Summary This book centres around three different areas; management control, organisations and information systems - in order to understand what is actually going on and to make sense of management control questions. Management control techniques used today could in many cases be traced back to industrialisation. With the help of computeraised information systems, the speed and detail with which a manager could get a hold of important information has increased. Today, it has become even more important to be able to choose what information to work with and that the context in which it should be used is understood. Organisational sense-making is in many ways an interesting and important path to take in order to do this. When working with the management control function, it is important to understand the organisation where the work is undertaken. One important part of the function is planning and another is control. Both are needed in order for the management control function to work. Performance is often a key ingredient when trying to find out what is working in a plan and what is not and here the understanding for information becomes necessary. Since the work is done within an organsation, both by managers and employees, it is also crucial to find ways to work with not only models, methods and techniques but also people and social dimensions. Key Features Managers and employees want to act in a meaningful way in general. The way planning and control is undertaken in an organization is to a large extent dependent on the way a manager interprets information about the organisation. Decisions and actions can be traced to the interpretation of a situation in the past and present. Since organisations are built on people, it is important to try to understand why they act in a certain way and how their understanding of the organsiation is evolving. Management control has in many ways been described as a function that is dependent on different techniques and methods; however, it can also be described as a social process, focusing on decisions and actions. Informations systems have come to play a crucial role in managing an organisation, especially when it comes to tracing performance. The demand for responsible and accountable management has led to an increased emphasis on meaningful decisions and actions. The Author Dr Krister Bredmar is associate professor at Linneaus University in Sweden. He has for more then 20 years worked with management control and organisational sense-making, both in theory and in practice. His research has been published both in academic journals and in books. Readership Scholars, students and practitioners. Contents The accounting heritage Corporate epistemology Thinking ahead The essence of management control Understanding performance The control concept in management control Reports, communication and stakeholders The essence of sense-making Organisations as a set of social relations Information systems and management control Individuals and organisations Organisational structure A social perspective A decisions context Techiques and functions Thinking and acting strategically Accounting tools Information and knowledge The performance paradox

The teaching of organization theory and the conduct of organizational research have been dominated by a focus on decision-making and the concept of strategic rationality. However, the rational model ignores the inherent complexity and ambiguity of real-world organizations and their environments. In this landmark volume, Karl E Weick highlights how the `sensemaking' process shapes organizational structure and behaviour. The process is seen as the creation of reality as an ongoing accomplishment that takes form when people make retrospective sense of the situations in which they find themselves.

Safety and Reliability – Safe Societies in a Changing World collects the papers presented at the 28th European Safety and Reliability Conference, ESREL 2018 in Trondheim, Norway, June 17-21, 2018. The contributions cover a wide range of methodologies and application areas for safety and reliability that contribute to safe societies in a changing world. These methodologies and applications include: - foundations of risk and reliability assessment and management - mathematical methods in reliability and safety - risk assessment - risk management - system reliability - uncertainty analysis - digitalization and big data - prognostics and system health management - occupational safety - accident and incident modeling - maintenance modeling and applications - simulation for safety and reliability analysis - dynamic risk and barrier management - organizational factors and safety culture - human factors and human reliability - resilience engineering - structural reliability - natural hazards - security - economic analysis in risk management Safety and Reliability – Safe Societies in a Changing World will be invaluable to academics and professionals working in a wide range of industrial and governmental sectors: offshore oil and gas, nuclear engineering, aeronautics and aerospace, marine transport and engineering, railways, road transport, automotive engineering, civil engineering, critical infrastructures, electrical and electronic engineering, energy production and distribution, environmental engineering, information technology and telecommunications, insurance and finance, manufacturing, marine transport, mechanical engineering, security and protection, and policy making.

This book presents the case study of World Vision as a useful contribution in the discussion of mission drift, a common phenomenon facing faith-based organizations. Mission drift has been categorised as a drifting away from the organization’s founding mission, purpose and identity. Practical theological interpretation is undertaken in this case study. There are four phases involved in this approach: design, collection, analysis and recommendation. In the first phase, design, the key terms of the dissertation are explicated. One key model used is the identity formation model of organizations. In the second phase, collection, the actual collection of the empirical research is documented. Empirical research was done in two separate locations where World Vision worked in: Papua New Guinea and Nepal. In the third phase, analyzing, the findings of the empirical research are analysed firstly using the identity formation model, and more normatively, through the use of the normative practice model. In the final phase, recommendations are made in light of the analysis. These recommendations are also framed using the identity formation model with content and process recommendations given.

Why do good teams fail? Very often, argue Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman, it is because they are looking inward instead of outward. Based on years of research examining teams across many industries, Ancona and Bresman show that traditional team models are falling short, and that what’s needed--and what works--is a new brand of team that emphasizes external outreach to stakeholders, extensive ties, expandable tiers, and flexible membership. The authors highlight that X-teams not only are able to adapt in ways that traditional teams aren’t, but that they actually improve an organization’s ability to produce creative ideas and execute them—increasing the entrepreneurial and innovative capacity within the firm. What’s more, the new environment demands what the authors call “distributed leadership,” and the book highlights how X-teams powerfully embody this idea.

Supports the growing demand for courses in leadership and ensures that such courses and instruction are developed with multiple considerations and best practices in mind.

`The book is extremely clear in its explanation of how language works.... The authors treat their readers as curious, intelligent and concerned to find new and powerful tools to come at the workings of organizations from a lateral and newly illuminating perspective' - Virginia Valentine, Semiotic Solutions, London Offering a viable alternative to `functional' approaches to communication based around the metaphor of `webs of meaning' and using semiology as its theoretical bedrock, the authors provide examples and argue how and why this approach is useful in understanding communicative processes. This approach is applied to areas of interest, including: metaphor, story-telling, discourse, gender, leadership and electronic communication.