Doctoral Theses / Doktorsavhandlingar Institutionen för ekonomi och samhälle

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Navigating Innovation Ecosystems - A Quantitative Inquiry into Openness, Environmental Innovations, and Economic Performance of Innovative Firms
(2025-06-11) Elzoumor, Hani
This Ph.D. dissertation utilizes an innovation ecosystem framework to examine the linkages among the various elements embedded in such an ecosystem. The main elements addressed are 1) openness for innovation, 2) environmental innovations, and 3) the economic performance of innovative firms. This dissertation also examines additional ecosystem elements, including elements external to the firm (e.g., pressures, institutional barriers, and resources) and elements internal to the firm (e.g., appropriability strategy and socialization mechanisms), as well as how these interact with and influence the three interconnected main elements. This dissertation adopts a synthesized definition of innovation ecosystems, which, at their core, consist of actors, activities, and artifacts. The dissertation views the firm as the focal actor and depicts the studied elements as artifacts and activities within the ecosystem. It extends and examines the relationship among these elements, both inside and beyond firm boundaries. The purpose is to gain a deeper understanding of the relationships between the focal firm and the artifacts and activities embedded in an innovation ecosystem. This dissertation’s empirical inquiry explores two contexts: young innovative firms across Europe and innovative firms in Sweden. To do this, it utilizes datasets from large-scale surveys obtained from two sources. The first source is the AEGIS survey, which includes 3476 firms in industries with varying levels of technology, ranging from manufacturing to business service sectors. The second source is the Swedish CIS survey, supplemented with firm registry data, which includes 8211 firms across various sectors of the Swedish economy. The dissertation advances the literature on innovation ecosystems by demonstrating how ecosystem-embedded artifacts can actively mitigate firm-level shortcomings and enhance a firm’s innovation and economic performance. It underscores that technological development pressures, competitive pressures, and institutional barriers – as ecosystem artifacts – yield significant benefits by positively influencing the openness of European young innovative firms. For Swedish innovative firms, environmental innovations are induced by the firm’s openness strategy, climate-related pressures, and the need to maintain competitiveness, with ecosystem artifacts such as public funding functioning as supportive structures. Furthermore, the appropriability strategy, as a firm-level activity, has been shown to positively influence both openness in European young innovative firms and environmental innovations in Swedish innovative firms. The appropriability strategy strengthens firm openness by mitigating the associated uncertainties arising from the pressures and institutional barriers in the surrounding ecosystem, and it may also substitute for firm openness activities in the firm’s efforts to introduce environmental innovations. Socialization mechanisms does not appear to strengthen the influence of environmental innovations on firm performance, which suggests its role may be contingent on the presence of complementary internal organizational capabilities. These results have valuable implications for managerial practices in navigating ecosystem complexities and uncertainties. They highlight how firms address pressures and institutional barriers and leverage ecosystem resources while utilizing appropriability strategies and socialization mechanisms. Additionally, policy advice, based on the results, is provided on stimulating collaboration among ecosystem actors to advance the broader societal sustainability goal of introducing various forms of environmental innovations. Future research can expand on this dissertation’s results through longitudinal analyses that investigate the nonlinearity of the identified associations in greater depth or through exploring other contexts and ecosystem elements to enhance the generalizability of these results. Finally, research on innovation ecosystems should further explore how ecosystem elements can be categorized as artifacts or activities because this categorization is relative to the actor that perceives them and thus may take on different meanings.
The relation between modeled and perceived accessibility
(2024-11-12) Vafeiadis, Evangelos
This thesis investigates the relationship between modeled and perceived accessibility across different activities and transport modes. Accessibility is important for people’s daily lives as it enables them to reach and carry out various activities. For this reason, researchers and planners have been trying to measure accessibility using mathematical models, mainly focusing on the location of activities and how these locations can be reached using the transport network. However, during the last decade, researchers have started investigating how people perceive their accessibility, giving much more emphasis on individual constraints and preferences. This raises the question of how these two concepts are related. This is important because a lack of association would be problematic for the use of modeled accessibility in planning. This thesis tackles this question by using time geography to understand the similarities and differences between modeled and perceived accessibility and by conducting an in-depth, disaggregated investigation of the relation across four transport modes, five different everyday activities, using three different accessibility models. Focusing on the Gothenburg Region, in western Sweden, perceived accessibility was captured through a web survey (N = 1534) targeting non-retired adults (aged 18–64 years). Modeled accessibility was calculated based on the location of the investigated amenities and the travel time between them and people’s approximate residential location. Four main conclusions can be drawn from the results. First, results indicate a significant relationship between modeled and perceived accessibility. Second, individual characteristics, attitudes, and habits exert a stronger influence than modeled accessibility does on perceived accessibility. Third, among the investigated transport modes, the case of the car stands out, as the relationship is the opposite of what would be expected. Finally, time geography is a useful framework for exploring the differences and similarities between modeled and perceived accessibility.
