Modern organizations that follow Agile development principles and practice DevOps aim at maximizing software release frequency while minimizing the number of defects associated with them. To achieve this goal, the companies perform the organizational transformation that is associated with significant costs and time investments. The key to success is building high-performing development teams. The existing literature does not extensively cover development performance optimization in DevOps organizations that are in the process of transformation. It provides limited information for the organizations willing to speed up the process and remove the paint points. As the result, organizations suffer economic losses from adjusting the development practices the transformation process, taking the new technology to the customers takes longer time comparing to the high performing organizations, which can be seen as losses for the modern highly digitalized economy.

This study explores whether the team composition, team culture and other organizational factors influence performance of development teams by surveying high-performant organizations that completed the transformation, and fitting a statistical model the collected data. The model validates assumptions and serves as a useful tool for low-performing organizations to adjust their team composition and culture accordingly. The novel metrics for assessing the development team performance in the DevOps context is proposed.

The research concludes that teams that are mainly composed of developers and have access to shared expertise of principal DevOps and Security engineers placed outside of the team, perform the best. Autonomy of developers within the team is another significant factor for achieving the optimal performance. This confirms findings about individual autonomy of the classic studies and places them into the modern DevOps context. The study shows that there exists no direct relationship between the number of quality engineers and quality which may indicate a turn in the classic QA theory that assumes QA engineers as integral player in organizational quality. Finally, it estimates an optimal rate of developers and non-developers in a team for the highest performance and demonstrates that high performance can be achieved by organizations regardless of sizes, product types and modern development methodologies.

This thesis aims to provide clarity on which factors within an organization positively affect its performance in terms of innovation.  Innovation is seen as a critical component of a company’s strategy in achieving market differentiation and profitability, yet for many, it remains a frustrating pursuit.  This study aims to empirically model the relationship between a firm’s investment in innovation and the effect of this investment on its performance.  The method used is Structural Equation Modeling with data gathered from our online survey of 128 respondents from firms within the EU.  This work addresses two research questions, the first being to confirm that a firm’s innovation performance is influenced by both a commitment to human factors focusing on softer values in combination with strong R&D and technical capability.  Secondly, whether the presence of innovation inhibitors influences this relationship.  The findings showed that a firm’s innovation performance is improved when it prioritizes creating an environment and culture that nurtures innovation only when activated through a strong commitment to technical and R&D excellence, but not without this technical capacity.  Secondly, the introduction of innovation inhibitors reconfirmed the first finding, and the relationship between both the human factors within a company and its technical capability, as well as the relationship between this technical capability and its performance was stronger in their presence.

Business organisations, given their size, influence, and global impact on finite planetary resources, are the key economic drivers contributing to unsustainable growth. Sustainability Maturity Models (SMMs) were developed as a tool to assist organisations to recognise and incorporate practices identified as pivotal to achieving business transformation. The Strategic Sustainable Development (SSD) approach was used to develop an analytical tool to assess the robustness of two of the aspects of SMMs, specifically structure and process. Interviews with model designers were also conducted. The research team identified key strengths limitations of SMMs.  

The analysis revealed that SMMs have strength in starting the conversation with leadership and charting the way ahead for organizations by clearly defining the maturity level success criteria.

These findings confirm the significant potential of SMMs infused by supporting process tools, to be a strong foundation for organisations on their sustainability journeys, aiding overall transformation of businesses. This in turn has the potential to shift the role of businesses in the larger socio-ecological system from being contributors to the sustainability challenge, to becoming active providers of solutions.

While there has been considerable research regarding the role of Mobility Hubs in cities and transport networks, significant investment is required to develop these facilities. It is the correlation between investment, new users’ attraction and revenue generation that is the key for a sustainable development of Mobility Hubs and this investment must, therefore, be correctly assessed and targeted. This study aims to develop a methodology to determine the viability of investing in Mobility Hub features, weighing the investment on different Hub features and services against expected potential benefits and revenue generation, addressing the question: Can investment in Mobility Hub features be justified and, if so, which features maximize its expected positive impact?

Based on a review of literature and definition of possible Hub features as variables, secondary research data was compiled to enable the analysis of expected impacts of each variable/feature in terms of new user’s attraction and revenue generation, which was then used to develop individual Net Present Value analysis of each feature. The result of these analysis demonstrates and concludes that different Hub features have the potential to generate substantially different investment outcomes, and that each feature should be analyzed individually prior to investment decision. It was also concluded by this research that the proposed assessment methodology can be used for future research on other listed Hub features, albeit with the constraint that primary data will be required when secondary research data is not available.

