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- Abadzhiev, Andrey, 1980-
(författare)
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Wood We Change? : Business Model Innovation Towards Sustainability Transitions: Studying the Wood Construction Industry
- 2021
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Innovations based on sustainable technologies have been widely considered as a remedy for addressing societal and environmental problems in many industries. However, the large-scale adoption of such innovations goes beyond technology and requires organizing the business in a way that drive industrial transformations across actors and system layers, such as market structures, institutional frames, consumer behavior, and business values. The aim of this dissertation is to understand how industrial firms organize for system change towards sustainability. The study is a compilation of two papers within the same research context: the development of sustainable technology in the construction industry. The overlapping unit of analysis for both papers is business model innovation. Paper I examines how industry firms combine and complement business models with different innovation types to accelerate sustainable technology. Paper II identifies how a change in the business model and value creation logic that occur on a firm level accelerate sustainable technology and shape the socio-technical system. Together, both papers help paint a more complete picture of the business model role in transitions towards sustainability. The theoretical frame of this dissertation spans several domains: business model, innovation management, and sustainability transitions. Building on a multi-disciplinary premise, the study takes into account the organizational and the systemic parts of the change process by linking the company perspective (business models) to the wider governance of sustainability transitions. The findings underline the importance of business models that combine production efficiency with higher customer engagement and more collective value creation for driving larger-scale transitions toward sustainability. Moreover, business models in combination with different innovation types, such as product, process and positioning, act together and complement each other to achieve high sustainability and business outcomes.
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| 2. |
- Brüggen, Elisabeth C, et al.
(författare)
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Financial well-being : A conceptualization and research agenda
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Business Research. - : Elsevier. - 0148-2963 .- 1873-7978. ; 79, s. 228-237
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- With savings rates at record lows and inadequate long-term financial planning for retirement, financial well- being has become an important topic for individuals and households as well as for societies and countries. Re- search on the topic, however, remains scarce and scattered across disciplines. The present paper aims to consol- idate and extend knowledge on financial well-being and makes a three-fold contribution to the discussion. First, we propose a new definition based on a perceptual perspective of financial well-being and link it to an individual's current and anticipated desired living standard and financial freedom. We then develop a framework that distinguishes key elements of financial well-being; namely, interventions and financial behaviors, conse- quences, contextual factors, and personal factors. We then present a research agenda to guide future research on financial well-being. This work is designed to inspire researchers to continue expanding the knowledge so that financial institutions can take measures to increase financial well-being.
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| 5. |
- Davoudi, Sara
(författare)
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What happened with the leviathan of the Public Sector? : The challenges of vertical coordination in regional public organizations and its effect on public value
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Putting the capability to satisfy citizens’ needs at the heart of public organizations, public value has been argued to be the ultimate goal of public sector programs and policies. However, the contemporary public sector’s complex and multilevel structures has led to limited information processing between the various levels within organizations. Such vertical fragmentation has created issues in vertical coordination, hampering the efficiency and effectiveness of the regional public sector. Addressing these issues, the aim of this thesis is twofold. First, this thesis aims to describe and explain public organizations’ coordination challenges. Second, this thesis aims to elaborate on the implications of this explanation to create a deeper understanding of how these challenges affect public organizations’ ability to perform public service that adds to public value. In order to reach the aim, quantitative and qualitative methods have been used. The empirical base consists of two questionnaire studies (930 public transport users in the first and 921 in the second), as well as a comprehensive interview and documentation study with 11 respondents representing 11 Regional Public Transport Authorities and their respective policy documents. In this thesis, I argue that vertical specialization has brought conditions where each level interprets the regulations and policy documents based on their own individual preconditions such as individual ideologies and self-interests, as well as attitudes and relationships between different divisions. As such, these preconditions influence the outcome of rules and regulations that were created with the purpose of reforming the public sector. Further, the thesis outlines how the same individual precondition may act as a structural filter on the flow of information about citizens’ needs, influencing the distribution of information upstream in the organization. If we neglect these conditions and focus only on the rules and regulations, we risk missing aspects that influence the organization and its coordination outcome and, in turn, the citizen.
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| 8. |
- Glaa, Besma, et al.