Reweaving the fabric of corporate bureaucracy -The development of organisational control in Sweden 1970-2000
(2024-10-17) Krusell, Mathias
This thesis in economic history investigates and analyses how Swedish industrial enterprises changed and developed their corporate bureaucracy and organisational control to become less hierarchical and more flexible and market-orientated from 1970 to 2000. The thesis examines how administrative work in Sweden evolved throughout this time and how management knowledge materialised in management tools at a time when the country's consulting industry was growing. The examination starts with the evolution of administrative work in Sweden. The results show that even though the share of administrative work did not increase at large in Sweden from 1970 to 2000, the composition of occupations within administrative work changed. The share of clerical support work decreased while the share of managerial work increased. These results are followed by case studies of how the management consultancy firm SIAR (The Swedish Institute of Administrative Research) carried out assignments at two successful industrial firms, Alfa-Laval and Ericsson. SIAR advocated that industrial firms were to become less organisationally hierarchical and less focused on long-term planning. Instead, industrial firms should decentralise their operations, become more adaptable to the market, and become more like the service industry. These ideas were concretised at Alfa-Laval and Ericsson. SIAR helped both firms adapt new organisational forms and configure their organisational control and corporate bureaucracy. At both firms, there were successful efforts to become less hierarchical and transfer more operational and strategic control to so-called business areas. The results do, however, show that managerial control did not decrease. Standardisation and administrative coordination increased when attempts were made to make specific business areas and units more market orientated. Since centrally located administrative structures were also required, decentralised managerial control resulted in a doubling of managerial control. The thesis demonstrates how corporate bureaucracy grew even in attempts by businesses to become less hierarchical. New forms of corporate bureaucracy were necessary to support new tasks for central management. Corporate bureaucracy grew, but more through formalisation than through a strengthening of hierarchical structure.
Technological change, skills, and occupational structure in Sweden, 1870-1950
(2024-05-21) Heikkuri, Suvi
This dissertation explores occupations and skills in the Swedish labor markets during the industrial breakthrough. It encompasses an introduction and four research papers, each addressing issues related to how technological change shapes labor markets. The first and second papers focus on occupational structure and skills, covering all sectors of the economy. The third of fourth papers delve into specific technologies within manufacturing, namely steam and electricity. The first paper conducts an explorative study of the Swedish labor markets between 1870 and 1930. By employing tabulated population censuses and utilizing the HISCLASS scheme for skill classification, I demonstrate that, at the aggregate level, the Swedish population indeed shifted from unskilled to more-skilled occupations. Occupational upgrading was notably more pronounced for women compared to men, with a significant number of women leaving agriculture for skilled service jobs. Within the manufacturing sector, employment shifted from medium-skilled to low- and unskilled occupations. Thus, I propose that the shift from agriculture to services played a more important role in the aggregate skill upgrading in Sweden than the shift from agriculture to industry. The second paper investigates how industrialization and technological change impact the skill premium. Using income tax registry data to construct a series of occupational incomes between 1900 and 1950, the study challenges the expectation of a rising skill premium associated with skill-biased technologies like electricity. Despite rapid technological change, the skill premium decreased, largely because of the faster income growth of low- and unskilled production workers compared to high- and medium-skilled white-collar workers. In the third paper, in collaboration with Svante Prado and Yoshihiro Sato, we explore the association between mechanization and female and child employment. Drawing on an establishment-level survey from 1879, we show that establishment size is positively associated with the employment of women and children, and that the effect of mechanization is likely mediated through establishment size. Finally, the fourth paper, co-authored by Svante Prado, shows that the widespread electrification of Swedish industry was in general positive for labor. Using establishment-level data from industrial surveys, we show that electricity use is positively associated with higher employment and wages. Furthermore, establishments that adopted electricity during our study period increased their employment and wages more rapidly than those that did not adopt electricity.
Disentangling Empire and Decolonization: State and Business Relations in Southern Africa, 1923-1975
(2024-05-06) Ngoma, Kondwani Happy
This dissertation comprises of an introduction and four research articles that study state and business relations in Southern Africa. The core interest is to present and analyse the identification and management of political risks and opportunities by states and firms during colonisation and decolonisation. The first paper, co-authored with Klas Rönnbäck, studies the acquisition and redefinition of property rights to land and minerals in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland by the British South Africa Company (BSAC). The results show that the BSAC was able to take advantage of political processes to acquire the property rights during colonial rule. It is shown that the British government privileged the interests of the BSAC over those of the public interest because it fell prey to regulatory capture. The results contrast those of previous research that claim that the British government did not appreciate the value of the mineral rights or that the BSAC saw no prospect for development. The second paper follows on the findings from paper I and focusses on the decolonisation period. It examines the ostensibly voluntary transfer of the mineral rights by the BSAC to the incoming African government in Northern Rhodesia. The central paradox that the paper seeks to explain is why the BSAC agreed to a settlement that represented about a tenth of the value they placed on the mineral rights. The results show that the BSAC had a clear understanding that its mineral rights were likely to be obsolete after independence. The third paper presents the historical case of a British firm moving its corporate headquarters from the United Kingdom to Southern Rhodesia. It analyses the micropolitical processes of decision making and shows how formal and informal actors assessed and negotiated the switch during the colonial era. It particularly shows how a loose network of informal external actors, so called the “American Group”, had a preponderant effect on the decision-making process because of the allure of their capital. The results show that a focus on outcomes at the expense of the processes is likely to conceal the reasons a firm relocates. The final paper focuses on the responses of a third country - Zambia - to economic sanctions. It shows the country´s responses to economic sanctions imposed on the white minority regime of Southern Rhodesia for declaring independence without Britain's authorization. Zambia's interests and responses are geopolitically examined through transport linkages that reveal the tensions and competition of using or co-owning strategic assets. Unlike previous research, this paper shows that Zambia did not favour economic sanctions on Southern Rhodesia and preferred the use of military tools from the sender country because it feared and understood the economic damage that it would suffer in the long run.
