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- Ntiyakunze, Stanslaus Karoli
(författare)
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Conflicts in Building Projets in Tanzania : Analysis of Causes and Management Approaches
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The prime objective of a client in a building project is to attain a successful project, a project that has been properly planned, designed and constructed in accordance with plans and specifications, and completed within time and cost originally anticipated. However the success of a building project depends on a number of variables one of them is the way the building team approach conflicts facing the project. This study examines the causes and management approaches of conflicts in building projects in Tanzania. The main objective of the study is to identify issues/areas on which conflicts occur, factors causing them and how conflicts are managed in building projects in Tanzania. As a means to achieve the above objective, the study was structured into two main parts; the first part aimed at mapping up the nature of conflicts in building projects in Tanzania by establishing critical symptoms of conflicts, factors causing them and the approaches used in resolving the conflicts. This was done through literature review, interviews and questionnaire survey. The second part aimed at in-depth study of conflicts from their root cause, how they develop/progress and how they are managed in a real building project setting. Four case studies of building projects were studied for this part. The study found that factors causing conflicts are in several forms. There are those related to the nature of contracts, where the contracts are unclear and ambiguous they give room for contracting parties to develop opportunistic behaviour when post adjustments are needed. There are those factors which are related to role functions when the parties fail to perform as expected. As such the study confirmed that contractual incompleteness and consequent post contract adjustments and opportunistic behaviour of some project participants are root causes of conflicts in building projects in Tanzania. However, the study established that there are sufficient mechanisms to deal with conflicts in the standard forms of building contracts used and when the provisions are against the interests of the parties, the parties resort to amicable resolution approaches. Notwithstanding the availability of mechanisms in the standard forms of contracts to deal with conflicts, the study proposes the framework as a strategy that could reduce effectively the occurrences of conflicts in building projects.
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- Baltzopoulos, Apostolos, 1981-
(författare)
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Essays on High-Quality Entrepreneurship : On the Origins and Survival of Start-ups and the Role of Universities in the Location Decision
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four self-contained essays on the topic of entrepreneurship. [Essay I] uses a unique and detailed Swedish dataset to explore firm, regional, and industry determinants that stimulate spin-offs using the choice of the individuals as the level of analysis. The most important results are that the size of the region and of the local entrepreneurial culture (the relative number of SMEs) has a positive effect on the propensity of the individual to set up a new venture corroborating the results of past firm- and regional-level studies. Industrial specialization is shown to have a positive impact on spin-offs, albeit only in high-tech manufacturing and in knowledge intensive business service sectors. Moreover, using an entropy measure to disentangle unrelated and related variety, it is found that the former has a significantly negative while the latter a significantly positive effect on the propensity of the individual to start a spin-off. [Essay II] asks how localisation (MAR) and diversity (Jacobs) externalities affect opportunity-based entrepreneurship across all industry sectors in Sweden’s private economy in the period 1999-2005. MAR externalities are found to positively affect entrepreneurship across all sectors. Jacobs externalities, measured as related variety using an entropy measure, positively affect entrepreneurship in high-tech manufacturing and in knowledge intensive business services but have no significant effect on low-tech manufacturing and other services. The results suggest that previous studies that find no evidence of entrepreneurship benefiting from a diverse local market composition might be using too broad measures of variety. [Essay III] analyses how different R&D strategies of incumbent firms affect the quantity and quality of their entrepreneurial spawning. By examining entrepreneurial ventures of ex-employees of firms with different R&D strategies three things emerge: First, firms with persistent R&D investments with a general superiority in sales, exports, productivity, profitability and wages are less likely to generate entrepreneurs than firm with temporary or no R&D investments. Second, start-ups from knowledge intensive business service (KIBS) firms with persistent R&D investments have a significantly increased probability of survival. No corresponding association between the R&D strategies of incumbents and survival of entrepreneurial spawns is found for incumbents in manufacturing sectors. Third, spin-outs from KIBS-firms are more likely to survive if they start in the same firm, indicating the importance of inherited related knowledge. The findings suggest that R&D intensive firms spur fewer entrepreneurs, but their entrepreneurial spawns tend to be of higher quality. [Essay IV] investigates how universities may affect regional entrepreneurship through the localisation decisions of entrepreneurial alumni. Empirically, a comprehensive, individual-level dataset from Sweden is used for the period 2003-2005. The results suggest that even when controlling for their spatial history, individuals have an increased propensity to set up in the region where they studied. This effect is found to substitute for both urbanisation economies and localisation economies as drivers of regional-level entrepreneurship. Thus, the analysis provides evidence on how universities affect regional economic development that complements the strong focus on spin-off activities by university researchers in previous studies.
