1. technology and computing
2. technological innovation

en uppsatstävling om innovation
Sammanfattning av
de vinnande bidragen
FÖRORD
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Uppsatstävlingen Nytt&Nyttigt arrangeras av ESBRI (Institutet för entreprenörskaps- och
småföretagsforskning) och VINNOVA. Förmågan att tänka nytt, och att omvandla idéerna till något
nyttigt för samhället, är central för en hållbar tillväxt. Många menar att innovationer kan bidra till att
lösa globala samhällsutmaningar som klimatförändringar, åldrande befolkning, pandemier och
terrorism. I takt med att förväntningarna på innovationer ökar, växer också samhällets och
företagens behov av att förstå vad innovation är.
Syftet med Nytt&Nyttigt är att uppmuntra studenter vid svenska universitet och högskolor att skriva
uppsatser om innovation, kommersialisering och nyttiggörande. I denna skrift presenteras en
sammanfattning av de vinnande bidragen för läsåret 2014/2015. Respektive uppsatsförfattare svarar
själv för sammanfattningen.
Juryn har bestått av följande personer:
• Martin Andersson, professor Lunds universitet
• Magnus Aronsson, vd ESBRI
• Charlotte Brogren, generaldirektör VINNOVA
• Sofia Börjesson, professor Chalmers
• Chris Heister, landshövding Stockholms län
• Jeaneth Johansson, biträdande professor Luleå tekniska universitet
• Göran Marklund, ställföreträdande generaldirektör VINNOVA
• Gunilla Nordlöf, generaldirektör Tillväxtverket
• Sverker Sörlin, professor KTH
• Joakim Wincent, professor Luleå tekniska universitet
• Susanne Ås Sivborg, generaldirektör PRV
Juryn har i sin bedömning utgått från följande kriterier:
• originalitet och nytänkande
• problematisering – formulering av problemet och dess relevans
• metod – förhållandet problem-teori-empiri-analys
• analysförmåga – struktur och koppling mellan data/resultat/förslag
• praktisk relevans/angeläget ämne
• språkbruk och framställningsförmåga i övrigt
Tävlingsåret 2014/2015 deltog 69 uppsatser i Nytt&Nyttigt. Huvuddelen av landets universitet och
högskolor var representerade med deltagande studenter. Författarna till de tre bästa uppsatserna
erhåller ett resestipendium à 30 000 samt två stipendier à 20 000 kronor.
Stockholm, november 2015
Helene Thorgrimsson
Projektledare ESBRI
[email protected]
JURYNS BESLUT
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1:a pris
Leadership in Open Innovation: An exploratory study on the nature of R&D projects
and predominant leadership characteristics in industry-academia collaborations
Författare: Jana Wenzlaff & Aakriti Singh
Kontakt: [email protected], [email protected]
Handledare: Sujith Nair
Lärosäte: Handelshögskolan vid Umeå universitet
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2:a pris
Proposing a Framework of Preconditions for Idea Adoption:
A Case Study Investigating Adoption of Ideas within the Front End of Innovation
Författare: Johannes Schygge & Martin Falk Danauskis
Kontakt: [email protected], [email protected]
Handledare: Anne Elerud-Tryde
Lärosäte: Chalmers tekniska högskola, Industriell ekonomi
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2:a pris
Exploring the Design and Use of Innovation Management Systems in Swedish
Organisations
Författare: Amanda Palmqvist & Patrik Unevik
Kontakt: [email protected], [email protected]
Handledare: Martin Wallin
Lärosäte: Chalmers tekniska högskola, Teknikens ekonomi och organisation
Hedersomnämnanden
Förutom de tre pristagarna har juryn valt att tilldela ytterligare fem uppsatser ett
hedersomnämnande.
