| 1. |
- Agndal, Henrik
(författare)
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Internationalisation as a process of strategy and change : A study of 16 Swedish industrial SMEs
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis reports a study of the internationalisation processes of 16 industrial SMEs located in the county of Jönköping (Sweden). More specifically, it identifies changes in international strategies, identifies reasons why changes are undertaken and discusses how these changes can be understood when placed in the context of the internationalisation process.The findings show that industrial SME managers tend to stress the importance of foreign sales but are often much more reluctant to buy products abroad. This means that while changes in foreign sales market strategy occur frequently in many firms, the process of foreign sourcing market expansion unfolds more slowly, involving fewer markets. The findings also indicate preferences for a low degree of complexity in foreign sales and purchasing. Therefore, industrial SMEs typically become involved in more complex ventures like foreign subsidiaries only when this is perceived as necessary, for example when there is risk of losing a foreign market.Mostly, changes in industrial SMEs’ international strategies are undertaken as responses to external opportunities, such as unsolicited orders. Changes much less frequently find their origin in internal initiatives. This pattern appears to pervade throughout the internationalisation process, even if a more critical attitude towards potential changes arises with increasing experience.
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| 2. |
- Ahl, Helene J.
(författare)
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The Making of the Female Entrepreneur : A Discourse Analysis of Research Texts on Women’s Entrepreneurship
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Departing from a social constructionist understanding of gender, this thesis examines how the female entrepreneur is constructed in research articles about women’s entrepreneurship. It finds that even if the texts celebrate women’s entrepreneurship, they do it in such a way as to recreate women’s secondary position in society.Building on Foucault’s theory of discourse, the thesis analyzes the discursive practices by which this result was achieved. These practices include certain assumptions that are taken for granted about women, men, business, work, and family. One of these assumptions is that men and women must be different. Despite research results to the contrary, many texts insist that the genders are different and construct three kinds of arguments in support of this. One is making a mountain out of a molehill, i.e. stressing small differences while ignoring similarities. Another is the self-selected woman, which proclaims women entrepreneurs as unusual women. The third is called the good mother and consists of molding an alternative, feminine model of entrepreneurship while leaving the dominant model intact. These arguments reproduce the idea of essential gender differences and the idea of the woman as the weaker sex.The discursive practices also include certain ontological and epistemological assumptions, which are questioned in the thesis. In addition, they contain disciplinary regulations as well as writing and publishing practices that reinforce the discourse. The practices and the ensuing research results are moreover dependent on the particular context in which the articles are produced. This means that their results and conclusions cannot be transferred to other contexts uncritically.By discussing these practices, the thesis opens the way for alternative ways of theorizing and researching women’s entrepreneurship. Suggestions for alternative research practices include the addition of institutional aspects to the research agenda, such as labor market structure, family policy, and legislation. The thesis also suggests a shift in epistemological position – from gender as something that is given, to gender as something that is produced.
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| 3. |
- Akhter, Naveed
(författare)
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Family business portfolios : Enduring entrepreneurship and exit strategies
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation examines how family business portfolios endure across time and investigates the entrepreneurial strategies that they engage in. The goal of this dissertation is addressed through five appended papers in which I have argued for the importance of business families owning multiple firms, that is, portfolio entrepreneurship. Portfolio entrepreneurship plays a central role in economic development as it is a prevalent phenomenon in developed and emerging economies. However, despite its importance, there is currently very little research on portfolio entrepreneurship, especially in the context of family firms.In so doing, I study nine business families owning multiple businesses in Pakistan. I conducted in-depth interviews with family owners and employees; the interviews were supplemented with other sources of data such as observations and archival material. When studying questions such as how a portfolio is built-up across generations, how and why business families exit and, when they exit, which businesses they choose to exit from, I draw on insights from the literature on portfolio entrepreneurship, business exit, family firms, socioemotional wealth, sensemaking, compassion and social identity theory in the five papers.The dissertation addresses the calls for studies on portfolio entrepreneurship in the context of family firms by examining the process through which a portfolio is constructed by studying performance and exit related issues. In other words, it examines both the growth and the contraction of portfolios. The study offers several contributions. First, it contributes to studies on enduring entrepreneurship by investigating how business families last across time despite encountering difficult situations and declining business. Second, the study contributes to the portfolio entrepreneurship literature by elucidating how portfolios are built across generations and the roles of both growth and contractions while addressing processual and contextual issues.Third, the study contributes to the business exit literature by looking at the exit process in a family business context and exploring multiple exits. This isunique, as it is, to the best of my knowledge, the first study on business exits looking at multiple exit in the context of family firms. Fourth, the study also contributes to the literature on family firms by exploring how and why business families refrain from exiting from their core legacy business and how their emotions influence the exit process.Finally, the study contributes to context-related issues. The study adds to the literature on contextualization and addresses the call for more context-specific studies in entrepreneurship scholarship. This dissertation is focused on context-based factors considering the spatial and social context, where the former has been undertaken by taking an emerging economy and country context as the setting, while the latter refers to the relational and emotional ties within family firms. In addition to its theoretical contributions, this dissertation has important implications for practice. The dissertation brings to the fore some promising and unique ways in which entrepreneurship endures across time and context through the transgenerational transmission of entrepreneurship and insights into how business families behave in a declining business situation. Additionally, this study offers insights for family owners and managers on how to address the dilemma of continued entrepreneurship, that is, how to encourage and foster enduring entrepreneurship in organizations, in particular in the context of family firms.
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| 4. |
- Almlöf, Hanna
(författare)
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Bolagsorganens reglering och dess ändamålsenlighet : En aktiebolagsrättslig studie om ägarledda bolag
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation discusses the regulation of organisation in limited companies from a closely held company perspective. The overall aim of the study is to evaluate whether the goals of the Swedish Companies Act are fulfilled by the current regulation on company organisation and decision taking organs when applied to closely held owner managed companies. The study is carried out in the field of Company Law, but the analysis also includes contributions from Regulation Theory and Law and Economics.To fulfil the overall aim, the study sets up two main research tasks. The first research task is to identify the goals of the Swedish Companies Act and what regulative tools that are available to achieve these goals. The second research task is to investigate the current regulation of organization and decision taking organs of a company. Focus is placed on how owner managed companies can be flexible in their decision taking activity, both within the company organs and in other arenas outside the firm such an owners meeting or family council. When these two main research tasks have been performed, the overall aim of this study can be fulfilled. The evaluation of the Companies Act reveals that the legislator’s prioritisation of legislative goal can be challenged. It may be argued that the goal to lower the transaction costs of the parties can be enhanced without diminishing any other goals. In accordance with this conclusion, the final research task of this study is to give recommendations de lege ferenda on how the regulation can be developed in order to achieve a higher degree of reaching the goals of the Companies Act.The conclusions argued for in this study are related to future regulation of the organisation of companies limited by shares. Therefore, the conclusions are aimed towards policy makers. However, the analysis within the second research task is of relevance for owner managers and their advisors on the subject of how they can be flexible in their decision taking activity, both within the company organs and in other arenas such as an owner’s meeting or a family council.
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| 5. |
- Arshad, Nadia
(författare)
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Backers’ crowdfunding journey – An engagement perspective
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Crowdfunding refers to accumulating small sums of money from the general public through the Internet for a collective larger amount to fund small or medium-sized ventures in exchange for some benefit. The contribution can be as a donation (for no material reward), a purchase (for getting a reward in return), debt (to get money returned), or equity (for sharing future profit). The three main actors in crowdfunding are the initiators (the venturers), the backers (the crowd members who fund), and the crowdfunding platforms (the intermediaries). The crowdfunding campaign’s survival and success depends on engagement from the crowd. Using a qualitative research method, this dissertation aimed to understand the backers’ engagement with four crowdfunding campaigns selected from the leading crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter, through processual analysis. Buildingon the integrative framework of service-dominant logic, engagement, and customer journey, the underlying mechanism of the backers’ engagement at the personal (micro) and interpersonal (meso) levels were explored. Based on the motivation and contribution pattern, the backers were segmented into four engagement roles: benefactors, patrons, shoppers, and utilisers. A deeper analysis showed how the engagement intensity, duration, valence, and engagement properties shaped over time across these roles. The insights from the findings in the dissertation carry managerial and policy implications.
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| 6. |
- Askenmalm, Fredrika
(författare)
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Hur mjölk i tanken blir kronor på banken : Bondförnuftets rationalitet
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Lantbrukare har under senare år ofta hörts framföra klagomål om att den administrativa bördan blivit allt tyngre vad gäller rapportering och ansökningar som ska göras till olika myndigheter. Tidigare forskning framställer det som att den administrativa bördan skulle kunna utsträckas till att också gälla redovisning, så som bokföring, kalkylering och budgetering. Detta då det beskrivs som att lantbrukare varken förstår eller använder redovisning för att sköta sitt lantbruk. Tidigare forskning tycks dock bortse från att lantbrukare ofta tillämpar en annan form av logik än den som förutsätts gälla inom redovisningsforskning. Det verkar också förutsättas att lantbrukarna ska kunna förstå och använda den redovisningsterminologi som finns inom forskningsvärlden trots att lantbrukarna ofta saknar utbildning inom redovisning. Mot denna bakgrund undersöker denna avhandling hur lantbrukare förstår och använder redovisning.Avhandlingen bygger på det grundläggande teoretiska perspektivet att se redovisning som ett språk för att på detta sätt förklara lantbrukarnas förståelse av redovisning. Avhandlingen bygger vidare på familjeföretagsforskning, speciellt socioemotional wealth (SEW), och beslutsteori för att förklara lantbrukarnas användning av redovisningsinformation.Den empiriska studien är inspirerad av grundad teori. Det empiriska materialet utgörs främst av intervjuer med mjölkbönder i Jönköpings län. Även intervjuer med rådgivare och bankmän och vissa sekundärdata har utgjort underlag för avhandlingen.Resultatet av undersökningen visar att lantbrukare har större kunskaper vad gäller redovisning än vad tidigare forskning indikerat. Delvis kan detta förklaras av att lantbrukare använder en annan terminologi än vad som vanligtvis används inom redovisningsforskning när de beskriver redovisning. Mjölkföretag drivs vanligen som familjeföretag och denna avhandling visar på en mycket stark familjeförankring i dessa företag. Det innebär att mjölkföretag ibland (speciellt vad gäller fastigheten) prioriterar annat än finansiella mål, vilket ofta kopplas samman med en intuitiv beslutsstil. Inom redovisning förutsätts generellt att finansiella mål är eftersträvansvärda. Lantbrukarnas sätt att se på redovisning påverkar också hur den används. Även om de förstår och använder redovisning är det inte säkert att den används på det mest vinstmaximerande sättet. I stället kan SEW vara det som prioriteras. Användning av redovisning anpassas efter den situation lantbrukaren befinner sig i. Vissa delar av redovisningen ses och förstås som speglingar av verkligheten eller som framåtriktade ledtrådar. När lantbrukare förstår redovisningen på så vis, uppfattas den som användbar för beslutsfattande. Andra delar av redovisningen ses som regelföljande, eller ibland till och med som helt frikopplad från själva verksamheten. Detta gäller framför allt redovisning till Skatteverket och Jordbruksverket. Dessa redovisningar används inte för beslut, men de är ändå rationellt utformade för att uppnå bästa möjliga utfall (skatteutjämning eller jordbruksstöd).
