| 1. |
|
|
| 2. |
|
|
| 3. |
- Aaboen, Lise, 1978
(författare)
-
Incubators and incubation -Resources and activities in relation to different actors
- 2008
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- ABSTRACTIncubators prepare new technology-based firms (NTBFs) for the obstacles ahead, they complement and develop the entrepreneurial ability of the firm founder, advise regarding financing, as well as providing structure and credibility to the firm. Incubators accelerate the development of the firms towards growth, create an entrepreneurial and innovative climate in the region, and contribute to the commercialization of research results from the university. There are many descriptions but still there remains the difficulty of understanding what an incubator is, and what it does. There is a great difference between incubators due to them having been formed in relation to different actors who have varying histories. Based on the appended papers the principal actors in relation to incubators are: the incubator, the NTBFs, the university, the policy actors and the financial actors. Moreover, the part played by the incubator differs depending on the roles in relation to the different actors, and they often have more than one role in relation to the same actor. Hence, the purpose of this thesis is to explore incubation in relation to different actors. The exploration includes five appended papers. Three of the papers focus on the role of the incubators when helping the NTBFs find and utilize resources. The three types of resources are knowledge, financing and relationships. The two remaining papers focus on the incubator as an organization with particular interest in value creation and efficiency. All five appended papers are written using the resource-based view. In the cover paper the findings in the appended papers are reflected upon using the industrial network approach in order to provide another perspective, focusing on relationships as opportunities leading to an understanding of incubators and incubation. In the cover paper principal actors, activities and resources are explored. The NTBFs are developed through the incubation with the help of resources contributed by the other actors. Additional to the development, the cover paper discussed other activities included in the incubation, i.e. mediation, innovation and acceleration. These activities enable actors to access and combine resources, within and across firm boundaries, that they would otherwise have difficulties combining at that point in time, as quickly or in that way. The relationships of the incubator enable mediation of contacts between actors who are otherwise reluctant to collaborate. Through these collaborations new resource combinations may be found. Resource combinations in already existing relationship can be found using experience from other relationships. In other words, the relationships of the incubator contribute to innovation among the actors. Furthermore, the relationships of the incubator contribute to the acceleration of the NTBFs’ development by being a trusted third party actor, and by contributing to the coordination of actors aiming at improving the innovative climate. Hence, relationships are a special kind of resource for the incubators. The importance of the relationships for the incubators implies that the critical issues might not be to pick NTBFs based on criteria for growth potential, but rather on the ability to form and develop relationships for themselves, as well as the NTBF, in order to develop the firm. Furthermore, arguments regarding the increasing homogeneity among Swedish incubators are based on the rather formalized relationships with the policy actors where incubators tend to play rather similar roles. The heterogeneity is likely to be perceived as larger from the perspective of relationships that are more context specific. Moreover, the relationships, activities and combination of resources cross-fertilize each other without a natural or manageable direction that cannot be controlled by one or a few of the actors involved. After the concluding discussion there is a retrospection of the development of the thesis and the empirical material, which is based on qualitative and quantitative data that has been gathered within the Swedish incubator program mainly during 1999, 2005 and 2006.
|
|
| 4. |
- Aaboen, Lise, 1978
(författare)
-
Incubators and new technology-based firms - A resource-based view of development
- 2006
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- New technology-based firms (NTBFs) are based upon the exploitation of a new technology. This often means that there are few other than the founder who understands the technology, and in addition the firm often aims at serving a market in a new way or operating on a presently non-existent one. Therefore, it can be hard to determine the future potential of NTBFs, and this causes growth constraints on the firm. However, the NTBFs that do survive contribute to industrial and regional growth on a long-term perspective through, for example, knowledge spillovers as well as finding and developing product concepts. The incubator on the other hand can be seen as a provider or mediator accelerating the development of promising NTBFs. As a provider the incubator mobilizes resources and adjusts them to the needs of the particular NTBF. The mediator role can instead be seen when the incubator connects the NTBF to members of the incubators external network.The basis of the resource-based view is that a competitive advantage comes from the heterogeneity in terms of resources between firms. Imitability of valuable resources makes the competitive advantage sustainable. The newness of the NTBFs implies that they are in the process of trying to obtain or develop their resources. These resources include capabilities that determine how well the organization is able to perform a certain task. Furthermore, resources like funding, patenting, human resources and intangible resources are needed. Similarly, the incubator benefits from knowledge workers, funding and continuous improvements of the knowledge base in order to serve the NTBFs and maintain fruitful external relations. Consequently, this thesis has the purpose of exploring how the obtaining of resources link incubators and NTBFs. This exploration includes three papers in which the first two are devoted to the incubator, and the NTBFs respectively, in order to understand the resource needs of these two types of organizations. However, the third paper focuses on the links between the incubator and the NTBF in terms of providing links to external actors. Further, the exploration includes empirical findings from both qualitative and quantitative data that have been gathered within the Swedish incubator program during 1999 and 2005. The concluding discussion suggests that the human and knowledge resources of the incubator increase the external resources and the capabilities of the NTBFs. A successful NTBF in turn improves the human and knowledge resources of the incubator through knowledge sharing and an increased reputation. An increased survival rate of NTBFs will also positively affect the public funding of the incubator. It is in this way that a positive spiral is created where the resources of the incubator accumulate as more and more successful NTBFs are generated. Failing NTBFs will, on the other hand, also make it more difficult for the incubator to obtain and maintain resources. Seeing the connections between incubators and NTBFs in this way further emphasizes the element of path dependency in the development of these organizations. Subsequently, there is also a long-term aspect of the expected results on regions and industries from public investments made in them.