Beyond the private car: Managing sustainable mobility in everyday life
(2024-04-19) Lagrell, Ellen
It is increasingly recognized that private car use needs to be reduced, alongside spatial planning solutions and vehicle development, to realize a sustainable mobility transition. But the fact that the organisation of everyday life is profoundly shaped by car use remains a persistent challenge. By studying how carless individuals manage mobility to organise their everyday lives, this thesis investigates how mobility can be remade to reduce private car use. The thesis draws on a dual theoretical perspective to analyze the role of mobility in everyday life. Time-geography is used to understand the situated conditions of carless individuals to manage constraints and partake in everyday activities, whilst social practice theory enables an understanding of the social practices that activities are part of, and how they bundle with mobility and car use. The aim of the thesis is to identify conditions, challenges, and opportunities for a sustainable mobility transition. This is pursued through three consecutive studies, applying qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate different aspects of carless everyday mobility: the situated organisation of relatively well-functioning carless lives; extensive patterns of mobility and car use among the carless in Sweden; and the prospects of ridesharing to reduce car use in organised leisure practices. The findings demonstrate that carlessness is not a binary state, but a matter of degrees of access and degrees of need, shifting with time and context. Accessibility strategies based on proximity and coordination are central and work particularly well for routinized activities and with support from the social network. However, challenges arise in the face of social norms and mobility expectations, particularly in relation to non-routinized leisure activities requiring the coordination of people and things. The thesis identifies potential in recrafting the social practices of leisure to reduce car dependence, and to promote ridesharing when car use remains necessary. While specific accessibility strategies are highly contextual, other findings may be more directly transferrable to societies and geographies with similar patterns of car dependence as those prevailing in Sweden. This thesis contributes to ongoing debates in policy and academia about how to realise a transition toward a low-carbon future, and is also a scholarly contribution on how to theorise and investigate the role of mobility in everyday life.
Over-design and under-funding: A theory of park (re)development in Gothenburg
(2024-04-19) Kotze, Shelley
Urban parks are commonly seen as the panacea for multiple of urban issues. From migrant integration to climate change, urban agriculture to wellbeing, biodiversity to obesity, urban parks are touted as the answer. The potential of parks to address these issues comes not only from their initial design and localisation, but also their ongoing management and maintenance. In recognition of parks as a ‘fix’ to a multitude of urban problems, funding for park (re)development is relatively easy to come by, through a variety of funding mechanisms. However, despite management and maintenance being the most significant factor in the benefits of parks being sustained in the future, budgets for ongoing park management and maintenance remains insufficient and stagnant. To date, the relationship between design and management has been conceptualised by landscape architects and urban designers. The models developed have been focused on the scale of the urban park, as a demarked space within a city, and the interactions that occur within said space. However, parks do not exist as islands. Parks are part of the fabric of the city. Therefore, this thesis goes beyond the park, and utilises theories situated at the city-scale to better understand how design and management intersect and influence the spatial realities of urban parks. This study takes the form of a single case study of Gothenburg, Sweden’s second city. Interviews, online, in-person and walking, were conducted with informants from private landscape architecture firms, as well as project managers, park managers and maintenance teams from the park and nature administration in City of Gothenburg, and the real estate office. Thus encompassing those who are involved with or have knowledge about the (re)development of urban parks within the locality. Using a theoretical framework that combines urban regime theory, entrepreneurial urbanism, city branding and neoliberalism (theories that characterise the contemporary ‘green’ city), this thesis unpacks the nuanced processes that constitute the relationships between urban park design and maintenance. Findings show that, firstly, the agenda of the City of Gothenburg, to brand itself as a green and innovative city, coupled with the mode of funding park (re)development, almost exclusively through the sale of publicly owned land in Gothenburg, creates a discrepancy between the monies available for design and management. Secondly, neoliberal policies and practices impact upon the relationships between City employees and private landscape architects, as well as between these human actors and the non-human entities that are inherent to urban parks, and how these relationships manifest in the very fabric of urban parks. Finally, it is questioned why the design capabilities of private landscape architecture firms, with specific regard to knowledge and innovation, are held prioritised in park (re)development over the practical capabilities of the City of Gothenburg employees who enact park management and maintenance on the ground. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the term ‘overdesign’, which is presented as a relational conceptualisation of the spatial realities of urban parks in Gothenburg Whilst overdesign is seen to be driven by funding models, linked to city branding and entrepreneurialism, in itself is not problematic. What makes overdesign problematic is that it increases the complexity of ongoing management making it more difficult to sustain in the long-term, and ultimately more costly. This added complexity in management is compounded by the fact that the influx of funding for the initial design and construction phase is not matched by sustained levels of funding available for ongoing maintenance. Whilst the trend towards overdesign feeds into the contemporary rhetoric of the green and innovative city, in fact, overdesign may result in parks which are placeless, akin to highstreets and airports. Thus actually striping cities of their own identities and competitive advantages that urban entrepreneurialism and city branding relies upon.