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| 7. |
- Aygören, Huriye
(författare)
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Entrepreneurial identity formation-in-practice : Immigrant women entrepreneurs' lived practices and experiences within gender, ethnicity and class relations
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation, comprising four appended papers, examines what entrepreneurs actually do in order to manage the intrinsic social complexity pertaining to relations of power and culture involved in entrepreneurial undertakings. The studies share the common interest in probing into the ways inwhich fundamental social divisions and conflicts, namely gender, ethnicity and class are inscribed into the entrepreneurs through the organization of difference (Ashcraft, 2012) and how these shape and are shaped by the identity construction processes of individual entrepreneurs. The thesis provides an empirical account of entrepreneurial identity formation and its implications on shaping differential degree and the forms of entrepreneurial agency exerted by entrepreneurs by drawing on two sets of empirical materials generated through life story narratives of seventeen immigrant women entrepreneurs and some particular family business members with Turkish origin, in their involvement with entrepreneurial practices in Sweden. In overall, the thesis approximates to the notion of the individual entrepreneur in identity terms. Three major theoretical approaches, including practice theory, identity work and the feminist intersectionality framework, lay the groundwork for thinking about the relational and contextual foundation of the individual and associated identity construction processes intraversing the contexts at different temporal and spatial scales, namely individual, organizational, familial and societal.The thesis responds to the call for relational analysis examining the entanglement of material and symbolic resources and practices to draw a more rounded picture of entrepreneurship (Tatli, Vassilopoulou, Özbilgin, Forson, & Slutskaya, 2014). It adds to this debate by highlighting the identification processes of entrepreneurs, especially of those who have been historically and relatively marginalized in their societies. This thesis connects with studies emphasizing the socio-culturally constructed, relational and contextual nature of entrepreneurship and contributes to bridging the gap between two bifurcated streams of research in entrepreneurship-constructionist approaches, e.g., discursive/ narrative accounts with practice based perspectives. I emphasize the importance of considering both complex identification processes for the benefit of practice-based analysis and material practices and resources to the greater advantage of constructionist accounts. Throughout my thesis, I suggest that the discursive and material aspects of agency and structures are inseparable. In entrepreneurship, it is imperative to transcend symbolic and material boundaries. This way, the thesis provides complementary insights to cultural studies of entrepreneurship which emphasize access either to material or cultural representations.My first contribution concerns the generation of rich empirical accounts ofimmigrant women entrepreneurs in the particular context of migration encompassing the two cultural scenes of Turkey, where the immigrants came from, and Sweden, where they live and enterprise. The studies in the thesis demonstrate that immigrant women entrepreneurs and immigrant family members have used creative agency to sustain their struggles of entrepreneurial identity formation and capital accumulation and have effected social change indifferent terms. By combining two streams of inquiries, which have usually been undertaken separately, studying cultural representations and what an entrepreneur would do with these representations with a focus on identity formations, the thesis contributes to the reflexive entrepreneurship scholarship by examining the entrepreneurs’ own responses to hegemonic discourses where a complex set of negotiations and diverse forms of entrepreneurship could be drawn. This forms my second contribution. Finally, the analysis also leads to a discussion of processual issues, which amount to the relative advantage (privilege) and disadvantage (marginalization) in the field of entrepreneurship. My studies suggest that inequalities do not have a static and spatial position but are a dynamic and accumulated process that defines access, mobility and investment across different fields of activities made possible by the diverse histories and practices of entrepreneurs and relevant constituents.
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| 8. |
- Baboukardos, Diogenis, 1981-
(författare)
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Essays on the market valuation implications of mandatory corporate reporting
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this dissertation is to enrich understanding on the market valuation implications of mandatory financial and non-financial reporting beyond and in relation to traditional accounting information. It is comprised of four individual essays each of which examines a different, and to some extent internationally unique, jurisdiction that can best serve the particular purpose of the essay as well as the overarching purpose of the dissertation.The starting point of this empirical inquiry is the value relevance of purchased goodwill under IFRS and the moderating role that different levels of compliance with IFRS mandatory disclosures play on its market valuation. Similar to the first essay, the second essay focuses on traditional accounting information (specifically book value of equity and earnings) and examines potential differences on its market valuation before and after the mandatory introduction of an integrated reporting approach. The third essay focuses on mandatory carbon emissions reporting and compares its valuation relevance when such reporting is mandated by regulation vis-à-vis when it is voluntary. Finally, the fourth essay examines the market valuation interplay between mandatory financial and non-financial disclosures.This dissertation intends to be of particular relevance first; to the accounting academic community which acknowledges that mandatory disclosures are not well understood and it calls for further research on how users of annual reports view mandatory disclosures and second; to accounting regulators. Empirical research on the value relevance of corporate reporting can provide useful insights into questions of interest to regulators because its research questions are often motivated by broader questions raised by these non-academic constituents. The dissertation in hand has similar motivations.
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| 9. |
- Backman, Mikaela
(författare)
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Regions, Human Capital and New Firm Formation
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis shows the importance of human capital at the individual, firm, and regional level through its effects on returns to education, firm productivity and new firm formation. The thesis further shows the importance of banks as a determinant for new firm formation at the local level. The thesis comprises of five chapters, one introductory chapter followed by four independent chapters, empirical in their nature.The second chapter in the thesis, Regional Variations of Returns to Education, analyses individuals’ return to education in different regional contexts. The results show that returns to education differ according to type of location. Conclusively, the often-assumed hypothesis of equal returns to education for all regions in a country can be rejected. The second chapter, Human Capital and Firm Performance, uses a firm perspective and tests how human capital, within and outside the firm, influences firm productivity. Results show that both types of human capital are positively associated with firm productivity. Overall, it is firm attributes that explain most of the productivity variance. The third chapter, Accessibility to Human Capital and New Firm Formation, compares how human capital influences new firm formation in different regional categories. Overall, it is the access to human capital at the local and intra-regional level that increases the new firm formation rate. However, the influence from human capital differs across the regional categories and their position in the hierarchical system. The last chapter, Banks and New Firm Formation, analyses how different characteristics of the local bank sector influence new firm formation. The average size of bank branches per capita, independent banks, bank branches per capita and the competitive level are positively associated with local startups.
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| 10. |
- Bagley, Mark
(författare)
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The birth, life and death of firms in industrial clusters : The role of knowledge networks
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Three single-authored papers in this thesis will explore the role of knowledge and information in industrial clusters; and specifically, how knowledge plays a role inthe emergence and persistence of clusters. This thesis places a major emphasis on spinoff firms.The first paper uses a computational model to describe how patterns of industrial clustering arise with respect to the size of an initial firm when measured in terms of innovation. Technology is qualitatively described using a code set mapped on a cognitive space. Assuming inheritability of networking skills, I seek to model how the size of an initial firm influences future patterns of cluster formation through a model of technical cognition and a mimicking of creativity. Replicating the stylized facts of entrepreneurial cluster formation, we find initial firm size has a lasting impact on clustering patterns through its influence on the level of cognitive distance of the underlying agents.The second paper turns to networks as a tool of analysis to explore the relationship between a spinoff’s network and its geographical location within an industrial cluster. Although recent literature infers that the transmission of organizational attributes in industrial clusters is accomplished via passive network ties, this has not been directly measured. After controlling for firm size, parent size and age, we find that there a statistically significant and negative relationship between network efficiency and geographic distance to a cluster’s core.The third and final paper extends the use of networks to examine how knowledge flows, as conduits for routines and skills, affect the survival prospects for firms in industrial clusters. We consider knowledge transmission via two channels: those from inherited linkages and those from geographic proximity. It is found that a firm’s historical links formed through parent-spinoff networks have a significant impact on survival, which differ depending on the motivations of the entrepreneur. Moreover, the gains with respect to location are found to be nonlinear.
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| 11. |
- Balkow, Jenny
(författare)
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In the middle : on sourcing from China and the role of the intermediary
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the past three decades China’s rapid transition from a closed economy to become the factory of the world has astonished economists all over the world. Surveys among sourcing practitioners show that China is the most interesting market for sourcing and research points to lower costs as the main reason. This dissertation is an exploratory study of the role of the intermediary for Swedish small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that source from China. Three questions are discussed. The first question concerns why Swedish SMEs choose to source from China. Although costs are a major factor for the companies, it is usually other triggers that cause the change in strategy, such as management interest or pressure from a large customer. The second research question concerns how Swedish SMEs choose to source from China and how the role of the intermediary is related to this process. The study shows that finding a good supplier is not difficult. The companies use informal channels, references and sometimes unorthodox methods such as following the supplier of the raw material to find suppliers that deliver high quality goods. The problem is however to maintain a steady quality and on time delivery which is why intermediaries are introduced late in the relationship. The cases in this study show example of five different intermediated strategies; Direct, Service,Traditional, RepO and FICE/WFOE. The traditional intermediated strategy is the only strategy where there is little or no relation between buyer and supplier, whereas the other four strategies involve different degrees of interaction between all three actors in the dyad; the buyer, the supplier and the intermediary. The third research question concerned the role of the intermediary. The study shows that the respondents are influenced by their structural view on what role the different forms of intermediaries may take. Although the respondents discuss the importance of having a long-term view on the relationship with the supplier they continuously allow intermediaries to enter the relationship on a short-term basis for quality control. These quality control centers (QC) commonly work on a fixed commission based on services that has to be specified. When the buyers are trying to change their strategy to look for an intermediary with higher involvement they usually turn to internal intermediaries (i.e. subsidiaries). When deciding on a long term intermediary the buyer usually looks for competences that supplement their own knowledge – that is Chinese language, good knowledge of the Chinese market but also technological competence. What the western owned intermediaries in China stresses however is the need to find intermediaries to supplement the suppliers’ competences, so that they are able to translate the needs of the buyer’s customer and becomes a physical reminder that they are sent from the buyer. The case of QC, shows that if a company let the relationship with the intermediary develop through interaction they can become just as involved. The study is based on interviews with key informants at Swedish SMEs andat different types of intermediaries in China. The empirical data are presented infive themes developed through an iterative process of theoretical studies anddata collection. The first two themes are directly related to the first tworesearch questions. The third theme focuses on the sourcing process andactivities of four small Swedish design companies. The fourth theme displayshow the intermediaries in China discuss their role. Finally, the fifth theme pictures the supply chain of one focal company at five points in time when they are in the process of changing their supply chain to increase transparency.
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| 12. |
- Banerjee, Anup
(författare)
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The role of the board chair : Changing expectations and hybrid organizations
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this dissertation is to enhance our understanding of the changing role of the board chair and what this means for hybrid organizations and their board work. Historically, the role of the boards and their chairs evolved around safeguarding shareholders’ financial interests. Whilst this responsibility persists, boards are increasingly expected to embrace societal issues in board governance discussions and to rethink performance measurement systems to incorporate the social impacts generated by their organizations. To navigate these challenges, boards are encouraged to adopt hybrid board governance systems that strike a balance between financial and social mission targets. Board chairs can guide boards to secure such a hybrid outlook, but we lack academic insights on this role beyond financial performance. Systematically reviewing four decades of research, the first article of the dissertation demonstrates the need and opportunities for considering divergent stakeholder interests and contextual factors influencing the role of the board chair. Building on this, the second article engages with board chairs and general secretaries in social hybrid organizations and unearths different board-specific and field level challenges that currently hinder boards from implementing social impact measurements. Subsequently, the third article discusses how adopting a qualitative, engaged scholarship approach can generate practice informed research, contributing new understanding for boards and their chairs. Together, these insights offer implications for theory and practice and promote an agenda for future research that embraces a social purpose beyond profit maximization.
