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- Carlborg, Per
(författare)
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Extending the Service Innovation Concept : Realization and Productivity
- 2013
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of service innovation by exploring realization as a part of service innovation. Service innovation can be described as something that creates value for customers through new service offerings or service processes while realization refers to the actual use or deployment of the service.My research approach is based on a multiple case study, that focuses on three international firms with origins in Sweden. Empirical material has been gathered through interviews and focus groups. A literature review that tracks the evolution of service innovation further contributes to the exploration of the service innovation concept.Innovation has traditionally been connected to new technology and new products. However the present study has found that service innovation has evolved into a multifaceted concept. Specifically, service innovation is not restricted to the development of new products and services in the shape of new offerings, it also becomes relevant to consider the actual usage of the service offerings. In order to fully understand the process of service innovation, it is important to include the usage of a service offering in the service innovation concept. This realization occurs when the service offering is introduced and used in the customer’s processes, and typically involves both the customer and the provider.This research illustrates how realization requires resources from both the provider and the customer. In general, the realization part of the service innovation process requires more participation from the customer than the development of new offerings. However, this can vary depending on the customer’s competence, intention to interact and level of commitment. Considering an active or recipient customer role and also whether the service offering is directed at the products or the customer processes, this study shows how these different service offerings will have different impacts on service innovation realization, for example, in terms of different resources being required.The extended view of the service innovation concept, includes realization, and is therefore not limited to developing new offerings. This view implies that new areas of innovation that do not necessary need to include new technology, but contribute in other ways to customer value creation must be propelled into focus. Productivity improvements in customer processes are becoming important since they help create customer value (reduced costs, improved quality, reduced down-time etc.). Empirical evidence shows how service offerings that emphasize improvements in customer processes have become more important. This thesis discusses how this view of productivity can result in important benefits for customers, as consideration is given to both customer satisfaction and the use of customer resources. In this respect, productivity becomes a part of the extended service innovation concept.Extending the service innovation concept by adding realization implies an increased emphasis on deployment, and implicitly on customer value creation. Thus, service innovation becomes critical for gaining long-term sustainable competitive advantages through service.
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- Stenlund, Jörgen, 1959-
(författare)
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Travelling through time : Students’ interpretation of evolutionary time in dynamic visualizations
- 2019
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Evolutionary knowledge is important to understand and address contemporary challenges such as loss of biodiversity, climate change and antibiotic resistance. An important aspect that is considered to be a threshold concept in teaching and learning about evolution is the time it involves. The history of evolution comprises several scales of magnitude, some of which are far from direct human experience and therefore difficult to understand. One way of addressing this issue is to use dynamic visualizations that represent time, for example, to facilitate teaching and learning about evolution.This thesis investigates how students’ comprehension of evolution and evolutionary time can be facilitated by visualizations in educational settings. Two different dynamic visualizations were investigated. In paper I different temporal versions of a spatio-temporal animation depicting hominin evolution were explored. The temporal information was expressed as one or several timelines along which an animated cursor moved, indicating the rate of time. Two variables, the number of timelines with different scales, and the mode of the default animated time rate (either constant throughout the animation or decreasing as the animation progressed), were combined to give four different time representations. The temporal aspects investigated were undergraduate students' ability to find events at specific times, comprehend order, comprehend concurrent events, comprehend the length of time intervals, and their ability to compare the lengths of time intervals.In paper II, perceptions and comprehension of temporal aspects in an interactive, multi-touch tabletop application, DeepTree, were investigated. This application depicts the tree of life. The focus was on the interactive aspects, especially how the zooming feature was perceived, but also on any misinterpretations associated with the interaction. The same temporal aspects listed for paper I were also implicitly investigated.The findings indicate that handling the problem of large differences in scale by altering the rate of time in the visualization can facilitate perception of certain temporal aspects while, at the same time, can hinder a correct comprehension of other temporal aspects. Findings concerning DeepTree indicate that the level of interactions varies among users, and that the zooming feature is perceived in two ways, either as a movement in time or as a movement in the metaphorical tree. Several misinterpretations were observed, for example the assumption that the zooming time in the tree corresponds to real time, that there is an implicit coherent timeline along the y-axis of the tree, and that more nodes along a branch corresponds to a longer time.The research reported in this thesis supports the claim that careful choice, and informed use of visualizations matters, and that different visualizations are best suited for different educational purposes
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- Windahl, Charlotta, 1973-
(författare)
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Towards integrated solutions : Alfa Laval and the wastewater industry
- 2004
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Manufacturing companies in the capital goods industry face opportunities and challenges to their traditionally used business model for selling products, spare parts and services. They are encountering increasing pressure to provide their customers with broader, more tailored solutions. With these integrated solutions, as they are referred to in this thesis, companies are combining services with products to address their customers' business needs, and focus on the delivery of performance.The objective of this thesis is to address this fairly new concept of integrated solutions using Alfa Laval as a study case in a wastewater industry setting. The business and organisational implications of the move towards integrated solutions have been explored and the move characterised in the context of innovation literature. The thesis comprises five supporting chapters and four empirical papers. The first of these four papers explores and identifies incentives and new competence requirements for providing integrated solutions. The second paper highlights the influence that external elements such as changes in market structure have on providing integrated solutions. The third paper explores internal processes at Alfa Laval supporting a move towards integrated solutions. The fourth and final paper describes the development and launch of a self-optimising control system for the dewatering process, which is licensed out to customers, hence challenging Alfa Laval's traditional way of doing business.The thesis links Alfa Laval's move towards integrated solutions with its capabilities in the areas of system integration, operational services, partnering and organisational competence, and its approach to customers. It also shows that Alfa Laval's move towards integrated solutions encompasses products, services, performance and organisational innovations.
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- Öberg, Christina, 1970-
(författare)
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On customers in mergers and acquisitions
- 2004
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis focuses on how customers are perceived in mergers and acquisitions. Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are frequent, yet complex, phenomena in business life. One dimension making M&As complex is that they can affect (the merging companies' relationships to) other companies. With an M&A being a potential source of, for example, customer losses, one must ask how, and indeed whether, customers are taken into account in the M&A process, and what are the merging parties' notions concerning customers in relation to an M&A.This thesis takes a triangulation approach to the subject, including a literature and press release review and two case studies. The following is concluded: Customers are seldom focused on in the M&A literature, though they are commonly referred to indirectly, in an unproblematised way. By not considering customers as part of an M&A, the literature is neglecting an important aspect - one that has been emphatically recognised in business experience. In actual M&A practice, customers figure prominently in the underlying motives of M&As, and also when determining the degree of integration. Notions concerning customers are malleable, shifting during the course of tl1e M&A process, and also differ between the official view articulated in press releases, and in intra-company discussions regarding reasons for merging or acquiring. The official discourse commonly refers to customers indirectly and as targets, whereas they are treated as actors in intra-company discussions. Once M&A intentions are realised, the focus shifts from creating value to keeping value, and at this stage, customer considerations constrain the degree of integration. While there is no clear-cutline between the integration itself and a possible post-M&A phase, when evaluating an M&A the evaluation tools correspond to how customers are defined in official M&A motives.
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