(författare)
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From free to fee : changing the revenue model for individual services
- 2017
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Ingår i: Proceeding of the Spring Servitization Conference. - Birmingham, UK : Aston university. - 9781854494184 ; , s. 172-181
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: Industrial services have traditionally been provided for free to support product sales. Nowadays, many manufacturers have built a profitable service business while others are struggling to improve their service profitability. Overall, most research focus on service infusion in the value proposition or servitization of the organization. Far less attention has been given to how firms start to charge for free services. The purpose of this research is to increase understanding of how manufacturers change the revenue model for individual services from free to fee. Design/Methodology/Approach: The research was performed as a two-stage research project involving a multiple case study followed by an action research project. First, a multiple case study was performed in eight firms. Data was collected through interviews and workshops with the participating firms. Second, an action research study was performed with a manufacturer working with changing the revenue model for individual services from free to fee. Findings: The current study identified a process with three stages for shifting from service for free to service for fee. The first step is turning the service from a cost center to a profit center. The second step is to create service scenarios for a service business. The third step is to implement specific strategies to break free from free service. The present research identified three specific service scenarios and four strategies to break free from free service. Originality/Value: The change of business model has been an essential step in most models for service infusion and for the transition from service for free to service for fee. The present study expands on the process on a detailed level followed by manufacturers to turn individual services from free to service for fee.
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| 9. |
- Gruber, Thorsten, et al.
(författare)
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Does culture impact preferred employee attributes in complaint handling encounters?
- 2013
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Ingår i: Total Quality Management and Business Excellence. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1478-3363 .- 1478-3371.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recently, Gruber, Abosag, Reppel, and Szmigin's [(2011). Analysing the preferred characteristics of frontline employees dealing with customer complaints – a cross-national Kano study. The TQM Journal (Kano Special Issue), 23(2), 128–144]. A Kano study revealed that complaining customers in Saudi Arabia are less difficult to delight than UK customers. The present study investigates whether these differences are caused by different service-sector development stages, as suggested in their study, or by cultural differences instead. Data were collected using Kano questionnaires from 151 respondents with complaining experience in Singapore. This country was chosen as it has a highly developed service economy (like the UK) but also a collectivistic culture (like Saudi Arabia). The analysis reveals that Singaporean customers show the same preferences as those in the UK. We consider this as a strong indicator for the suggested impact of the stage of service-sector development rather than cultural differences on complaining customers' preferences of frontline employee attributes. Our results support the findings by Gruber et al. (2011). By doing so, they surprisingly refute previous research which concluded that national culture plays a significant role in shaping customer expectations during complaint-handling encounters. Our study especially corroborates the notion of a life cycle of quality attributes that had been found for goods and services and the preferred attributes of frontline employees dealing with customer complaints.
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| 10. |
- Li, Xingru, et al.
(författare)
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A Detailed Flow Cytometric Analysis of Immune Activity Profiles in Molecular Subtypes of Colorectal Cancer
- 2020
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Ingår i: Cancers. - : MDPI. - 2072-6694. ; 12:11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The local anti-tumour immune response has important prognostic value in colorectal cancer (CRC). In the era of immunotherapy, a better understanding of the immune response in molecular subgroups of CRC may lead to significant advances in personalised medicine. On this note, microsatellite instable (MSI) tumours have been characterised by increased immune infiltration, suggesting MSI as a marker for immune inhibitor checkpoint therapy. Here, we used flow cytometry to perform a comprehensive analysis of immune activity profiles in tumour tissues, adjacent non-malignant tissues and blood, from a cohort of 69 CRC patients. We found several signs of immune suppression in tumours compared to adjacent non-malignant tissues, including T cells more often expressing the immune checkpoint molecules programmed cell death protein (PD-1) and cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA-4). We further analysed immune cell infiltration in molecular subgroups of CRC. MSI tumours were indeed found to be associated with increased immune infiltration, including increased fractions of PD-1+ T cells. No correlation was, however, found between MSI and the fraction of CTLA-4+ T cells. Interestingly, within the group of patients with microsatellite stable (MSS) tumours, some also presented with increased immune infiltration, including comparably high portions of PD-1+ T cells, but also CTLA-4+ T cells. Furthermore, no correlation was found between PD-1+ and CTLA-4+ T cells, suggesting that different tumours may, to some extent, be regulated by different immune checkpoints. We further evaluated the distribution of immune activity profiles in the consensus molecular subtypes of CRC. In conclusion, our findings suggest that different immune checkpoint inhibitors may be beneficial for selected CRC patients irrespective of MSI status. Improved predictive tools are required to identify these patients.
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