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| 13. |
- Bjerke, Lina
(författare)
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Knowledge flows across space and firms
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation consists of four separate papers and an introductory chapter. The four papers can be read independently of each other but are held together by concepts around embodied knowledge: knowledge embodied in products and embodied knowledge flows. Thus the papers mainly contribute to the empirical literature on firm and regional knowledge. The rapid growth of knowledge-based industries is one of the prominent features of post-industrialism and economic growth in the industrialised part of the world. The first paper investigates the residential choice of Swedish university graduates after graduation. It also analyses what factors make them move away from their graduation region. In addition to individual characters such as age and gender, there are also regional characteristics that can either retain graduates or make them choose another residence region. The results of this paper show that large and growing regions are good at keeping their graduates but are also good at attracting graduates from other regions. The second paper examines what regional characteristics are preferable attributes in order to renew regional exports in the manufacturing sector with export products from other regions. The results indicate that to do so, regions need a specialised export support system and a large amount of sector-related knowledge. The third paper deals with the issue of how industries and regions absorb new knowledge. Focusing on the role of regional high-quality import flows, the results of this paper show that imports play an important role in regional high-quality export renewal. The fourth paper investigates how creative labour inflow affect the productivity in firms in knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). Labour inflow bring new knowledge and increase firm productivity but only if the incoming knowledge is firm-related, which means that the firm can absorb this new knowledge and incorporate and add it into the existing knowledge stock.
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| 14. |
- Blombäck, Anna, 1975-
(författare)
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Supplier brand image - a catalyst for choice : Expanding the B2B brand discourse by studying the role corporate brand image plays in the selection of subcontractors
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis discusses brands and branding in a B2B context by investigating the role corporate brand image plays during the selection of subcontractors and, furthermore, how subcontractors might pursue branding as an active communication strategy. The background for these questions can be found in the evolving topics of corporate communications and B2B branding.The empirical parts focus on how buyers and sellers representing nine companies in the subcontractor context describe different phases and processes included in sales and purchasing.The results indicate that subcontractor corporate brand image can play different roles depending on the buyers’ situation. The type of product and buy class, in addition to the availability of time, known subcontractors and information sources, prove to have an impact on buyer behaviour and, consequently, the role played by corporate brand image. The analysis of subcontractor branding reveals that, although the brand concept is not in focus, branding activities can be identified. However, it also indicates that the reality of subcontractor branding is not in compliance with the theory on corporate branding and communications, which might be criticised for giving a too straightforward approach to the introduction of integrated and corporate-wide communications management.
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| 15. |
- Boers, Börje
(författare)
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Organizational identity construction in family businesses a dualities perspective
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation is about organizational identity construction with a dualities perspective. By taking a dualities perspective the focus shifts from assuming that organizational identity actually is in place towards organizational identity construction where identities are socially constructed. A dualities perspective is very suitable for studying family business where family and business are seen as interdependent and interconnected forming a duality. Family business is an identity statement. Family business identities are constructed by stakeholders by managing a set of dualities. Dualities cause tensions because of the dual poles. These tensions need to be balanced in order to draw on both poles and maintain the family business identities.In an empirical study of two media organizations dualities of informality/formality, independence-dependence, historic paths-new paths, and commercial-journalistic are used to understand how stakeholders balance the tensions in these dualities and thereby construct organizational identities. The study reveals the central role of owning family members in organizational identity construction. It is important to balance interests between owning family members and generations. Otherwise it is possible that tensions develop between owners which can endanger the organization.The dualities perspective broadens studies on organizational identity construction as it accounts for the peculiarities of family businesses. I argue that these dualities are basis for constructing organizational identities that require stakeholders to work with managing the inherent tensions in the dualities. This means that owning family members and organizational members are continuously involved in constructing organizational identities when managing the dualities.For the organizational identity literature, the study offers a focus on the processes of organizational identity construction in the most common business organization, i.e. family businesses. Owning families play an eminent role in processes of organizational identity construction which future research should consider. Owning family members can initiate or trigger organizational identity construction processes because they are considered as role models by other stakeholders.Based on my findings I recommend owning families to consider that being a family business is an identity statement implying that other stakeholders will consider them as role model whether they like it or not. Therefore owning family members should devote attention to manage dualities and balance inherent tensions. Then being a family business can be advantageous because they can draw on both family and business dimensions.
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| 16. |
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| 17. |
- Brundin, Ethel
(författare)
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Emotions in Motion : The Strategic Leader in a Radical Change Process
- 2002
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis offers an emotion perspective to the field of strategic change and leadership. Through a longitudinal study, following two strategic leaders in a real time setting of a radical change process, this study shows that emotions are all-embracing within such a process. The findings stress that strategic leaders are very emotionally committed and tied to the strategy of a company and feel personal responsibility for its progress. Emotions evolve in daily interaction and are produced and reproduced in this context. They arise as a means to understand and relate to the on-going process and as a means to explicitly emphasise and stress the importance of different aspects of the change as well.The results of this study shows that emotions can be related directly to the change process where they serve as driving forces or restraining forces and as indirect driving or restraining forces in relation to the strategic intent. Furthermore, the co-production of emotions between the strategic leader and other organisational members has power implications such as power gain or power drain for the strategic leader, and thereby the strategic leadership. Emotions have also been proven to serve as constructors of emotion sediments, good-mood-setters and bad-mood-setters within the process.Methodologically, this study opens up for further research on emotions. Through a series of micro-processes, the strategic leaders of this study have contributed by helping out with conversations prior to and after meetings and by offering their personal diary notes. Furthermore, a suggested classification of emotions is made in connection to a radical change process.
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| 18. |
- Brunninge, Olof
(författare)
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Organisational Self-understanding and the Strategy Process : Strategy Dynamics in Scania and Handelsbanken
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis investigates the role of organisational self-understanding in strategy processes. The concept of organisational self-understanding denotes members’ understanding of their organisation’s identity. The study illustrates that strategy processes in companies are processes of self-understanding. During strategy making, strategic actors engage in the interpretation of their organisation’s identity. This self-understanding provides guidance for strategic action while it at the same time implies understanding strategic action from the past. Organisational self-understanding is concerned with the maintenance of institutional integrity. In order to achieve this, those aspects of self-understanding that have become particularly institutionalised need to develop in a continuous manner. Previous literature on strategy and organisational identity has put too much emphasis on the stability/change dichotomy. The present study shows that it is possible to maintain continuity even in times of change. Such continuity can be established by avoiding strategic action that is perceived as disruptive with regard to self-understanding and by providing interpretations of the past that make developments over time appear as free from ruptures. Self-undertsanding is hence an inherently historical phenomenon. Empirically, this study is based on in-depth case studies of strategy processes in two large Swedish companies, namely the truck manufacturer Scania and the bank Handelsbanken. In each of the companies, three strategic themes in which organisational self-understanding has become particularly salient are studied.
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| 19. |
- Bruns, Volker
(författare)
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Who receives bank loans? A study of lending officers' assessments of loans to growing small and medium-sized enterprises
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis explores factors that influence lending officers' assessments of credit requests from growing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Building on asymmetric information theory, factors identified in previous research are grouped into the theoretical categories of risk-assessment, risk-alignment, and risk-shifting. Hypotheses are developed as to what influences lending officers' credit assessments. In addition, it is hypothesized that risk-taking proclivity interacts with other variables. A conjoint experiment involving 114 lending officers is used to test the hypotheses, which are, by and large, supported by the data.Furthermore, the study investigates how individual differences in experience among lending officers affect the credit assessments, e.g., more experienced lending officers use more sophisticated decision policies involving interactions. When the results from the experiments were compared with the lending officers' self-perceived assessments, it was discovered that lending officers have limited insight into their own credit assessments.The findings of this study have implications for SMEs, lending officers, and lending organizations. The results can assist SMEs to better tailor loan applications. Banks can use the results to make comparisons with their existing credit guidelines, which could assist them in improving their decision-making.The three theoretical categories identified provide a foundation for future research on bank lending to SMEs. The developed model can facilitate empirical research on bank lending under asymmetric information by providing a structure and categorizing previous research into relevant categories.
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| 20. |
- Byusa, Vincent
(författare)
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Money demand, real effective exchange rates, and uncertainty
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This PhD thesis consists of three distinct but interrelated research papers that collectively explore critical aspects of money demand, real effective exchange rates behavior, and uncertainty in different contexts. The first paper examines the nature of money demand in Rwanda and the rationale for the country’s monetary policy shift to inflation targeting in 2019, providing evidence of long-run money demand stability despite uncertainties affecting the global economy, and challenging the view that monetary aggregates should have no role in Rwanda’s monetary policy. The second paper investigates the complex effects of grant revenues on real effective exchange rates in Sub-Saharan African countries, revealing the outcomes of short-run depreciation and long-run appreciation. The last paper assesses how exchange rate regime choice affects the degree and persistence of real effective exchange rate misalignments, showing that, relative to a floating exchange rate regime, fixed and intermediate regimes effectively limit misalignment size, although with higher persistence. Together, these papers offer nuanced insights into the interaction between the money market, uncertainty, external grants, and exchange rate regime, underscoring the need for careful policy consideration to ensure economic stability and competitive currency values.
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| 21. |
- Bäckvall, Lisa, 1980-
(författare)
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The coexistence of family, ownership, and business : Conceptualizing entanglement and business family ownering
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This research engages with the topic of business family ownership through an ethnographically inspired study of business governance-related activities constructed as family members’ business-owning practices relationally and over time. In short, it is about what business families do when owning businesses and how this form of owning can be conceptualized.Corporate governance dominates understandings of ownership and business where ownership is constructed in a particular manner (individualistic, passive, and public) (e.g. La Porta et al., 1999; Robé, 2011). This is also (e.g. Breton-Miller & Miller, 2009; Le Breton-Miller et al., 2011), the theory in use in the family business research field in terms of governance research (e.g. Aguilera & Crespi-Cladera, 2012). Governing in family businesses has also been conceptualized as overlapping spheres of family, ownership, and business/management (Gersick et al., 1997). This study embraces the coexistence of family, ownership, and business/management as entanglement, which is lacking in corporate governance research in general and in family business studies in particular. By extending alternative framings on ownership and family governance (e.g., Brundin et al., 2010; Nordqvist 2016) via firstly an interpretative paradigm and secondly the practice turn, this phenomenon, business family ownership, is thirdly constructed through one of many possible practice theories – social praxeology (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). This theory contributes to create conditions for a renewed understanding of owning as doing within a family business, relationally and over time. Social praxeology not only directs attention to relationality but also to individual and collective embodiment, where the central concepts are capital, field, habitus, and practical sense. Bourdieu’s social praxeology acknowledges a relational ontology and epistemology in his particular version of structuralism interpretivism. In this study it implies that the first and second order structuers are contructed via a reflective field reading.Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to explore and construct the coexistence of family, ownership, and business/management through a social praxeology reading and conceptualizing the business family ownership, as done together and over time.An ethnographically inspired study (through interviews, shadowing, and participation in corporate events) of business- and governance-related activities (such as company board meetings, top management meetings, and product development meetings) generates an understanding of the entanglement of family, ownership, and business/management during an ongoing change of CEO in a family business. Drawing upon a structural reading in line with Bourdieu’s social praxeology (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), four broad business family ownership practices are constructed: the practice of choosing the next CEO, the practice of calculating, the practice of tasting, and the practice of joking. The first empirical chapter is a reading of capital forms and their structure and distribution within the business family (structures of the first order). In this chapter, the construct of family, along with Bourdieu’s assumptions, is introduced. The second empirical chapter is a reading of both first- and second-order structures, where the family habitus concept is combined with the business dimension in the change of CEO. The third empirical chapter is dominated by the reading of the second-order structures, where the practices of counting, tasting, and joking are constructed as business family owning. These business family ownership practices form an understanding of the entangled nature of a particular family business.This study contributes to generating conditions for understanding business family ownership as private, collective, and transgenerational in contrast to the well-entrenched corporate governance view characterized above. Hence it challenges the dominant views of ownership as property rights that emphasize separateness incorporated in the Gersick et al. (1997) model by instead conceptualizing the coexistence of family, ownership, and management/business as entanglement. Towards a distinction through the conceptualization of entanglement, the family and ownership categories are primarily constructed as a collective subjective corpus operating as structuring structures within a business family field. Business family ownering is a way of governing where the body and its sense reproduce and refine the structures in a family business, forming a specific cultural business family capital. Accordingly, with family habitus, owning turns into ownering. Structuring structure with the particularities of an owner family, relationally inhabited by dominated and dominating agents, forms a business family ownership as ownering, characterized by inertia and relationality.
