Information Management and the Middle Manager : An Analysis of Three Swedish Companies

Abstract: One form of knowledge that has been proven to be important for companies’ perfor-mance during the recent financial crisis is the understanding of the financial data and information.The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how three Swedish companies – Sto Scandi-navia AB, Swedbank and Axfood SSC – communicate internal financial information to their middle managers. As well as how the companies use knowledge management to leverage their financial communication internally.The study presents an integrated framework of information management and knowledge management based on the works of the leading and often quoted re-searchers in those fields.This study uses 12 semi structured interviews to gather qualitative data about how nine middle managers and three top managers view the communication of financial in-formation at their companies. The interviews were complimented with closed question surveys handed to the nine middle managers.Our analysis concludes that the three companies differ significantly in their approach to communicating financial information. Swedbank uses a wide range of financial in-formation in their daily operations. Further, they have an organized and structured ap-proach to communicating and managing their financial information.Sto and Axfood (SSC) do not use financial information to the same extent in their oper-ations. Additionally they communicate the information in an informal and unstruc-tured way. Although using a less structured approach, the managers at Axfood were more satisfied with how the company uses financial information then the other com-panies. This could be due to the lesser importance given to financial information at SSC compared to Swedbank.We found Sto to be at the verging point from turning from a small company to large company and thus needs to review their current strategy, which has previously been based on the ability of the managers to receive information through informal paths.