Fredrik Lundell

Research

My general research interest is on how financial information is mobilized and made operable in various organizational contexts, but with particular emphasize on capital budgeting. While there is an abundance of research on capital budgeting, this is almost exclusively devoted to develop new or refine existing evaluation techniques and then trace their formal usage in practice. There is though a limited, yet influential, tradition that emphasize a much broader view of capital budgeting, represented by e.g. Bower (1972), King (1974), Jones and Dugdale (1994) and Miller & O’Leary (2007), than the mere measurement and technique. Instead these scholars argue that focus should be on documenting and analyzing in detail how, irrespective of it being known, novel or idiosyncratic, evaluation techniques are being used and how these interrelate with other managerial practices in its organizational context. Studies emanating from this tradition, often using a case study approach to study the capital budgeting process in large organizations, has given significant contributions to several separated, yet, related academic fields such as accounting, finance, industrial engineering and management, and strategy. For example, it is understood that evaluation techniques often play a completely different role than intended and that the early stages in the capital budgeting process, long before any evaluation technique is considered, often are crucial in understanding the subsequent investment decision.

In contrast to previous research, my focus is on applying a broad view of capital budgeting in small dynamic firms, e.g. newly started firms or fast growing firms (sometimes referred to as “Gazelles”). These type of organizational contexts offers relatively uncomplicated organizational structures and accessible empirics, but where capital investment decisions often are an integral part of their general management. The center of gravity, i.e. the capital investment itself, typically relates to the “traditional” types, e.g. machinery, or production equipment, as well as information system/technology, e.g. digital platforms or production supporting information technology. While the main purpose is to produce rich and detailed empirical analysis of how these types of capital investments are managed, evaluated and decided upon, comparisons between these can also generate additional important empirical insights.

Teaching

I have a broad teaching experience in industrial management, management accounting, management control, financial management as well as financial accounting. This experience include courses from basic to master level, taught in Swedish as well as English.