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| 22. |
- Caccamo, Marta
(författare)
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Cross-boundary knowledge work in innovation : Understanding the role of space and objects
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation studies the topic of cross-boundary knowledge work from the perspective of sociomateriality. Cross-boundary knowledge work refers to the collaboration of actors belonging to different social worlds to achieve shared knowledge outcomes. Sociomateriality is a theoretical perspective that acknowledges the role of objects and spaces in organizational life. The empirical field of collaborative innovation provides a context for this dissertation.Cross-boundary knowledge work is an important topic given the emergence of novel challenges that require collaboration across disciplines and organizations. Innovating across social and organizational boundaries is a demanding task that calls for new ways of working. Working in new ways refers to using new organizational models and engaging in new organizational practices. To address the increasing need for cross-boundary knowledge work, this dissertation turns to the design of objects and spaces as a defining aspect of organizational life.The overarching goal of the dissertation is to understand what role spaces and objects (physical and digital) play within cross-boundary knowledge work. The dissertation is structured into four papers. Paper 1 builds the foundation of the dissertation by providing an extensive literature review about boundary objects—a theoretical construct that denotes objects that enable knowledge-based collaboration across diverse social worlds. The subsequent empirical papers study cross-boundary knowledge dynamics in three different collaborative innovation contexts. Paper 2 addresses how boundary objects can be designed to enable knowledge integration during interdisciplinary corporate hackathons. Paper 3 shows how innovation spaces and the objects that are part of them support collaborative innovation through knowledge integration and the development of new practices. Paper 4 conceptualizes startup accelerators as boundary spaces that lead to the creation of different types of knowledge communities.This study makes important contributions to the fields of cross-boundary knowledge work, sociomateriality, and collaborative innovation. First, the four papers show that cross-boundary knowledge work needs to consider other dynamics happening at the boundaries within interdisciplinary and interorganizational contexts. For instance, the creation of a shared identity appears to be a fundamental aspect to consider in order to achieve knowledge goals. Second, this dissertation deepens our understanding of the actual practices afforded by objects and spaces within collaborative settings. Each paper strives to provide an in-depth account of how individual objects, systems of objects, and spaces support knowledge work. Third, this dissertation offers a relevant theoretical perspective to illustrate the challenges involved in collaborative innovation, at the same time suggesting how material infrastructure may help collaborating actors achieve shared knowledge outcomes. Finally, innovation managers can find relevant advice on how to leverage the built environment to enhance their practice.
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| 23. |
- Casanovas, Inés
(författare)
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Online Education in Universities : Moving from Individual Adoption to Institutionalisation of an Information Technology Innovation
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis describes and analyses the move from individual adoption to institutionalisation of an information technology innovation: online education in universities. The study focuses on the processes that took place within two universities, one in Sweden and the other in Argentina, regarding online education adoption and the organisational changes developed.The aim is to contribute to the understanding of individual and organisational strategies for the institutionalisation of the innovation. To achieve this aim, three research questions were posed. The first focused on the way in which teachers influence the adoption processes. The next addressed the changes and interactions at the individual and institutional levels resulting from these processes. The third question deepened into the methodological practices that can harmonise stakeholders‟ objectives and the conflicting interests regarding online education initiatives. Innovation theory, complemented with organisational theories provided the foundation for the description and analysis of the information technology innovation and the adoption processes.The results of analysing and interpreting the collected data from the two universities in two different countries (Sweden and Argentina) showed that the adoption processes appeared to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. The iterative nature of the appropriation and the constant “newness” of the information technology innovation may be plausible explanations for the phenomenon. Though the change has not yet become an integral part of the formal core of the institutions, it has been a great achievement considering the universities‟ structure, culture and resources.The contributions provide complementary and pluralistic insights into the research field of Information Systems, for both theory and practice, as well as into higher education managers‟ decision-making. Furthermore, the knowledge contribution of the thesis could be applied to implementation of information technology innovations in other organisations with similar characteristics as the studied higher education institutions. Such characteristics are, for example, to be complex and knowledge intensive.Interactions at macro and micro organisational levels could be modelled as the cyclic linkage between sensemaking outcomes and institutionalized structures. A higher level of theorization resulted in a meta-theory model to describe and explain the linkage itself within the perspective of adaptive structuration theory.Regarding practice, scholar-engaged research allowed conflicting interests to be reconciled by changing the existing practices through sensemaking and negotiation among stakeholders in an ongoing implementation. As an overall conclusion, online education is still far from being fully institutionalised. After four years of technological and contextual changes during the research development, a positive shift can be seen in teachers‟ attitude towards online education. They show more confidence in working with constantly improved virtual environments. Nevertheless, there are still key factors that need to be faced regarding online education adoption and institutionalisation. These factors are of a strategic nature and the way to handle them seems to be more political than technological or pedagogical.
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| 24. |
- Cestino, Joaquín
(författare)
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Written news at the crossroads : Entrepreneurial processes of reproduction and novelty in an institutional field in crisis
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation explores entrepreneurial processes in an institutional field incrisis. It is based on the inductive reinterpretation of four original papers that, combined, study activities of individuals searching for solutions to organizational problems in incumbent and startup newspapers. Building on an integrative framework of compatible concepts in entrepreneurship and institutional theory, and foregrounding the role of Bourdieu’s notion of capital, this thesis provides answers to how actors’ capitals mediate mechanisms of reproduction and novelty. Based on the analysis of multiple cases situated in a macro-level shift characterized by the transformation of the material environment, this work finds how—despite the aleatory and materialistic origins of written news norms and concepts, and their failing economic traction—entrepreneurial processes in all types of newspapers reproduce structural templates. In relatively affluent incumbents, reproduction happens because, in their search for solutions to losses of capital, actors interpret imported ideas within the meaning structure provided by existing norms and concepts, and day-to-day activities—“decoupled from innovation”—do not change significantly. Also, at the moment that these new activities generate short-term (albeit small) relative capital gains, as problems seem to wane, individuals unravel their search for solutions, reinforcing reproduction. In particularly deprived newcomers, the importation of innovative ideas can even be averted upfront by the organization of unrelated-to-the-venture supportive activities that generate unrelated-to-the-venture economic capital—a condition that shields these ventures from market demands and avoids exit scenarios. The “sheltered conformity” of daily activities in these organizations also results in reproduction. Yet, not all the entrepreneurial processes this thesis identifies contribute to the reproduction of existing institutional arrangements. Instances of significant difference in organizational structures can be forged in a distinct experience of constraints resulting from severe capital scarcity. A combination of absence of economic capital and moderate-to-low levels of cultural and social capital, as they are defined by the field, inhibits common solutions to problems. When actors find that freely available inputs accumulated in their personal biographies work, these inputs become “situated new forms of capital”. As they work, significantly different activities, partly decoupled from templates in the field, are incorporated in the structure of these organizations. Because it is existing ideals in the field that fuel resource-deprived entrepreneurs to sustain efforts, institutional arrangements do play a role in their own change.By offering empirical support to the central role of the personal experience of capital constraints and situated redefinitions of capital in processes of institutional reproduction and divergence, this thesis complements interpretations of institutional contradictions: Rather than starting from the coexistence of different templates that actors can alternatively employ at intersections of structures, this study explores early endogenous processes by which new norms and concepts enter existing fields, reinterpreting resources in them. These findings provide additional insights into questions related to the origin of ideas, emergent processes of decoupling and to definitions of an institutionalized field in crisis and organizational novelty. This research also contributes to entrepreneurship within sights into how alertness and discovery transpire. When focusing on institutional templates and problem-solving activities of ordinary actors, entrepreneurial action—even in an institutional field in crisis—can contribute to the reproduction of the status quo. And when significant differences happen, because they can result from a distinct experience of resource constraints, they may appear in humble beginnings that contrast those chronicled in later stages of change by institutional entrepreneurship theory. Additionally, this thesis adds to entrepreneurial resourcefulness by unbundling the process by which bricolage produces outcomes that depart from its institutional environment. In my findings, bricoleurs do not blatantly violate norms and concepts, and yet they can bring divergent organizational novelty to their working solutions. In fact, the efforts of entrepreneurial bricoleurs are largely sustained by the predetermined meaning of inputs and institutionally conforming ideals in ways that, I suggest, bring the concept of bricolage closer to its original definition by Lévi-Strauss.
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| 25. |
- Correa, Miquel
(författare)
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On new homes and green lands : Three microeconometric essays as if urban costs and rural sustainability mattered
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is structured as a compendium of three self-contained articles, all single-authored. In the first paper, I analyze the effect of a mortgage cap, a policy implemented as a macroeconomic prudential measure by the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority in 2010, on the likelihood of the young adult population purchasing a house in Sweden. I find that the purchasing rate decreases less for the wealth-constrained individuals in relation to the wealth-unconstrained during a four-year period after the implementation of the policy.In the second paper, I examine how experiencing working from home (WFH) during the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to out-migration of the working-age population of large Swedish cities. Using register microdata of individuals in the period 2015–2021, the results show that the remote work experiment significantly increased the likelihood of moving out of large cities and of moving to the hinterlands compared to the usual internal migration flows before the pandemic.Finally, I analyze the role of geographical and cognitive proximity in the decision to adopt organic farming in Sweden for the period 2010–2016. I find that the nearby presence of earlier adopters in a parish influences current adoption, indicating the existence of proximity effects in the diffusion of environmentally sustainable technologies across a diversity of farming industries in Sweden. The effect also becomes more pronounced when farmers share cognitive similarities, defined as per type of farming industry, in particular for the dairy sector and mixed farming activities.
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| 26. |
- Criaco, Giuseppe
(författare)
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Founding conditions and the survival of new firms : An imprinting perspective on founders, organizational members and external environments
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- New firms are important sources of new employment, economic growth and innovation. Yet, a large portion of them do not manage to survive their first years of existence. This is often linked to their initial lack of capabilities, resources, routines and legitimacy. Certain favorable conditions at founding may allow new firms to partially overcome these initial shortcomings, and help them survive. For instance, organizational members’ prior experience may provide knowledge and skills to the new firm. However, it may also act as a constraint. It can lead new firms to follow a prescribed way of doing things which may ultimately threaten their survival. Similarly, certain unfavorable conditions of the external environment at founding may paradoxically offer a fertile ground for new firms to nurture their survival. Thus, whether some founding conditions are good or bad for new firms is still an unanswered question.Building on imprinting theory, this dissertation investigates how different founding conditions affect the survival of new firms. At the organizational level, I study founders’ prior working experience in an incumbent family firm, organizational members’ prior shared international experience and prior industry experience, and focus respectively on three types of new firms: entrepreneurial spawns, international new ventures and high/mid-high tech new firms. I use a matched employer-employee dataset to test the effect of different types of prior experience on new firm survival. At the environment level, I propose how population density of similar organizational forms and the mortality of generalist organizations at founding may affect the survival of new family firms.
