 6+6‐hour‐shift system. It is shown that the company Essilor attained a better production economy and increased profit by introducing a 6+6‐hour‐shift system in one of their departments. The operation time increased by 72%. The wages per month were unreduced and seven new persons were recruited.
In this article the aim is to report from two empirical studies of annual reporting of intellectual capital (IC), with particular emphasis on human resources (HR) in Swedish…
Abstract
In this article the aim is to report from two empirical studies of annual reporting of intellectual capital (IC), with particular emphasis on human resources (HR) in Swedish companies. The studies were made on the largest Swedish companies on the stock market's A‐list, during the years 1990, 1994 and 1998. The material used was the external annual reports. In the studies we wanted to assess the extent to which large companies are publicly reporting their IC. The research aimed to investigate the reporting practices in Swedish companies. The research question was to determine if company representatives' desire to make HR more transparent is merely an expression that is not supported by real conviction. The studies showed that there is a very low share of information disclosed about human resources in the corporate annual reports. A tendency to increase was evident, but it is, on average, below 4%. None of the 18 largest companies were above 7%, which reveals that there is a lack of good examples to be found in this group of companies and very little changes had taken place during the past 10 years. It must be concluded that a great deal is often said about the importance of having a more transparent HR or human capital in companies, but the evidence suggests that in the real world this is still not the case.
In the beginning of 1990s preparations were underway in Sweden to enact a law aimed at making accounting on personnel in the annual reports compulsory. An official investigation…
Abstract
In the beginning of 1990s preparations were underway in Sweden to enact a law aimed at making accounting on personnel in the annual reports compulsory. An official investigation resulted in a special report on how to design and report on it. The expectations and the discussions that followed resulted in considerable voluntary implementation of “personnel economics reports” or “human resources accounting reports” (HRA reports) in companies and municipalities. Preparations were made through education and training to acquaint people with the new procedure of reporting on personnel. The present article gives a description of one the most frequently used models of accounting on personnel elaborated during the 1990s in Sweden. In this article the experiences from a training programme with the aim of implementing this model for a group of hospital clinics, The Hospital Sector in Northwest of Stockholm, are described and analysed.
In this paper a study of a career planning project launched by the Swedish National Tax Board is reported. The project, named Propeller, was initiated in 1998 as a joint endeavour…
Abstract
In this paper a study of a career planning project launched by the Swedish National Tax Board is reported. The project, named Propeller, was initiated in 1998 as a joint endeavour among three agencies: the Swedish National Tax Board, the Regional Stockholm Tax Office and the Enforcement Authority. The intention was to create a common micro labour market in order to encourage employees to become more aware of their own development, as well as to create a competence exchange in and between the agencies, i.e. create greater mobility among the agencies. In this paper the focus is on the follow‐up study of the project. The program for career counselling contained at most eight hours of consultation over a period of six weeks to three months when the employee or Propellers “customer” met with an external consultant. The consultation should terminate with an action and time schedule that includes concrete steps to be taken to reach the specific goals set by the employee. The study is based on both a written questionnaire administered to 72 respondents and interviews with 46 persons who had finished the career‐counselling program during the first half‐year of the Propeller project. The results indicated that the model for career planning used by the Swedish National Tax Board was exceedingly effective and that all the goals of the project were successfully completed. In summary, the model was found to increase the mobility among the three agencies included in the Propeller project. The results showed that, by the end of the study, 43% (20 of 46) of those persons who used the program during the first year had already moved internally between departments within an agency or had changed affiliation from one agency to another. Additionally, 11 persons planned to change or move from their position to another sometime in the next few years. This rate of changing position or location implies that the mobility effect could be expected to become as high as 67%. The managers evaluated the project and felt that this sort of initiative for active career planning would increase the attraction of the agency on the labour market. Moreover, it implies a higher employability among those persons that took part in the evaluation. According to the managers, the relatively small sum of money used for the career planning project was seen as a good investment in personnel.