The literature on innovation systems focuses on the supply side (the creation of technology) rather than on how innovations are converted into economic activity and growth via the market (the demand side, and the interface between supply and demand). One implication of this is that there is a dearth of research on the links between innovation systems and economic growth. The purpose of this paper is to begin to fill this gap in the literature. We articulate the function of entrepreneurial experimentation as an essential mechanism for translating new knowledge into economic activity and growth created in innovation systems. We argue that entrepreneurial experimentation comprises both “technical” and “market” experimentation. Spinoffs and acquisitions are proposed as micro-mechanisms that give rise to system-wide entrepreneurial experimentation. Our framework suggests that entrepreneurial experimentation is central in driving both the supply- and the demand-side dynamics of innovation systems, hence linking both innovation systems and entrepreneurship to economic growth. © 2018 The Author(s)

The 2019 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research has been awarded to Professor Boyan Jovanovic at New York University in the USA. Boyan Jovanovic has developed pioneering research that advances our understanding of the competitive dynamics between incumbent firms and new entrants, entrepreneurial learning and selection processes, and the importance of entrepreneurship for the economy. Key perspectives in his research are that the entrepreneur makes employment choices based on the comparative advantage of his or her skills and that entrepreneurial firms are vehicles of technological change and knowledge diffusion that influence industry dynamics and, in turn, economic growth. © 2019, The Author(s).

Social action and communication constitute the building blocks in the organizational structure and the agents of change, as well as shape the relationships among working parties, that can become inconsistent, due to the same desire of two or more people for a similar resource which is in scarcity, introducing the issue of human relations in an organizational context and especially the issue of conflict prevention. In this study we investigate conflict in a group based on different parameters by providing some insights on what is the impact between these different factors when interrelated. The research is carried out by adopting the survey path and performing multivariate statistical analysis techniques where we simultaneously examine the relationship between latent factors in an organizational conflict environment.

Although they lead to several potential sustainability benefits, product-service systems are not intrinsically sustainable. Therefore, this thesis investigates the factors designers should consider in order to ensure sustainable results. A systematic literature review on product-service system and sustainability is combined with three interviews with product-service system providers. The results are analysed through the application of the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development. The results of the systematic literature review show that there is no unified definition of sustainable product-service system and multiple approaches to address sustainability in product-service system design. By adopting the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development, a definition of sustainable product-service system and a list of design criteria are developed. This thesis suggests which overarching aspects product-service system designers should consider to integrate a strategic sustainability perspective. The outcome of this thesis supports designers in understanding what a sustainable product-service system could be and what elements it should embed. By combining the definition and the list of criteria, designers can apply a systematic and strategic approach to integrate sustainability in product-service system offerings.

Sustainability is an increasing subject of interest amongst customers, society and corporate leaders. As firms are adapting towards a more sustainable business, opportunities towards a leading position where both long-term corporate social responsibility and financial performance is of interest. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate firm’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) rating and its effect on their financial performance. The study is conducted on firms located in the European region. A related purpose is to investigate individual sectors to understand whether this relationship is different depending on the sector characteristics in which the firms operate in. This thesis uses secondary data for several firms over a time-period ranging from 2008-2017. In order to investigate several entities over this time-period, the data was constructed as panel data. To investigate the objective, panel regressions was performed. The compounded dataset, including firms from all sectors, shows that the Environmental rating has statistical significance on financial performance. The individual sectors that shows significance with any of the ESG-rating, indicates an often-negative relationship between ESG and financial performance. This thesis contributes as an ongoing analysis in the field of ESG and financial performance. The understanding from this and future studies assist customers, investors and corporate leaders when choosing to adapt towards more socially responsible activities. Further research in the European region is of interest, continuing investigating positive or negative aspects of ESG and a firm’s financial performance. 

Global society is threatened by many social and ecological challenges, together they form a complex environment defined in this thesis as the sustainability challenge. Organizations have a major impact on this challenge, with business strategy being the leverage point. This thesis identifies the gaps and recommendations to address those gaps to strategically move organizations towards reaching a sustainable society. The <IR> Framework by the IIRC is a reporting structure and method that includes sustainability elements within a business orientated context. Through 20 interviews, report comparison and system analysis we have generated the results. These highlight gaps with regards to planetary limits and lack of directing organizations towards sustainability. Based on the findings we conclude that <IR>can be a steppingstone by introducing organizations to sustainability elements within business language. However, <IR> cannot be used as a standalone tool to reach a sustainable society. <IR> does assist and succeed in making organizations more strategic, which prepares them to move to sustainability. Overall, organizations acquire a broader perception and understanding regarding non-financials. Recommendations include integrating systems thinking, formulating ‘success’ and back casting from it to strategically prioritize actions; also referring to other tools and concepts that can assist in niche areas within <IR>.

This thesis examines the performance of IPO firms in the Swedish markets during their first three years of trading to investigate what effects different factors have on the short- and long-term performance. The level of underpricing on Swedish IPOs are also investigated to detect any abnormalities from previous studies on larger markets in the US and Europe. A total of 175 IPO firms included in the sample in the period between 2000 and 2015. The method used to calculate the aftermarket performance is the buy-and-hold abnormal returns method in an event-time portfolio approach. These returns are used as a dependent variable in a multivariable linear regression analysis. The main findings from this study are that IPO firms in the Swedish markets underperform the OMX market index one month and three years after the offering. Conversely, IPO firms in the Swedish markets overperform after 18 months compared to the OMX market index. The results show that Swedish IPOs are on average underpriced and that underpricing has a significant effect on short-term performance. Firm age, offer size and the technology industry also have a significant effect on the first month’s performance of IPO firms; however, there is little support for these factors to affect the longterm performance.