Browsing by Author "Lindvall, Johannes"

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Financial Justifications for the Software-as-a-Service Business Model Trend Based on Financial Differences between Companies in the Software-as-a-Service and Pharmaceutical Industry
(2021-02-24) Lindvall, Johannes; Olsson, Daniel; University of Gothenburg/Department of Business Administration; Göteborgs universitet/Företagsekonomiska institutionen
The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business model is a new type of business model that has gained great attention from both researchers and practitioners. The rapid growth has resulted in a more and more refined business model and is described as the future of software. Thus, it is not unexpected that the model is frequently used for many start-ups. The business model relies on the so-called SaaS pricing model, i.e. services that are often provided and developed continuously and paid recurrently. This is in contrast to the more traditional industries, such as the pharmaceutical (pharma), who are supplying pharmaceutical drugs used for medication, where many of the large multinational corporations originate from the 19th century. The pharma business model is characterized by its substantial initial project investments, long project and product life cycles with lump-sum payments. The purpose of this report is to assess the justifications of the SaaS business model trend, by comparing the financial differences between the SaaS and pharma industries. The aim is to identify differences between capital structure, profitability, and cash flow to embrace an understanding of the financial implications of the business models. In order to ease financial decision-making regarding business models, in both academia as well as the business sector. The methodology was based on a deductive research design, that was executed through an external and objective approach with emphasis on a quantitative collection and analysis of data. The collected data was based on a sample of 20 companies, with 10 in the SaaS industry and 10 in the pharma industry, for the time period 2015-2019. The analysis was conducted through unpaired t-test for the variables capital structure, free cash flow in relation to both revenue and operating, and profitability in the sense of return on assets and profit margin. The findings indicate that there are weak justifications for the SaaS business model trend from a financial perspective, in terms of capital structure, cash flow and profitability. Thus, if these are of high importance other more traditional business models should be considered. On the other hand, there are other justifications for the SaaS business model trend, as the business model embraces scaling, low initial and marginal costs, recurrent payments, and continuous development during deployment.
The Politics of Purpose. Swedish macroeconomic policy after the golden age
(2004) Lindvall, Johannes
Social Protection Strategies in Efficient and Inefficient States
(2009-12) Dahlström, Carl; Lindvall, Johannes; Rothstein, Bo; QoG Institute
It is well known that social and labor market policies vary greatly among the advanced industrialized countries, not just in terms of overall spending but also in terms of the allocation of resources across different programs. Scholars in political science, economics and sociology have successfully explained many of these cross-country differences; yet, we are far from a complete understanding of the social and labor market policy choices of governments in advanced democracies. This paper argues that bureaucratic capacity matters greatly to social and labor market policymaking. Social and labor market programs require a reliable and efficient bureaucracy, yet most explanations of cross-country policy variation ignore the interplay between bureaucrats, elected politicians, and voters. The basic idea of the paper is that some types of social and labor market programs involve more bureaucratic discretion then others, and it is difficult for politicians to justify spending on such programs if the bureaucracy is inefficient, corrupt, or both. We therefore expect the quality of the bureaucracy to influence spending on discretionary prog-rams, but not spending on programs that require less bureaucratic capacity. In order to test these hypotheses, we analyze the allocation of public resources to active labor market policy (which involves very much bureaucratic discretion) and cash benefits to families (which involve much less bureaucratic discretion). We use data from 21 countries from 1983 to 2003. The main result are that bureaucratic capacity indeed influence spending on active labor market policy but not on cash benefits to families, even when controlling for a broad set of alternative explanations.
Sweden and the COVID-19 Crisis
(2021-10) Dahlström, Carl; Lindvall, Johannes; The Quality of Government institute