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- Netzell, Olof, 1974-
(författare)
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Essays on lease and property valuation
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The first two papers in this dissertation discuss a fairly recently developed research field, Space Syntax, and how the findings in this field may be used to understand spatial economic patterns such as geographic distribution of market rents. Both papers use standard econometric methods to investigate the relationship between rents and the so called integration value developed within Space Syntax. The integration value may be understood as a measure of the accessibility of a certain location in a street network. The measure is constructed using tools from graph theory and uses the shape of the street network as its only input. The papers estimate hedonic models of office and retail leases from central Stockholm to test whether the integration value can help explain rents. A statistically significant effect of integration value on both office and retail rent is found. It appears as if Space Syntax adds important information to the understanding of intraurban rent patterns. Illiquidity is a main feature of most property markets and market participants are therefore directed to property appraisals to obtain information about market values. The reliability of property appraisals is therefore an important research topic. The third paper studies the “rationality” of valuations by testing if capitalisation (cap) rates from individual discounted cash-flow (DCF) valuations are consistent with economic theory. Standard econometrics is used to study the variation in cap rates. For the most part the results support the hypothesis that appraisers are “rational” in the above mentioned sense. Illiquidity of direct property also poses a problem when constructing property price indices. Lack of price observations and heterogeneity among the few observations available is likely to introduce noise in price indices based on transactions. Valuations are therefore often used instead to construct indices. These indices however suffer from a bias due to so called “appraisal smoothing”. In the fourth paper it is shown that, given certain assumptions, one may filter out noise in a transaction-based price index by regressing it on a valuation-based index (contemporaneous and lagged one period). The procedure may in some circumstances improve pure valuation- or transaction-based indices.
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- Thulin, Per, 1963-
(författare)
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Essays on Regional Growth, Comparative Advantages and Foreign Direct Investments
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four essays, covering four different topics. The first essay investigates the relationship between inter-firm labor mobility and regional productivity growth. Previous studies have shown that density is positively correlated with growth. I claim that it is not density in itself, but rather the attributes associated with it that drives economic growth. One such attribute is the increased possibility for labor mobility and knowledge diffusion that follows when firms and individuals locate in close proximity to each other. This hypothesis is tested using density as an instrument for labor mobility. The result shows that labor mobility increases regional growth rates. The second essay examines the relationship between agglomeration economies and relative wage costs in influencing location of multinational corporations. An inflow of firms to certain regions and industries is likely to increase demand for labor. If mobility of labor is low increased costs can be expected to deter additional inflows of firms, albeit agglomeration economies may compensate for higher wages. The empirical analysis finds that FDI has become increasingly sensitive to differences in wage costs across industrialized countries, but also that agglomeration economies related to knowledge externalities positively influences higher costs. The third essay looks at the impact of FDI on home country investments. Previous research has been inconclusive as regards the effects on domestic investments. In this article, we show that this inconclusiveness can be explained at a disaggregated level as a function of the way industries are organized. We argue that a complementary relationship can be expected to prevail in vertically integrated industries, whereas a substitutionary relationship can be expected in horizontally organized production. The empirical analysis confirms a significant difference between the two categories of industry as regards the impact of outward FDI on domestic investment. The fourth, and final, essay of this thesis analyses how increased R&D expenditures and market size influence the distribution of comparative advantage. Previous studies report ambiguous results and also refer to periods when markets were much more segmented and production factors less mobile. The empirical analysis comprises 19 OECD-countries and spans the period 1981 to 1999. It is shown how an increase in R&D-expenditures by one percentage point implies a three-percentage point increase in high-technology exports, whereas market size fails to attain significance. In addition, institutional factors influence the dynamics of comparative advantage.
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- Görling, Stefan, 1980-
(författare)
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Samarbete utan gemensamma mål : Att styra och stimulera innovation
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In Sweden, three of the four largest institutional research funders have the explicit goal to not only support research but also to stimulate economic growth. How this should be done in practice, however, is more uncertain. Often used theories, e.g. triple helix, national innovation systems and clusters, are all based on the notion that different skills and organizations should be combined in dynamic partnerships in order to shorten the time from research to application. In this dissertation, I present how an R&D program with the requirement to both produce valuable research results and to stimulate innovation was put into practice. The program is explored from multiple levels of analysis. Based on the case, it is showed how innovation policy acts as an organizing force on its environment and that it affects the organization of R&D activities. This dissertation identifies problems that arise and investigates how the process can be improved in order to meet the objectives of stimulating innovation and growth. By applying the ideas of Serres and Luhmann, using the term innovation in these instances can be regarded as a form of parasite, which affects the system as such. I argue that this can be a fruitful way of conceptualizing how we can strive to manage closed systems that are otherwise challenging to govern. We can develop the debate on how to stimulate innovation by shifting the perspective from a sequential top-down process in which policy is being implemented to have a planned effect (and where any deviation constitutes an unsuccessful implementation), to discuss how we can disrupt a system in a particular direction. Based on the empirical data, I explore and analyze a number of identified events that will be rewarding for professionals working with similar efforts or are planning further research in this area. Among other things, it is demonstrated how a process perspective can be a rewarding way to study not only structural aspects but also seize the dynamics of the system. I demonstrate that this perspective better allows us to understand which aspects are important for stimulating innovation. The dissertation further discusses the concept of dual technologies, intellectual property, applied research and the conflict between different levels of innovation.