Floods Vulnerability and the Quest for Resilience - Urban Planning and Development Challenges in Matola, Mozambique
(2024-03-18) Neves, José Lourenço
Increased flood occurrence due to heavy rainfall associated with cyclones is recognized worldwide. Urban environments in developing countries, such as Matola in Mozambique, suffer greatly from the negative impacts of floods, and the 2000 floods were the most devastating, which pose great challenges to urban planners and local communities to promote flood resilience. This study investigates the challenges of promoting resilience to urban floods in Matola, Mozambique. The study focuses on how have flood hazards and risks been distributed in Matola and what mitigations and adaptations strategies, measures, and actions urban planners and communities used to promote flood resilience. This is a case study based on a mixed quantitative and qualitative methodological approach. The study applies geoprocessing techniques to geospatial data in order to assess flood vulnerability and risk in Matola, in 2000, 2020, and 2040, using ArcGIS software. The main qualitative methods used are semi-structured interviews with urban planners and community members, and focus group discussions with community members, complemented by observations. The findings indicate an increase in the extent of low-risk areas of flooding, and a decrease in the extent of medium/high-risk areas from 2000, through 2020, to 2040. However, there has been an increase in the number of inhabitants exposed to combined medium/high-risk areas of medium/high-hazard classes of flooding ranging from 0.5 m to approximately 5 m in depth, due to the increase in the horizontal expansion of land occupied by socio-economic infrastructure, particularly housing. The findings indicate that the mitigation actions during the 2000 floods focused on evacuating and accommodating people besieged by the floods. After the 2000 flood, adaptation measures were gradually implemented by supporting the return of residents to their homes, resettling households whose homes were permanently flooded in 2000, resettling residents of areas at high risk of flooding, and excavating drainage channels. The main strategy to promote flood resilience in Matola after the 2000 floods was capacity development through staff training, gradually hiring new staff by municipal administration, with different specializations essential for planning and managing land use and adaptation measures, and developing a new urban plan taking account of the flood hazards. The study reveals that during the 2000 floods, social capital, characterized by pre-existing strong social cohesion and mutual trust among community members, was a vital factor helping people come together to support and rescue community members besieged by floods. Community adaptation measures after the 2000 floods were the improvement and reconstruction of flood-destroyed houses, raising yard levels with fill, and adherence to the resettlement promoted by the municipality. The municipality’s official collaboration network with communities through elected leaders favoured continuous connection between the parties and in organizing the gradual resettlement of residents who had lost their homes in the floods.
Engineering lmpact: Analyzing the Scientific and Technological Outcomes of Collaborative Research between Universities and Firms
(2024-02-29) Ström, Viktor
This Ph.D. dissertation analyzes collaborative research between universities and firms in the field of electrical engineering in Sweden. It conceptualizes such collaborations as one form of academic engagement that fosters knowledge networks among individuals and organizations. It is essential to expand our understanding of this phenomenon as it holds significant implications for technological advances and economic progress. The purpose is to analyze the impacts of collaborative research between universities and firms, as compared with the impacts of similar research conducted without firms. In doing so, this dissertation examines and selects among measures of impact, including both scientific and technological impacts, as well as variables that capture relevant dimensions of collaborative research. By developing and utilizing a dataset based on employment records of faculty members from five leading Swedish (engineering) universities, this dissertation analyzes scholarly publications in the domains of biomedical, communication, control, and signal processing engineering. The analysis encompasses 8455 scholarly publications authored by 184 professors affiliated with Chalmers University of Technology, the Faculty of Engineering at Lund University, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Linköping University, and Uppsala University. The research reveals that 17.3% of the examined publications are defined as outcomes of prior academic engagement, showcasing an upward trend over the period from 2000 to 2018. These collaborative publications are associated with greater article and technological impacts than those of purely academic research, evidenced by higher citation counts in both scholarly literature and patents. However, they are also associated with a lower journal reputation, suggesting that these articles are less frequently published in high-impact journals. Notably, dual-affiliated professors, constituting one type of boundary spanner between academia and industry, as well as a greater number of authors are associated with higher article impact. Moreover, publications with firms led by academics —i.e., those with a university-affiliated first author—are associated with high article and technological impacts, whereas those led by industry partners show a pronounced technological impact compared with purely academic projects. The influence these variables have on the journal reputation was found to be less pronounced. This dissertation contributes to the literature on academic engagement, particularly in the engineering sciences, underscoring the benefits of integrating diverse knowledge from academia and industry for more impactful scientific and technological outputs. Additionally, the findings add to the discussion on academic success metrics, emphasizing the need for a balanced approach in which the real-world application of research is recognized alongside academic prestige, while being cautious of the pitfalls associated with overreliance on journal reputation alone. These findings offer valuable insights for academic institutions, firms, and policymakers, specifically emphasizing the importance of fostering effective collaborations between individuals to combine academic and industrial expertise in engineering research. Future research directions include a deeper examination of the roles of industrial co-authors, dual-affiliated researchers, and lead authors in these collaborations, as well as broadening the scope beyond electrical engineering in Sweden to enhance the generalizability of the results.