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| 27. |
- Cui, Lianguang
(författare)
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Innovation and network development of logistics firms
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This compilation thesis consists of a cover and five appended articles. The research purpose of this thesis is to investigate the third party logistics phenomena from the logistics firm’s perspective with a focus on logistics innovation and network development. The thesis applies a qualitative research method and employs multiple case studies. Resource-based view, industrial network approach and strategy-as-practice perspective have been applied and combined to analyze the empirical findings.It is found that logistics firms focus on customers’ requirements and they provide differentiated services accordingly. Based on the type of customers and the region served, each logistics firm innovates in a different way. The logistics innovation process is complicated and it includes both top-down and bottom-up process. Both intra-organizational interactions and inter-organizational interactions are critical for logistics firms to generate logistics innovation. Besides, the interaction capabilities are crucial for logistics firms to innovate. The development of interaction capabilities enables logistics firms to proactively identify customer needs and to translate customer requirements into new service offerings. The development of interaction capabilities also guides logistics firms to innovate in the right direction and helps them to overcome barriers. Further, a theoretical model is developed to illustrate that logistics firms have clear differences in capabilities and network focus. These firms follow different dominating logics of value creation, developing their service networks in various ways.The thesis addresses two critical issues, logistics innovation and network development. Theoretically, it contributes to the third party logistics literature in general and to the logistics innovation research in particular as well as the network development of logistics firms. Adopting several theoretical frameworks, the thesis takes a closer look at the logistics innovation process in logistics firms. Empirically, the thesis covers logistics firms both in Sweden and China, turning it into an international investigation of the how and why of logistics innovation.
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| 28. |
- Cyron, Thomas
(författare)
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How organizations incorporate insights from stakeholder communication : The role of media and modal affordances
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Organizations are increasingly opening up to external voices that might carry new insights and help organizations to find their place in society. But the context through which organizations communicate with their stakeholders shapes how communication unfolds. Traditionally, organizations communicated with their stakeholders through shareholder letters, town hall meetings, or printed advertisements. Nowadays, cyberspace has opened up communication in multiple ways. It affords fast and boundless two-way communication between organizations and stakeholders and among stakeholders, that can be both a blessing and a curse. In any case, changes in the communication landscape have affected all types of organizations—large corporations, small and medium-sized enterprises, and newly started ventures.My research connects to ongoing discussions on how new media have shaped the landscape of organizations. Specifically, I explore how organizations incorporate insights from stakeholder communication from a practice-based view. This view allows me to magnify and understand better how the communication context shapes the interaction. My empirical research focuses on stakeholder communication in a single-case study of the world’s largest miniature model railway exhibition and three new venture ideation cases. I employ a mix of qualitative research methods, including digital data collection techniques.A bricolage of the four papers included in this dissertation frames the insights under the assumption that communication constitutes organization. It allows me to conceptualize the incorporation of new insights from stakeholder communication as a co-authoring process. Specifically, I show that modes provide the meaning-making resources through which humans communicate organizations into being. Media act as vessels of modes and shape how stakeholders can interact with—and co-author—the modes.My future research agenda focuses on two aspects. First, I suggest following more closely how new narratives that stakeholders offer during the co-authoring process subsequently travel through an organization. This question is particularly relevant in larger corporations where the newly proposed narratives have to travel more considerable distances between stakeholder communication practices and decision-making practices. Second, I suggest investigating stakeholder communication from a design perspective, that is, a study of the heuristics that managers and entrepreneurs employ before engaging in stakeholder communication.
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| 29. |
- Dahlström, Tobias
(författare)
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Causes of corruption
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of an introductory chapter and four essays. Although possible to read individually they all analyse the causes of corruption and hence complement each other.The four essays collectively illustrate the complex nature of corruption. Often many interrelated factors work together in causing corruption. Hence, discovering how these factors, individually and together, cause corruption is vital in combating corruption.The first essay helps to explain the path dependency of corruption. It shows that even if the legal system and enforcement level in a corrupt country or organisation is altered to become identical to that in a non corrupt, the level of corruption may not converge.The second essay analyses how the decision making structure influences corruption. It is found that even though the profits of corruption may be monotonically related to changes in the organisational structure the incidence of corruption is not necessarily so.The third essay looks on how corruption may spread between different organisations or countries as they interact with each other, with corrupt/non corrupt behaviour being more likely to be transmitted from successful to nonsuccessful entities than vice versa.The fourth and final essay investigates how the freedom of information can impact on corruption. Looking on both regulatory and technical constraints on information flows, the conclusion is that relaxation of both constraints simultaneously is needed to combat corruption.
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| 30. |
- Dujeancourt, Erwan
(författare)
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Labor, firm and wealth effects of gender and sexuality
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The prevalence of LGBTQ+ individuals, which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and additional identities, is steadily increasing in society. Global surveys conducted in 2023 indicate that 9% of adults in the world identify as LGBTQ+ individuals, with the proportion increasing to 18% among the youngest generation (Jackson, 2023). This demographic shift emphasizes the necessity for further economic research regarding LGBTQ+ populations. The aim of this thesis is therefore to explore the role of gender and sexuality in labor, firm, and wealth disparities.The first paper, "Sexual Orientation, Entrepreneurship, and Firm Survival," draws on Swedish population and business registry data from 1995–2020. The findings reveal that sexual minority men are 7.8% less likely to engage in entrepreneurship than comparable heterosexual men, while sexual minority women are 4.8% more likely to do so than their comparable heterosexual counterparts. Additionally, it examines the survival rates of firms founded by sexual minorities, where disparities are found particularly for ventures led by sexual minority women. The results show that both external factors (such as attitudes toward sexual minorities and the density of same-sex couples) and internal factors (e.g., the presence of a romantic partner) may contribute to the differential survival of ventures founded by sexual minority women.The second paper, "Wealth, Gender and Sexual Orientation – Evidence from Siblings," analyzes administrative data to explore wealth differentials across genders and sexual orientations. This study shows nuanced patterns, such as a wealth penalty for men in same-sex couples below the P80 percentile and a persistent wealth penalty for women below the P95 percentile.The third paper, "Sexual Orientation and Multiple Job Holding: Evidence from Swedish Administrative Data," investigates the incidence of multiple job holdings among sexual minority individuals. This paper finds that sexual minority individuals are significantly more likely to hold multiple jobs, with the drivers of providing self-insurance for men and career mobility for women. Notably, holding multiple jobs among sexual minority women is associated with reduced unemployment and increased earnings growth.In the fourth paper, “The Role of Legal Gender Change in Labor Market Outcomes,” a cohort of over 900 transgender individuals in Sweden who underwent legal gender changes is studied. A comparative approach reveals disparities in labor market outcomes, showing a reduced likelihood of employment and lower salary for transgender individuals compared to their cisgender siblings. Furthermore, transgender men have lower salaries, while transgender women have higher salaries but encounter challenges in finding employment after changing their legal gender. These findings highlight the vulnerable economic standing of transgender individuals in Sweden.Through empirical analysis, this thesis underscores socioeconomic (in)equalities and their drivers across both sexuality and gender, offering insights into the economic opportunities and challenges of a growing population group.
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| 31. |
- Duras, Toni
(författare)
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Applications of common principal components in multivariate and high-dimensional analysis
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four papers, all exploring some aspect of common principal component analysis (CPCA), the generalization of PCA to multiple groups. The basic assumption of the CPC model is that the space spanned by the eigenvectors is identical across several groups, whereas eigenvalues associated with the eigenvectors can vary. CPCA is used in essentially the same areas and applications as PCA.The first paper compares the performance of the maximum likelihood and Krzanowski’s estimators of the CPC model for two real-world datasets and in a Monte Carlo simulation study. The simplicity and intuition of Krzanowski's estimator and the findings in this paper support and promote the use of this estimator for CPC models over the maximum likelihood estimator.Paper number two uses CPCA as a tool for imposing restrictions on system-wise regression models. The paper contributes to the field by proposing a variety of explicit estimators, deriving their properties and identifying the appropriate amount of smoothing that should be imposed on the estimator. In the third paper, a generalization of the fixed effects PCA model to multiple populations in a CPC environment is proposed. The model includes mainly geometrical, rather than probabilistic, assumptions, and is designed to account for any possible prior information about the noise in the data to yield better estimates, obtained by minimizing a least squares criterion with respect to a specified metric.The fourth paper survey some properties of the orthogonal group and the associated Haar measure on it. It is demonstrated how seemingly abstract results contribute to applied statistics and, in particular, to PCA.
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| 32. |
- Dzansi, James
(författare)
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Essays on Financing and Returns on Investment
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation consists of an introductory chapter and three independent essays on financing investment and their returns. The first essay studies the impact of remittances on domestic investment. The analysis is carried out with a focus on the moderating roles of domestic financial development and institutional quality. The empirical results suggest that remittance inflows are associated with increased domestic investment spending, particularly under conditions of inadequate financial intermediation and poor institutional quality. The second essay evaluates whether remittance inflows into the developing world impedes or spurs manufacturing growth. This study uses manufacturing data on a sample of 40 remittance dependent economies over the period from 1991 to 2004. The results suggest that remittance inflows accelerate manufacturing growth. This evidence is robust to industry- and year-specific effects, a range of country level control variables, and a number of estimators. The final essay examines the monitoring role of large shareholders and returns on investment. Specifically, the paper investigates the relevance of intrinsic motives of the large shareholder to monitor management in order to induce optimal return on investment. The findings suggest that large shareholders are actuated by both intrinsic and extrinsic motives to minimize managerial opportunism and inefficiency.
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| 33. |
- Ejermo, Olof
(författare)
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Perspectives on regional and industrial dynamics of innovation
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of five essays in the field of innovation economics, with an introductory chapter. The focus is mainly empirical with four of the five chapters consisting of studies of aspects of Swedish innovation activity. These empirical chapters are an endeavor to quantify aspects of the effects of the public-good property of knowledge. To this effect, innovation indicators were collected regarding industrial and firm research and development (R&D); regional indicators were collected using business and university R&D and records of patent applications and granted patents assigned to Swedish regions using the residential location of inventors.The first essay studies the productive effect (total factor productivity) of R&D on Swedish firms and the effect that R&D can be expected to have on other firms. The second essay analyzes, with corporate groups as the unit of observation, the effect of accessibility to R&D in universities, and in other groups’ R&D on the innovative capability of the individual group. The third essay tries to characterize the extent to which Swedish regions are specialized or diverse. This is summarized in a single variable which is used to test the effect on innovative activity as measured by the number of patent applications. The fourth essay, the theoretical study of the thesis, constructs a two-region model with two firms residing in each. The incentives for doing process R&D are worked out by agglomerating consumers in one of the regions, and by changing interregional accessibility. The sixth essay studies Swedish inventor networks and regional affinity based on networks.