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A customer perspective towards business model innovation in a global scale:
An examination of Ericsson’s response to Cloud driven industry transformation
Författare: Mohammadtaghi Ramezanzadeh
Kontakt: [email protected]
Handledare: Solmaz Filiz Karabag
Lärosäte: Linköpings universitet, Institutionen för ekonomisk och industriell utveckling
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Opening the Black Box of Business Model Innovation Process in Social Enterprises:
The Case of Swedish GodEl
Författare: Sandra Olofsson
Kontakt: [email protected]
Handledare: Maya Hoveskog
Lärosäte: Högskolan i Halmstad, Management of Innovation and Business Development
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The transition between product development processes and its effects on crossfunctional collaboration:
A case study in the software development industry
Författare: Martin Burtscher & Ronan Collins
Kontakt: [email protected], [email protected]
Handledare: Joakim Winborg
Lärosäte: Lunds universitet, Ekonomihögskolan
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Platsens immateriella värden och dess betydelse för Platsinnovation i Swedish Lapland
Författare: Alexandra Flinck
Kontakt: [email protected]
Handledare: Hans Gelter
Lärosäte: Luleå tekniska universitet, Upplevelseproduktion vid institutet för konst, kommunikation
och lärande
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Microfoundations of radical idea and concept development
Författare: Emmy Dahlskog & Charlotte Krumlinde
Kontakt: [email protected], [email protected]
Handledare: Johan Frishammar
Lärosäte: Luleå tekniska universitet, Strategiskt arbete och företagsutveckling
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JURYNS MOTIVERINGAR
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1:a pris
Leadership in Open Innovation: An exploratory study on the nature of R&D projects
and predominant leadership characteristics in industry-academia collaborations
Jana Wenzlaff & Aakriti Singh
Aakriti Singh och Jana Wenzlaff presenterar ett arbete med stort inslag av nytänkande om ett aktuellt
ämne. Uppsatsen är »nyttig«, med högsta relevans för länder som Sverige som investerar betydande
belopp i en öppen innovationsmodell. Studien lyfter fram många intressanta resultat och belyser ett
antal utmaningar som hittills inte diskuterats nämnvärt i litteraturen om öppen innovation. Bland
annat handlar det om vikten av ett klokt och lyhört ledarskap. Uppsatsens litteraturdel är relevant
och resultaten baseras på intervjuer från ett flertal länder, vilket borgar för hög generaliserbarhet.
Författarna resonerar runt frågorna på ett lättillgängligt sätt. Utöver att adressera ett angeläget ämne
är uppsatsen ytterst välskriven och välargumenterad. Aakriti Singh och Jana Wenzlaff är mycket
värdiga vinnare av Nytt&Nyttigt 2014–2015.
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2:a pris
Proposing a Framework of Preconditions for Idea Adoption:
A Case Study Investigating Adoption of Ideas within the Front End of Innovation
Johannes Schygge & Martin Falk Danauskis
Johannes Schygges och Martin Falk Danauskis uppsats handlar om idéimplementering, och
fokuserar på en svår men ytterst väsentlig fråga: Hur hanteras nya innovativa idéer i de tidiga faserna
av produktutveckling? De presenterar resultat som är centrala för hur företag formar sina
innovationsprocesser, till exempel hur man håller en god idé vid liv, och dödar en dålig. Bland annat
pekar de på hur viktigt samspelet är mellan olika faktorer för att en idé ska leva vidare. Kunskapen
om hur man hanterar den första delen av innovationsprocessen är relevant och tillämpbar i de flesta
etablerade organisationer, med processer som är byggda för att göra samma sak om och om igen.
Johannes Schygge och Martin Falk Danauskis har lagt fram en gedigen, välskriven uppsats med
intressant analys, som fyller ett viktigt kunskapsgap. Den delar andraplatsen i Nytt&Nyttigt 2014–
2015.
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2:a pris
Exploring the Design and Use of Innovation Management Systems in Swedish
Organisations
Amanda Palmqvist & Patrik Unevik
Amanda Palmqvist och Patrik Unevik kliver rakt in i ett angeläget område, och lyfter det på ett
relevant och tydligt sätt: Hur leds och organiseras innovationsarbete i stora etablerade företag, och
vilka komponenter är viktiga för att lyckas? De har en bred empirisk ansats med flera olika fallstudier
och en mycket god analys. Författarna presenterar tydliga slutsatser och lyfter fram
managementimplikationer för alla sina nyckelkomponenter. Det gör att den praktiska nyttan av
studien ökar. Uppsatsen pekar på betydelsen av att betrakta innovationsarbetet som ett system.
