Local rings whose modules are almost serial

The present paper is a sequel to our previous work on almost uniserial rings and modules, which appeared in the Journal of Algebra in 2016; it studies rings over which every (left and right) module is almost serial. A module is almost uniserial if any two of its submodules are either comparable in inclusion or isomorphic. And a module is almost serial if it is a direct sum of almost uniserial modules. The results of the paper are inspired by a characterization of Artinian serial rings as rings having all left (or right) modules serial. We prove that if R is a local ring and all left R-modules are almost serial then R is an Artinian ring which is uniserial either on the left or on the right. We also produce a connection between local rings having all left and right modules almost serial, local balanced rings studied by Dlab and Ringel and local Köthe rings. Finally we prove Morita invariance of the almost serial property and list some consequences.