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| 34. |
- Ekberg, Sara
(författare)
-
The role of organizational integrity in responses to pressures : A case study of Australian newspapers
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of the dissertation is to explore the role of organizational integrity in responses to pressures. Organizational integrity is a concept from old institutional theory; its definition is the fidelity to the organization’s core values, distinctive competence, guiding principles, and mission. Studying this concept empirically will answer calls in institutional theory to focus more on the internal dynamics in terms of the responses to pressures, especially how the people in the organization balance the act to conform or resist pressures while striving for legitimacy. These calls have remained largely unanswered, and the question of how organizations adapt while remaining true to core values and competences remains something of a mystery. Joining the recent resurgence of Selznick’s research, the aim of this dissertation is to contribute to the calls to focus on change and inertia together, and the role of values as the organization responds to pressures. Thus, change can be a threat to the organizational integrity and prompts members of the organization to preserve their familiar environment. However, this behavior creates a dilemma, since the maintenance of organizational integrity can be taken too far, to the point that the organization becomes rigid and unable to survive. Thus, it includes the organization finding a balance of staying true to its proclaimed mission and values without being too rigid and losing track of the changes in its environment. Therefore, by giving emphasis to the role of values, organizational integrity adds a new perspective and extends the understanding of how organizations respond to pressures.To fulfil this aim, this dissertation followed two newspaper organizations, an industry that is marked by a state of flux and disruptive change. The two organizations are The Courier-Mail and The West Australian. By using methods such as interviews, documentation, and observations, I got a first-hand understanding of the perceived pressures the organizational members are facing, the issues that were perceived in the organization, and how the organizational members worked to resolve them. Through these cases, the organizations either conformed and/or resisted pressures, thus allowing this study to explore the role of organizational integrity in this process. The findings suggest that the organization’s values, distinctiveness, and mission were used to evaluate experiments to solve issues rather than solely guiding the strategies to overcome the pressures. Thus, the study highlights the perceived pressures, how organizational members construct issues based on these pressures, and how the organizational members work to resolve them.This dissertation extends the understanding of organizational behavior in terms of balancing change and inertia. Organizational integrity works as a normative rationality, and to uphold legitimacy the role of organizational integrity is either to maintain, defend, or repair the character of the organization. More specifically, this adds to the scholarly discussion of the importance of values in organizational behavior, and this dissertation expands the understanding of responses to pressures by explicating the role of organizational integrity.
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| 35. |
- Evansluong, Quang V. D.
(författare)
-
Opportunity creation as a mixed embedding process : A study of immigrant entrepreneurs in Sweden
- 2016
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Entrepreneurial opportunities are frequently noted and addressed in the literature of immigrant entrepreneurship; however, little is known about how these entrepreneurial opportunities come into existence and how immigrant entrepreneurs create such opportunities. The purpose of this thesis is to examine why and how immigrant entrepreneurs create entrepreneurial opportunities through embedding processes in the home country and the host country.Sweden was chosen as the country of residence of immigrant entrepreneurs from Lebanon, Syria, Cameroon and Mexico. Four cases were selected in this study. Each case illustrates an opportunity creation process in a different industry, between a different home country and Sweden as the host country and by immigrant entrepreneurs with different backgrounds.By using the mixed embeddedness perspective as the theoretical lens in combination with the literature on entrepreneurial opportunity and immigrant entrepreneurship, this thesis develops a model of entrepreneurial opportunity creation as an integration process. The findings suggest that entrepreneurial opportunity creation can be considered as a process of local integration by immigrant entrepreneurs into the host country and a re-integration of these entrepreneurs into the home country. At the beginning of the opportunity creation process, immigrant entrepreneurs feel socially excluded in the host country. Throughout the opportunity creation process, immigrant entrepreneurs interact with different actors in the host country and gradually move from being socially excluded to socially included, which illustrates a local integration process. In this process, immigrant entrepreneurs become localized through different activities that embed them in the local context. The process of entrepreneurial idea and business concept development and the refinement of the business concept in this thesis illustrates an ongoing and non-linear process of: being locally integrated through creating trust in the local people, acculturating and creating a sense of belonging; and being re-integrated to the home country through maintaining and establishing new links to the home country.The study contributes to the mainstream entrepreneurship and immigrant entrepreneurship in several ways. First, it contributes to studies on immigrant entrepreneurship by investigating why immigrants embark on a journey to be entrepreneurs and how immigrant entrepreneurs create entrepreneurial opportunities through embedding processes in the home and the host country. The study demonstrates how an entrepreneurial opportunity is created as a social integration process.Second, the study contributes to literature on entrepreneurship and immigrant entrepreneurship by incorporating the entrepreneurial opportunity creation process with acculturation strategies. It illustrates how the entrepreneurial opportunity creation process intertwines with the four strategies of acculturation.Third, the study contributes to the mixed embeddedness perspective by adopting the process approach and proposing mixed embedding as a new concept which centers on the interplay between the home and the host country’s influences on immigrants’ business activities; by extending mixed embeddedness from the national level of the home country or the host country to the transnational level between the home country and the host country; and by proposing an alternative way to view an entrepreneurial opportunity as a creation process instead of being discovered.Fourth, the study contributes to the immigrant entrepreneurship literature in Sweden by furthering the understanding of entrepreneurial opportunity creation by immigrant entrepreneurs in Sweden.Furthermore, the study suggests some implications for practice. The study proposes some embedding mechanisms which can be implemented in business support programs for immigrant entrepreneurs and in integration programs for immigrants in general. The design of the business support programs can aim to help immigrant entrepreneurs to: create credibility through contacts and experiences that they establish and gain in the local community; create familiarity to the local community through associating business concepts with well-known values; engage in the local life to understand customers’ mindsets, master the local language to understand local customers’ needs; and establish new/strengthen connections to the home country. The design of integration programs can aim to undertake activities that help immigrants increase the interaction between the local people and themselves. This type of interaction could be increased by organizing meetings and activities in which immigrants are introduced to different local sports clubs and hobby clubs. An approach in which the host country’s language is practiced and mastered anywhere and anytime should be adopted in the integration programs.
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| 36. |
- Feng, Songming
(författare)
-
Craft production in the Kingdom of Crystal (Glasriket) and its visual representation : Constructing authenticity in cultural/marketing production
- 2020
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Authenticity is a core concept and phenomenon in contemporary marketing, as both marketers and consumers seek the authentic. Individuals, companies, and industries all work to establish and accomplish authenticity for themselves and related stakeholders. As a marketing point for creating differentiation and singularity, authenticity has the potential to augment the value of a product above and beyond its promising functional, esthetic, or experiential significance. However, authenticity is a concept with heavily debated characteristics, and it is not well understood in its market manifestations. Academic work on authenticity remains vague in terms of both its definition and its marketing relevance. There has been limited empirical understanding of and theorizing about what is meant by authenticity and how it is manifested in production and consumption in the marketplace. In practice, the nature and use of authenticity in the field of marketing is still full of ambiguity and confusion. For marketers, brand authenticity is easy to recognize but hard to manufacture. How producers and marketers manage the development, positioning, and communication of authentic offerings and how they engineer, fabricate, or construct authenticity remain unanswered questions.This dissertation answers the call of Jones, Anand, and Alvarez (2005, p. 894) to determine which strategies are used for creating and defining authenticity and how these strategies shape our understanding of what is authentic and the call of Beverland (2005a) to find out how brands and marketers create and develop images of authenticity. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate how authenticity of market offerings is constructed in two cultural/marketing production sites—the craft production of glass objects and commercial photographers’ image production as visual representation of the former—to understand the mechanisms behind the authentication of market offerings and the paradoxes within the construction work.This purpose was fulfilled by pairing the two theoretical domains of cultural/marketing production and authenticity for the investigation of an empirical site—the Kingdom of Crystal (“Glasriket” in Swedish)—located in southern Sweden. As a traditional craft-producing industrial region and a tourist destination, the site has been dedicated to making consumer glass products, maintaining its production mode and ethos as a handmade craft, for more than one hundred years. Being producer focused, the craft sector and craft production offer a strong empirical instantiation of authenticity and can serve as a fertile field to explore and problematize the issue of authenticity at the intersection with cultural/marketing production. The research was conducted over a three-year period with an interpretive and ethnographic approach tapping into multiple sources of data.This dissertation finds that the glass producers in Glasriket substantively construct five categories of authenticity (technique, material, geographical, temporal, and original) of market offerings via craft production and that commercial photographers communicate and authenticate the craft production world via their image-making practices, which are dimensionalized into a typology consisting of five categories of practice: reproducing, documenting, participating, estheticizing, and indexing. Illuminating the two-step micro process of cultural/marketing production—the concurrent practices of the product makers and the promoters, this dissertation theorizes about how authenticity operates vis-à-vis two types of production (substantive product making and communicative image making), yielding a number of contributions to authenticity scholarship and the literature on cultural/marketing production. It provides managerial implications for marketers/producers in Glasriket regarding how they can leverage cultural resources to conduct retro marketing as well as suggestions for marketers beyond this context about visual marketing and authenticity-based marketing.
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| 37. |
- Florin Samuelsson, Emilia
(författare)
-
Accountability and Family Business Contexts : An Interpretive Approach to Accounting and Control Practices
- 2002
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis discusses accounting and control practices in terms of accountability, i.e. how organizational actors work out who is accountable to whom over what. The study investigates how different forms of accountability can emerge and develop in organizations represented as family- controlled. This focus is grounded in the arguments of the interpretive accounting research which describes different modes, styles, and versions of control and accountability as intertwined with organizational identity construction. The empirical part of the study discusses accounting and control practices in two family businesses. The study showed that control practices and notions of sound organizing, which in the two cases included different approaches to the family business label, was intertwined. In keeping with the interpretive literature, the two case studies demonstrated differences in accountability when two organizational contexts were compared. As a possible contribution to the interpretive studies discussed in this thesis, the study also showed different styles of accountability to be interacting as well as repelling within an organizational context.In short, this study showed both control practices and notions of family control to have consequences in terms of organizational accountability. In other words, also when advanced control practices are implemented, there could be fundamental differences in terms of accountability between different family business contexts as well as within an organizational context.
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| 38. |
- Fredén, Sophie
(författare)
-
Från värnplikt till frivillighet : Hur en ny reformidé mötte den etablerade praktiken i Försvarsmakten
- 2020
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the summer of 2009, the Swedish Parliament decided to suspend the century-oldpractice of military conscription, and introduce all-volunteer forces. One year later,1 July 2010, the Swedish Armed Forces became an organization "as any other", thatshould attract, recruit and try to maintain its employees. The process of this reformis the topic of this dissertation.Previous research has shown that reforms are quite difficult to conduct, as theyrarely go exactly as the reformers planned: planned changes are often accompaniedby unintended changes (Brunsson and Olsen, 1990). In order to describe all changesthat take place during attempts to reform, a translation model (Czarniawska andJoerges, 1996) has been used. The process of change was seen as a travel for thereform idea from its carriers to those who were to put it in practice in local units.Even if local practices are usually well-established, such practices are notunchangeable, especially if a new reform idea raises interest. The aim of the study isto contribute with increased understanding of reform processes by following theidea of voluntarism into an established practice of conscription.The process of reform has been studied in various places: in the headquarters,during the meetings between the top leadership and commanders of local units, andin the local units. Appropriate field study techniques were used: interviews, directobservation, shadowing and document analysis. Fieldwork started in 2010 andcontinued until 2015. The analysis of the collected field material followed theprinciple of abduction, i.e. an iterative interpretation of field material and previousresearch results, using the translation model as a frame of interpretation.The idea of reform has been inspired by an international trend of moving from massarmies staffed by conscripts to all-volunteer forces. It was then edited to fit theSwedish situation, and started its travel from idea-carriers to idea-users. On its wayit has been translated in quite a few ways. Sometimes it was seen as an attempt atmodernization, other times as an increase in cost-effectiveness, as a culturaltransformation, as an attempt at professionalization of services, or as entering thecompetition among employers in the labor market. Even translations that shared thesame label (for example, competition or cultural transformation) could beinterpreted in detail in quite different ways at different local units.Some attempts at integration of different translations failed; demands and expectationsin conflict with one another, or a translation of the reform idea was incompatiblewith the local practice. Such situations can be seen as paradoxical but, asLuhmann (1995) pointed out, a paradox is often perceived as paralyzing by the observers,while the actors feel mobilized to de-paradoxify them by appropriate actions.The study shows that the roles of idea-carriers and idea-users were not clearlyseparated: the same persons could engage in both activities, depending on thecontext. A suggestion for future studies could be to explore the activities, instead ofthe roles, which are flexible, and also pay attention to the new, digital "means oftransportation" – especially through the social media.