Teachers in the marketisation of education
(2023-10-26) Falkensjö, Sara
In many parts of the world, marketisation processes in welfare sectors like education are mobilised and legitimised through a discourse professing how market competition will bring about accountability, quality, and efficiency. In much of the Global South, the growth of so called low-fee private schools (LFP schools) is part of such marketisation processes. LFP schools are non-government run and charge a relatively low fee. Scholarly focus has mainly concerned LFP schools’ impact and growth, with regards to pupils, families, policy makers and edu-companies. Teachers have received little attention as subjects and actors in this literature, however. This is despite the importance accorded to teachers in national and international policy, and the many reports in passing about exploitation and de-professionalisation in LFP schools. This thesis explores Kenyan primary school teachers’ needs, challenges and agency in their everyday work lives, within the marketisation of education in low-income contexts. Through a labour geography lens and qualitative methods, teachers are centred as socially embedded, knowledgeable actors with their own interests. Findings reveal both LFP- and public-school teachers as dependent on social relations in- and outside school, for fulfilling their material needs and desire to do a good job. Further, all teachers were affected by market competition. However, where LFP-school teachers faced job-insecurity, low wages and market steering, public-school teachers rather struggled with failing recognition. Remaining employed was prioritised, if more precarious for LFP-school teachers. This meant that the teachers acted mainly in accordance with employers’ demands, while trying to heed their desire to do good for their pupils and their, at times differing, professionalism. This thesis contributes empirically to the LFP schooling literature, arguing that teachers in the Global South need to be recognised as knowledgeable actors, who do not only have utilitarian goals. It also contributes to labour geography, by tracing the complex moral geography navigated by socially embedded professionals in marketised resource-poor contexts.
Exploring the internalization of University-lndustry Collaboration and firm innovation: an analysis of influential roles, problem, and implementation paths
(2023-10-17) Hemberg, Daniel
The phenomenon studied here is how cooperatively developed knowledge, resulting from knowledge-related interaction in a university–industry collaboration (UIC), is internally utilized by a firm. The purpose of this research is to explore how knowledge developed in a UIC is utilized by the collaborating firm in the development of innovations. The aim is to advance our understanding of how the collaborating firm internally develops innovations using knowledge derived from collaboration by means of empirical descriptions. The research employs a single-case study design, focusing on the Combustion Engine Research Center, as the case, and the collaboration between Chalmers University of Technology and Volvo Car Corporation. Primary data were collected through semi- structured interviews and supplemented with archival data as the secondary data. Two rounds of interviews were performed to collect data. The first round of the study investigates the influential roles within firms that facilitate the utilization of collaboration knowledge. The research identifies three distinct roles and examines their engagement in project meetings and the industrial monitoring of collaborative research. The second round of the study explores the process of recognizing and implementing collaboration knowledge within firms. It identifies the relationship between collaboration knowledge and a problem as a key factor in recognizing the value of the collaboration knowledge. The study further explores the dynamics of implementation, identifying three implementation paths and their associated effects. The significance of these findings lies in their potential to inform strategies for leveraging collaboration knowledge to promote innovation within firms. The study adds to the literature by building a detailed understanding of the dynamics of the recognition and implementation of collaboration knowledge, thereby offering valuable insights for both academic and industrial stakeholders.