Amanda Palmqvists och Patrik Uneviks välskrivna uppsats delar andraplatsen i Nytt&Nyttigt 2014–
2015.
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Leadership in Open Innovation
An exploratory study on the nature of R&D projects and predominant leadership
characteristics in industry-academia collaborations
Author:
Aakriti Singh
Jana Wenzlaff
Supervisor:
Sujith Nair
Student
Umeå School of Business and Economics
Autumn semester 2014
Master thesis, one-year, 15 hp
Leadership in Open Innovation
An exploratory study on the nature of R&D projects and predominant leadership
characteristics in industry-academia collaborations
Authors: Aakriti Singh & Jana Wenzlaff
This study looks at Open Innovation in Research and Development projects and explores the
nature of collaboration and leadership characteristics. Thereby perspectives of both industrial
and academic partners are considered, focusing primarily on the project level of the
collaboration. It is based on the understanding that leadership plays a crucial role in bringing
the partners successfully together, based on the prior understanding that academia and industry
are potentially different in the nature, objectives and working dynamics of research and
development.
This thesis begins with examining the existing literature on the concept of Open Innovation,
including benefits and drawbacks of such projects. This leads to uncovering the managerial
challenges that such projects encounter which can be mitigated by effective leadership. For this
reason, relevant theories on leadership are explored, especially focusing on leadership in R&D
contexts, as these kind of projects have special requirements from leaders that differ from
traditional projects.
This research is qualitative in nature and takes an abductive approach to theory. 18 semistructured interviews were conducted, consulting with heads of R&D departments from
industrial companies, professors in charge of research labs at universities and representatives
from intermediary organisations. The study is exploratory and cross-sectional in nature, as open
innovation collaborations in Sweden, the UK and the Netherlands were in the centre of
attention. The process of analysis implied the use of a template analysis, which provided the
researchers with enough flexibility to code, categorize, and interpret necessary findings.
The results show that the nature of Open Innovation collaborations differs from case to case,
from mere contractual relationships to collaborative partnerships with a high level of
interaction on a daily basis. The key motive for both partners is finance-based, as the
universities gain access to funding and the company can save on research expenses.
Additionally, companies benefit from access to academic expertise and from potential
governmental funding.
Further, there is not a single leader in an industry-university collaboration, rather each entity
has a leader of their own and collaborative working is fostered by them. It is deduced that no
single leadership theory fits best in the operational level of R&D open innovation functioning,
rather it is a mixture of a few popular theories which were predominant in collaborative
relationships. The characteristics of leaders in open innovation were deduced and autonomy,
communication and joint problem-solving have a prominent role in furthering the R&D
collaborative relationship. As a result, a connection between leadership and Open Innovation
collaborations was explored.
Proposing a Framework of Preconditions for
Idea Adoption
A Case Study Investigating Adoption of Ideas within the
Front End of Innovation
MARTIN FALK DANAUSKIS
JOHANNES SCHYGGE
Tutor, Chalmers: Anne Elerud-Tryde
Tutor, Swedish Match: Thord Hassler
Department of Technology Management and Economics
Division of Innovation Engineering and Management
CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
Göteborg, Sweden 2015
The process of innovation is considered a success factor for organizations (Reguia, 2014),
and the resulting innovations are a key resource for competitive advantage (Tidd et al., 2005)
as well as economic success (Hana, 2013). It is through creative ideas that innovations are
created (Hana, 2013), however it is only after these ideas have been adopted and
implemented that they have the potential to contribute to the organization’s growth and
effectiveness (Levitt, 2002). There is little literature in the area of adoption of ideas and there
is no concept that covers intra-organizational adoption of ideas in several steps as well as on
different levels of aggregation. In this study this activity is referred to as idea adoption. Idea
adoption was defined in order to bring clarity to what implications it may have and its role in
an organization’s New Product Development process. As the concept was established,
preconditions for idea adoption were investigated further.
