Verksamhetsstyrning med fokus på intressenters och medarbetares betydelse : ett fundament för företagens varaktiga framgång?

Sammanfattning: We would like to gain a more in depth knowledge of whether the modern orientations both within corporate governance and control philosophy lay the foundation for enterprises’ more sustainable success. These both modern orientations are increasingly focusing on the importance of enterprises’ setting of goals and visions on the basis of stake holders’ interests and the employees’ more active engagement in and motivation for the goal achievement. Despite these common inherent characteristics, it is not evident from current scientific debate how such integration actually emerges in the control philosophies of the enterprises. However, the above mentioned common inherent characteristics, focused on the stakeholders’ interests and employee’s active engagement, could support our view on the broader perspective of steering and organizing of enterprises. The purpose of our thesis is to analyze whether the modern orientations both within corporate governance and performance management could establish a joint view on steering and organizing of enterprises, where the setting of targets and visions are based on the stake holders’ interests and where the enterprises are more oriented to interact with their surroundings. These strategies need to be thoroughly embedded with the employees throughout the whole organization. As a consequence we are especially interested whether our illustration of a more holistic perspective of steering and organizing of enterprises with emphasis on increasing consideration both on the stakeholders’ interests and on the employees’ more active engagement and motivation, could bring more positive outcomes for enterprises’ goal fulfillment and adaptability. Furthermore, we have found a number of indications suggesting that such a holistic perspective of steering and organizing of enterprises could lay the foundation for sustainable success of the enterprises. However, the concept of success can be defined through several different measurements. Success depends highly on the individual circumstances in each organization, whereby every enterprise needs to define its own criteria. Accordingly, we think a sustainable success requires that the enterprises’ targets and visions ate defined in line with the stake holders’ interests. The next step would be to transform these goals into concrete operational activities that are closely integrated in the daily work. It is therefore critical that the enterprises’ strategies are thoroughly embedded with the employees in order to be able to adapt the business to new challenges that the organization might face from time to time. By means of a qualitative literature study both within corporate governance and control philosophies, combined with an empirical study focused on a few enterprises’ control philosophy, we have found support for our assumption of the potential for a more holistic perspective of steering and organizing of enterprises. Such a holistic perspective for control philosophy is well in line with the development of the modern corporate governance theories and modern theories on control philosophies emphasizing the stakeholders' interests and the employees’ active commitment towards goal achievement. Key words: corporate governance, internal and external control mechanisms, control philosophy, stakeholders, balanced scorecard, organizational culture, success.