From sedentary behaviors to sedentary moments: what constitutes and shapes children's activities and performances at home
(2022-11-07) Rathod, Apoorva
The study of children’s sedentary behavior has grown exponentially in the last few decades due to the associations between sedentary behavior and various negative health outcomes and to concerns about children’s increasing time spent using screen devices. Most research on sedentary behavior is found in the public health and medical literatures, whereas the social science perspective is currently limited. While social science disciplines have spoken at length about children’s declining spontaneous play outdoors and their increasingly domesticated lives, they could engage much more with what this domestication has meant for children’s lives at home. This thesis takes its point of departure in our lack of knowledge of children’s everyday lives at home, to explore how children’s sedentary behaviors at home are constituted and shaped. It is based on mixed-methods research with children aged 6–12 years in the Gothenburg Region in Sweden. It combines quantitative and qualitative methods to explore what kinds of sedentary behaviors children engage in at home, how these behaviors are connected to their lives outside the home, and how these behaviors are performed. In line with mixed-methods research, this thesis embraces ontological pluralism, using two very different theoretical frameworks—the socio-ecological model of health behavior, and practice theory—to study children’s sedentary behaviors. The findings reveal that children performed a variety of activities at home, many of them not sedentary and not using screen devices. These activities were also deeply entangled in the children’s lives outside the home—notably involving school, participation in organized activities, and neighborhood friendships. Crucially, many of their presumed sedentary activities were not entirely sedentary, but consisted of sedentary moments that were spatiotemporally unique, dynamic, and performed. These findings urge us to think beyond ideas of sedentary behavior as a specific form of individually motivated behavior, and instead highlight the need to think about sedentary moments performed within children’s diverse practices at home.
Exploring Firm-employed PhD students as a Form of Academic Engagement with lndustry
(2022-08-19) Berg, Karin
Rural encounters with the city. A study of the gendered livelihood strategies of migrant youth in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
(2021-11-17) Dessie, Elizabeth
More than half of the world’s population growth will be accounted for by cities in the coming decades, with sub-Saharan Africa at the centre of this change. While studies have pointed to the disproportionate effects unemployment and urban poverty have on women in urban areas, gender-focused livelihood research continues to occupy a peripheral space in the field of Human geography. In Ethiopia, one of the fastest growing economies in the world, urbanisation has predominantly been fuelled by rural-urban migration. Driven by hopes of a better life, many rural-urban migrants, a large proportion of whom are youth between the ages of 15 and 29, move to Addis Ababa, the nation’s capital, where they are faced with limited employment opportunities and precarious living conditions. Nonetheless, little is known about the livelihood strategies rural-urban migrant youth adopt in Addis Ababa and the gendered experiences that define their city lives. This thesis explores the ways in which gender shapes the livelihood strategies of rural migrant youth in two neighbourhoods in Addis Ababa, Megenagna and Sholla. Guided by a feminist geographic analytical lens and drawing on qualitative research methods, this study finds youth migration to the city is largely defined by rural household livelihood insecurity, accentuated by an absence of opportunities for youth to transform their lives which, in various ways, is a pattern reproduced in the urban setting. Migrating to Addis Ababa, alongside early experiences of urban life, lead many into segments of the informal economy moulded by gendered livelihood practices, particularly in the street trade but not exclusively, where access to resources and opportunities is prescribed by prevailing gender norms. Findings also underscore the value of individual and collective agency in navigating the intricacies of migrants’ urban predicament, motivated by efforts aimed at maximising their daily earnings, while simultaneously manoeuvring their intersectional identities in an overwhelmingly constraining social and economic context. Through its focus on a categorically disenfranchised portion of the city population, this thesis addresses an empirical gap pertaining to gendered livelihoods research by shedding light on the lived experiences of youth in a rapidly transforming sub-Saharan African environment that remains widely unexplored.
The effects of the land tenure reform programme on tenure security and agricultural development in Rwanda: the case of Musanze district, Northern Province
(2021-10-20) Muyombano, Emmanuel
This PhD thesis is a compilation thesis comprising a research frame of seven chapters, and four related papers. The overall aim of this thesis is to investigate the effects of the land tenure reform programme on the livelihoods of small-scale farmers, focusing on two of the main components, the land registration and titling programme (LRT) and the land use consolidation (LUC) programme. In order to achieve this aim, four research questions were formulated, the first two focusing on how the LRT programme affected the land tenure security of small-scale farmers, and how the LRT impacted small-scale farmers in terms of using their land titles as collateral for credits for agricultural investments. The third research question is related to the experiences of small-scale farmers of the LUC programme, while the fourth research question deals with the expected effects of the implemented reform programmes on tenure security, agricultural development and increased food security in the studied communities have been achieved. The study is based on field work conducted in Musanze district in Northern Rwanda between 2011 and 2014. It is mainly based on qualitative research methods, supplemented by some quantitative techniques. The field work was carried out in five sectors, and a total of 60 individual farmers, 32 key informants, and representatives of Savings and Credit Cooperative (SACCO), farmer cooperatives, and women’s associations were interviewed. In addition, 53 farming and 19 forest plots were mapped and measured with GPS equipment. The findings indicate that the LRT programme has resulted in the reduction of land conflicts based on demarcation of boundaries after the completion of the LRT programme in 2013. However, according to the post-2016 literature, land conflicts persist due to subdivisions of family land between siblings, still registered in a single land title certificate. Findings also show that the LRT resulted in land rental market rather than in a land market of selling/buying. However, informal land transactions have been noticed after 2016. Regarding the LUC programme, findings indicate that the programme has resulted in increased agricultural productivity due to the use of improved seeds and chemical fertilizers. However, there is also dissatisfaction among some small-scale farmers about the Government policy linked to the introduction of sole cropping of selected crops, which has affected both food security and income earnings of poor small-scale farmers negatively. The LUC programme has on the other hand benefitted the relatively better-off farmers, farmers with bigger and scattered land areas, who often are organized in farmer associations or cooperatives, and thereby have better access to credits that are used for renting more land in order to produce more. These farmers are much better positioned to tap into the growing market chains, compared to poor farmers with limited land, and low or limited access to credit.