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| 39. |
- Genedy, Mohamed A.
(författare)
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Beyond the bright side : Investigating dark aspects of independent entrepreneurship, family entrepreneurship, and corporate entrepreneurship
- 2024
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Entrepreneurship is often perceived as a driving force for employment, innovation, and knowledge creation and is linked to poverty alleviation and economic growth. While entrepreneurship is often seen as a pathway for economic development and societal welfare, it does not consistently deliver the expected outcomes and, in certain instances, may exacerbate poverty, impede development, and present challenges to societal well-being and equality. This paradox within entrepreneurship emphasizes the necessity of exploring the negative (dark) aspects pertaining to entrepreneurship. Neglecting these negative aspects can lead to an incomplete understanding of entrepreneurship. Accordingly, this dissertation challenges the conventional positive view of entrepreneurship by (1) investigating some negative (i.e., dark) aspects of independent entrepreneurship, family entrepreneurship, and corporate entrepreneurship and (2) what might potentially mitigate these negative aspects. This is essential for achieving a balanced and comprehensive understanding of entrepreneurship’s role in the economy and society at large.I draw on the theory of entrepreneurial allocation, which posits that entrepreneurship can be productive, unproductive, or destructive, as the main theoretical perspective of this dissertation. This dissertation includes three empirical papers, each focusing on a distinct type of ownership: owner-manager ownership (independent entrepreneurship), family ownership (family entrepreneurship), and external investor ownership (corporate entrepreneurship). Together, they offer different insights into the potential negative aspects pertaining to entrepreneurship. Each paper draws on different theoretical perspectives and aligns with particular Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).In paper 1, we draw on the scale-up, firm growth, and well-being literature, taking an employee perspective to examine the impact of scaling on employee well-being. Using data from 10,908 employees in new Swedish ventures, we find a positive association between scaling and employee burnout, along with a negative association with job satisfaction. This emphasizes that scaling, often associated with a positive view, can also bring challenges to employee well-being. Meanwhile, we show that employees with managerial roles and prior new venture experience are two groups of employees who are less likely to experience the negative consequences of scaling. Paper 2 investigates how family dynamics (the upbringing environment) within entrepreneurial families can influence offspring career choices. In this paper, we draw on the birth order literature, which adopts an evolutionary theory perspective, to suggest that offspring are exposed to a different upbringing environment due to the unequal distribution of parental resources, potentially affecting their personality and behaviors and thus resulting in unequal career opportunities. In this paper, we use data comprising 205,247 offspring residents in Sweden to show that later-born offspring, though more likely to join the parent’s business, often have a higher tendency to leave compared to their early-born siblings. However, these later-borns can be particularly advantageous in competitive or challenging business situations. In an additional analysis, we show that earlier-born offspring are more inclined toward independent entrepreneurship. Lastly, paper 3 focuses on the negative aspects pertaining to corporate entrepreneurship. Drawing on agency theory, paper 3 shows that institutional investors (e.g., investment banks, insurance companies, etc.), while they are usually viewed positively because of their known sophisticated investment strategies and long-term horizons, induce negative effects and have a potential dark side on corporate entrepreneurs. Specifically, I argue that the extant literature views institutional investors as a homogenous group in terms of their innovation preferences. This oversimplified view overlooks the possible variations within these institutional investors. Following an empirics-first (EF) approach, I segment institutional investors based on their innovation preferences, using portfolio data and historical trading information. This analysis identifies three distinct segments: innovation-friendly, innovation-unfriendly, and innovation-investment-oriented. Using a sample of 6,438 U.S. publicly traded firms, I find that firms predominantly owned by innovation-unfriendly institutional investors experience a decrease in innovation productivity and overall firm value compared to those dominated by innovation-friendly investors. Moreover, I show that firms can strategically position themselves to attract innovation-friendly institutional investors in order to mitigate the negative effects enacted by innovation-unfriendly investors.This dissertation offers several contributions to the field of entrepreneurship. First, it contributes to the potential (social) costs of entrepreneurship by investigating some negative aspects pertaining to independent, family, and corporate entrepreneurship. Second, it adds to the ongoing discussion on how to mitigate these negative aspects. Third, this dissertation contributes to the theory of entrepreneurial allocation by revealing that beyond traditional institutional actors like governments, there are other influential forces, suh as the entrepreneur, entrepreneurial firm, and institutional investors, that can direct entrepreneurial activities towards productive, unproductive, or destructive paths. This dissertation provides implications for policymaking relevant to four specific Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 3 (promoting well-being), SDG 8 (fostering a decent work environment), SDG 10 (addressing inequalities), and SDG 9 (enhancing innovation). It also has implications for practitioners such as entrepreneurs and their followers (i.e., employees).
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| 40. |
- Ghazawneh, Ahmad
(författare)
-
Towards a Boundary Resources Theory of Software Platforms
- 2012
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The last few years have witnessed a significant increase in the frequency and magnitude of involving third-party application developers in software platforms. While this involvement offers great opportunities in building and sustaining platform innovation, it also exposes platform owners to significant challenges. Typically, platform owners facilitate the involvement of third-party developers by providing resources, referred to in this thesis as boundary resources, that give access to the platform, shift design capability, and facilitate the use of the platform’s core technologies. At the same time, these resources have the potential to be used to maintain platform control. This involves seemingly conflicting goals that creates a challenge for platform owners in finding the right balance.The main objective of this thesis is to investigate and understand the role of boundary resources in platform owners’ efforts to stimulate third-party development. To this end, this thesis proposes a theoretical model of boundary resources. This model centres on various drivers behind boundary resources design and use, and how these drivers interact in third-party development. The thesis also presents a comprehensive view of governance and strategizing practices used by platform owners through boundary resources. This thesis comprises a cover and a collection of five published research papers. The thesis applies a qualitative research method and employs multiple case studies. Boundary resources, innovation networks and platform governance perspectives have been synthesized to build a theoretical basis to analyze the empirical findings.This thesis complements and extends the literature on software platforms, and the insights derived from the thesis enhance previous research on third-party development. In addition, it provides a focused theoretical account of the interfaces between platform owners and third-party developers that contributes to the body of knowledge developed around using tools for innovation.
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| 41. |
- Gråsjö, Urban, 1962-
(författare)
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Spatial Spillovers of Knowledge Production : An Accessibility Approach
- 2006
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The main focus of the thesis is on issues concerning production of knowledge. It is a common observation that knowledge activities have a tendency to agglomerate as well as to spill over in space. In order to incorporate geographical proximity, the thesis applies an accessibility approach in which actual travel time distances between locations are used to discount spatial knowledge spillovers. The thesis consists of three individual essays and a joint introduction. The first essay explores to what extent accessibility to R&D conducted at universities and companies can explain the number of patent applications in Swedish municipalities. The second essay analyses the relationship between knowledge accessibility and regional export performance. The knowledge resources used are R&D efforts and university educated labour. Since the distributions of the dependent variables are skewed with a few influential outliers, the estimations are conducted with quantile regressions. The empirical findings indicate that accessibility to university R&D has minor effects on patent production and export performance in Sweden. However, the other used inputs, i.e. accessibility to company R&D and accessibility to university educated labour, are of greater importance. The results also show that knowledge flows transcend municipal borders but that they tend to be bounded within functional regions. The third essay investigates how the inclusion of accessibility variables, i.e. spatially lagged explanatory variables, affects the extent of spatial autocorrelation. The basic proposition is that the inclusion of inputs external to the spatial observation as separate variables reveals spatial dependencies via the parameter estimates. This is confirmed by Monte Carlo simulations. The Monte Carlo Simulations also indicate that problems with spatial autocorrelation and biased parameter estimates are reduced.
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| 42. |
- Gustafsson, Anders, 1985-
(författare)
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Industrial policy : Political considerations, payoffs, and peculiar incentives
- 2018
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four independent papers. They deal with some aspects of industrial policy, namely public supports to firms that are intended to support innovation and growth at the firm level, using Swedish data. Two papers study the efficiency of current Swedish policies by estimating the effects of subsidies and public loans to firms, respectively.The results on subsidized firms suggests that there are some positive effects on profits and productivity, but these diminish and disappear over time. The results of public loans are more positive with long lasting effects on productivity and sales but only for smaller firms. Public loans do not lead to an increase in the number of employees in the firms that receive them.The third paper studies the selection of firms for subsidies and the incentives firms have to seek them. By modeling the decision to seek subsidies as a trade off between producing in the market and seeking grants, the results suggest that firms with low market productivity might self-select into seeking grants. The empirical results are in line with the theoretical predictions.The final paper studies the incentives that politicians have to implement programs and policies that they know will be inefficient. Since a lack of political action can make the politicians look incompetent, incumbentens have incentives to implement policies even though they know that these will be ineffective, to signal competence towards the voters.
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| 43. |
- Gustafsson, Veronica
(författare)
-
Entrepreneurial decision-making : Individuals, tasks and cognitions
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of the present study is to gain a deeper understanding of decision-making of individuals involved in the entrepreneurial process. It is achieved by comparing entrepreneurs with different level of expertise in contexts that are more or less entrepreneurship-inducing. The issues of learning and expertise – investigation of what entrepreneurial knowledge is and how it is applied – are also addressed.This is an attempt of a multidisciplinary study based on entrepreneurship theory and empirical research as well as cognitive psychology. The cognitive perspective provides a link between the entrepreneur and the new venture creation through focusing not on the personality traits, but on an individual’s cognitive behaviour.The study’s contributions to the field of entrepreneurship are as follows: Expert entrepreneurs do recognise the cognitive nature of the decision task and are able, to a high extent, to match their decision-making techniques with the nature of the task. It means that the entrepreneurial decision-making is not an inborn aptitude but a skill, which is expressed through the adaptable behaviour of experts. Novice entrepreneurs, however, do not possess this ability, even though they might acquire it in the course of their business lives.Thus, one of the most important implications of the study is the idea that adequate decision behaviour in entrepreneurial context can be taught and learned. To provide optimal methods of learning is a challenge faced by entrepreneurship education.
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| 44. |
- Haag, Kajsa
(författare)
-
Rethinking family business succession : from a problem to solve to an ongoing practice
- 2012
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- As the title denotes, I suggest we think differently about family business succession. I propose to rethink succession from a problem to a practice. This means that succession is not a problem to solve but something people do in family business; it is ongoing, it is integrated and it is ordinary. It poses an alternative to the common view of succession as something problematic, separate and extraordinary to handle in order to carry on with the business. To view succession as a practice opens up new understanding of succession as a continuing flow of activities embedded in the everyday life of business families instead of a problem to overcome through succession planning. This notion is philosophically inspired by sociology of practice, theoretically based in a practice perspective of strategy, and empirically explored in a case of succession at Karl Andersson & Söner. Three conceptions are developed that aid the analysis of succession, framing it as originating from socialization, included in everyday routines and progressing without design. The study shows how succession evolves as family members are socialized, engaged and trained through the durée of daily life. Beyond that, it shows how succession is not just about handing the business over from one generation to the next. It is also about working together in the moment, developing the business while preserving its essence. Engaging in the family business to be part of developing it is fundamentally different from joining because transfer of leadership and/or ownership is needed. It questions the idea of succession as a purpose in itself and suggests a shift from “taking over” to “being part”.