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| 8. |
- Göthberg, Pauline, 1965-
(författare)
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Corporate Social Responsibility in the Swedish Financial Services Sector : Translating an Idea into Practice
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis focuses on how popular ideas in society influence corporate behavior, as corporations adapt to normative ideas in society in order to achieve legitimacy. However, we need more knowledge about how ideas influence organizations and what happens when ideas enter in an organizational context. Hence, this thesis deals with the following research question: ‘How do actors transform ideas on being socially and environmentally responsible into practice?’ This question is studied empirically within corporations in the Swedish financial services sector. The thesis contributes to organizational institutional theory and to knowledge on the translation of ideas in organizational contexts.Based on analyses of the empirical observations six translation processes are identified. Incorporation is used to incorporate already legitimate external CSR elements into the organization. Localizing is used to give an idea local character by inscribing the idea into the history of the organization. De-coupling is used to translate ideas simultaneously and over time by adjusting the presentation of the organization’s business according to the relevant audience. Co-optation is used to incorporate external actors with know-how and legitimacy into internal processes. Organizing is used to gain internal acceptance for the idea. Blending is used to translate the idea into a modest adaptation to make it fit existing practice in the firm’s core business.Several of these translation processes are at work at the same time. As demonstrated in the study, new ways of presenting the organization as well as new activities appear as outcomes of translation. Translation processes that both influence presentation and practice are necessary for gaining legitimacy for the idea.The adoption of CSR in the studied financial services corporations could only partly be strategically planned. Results from the study also point to unintended and unexpected consequences of integrating social and environmental responsibility.
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| 9. |
- Mankert, Charlotta, 1976-
(författare)
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The Black-Litterman Model : Towards its use in practice
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The Black-Litterman model is analyzed in three steps seeking to investigate, develop and test the B-L model in an applied perspective. The first step mathematically derives the Black-Litterman model from a sampling theory approach generating a new interpretation of the model and an interpretable formula for the parameter weight-on-views. The second step draws upon behavioural finance and partly explains why managers find B-L portfolios intuitively accurate and also comments on the risk that overconfident managers state too low levels-of-unconfidence. The third step, a case study, concerns the implementation of the B-L model at a bank. It generates insights about the key-features of the model and their interrelations, the importance of understanding the model when using it, alternative use of the model, differences between the model and reality and the influence of social and organisational context on the use of the model. The research implies that it is not the B-L model alone but the combination model-user-situation that may prove rewarding. Overall, the research indicates the great distance between theory and practice and the importance of understanding the B-L model to be able to keep a critical attitude to the model and its output. The research points towards the need for more research concerning the use of the B-L model taking cultural, social and organizational contexts into account.
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- Skoglund, Annika, 1977-
(författare)
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Homo Clima : Klimatmänniskan och den produktiva makten - styrning genom klimatförändring som bioestetisk inramning.
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Former creative resistance to environmentally hazardous activities has during the last decades, through discussions on climate change, been increasingly reoriented by meteorology, expert knowledge and policy discourse. The ecological system’s perspective on climate change, proclaiming the human not simply as a disturbance in a natural balancing system, but as changing it, has become a causal model for the possibility to change that human. This PhD thesis interrogates how statements in IPCC reports and a Swedish newspaper (DN) constitute truth claims on climate change. What subjectivities does parlance on climate change produce and what type of citizen is called upon to optimize vitality in relation to atmospheric molecules? How is self-management of every-day activities established by help to interactivity and self-techniques framed by technical artefacts? These questions are addressed by a governmentality perspective on how discourse, conceived as partaking in a process of productive power, strives to make climate change an ethico-politic question that fosters ‘Homo Clima’, climate man. What strategies and techniques this form of ‘government’ deploys are described by six interconnecting themes; “Atmospheric biopolitics fosters contingency”, “Mortality/Vitality”, “The moral population in the atmosphere moral economy”, “Homo Clima” and “Bioaesthetics through technical artefacts”, ending in a discussion upon these themes as an act which “Re-thematizes climate change”. The chapters illustrate how statements on the prevention and mitigation of climate risks mold scientific rationalities, mathematically modelled futures and calculations of molecular compounds with how these same futures and molecules correlate to individual culpability, responsibility and morality. From Foucauldian biopolitics to Foucauldian ethics, this can be conceived as an optimization of the vitality of the population by inserting the idea of the population as moral into history and foster moral en masse. Homo Clima is in line with this power/knowledge regime investigated, regarding his ambitions and receptiveness to adapt into a self-governing communicative ethico-politically active neoliberal subject, predicted to inhabit a not yet fully flourished relation between its climate moral self and its actions. By statements in the perimeter of technical artefacts, death, reproduction and consumption, Homo Clima is to become an ideal citizen, investing its own changeability in relation to those beings that are investigated, mapped, localized, archived, systematized and segmented; to simultaneously amend and protect a climate authorized aesthetizised life. This formation, together with the atmosphere as a new terrain for ‘government’ with market solutions for climate risks that links vitalisation with individual morality to moral at an aggregate level, offers an ostensible confrontation of the enterprising subject in the advanced liberal society. Homo Clima is thus conceptualized as a relay of bioaesthetics rather than as a protector of the environment.
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