Commercialization Done Differently: How Swedish university incubators facilitate the formation of knowledge-intensive entrepreneurial firms
(2020-12-11) Brunnström, Linus
This PhD thesis investigates how university incubators impact the formation of knowledge-intensive entrepreneurial (KIE) firms in Sweden, which is interesting due to its unusual institutional regime for commercializing research results. “Commercialization done differently” refers to university incubators in the context of the institutional regime of Sweden, which differs in that individual researchers own their own commercial research results and have complete agency over what to do with them instead of the university owning them. Under this institutional regime, previous research has suggested that university incubators may favor the creation of KIE firms, and I set out to find out how they do so. A mixed-methods approach is used, utilizing explorative case study, survival analysis, and OLS regression. The study thus triangulates and uses qualitative interviews, policy documents, and secondary data sources as well as a large longitudinal national database provided by the Swedish Innovation Agency (VINNOVA). My research leads to three findings of relevance for understanding how universities interact with society. The first finding relates to how interviewed incubator managers view researchers. Although researchers are perceived as being slow, less eager to start a business, and stuck on technical improvements, their ideas are also viewed as high-impact and as the most important ones. To deal with researchers as founders, incubator managers have developed a number of options, which all aim at either starting a firm anyway or at selling the idea. My quantitative findings substantiate the above mentioned managers’ view of researchers as founders but further indicate that having more researchers facilitates a speedier and more successful process for other project founders. By differentiating by ownership of university incubators, I examine performance. University-owned incubators seem to have higher costs per supported firm, in part because they have more founders that are researchers. However, if the incubator is municipality-owned, having more researchers instead seems to reduce costs. Thus, even though university-owned incubators help facilitate the formation of KIE firms at a higher cost, a likely interpretation is that the potential in the type of firm they help create is greater. I synthesize my findings and conceptualization by also proposing a process model of how university incubators facilitate the formation of KIE firms under the institutional regime for commercializing research in Sweden.
Fashioning a Knowledge Intensive Entrepreneur?
(2019-10-15) Gustafsson, Erik
This PhD dissertation explores fashion design graduates as potential knowledge-intensive entrepreneurs through the relationship between knowledge and other resources, and different pathways post-graduation. Explorative qualitative studies are used to analyse how fashion designers reflect and act after graduating from fashion school, applying theories about knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial intentions. Recent graduates from the BA and MA programmes in fashion design at the Swedish School of Textiles, University of Borås, were interviewed in order to gain insights on their initial choice of pathway, as well as how their acquisition and development of new knowledge and other resources affects these choices over time. Findings from this case study show that fashion designers commonly express entrepreneurial intentions at the time of graduation; however, they have low levels of perceived feasibility of being able to realise the intention, which initially also leads to low levels of actual venture creation. Hence, the fashion designers take different pathways, specifically 1) KIE venture creation; 2) enter existing fashion firms; 3) continue in academia; and 4) leave fashion. Through follow-up interviews after two years, I can observe that the acquisition of knowledge related to market, business, and creativity, as well as changes in the perception of how to access resources necessary for venture creation leads to higher levels of perceived feasibility. Furthermore, a desire for creative freedom, as to apply one’s creative knowledge more extensively, increases these fashion design graduates’ perceived desirability of becoming entrepreneurs. This research extends and gives further insights to results from existing literature on knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship and creative industries, where it has been shown that entrepreneurs within this sector have less industry experience, depend more on private funds in financing the venture creation, and that the ventures in general stay small in size. The PhD dissertation concludes by suggesting a dynamic conceptual model for the relation between knowledge acquisition, perception of accessing resources, and founder characteristics in affecting entrepreneurial intentions over time, thereby shaping future pathways for fashion designers.