|
|
| 5. |
|
|
| 6. |
- Aalto, Susanne, 1964
(författare)
-
Imaging in astronomy - False colours in real images
- 2007
-
Ingår i: in "Images in Arts and Sciences", eds. L. Johannesson, U. Eliasson, P. Hallberg, B. Karlsson, Royal Soc. of Arts and Sciences in Göteborg. - 9789185252688 ; , s. 47-59
-
Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
|
|
| 7. |
- Aalto, Susanne, 1964
(författare)
-
Molekyler i galaxer
- 2007
-
Ingår i: Populär Astronomi. ; :2, s. 30-33
-
Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
|
|
| 8. |
|
|
| 9. |
- Abadei, Saeed, 1961
(författare)
-
Ferroelectric Thin Films on Si-substrate for Tunable Microwave Applications
- 2004
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis presents the development of microwave tunable devices based onferroelectric thin films. The main tasks in this work are the fabrication, optimization, andintegration of ferroelectric thin film into Si-MMIC. This work has been motivated byincreased interest on advanced tunable microwave components which meet therequirements of low microwave losses, high tunability, easy to integrate to largersystems, and low cost.Dielectric permittivity, tunability, and loss tangent are the most important parameters,characterizing ferroelectrics for application in tunable microwave devices. Most of theefforts in this work have been devoted to the optimization of film fabrication processes interms of microwave loss reduction. Experimental investigations of these parameters forNa0.5K0.5NbO3 (NKN), (SrTiO3) STO, Ba0.25Sr0.75TiO3 (BSTO) and (Pb, Zr) TiO3 (PZT)films are carried out in a wide frequency, DC bias, and temperature ranges. Thesemeasurements give important information about dispersion, temperature, and dc-fielddependencies of dielectric permittivity and losses. The latter are useful for understandingthe basic physical processes in ferroelectric films and help to optimize film depositionand device fabrication processes in terms of low losses, high tunability, and temperaturestability.Coplanar-plate structure is used to integrate the ferroelectric films into the siliconcircuits. Planar varactors are fabricated by depositing tunable ferroelectric films onSi/SiO2 substrates using laser ablation, RF magnetron sputtering, and sol-gel technique,followed by metal electrode deposition. Different varactor designs based on as straightgap, interdigital gap, and circular gap have been investigated and further used in thecomponents. Experiments show the capability and potential of tunable devices based onferroelectric thin films and confirm that they are competitive with other technologies likesemiconductors at frequency above 20 GHz. It is shown that NKN films in polar phaseare also useful for tunable microwave applications demonstrating low loss and goodtunability in a frequency above 20 GHz. BSTO films, which are in paraelectric phase atroom temperature, are used to fabricate microwave varactors. These varactors are used intwo different phase shifters designs. These tunable devices show more than 60°/dB figureof merit, which is one the best value reported so far.
|
|
| 10. |
- Abadei, S., et al.
(författare)
-
Microwave properties of tunable capacitors basee on magnetron sputtered ferroelectric Na0.5K0.5NbO3 film on low and high resistivity silicon substrates
- 2001
-
Ingår i: Integrated Ferroelectrics. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1058-4587 .- 1607-8489. ; 39:1-4, s. 359-366
-
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this work, small signal DC voltage dependent dielectric permittivity, loss tangent, and tuneability of magnetron sputtered epitaxial Na0.5K0.5NO3 films are studied experimentally. (100)-oriented Na0.5K0.5NbO3 films are deposited onto SiO2-buffered CMOS grade low resistivity (p = 10-20 cm) and high resistivity (p = 15-45 kcm) silicon substrates. Planar capacitors with 2 or 4 m gaps between electrodes have been fabricated on top of ferroelectric films. These devices have been characterized in the frequency range 1.0 MHz to 50 GHz at temperatures 30 - 300K. Na0.5K0.5NbO3/SiO2/Si structures on high resistivity silicon substrate exhibit C-V performances typical for Metal-Insulator- Semiconductor (MIS) capacitors. At low frequencies, f 1.0 GHz, the large tuneability and large losses are associated with the MIS structure, while at higher microwave frequencies the tuneability is mainly associated with the ferroelectric, film. At 1.0 MHz and room temperature, the tuneability of Na0.5K0.5NbO3/SiO2/Si structures more than 90%, reducing to 10-15 % at 50 GHz. The losses decrease with increasing the DC bias and frequency. A Q-factor more than 15 at 50 GHz is observed. The dielectric permittivity of the Na0.5K0.5NbO3 film is in the range 50-150 at frequencies 0.045-50 GHz. On low resistivity substrate the performance of Na0.5K0.5NbO3 films is completely screened by the high losses in silicon, and the tuneability is negligible. © 2001 Taylor and Francis.
|
|