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| 45. |
- Habimana, Olivier
(författare)
-
Asymmetry and multiscale dynamics in macroeconomic time series analysis
- 2018
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of three independent articles preceded by an introductory chapter. The first two articles focus on exchange rate dynamics in emerging market and developing economies, taking into account nonlinearities and asymmetries which are relevant for these countries and are potentially due to (i) transaction costs and other market frictions, and (ii) official intervention in the foreign exchange market. The third article is devoted to the analysis of the effects of monetary policy at different time horizons.The first article evaluates the purchasing power parity (PPP) theory in a panel of Sub-Saharan African countries. Unit root tests that are based on exponential smooth transition autoregressive (ESTAR) models are applied to account for nonlinearities and asymmetries in real exchange rate adjustment towards its equilibrium (mean) value. The results indicate empirical support for the PPP theory.The second article examines the relationship between current account adjustment and exchange rate flexibility in a panel of emerging market and developing economies. The purpose of this article is to (i) obtain a measure of exchange rate flexibility that considers autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity and possible asymmetric responses of the exchange rate to shocks, and (ii) apply suitable dynamic panel data estimators to investigate this relationship. The results indicate that more flexible exchange rates are associated with faster current account adjustment.By means of wavelets the third article investigates the liquidity effect and the long-run neutrality of money at detailed timescales using time series data for Sweden and the US. The results indicate a significant liquidity effect at horizons of one to four years, but there is no evidence of monetary neutrality.
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| 46. |
- Hall, Annika
(författare)
-
Strategising in the Context of Genuine Relations : An Interpretative Study of Strategic Renewal Through Family Interactions
- 2003
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is concerned with strategising in the context of genuine relations. Every- day family interactions, and their related strategic outcomes for the family business are in focus. Through an interpretative, in-depth study of three second- generation family businesses the thesis explores strategising based on the paradox of identity, i. e. family members’ simultaneous needs for separation and belonging, inherent in the family system. The interplay of these needs ascribes two extended meanings to the businesses, business as a means of individuation, and business as an extension of the family and its core values. These meanings render the family businesses a dynamics with mutually reinforcing implications for the individual and the organisation, conceptualised as concern-based individuation, and focused strategic renewal. These concepts give an understanding of strategising as originating in family interactions. To sustain focused strategic renewal over time, the family business is required to meet the inherent challenges of role transition, i. e. the exit and entry of roles. For family members, the enactment of top management roles in the family business seems to be an important means of fulfilment of the needs of separation and belonging. Unless this is recognized and taken into consideration, role transition is likely to be more difficult, and even shunned. As a consequence, strategic renewal might be impeded. The thesis emphasises the inherent social character of role transition processes, and puts forward role clarification as a central means of facilitating the exit and entry of roles. Understanding the interactive dimension of strategising in the context of genuine relations requires an in- depth understanding of the interplay between the individual, the group, i. e. the family, and the organisation.
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| 47. |
- Hang, Min
(författare)
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Media Business Venturing : A Study on the Choice of Organizational Mode
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In a dynamic environment characterized by constant technological advancement, new business opportunities appear in a variety of forms in the media industries. Adaptation to the changing environment and proactive transformation are crucial to media business success. Media firms need to develop strategic tools that enable new business creation and facilitate capturing opportunities arising from the emerging fields. These new business creation activities are different from the incremental business developments that are usually conducted inside the existing product-market frameworks; they are radical changes gearing towards developing new product-market frameworks. The overall activities of building new business in an established organization are referred to as corporate venturing.Though corporate venturing has received increasing attention in recent years, much less research has been made on the aspects of venturing organizational modes. Nevertheless, in the media industries, while venturing for the emerging opportunities, many firms are confronted with organizational challenges such as: should the new media business be integrated into the firm’s existing operation or should it be independently operated, standing on its own legs, in order to become a viable business?In seeking answers for such questions, both the Industrial Organizational Theories (IO) and Resource-based View (RBV) can provide tools for analysis. The IO—the traditional industrial economics theories—seek to give explanation from an economics perspective. They tend to explain new business venturing as economic activities that aim to minimize costs. The RBV—a more recent internal resource/competence-based theory—seeks to give explanation to the new business venturing from the resource perspective, by focusing on the resource/competence development of the new business.Both the IO and RBV give valuable implications to the choice of venturing organizational mode for new business creation. However, in some circumstances, explanations derived from these two theories may conflict with each other rather than harmonizing. How to understand the different interpretations given by the two theories and what is the relationship between the traditional economics theories and the more recent resource-based theories in the specific context of new media business venturing are the central issues in this dissertation.For such issues, this researcher holds that both the IO and RBV can be used to explain the choice of organizational mode for venturing as each provides insights into different perspectives; thus, an integration of the IO and RBV is needed in an effort to understand the complex phenomena of business venturing. However, depending on whether the venturing incentives are primarily cost/profit-driven or resource/competence development-oriented, the IO and RBV may have different predicting powers. Therefore, a reconciliation of the two theories is required where conflicts occur.Propositions were developed from these contentions, and a case study research strategy was applied. Eight new media venturing cases were investigated within six media companies. Findings from the empirical study indicated that certain ‘economics & resource conditions’associated with the venturing initiatives influenced the choice of new media venturing organizational mode, and the dynamics of organizational mode were also affected by changes in venturing incentives. In addition, the empirical studies found out that several macroenvironmental, media industrial, market and firm specific factors had particular impacts on the new media venturing, which constitute industry-specific characteristics of the media corporate venturing.There are also implications for media management research derived from this study. The nature of media management is multidisciplinary, so a multiplicity of theories may better serve the needs of future media management inquiries. To develop integrated and reconciled frameworks incorporating theories from different fields, in-depth reviews of theories and understandings of the appropriate circumstances that may apply these theories are required.
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| 48. |
- Hartmann, Berit
(författare)
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Bridging the GAAP? : IFRS in accounting practice
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis investigates how International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) come to act within an organizational context. In particular, the thesis explores how the requirements for goodwill accounting and leasing influence organizational calculative practices, transforming and shaping operations management. Drawing on actor-network theory, this study moves away from a priori distinctions, following the construction and mobilization of accounting numbers across institutionalized boundaries within and around the organization.The empirical investigation took place in a large, worldwide active media group that is listed on a European stock exchange. The group is a particular interesting setting because of its diverse business structure and its German code-law accounting roots. Business combinations are a major growth factor within the industry and a high degree of decentralization in the organization placed responsibility for investment decisions at low hierarchical levels. Goodwill accounting and impairment testing were therefore highly significant calculative practices in the group.The study finds that the constitutive role of the financial reporting standards in the organization both solves tensions and dilemmas around the number and creates new ones when crucial interests are lost in translation. These tensions and dilemmas arise between the aim of standardization and closure for the construction of a legitimate value of the future, and the aim to mobilize numbers in order to motivate and create value for a future.Originally intended for the financial representation of organizational substance and performance, the standards become associated with operations management activities, helping to create the faithful records that sum up the organization. This interrelation helps to close concern around the representation of the future in a ‘fair’ value by distributing the calculative practices over a wide network of actors spanning inside and outside the organization. However, the relationship also forces a connection between calculations and ambitions that otherwise would have preferred to stay separate.This thesis offers a new perspective on IFRS implementation by emphasizing organizational activities. Through a focus on integration and the link between financial and management accounting, the ‘implementation problems’ highlighted in previous literature gain a refined theorization. When taking organizational practice seriously, integration becomes a process that may find temporal stability but will never be final. In the process, conflicts might be solved but new dilemmas will arise. In turn, concepts like decision usefulness, comparability and earnings management cannot exist in a stable form but are rather constructed in networks that disregard commonly assumed boundaries inside and around the organization.
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| 49. |
- Hartmann, Benjamin
(författare)
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Consumption and Practice : Unfolding Consumptive Moments and the Entanglement with Productive Aspects
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis investigates consumption through a practice-theoretical perspective. Practices are routinized sets of human activity involving doings, meanings, and objects. Previous work has suggested conceiving of consumption as moments in practices. Yet, empirical and conceptual blind spots exist when it comes to understanding how consumption operates as practice moments. This thesis sets out to develop this conception of consumption by examining how consumption unfolds as practice moments.The study of consumption in relation to practices, however, is complicated by long-standing debates in marketing and business literature that impart the notion of consumption being entangled with production in various ways. These debates infuse the idea that in order to understand consumption one must also pay attention to its links with productive aspects.By treating practices as the empirical and theoretical sites for consumption and its entanglement with productive aspects, this thesis offers an alternative way of researching and theorizing consumption in relation to practice, and in relation to productive aspects. It presents four papers that draw on qualitative and quantitative empirical data collected in the contexts of online community practices, discursive re-enchantment practices, electric guitar playing, and gardening.The collective findings and analysis of the four papers reveal how consumption unfolds as practice moments in terms of ingredient, momentum, transformation, and consequence. Unfolding consumption in this way offers conceptual specification of its operation in relation to practices. Moreover, it allows theorization of how consumptive moments are linked to productive aspects in two ways: first, by specifying how consumptive moments are inherently productive; and second, by giving insight into the dyadic relation between consumptive and productive practice moments.Rather than collapsing consumption and production into one and the same or treating them as inherent in roles of consumers, producers, and prosumers, as advocated by previous works, this thesis suggests that consumption and production are useful analytical categories if framed as moments inherent in the practices that comprise our marketplaces and cultures. Several relevant implications emerge from this understanding regarding the concept of prosumption, the development of practice theory, understanding the operation of consumption in consumer culture, theorizing value creation, and the shaping of a practice-oriented marketing approach.
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| 50. |
- Hashim, Sumaya
(författare)
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Women Entrepreneurship : Masculinity, Legitimacy and Well-being
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overarching research purpose of this dissertation is to understand how women entrepreneurs establish and grow their businesses in a patriarchal society. This research question is addressed through the compilation of four research papers. The first research paper is a literature review that synthesizes current literature on women entrepreneurs in the Gulf States and identifies possible research avenues.The remaining three papers are empirical studies that use Bahrain, one of the Gulf States, as an empirical setting. The first empirical study challenges the assumption of entrepreneurship as a gendered phenomenon and sets out to understand entrepreneurship as a new phenomenon in a context that is male dominated. It draws on masculinity theory to understand the interplay between women entrepreneurs and the different forms of masculinity enacted by men. The second empirical study challenges the persistent traditional representation of the male entrepreneur as the founder and leader of a family business by using legitimacy-as-perception as a theoretical lens to investigate how female-led family ventures gain legitimacy from family and non-family members. The third empirical study challenges the stereotypical view of women entrepreneurs in developing countries by drawing on eudaimonic well-being literature to understand why and how some women start or grow a business after initiating a divorce, while others do not.The dissertation makes several contributions to (women) entrepreneurship and to the different theories that it adopts in various ways. First, the dissertation extends women entrepreneurship literature by showing how women entrepreneurs influence their social context to attain royal awards, deal with different forms of masculinity enacted by men, and rebuild their eudaimonic well-being through their entrepreneurial activities. Second, the dissertation introduces the notion of “Asabiyyah” to explain the unique social makeup that informs the behavior of women entrepreneurs. Third, the dissertation contributes to the theoretical lenses that it adopts, for instance to the legitimacy-as-perception lens by showing the reciprocal nature of legitimacy. It broadens the masculinity theory by bringing attention to “own-business” as an institution where the private and the public spheres overlap and organize gender relations. This dissertation also contributes to the growing literature on eudaimonic well-being by offering an understanding of the interplay between entrepreneurship, engagement in meaningful activities, and eudaimonic well-being, an area that has largely remained a black box. Last but not least the dissertation offers several practical implications to further improve and foster entrepreneurship for women in Bahrain.
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