Organizations have gradually turned their focus towards the earlier stages of the New Product
Development (NPD) process, which are also known as the Front End of Innovation (FEI)
(Koen et al., 2001). The new focus is because these stages have been recognized as an area
with much potential for improving the NPD process (Gassmann, 2014). This is consistent
with the case of Swedish Match. As the competition in the snus market has increased,
Swedish Match has recognized the importance of being innovative, which has also become
an outspoken ambition in their way of doing business. The result has been a stronger focus
and further structuring of their Ideation phase, where the ideas are born and handled at
Swedish Match. It was observed in the beginning of this research that the company had issues
related to how ideas are handled and communicated. This contributed to the hindering of
ideas being turned into innovations, which has had a negative effect on the NPD process.
Swedish Match has thus served as a case to investigate what preconditions there are for idea
adoption.
As there was a limited amount of literature in the research area regarding idea adoption
within organizations, a qualitative approach was used to generate new theory (Bryman &
Bell, 2011). This means that the study was exploratory in nature and primarily inductive, with
some abductive elements (Dubois & Gadde, 2002). The data has been collected through 38
interviews with employees as well as 11.5 hours of observations from attended meetings at
Swedish Match. The people interviewed were either participating in, or were affected by, the
NPD process as well as the Ideation phase at Swedish Match in one way or another.
In this study there were three main findings, namely how idea adoption is defined, that the
Front End of Innovation is depicted deceivingly simple and which the preconditions for idea
adoption are. The two first findings lay out the groundwork for the third finding regarding
what the preconditions for idea adoption are. The final result was a proposed framework for
preconditions of idea adoption consisting of twelve preconditions, which are arranged into six
groups: Structure, Communication, Incentives, Anchoring, Champion and Idea
Characteristics. The framework was tested on eight ideas that were followed throughout the
study to assess possible generalizations amongst similar ideas as well as to test the
framework’s internal validity. It was found that certain categories of ideas were affect by
some preconditions more often than others, for example ideas that are of an abstract nature
seem to be dependent on anchoring and championing to a greater extent than those of a
concrete and simple nature.
Exploring the Design and Use of
Innovation Management Systems in
Swedish Organisations
Master of Science Thesis in the Management and Economics of Innovation Programme
AMANDA PALMQVIST
PATRIK UNEVIK
Exploring the Design and Use of Innovation Management
Systems in Swedish Organisations
The last years have shown increasing investments made into innovation activities in Swedish
organisations. However, a survey among top executives in 665 Swedish organisations
showed that more than half of the respondents expressed that innovation work is not followed
up on, implying that the investments made are not being optimally utilized. (Larsson et al,
2015). This development has underscored the need for more systematic innovation
management practices, frequently referred to as Innovation Management Systems, as means
for organisations to improve their innovation capability (CEN Standard, 2013). However, the
design and use of Innovation Management Systems have thus far only been briefly examined
in literature. Hence, this study aims to identify key factors of Innovation Management
Systems as well as key management areas within each factor. The objective is to examine
good practices within Swedish organisations, to analyse the key management areas and
identify interactions between different factors.
This thesis is based on an extensive literature review, focused on factors displayed as vital to
organisational innovation capability. Nine factors compiling the Innovation Management
System were identified; Organisational Context Management, Innovation Strategy,
Innovation Culture, Innovation Performance Measurement and Management, Collaboration
and Communication, IP and Knowledge Management, Resource Management, Front-end
Innovation Process, and Back-end Innovation Process. The study uses qualitative methods
for collecting data. With an original population of 104 innovation managers, 12 prominent
Swedish organisations displaying particularly good practices in one or more factors of the
Innovation Management System were identified. The result from the 22 in-depth interviews
is presented as case studies describing the background to the initiative, the practice
implemented, and the results.
The main finding from the study is that interactions between the key factors have been
identified further supporting the need for a more holistic approach to innovation management
practices, an Innovation Management System. From exploring good practices within each
key factor, the by literature expressed management areas have been assessed from an
“importance to practice” perspective as well as new management areas detected. Hence, this
study has provided an indication to what management areas organisations needs to address in
the strive to increase the organisational innovation capability.
Keywords: Innovation Management Systems, Organisational Innovation Capability, and
Innovation Management
Amanda Palmqvist – [email protected]
Patrik Unevik – [email protected]
www.innovationsuppsats.se