A Black Utopia? Social Stratification in Nineteenth-Century Colonial Sierra Leone
(2019-03-20) Galli, Stefania
In the present dissertation, social stratification in colonial Sierra Leone is discussed, with the aim of providing novel evidence on the association between ideals, institutions and inequality. The case study of Sierra Leone is valuable for it allows to examine social stratification in an alleged egalitarian context. The dissertation consists of an introductory chapter and four research essays. The essays examine four aspects that contribute to social stratification. The former two essays delve into the social aspects of social stratification, namely socio-economic status and marriage patterns, whereas the latter two examine social stratification from an economic perspective. The intention is to employ the case study of Sierra Leone to portray a picture of European colonialism in Africa that differs from that often portrayed in the literature. The first essay studies the association between ethnic belonging and socio-economic status in early days colonial Sierra Leone. The findings suggest that, in spite of the egalitarian ideals on which it had been allegedly founded, a certain degree of ethnic discrimination characterized the socio-economic structure of the colony. Ethnic discrimination did not, however, translate into a strict occupational segregation for individuals from most ethnic groups could be found across the whole socio-economic spectrum. The second essay delves into the association between ethnic belonging and marriage patterns. The study shows that, irrespective of egalitarian ideals and ethnic heterogeneity, endogamy was the most prevalent marriage arrangement in colonial Sierra Leone. This finding implies the existence of an association between ethnic belonging and marriage patterns, while providing circumstantial evidence on the presence of an ethnic social divide in the colony. Furthermore, the essay shows that exogamy occurred within ethnic groups’ clusters, a finding that corroborates the hypothesis of the existence of a vertical ethnic hierarchy in colonial Sierra Leone. The third essay examines quantitatively the claim that egalitarian ideals impacted on inequality levels by studying wealth inequality in rural colonial Sierra Leone. The results show that between households’ distribution of resources was fairly egalitarian in global comparison. Wealth inequality estimates for Sierra Leone are on par with those estimated for other rural settler colonies in North America in their early days of existence. The results provide supportive evidence to the hypothesis that ideals can impact on the institutions driving inequality, by shaping the rules of allocation of resources towards egalitarianism. The fourth essay examines the evolution of land distribution in colonial Sierra Leone over the course of the first forty years of the colony’s existence. The results show that although egalitarian principles regulated land distribution, land inequality increased over the period studied. The essay argues that the shift in the type of egalitarianism underlying land distribution was the major responsible for increasing inequality as recorded for colonial Sierra Leone. The results of this dissertation suggest that Sierra Leone was a fairly equal colony under most perspectives, and that institutions were influenced by egalitarian ideals, although not all to the same extent. The present dissertation ultimately provides evidence supporting the existence of an association between ideals, institutions and social stratification in a colonial context.
Between the devil and the deep blue sea: Trade negotiations between the Western Allies and the Scandinavian neutrals, 1914-1919
(2019-02-22) Strøm, Knut Ola
This thesis analyses the interplay between Western Allied policymakers and the governments of Denmark, Norway and Sweden during the Great War. It explores to what extent Allied economic warfare authorities were able to dictate terms to their Scandinavian counterparts on matters of trade policy between, and examines whether there is such a thing as a “Scandinavian experience” of the Allied blockade of Germany. The thesis consists of an introductory chapter, followed by a two-part main body. The fist of these parts is a three chapter long secondary source-driven study of wartime Scandinavian trade and trade policies between 1914 and 1917. It reassesses the findings of the established Scandinavian historiography in light of more recent publications on Allied blockade efforts during the early stages of the war. The section argues that the British-led blockade during the early stages of the war was ineffective, allowing Scandinavian trade flows to shift as the Central Powers began to reroute trade through the Danish, Swedish and Norwegian domestic markets. From late 1915 onwards, these shifts were gradually reversed as British authorities reformed their economic warfare strategy. The second part of the thesis is a five chapter long primary source-driven study of the late war trade negotiations between Allied and Scandinavian authorities. It uses archival material from the Danish Foreign Ministry, the British Ministry of Blockade and the American War Trade Board to show how British, and later American and inter-Allied economic warfare authorities were gradually able to harness and coordinate trade control efforts in Scandinavia over the course of 1917 and 1918. Scandinavian governments were eventually forced to accept severe restrictions on their external trade, in return for continued access to increasingly important international western markets. The Danish, Norwegian and Swedish governments nevertheless retained a degree of economic and diplomatic freedom through to the end of the war. Consequently, Western Allied economic warfare authorities remained unable to impose full control over Scandinavian trade.
I husbondens bröd och arbete. Kön, makt och kontrakt i det svenska tjänstefolkssystemet 1730-1860
(2018-05-24) Uppenberg, Carolina
The aim of this thesis is to analyze the power relations of labour and gender in the servant institution during the agrarian revolution in Sweden. The positions of servant, master and mistress are analyzed theoretically as a gendered, contracted position with both economic and moral dimensions attached to them. The analysis is applied together with a theory on bases of power, which are those areas where pretentions to power come in to force through material conditions; in this study being masculinity and access to land. The sources used are the Servant Acts, didactic and debate literature, and court cases. Though the formal condition for a servant system to evolve is inequality – in the agrarian setting primarily between landed and landless people – previous research has tended to view the servant system primarily as a solution to the changing need for labour over time in the agrarian household. Through the Servant Acts, the Crown delegated control over landless people to farmers and could thereby ensure that farmers had access to labour, but the Crown also demanded farmers to use inflexible year-long contracts for servants. I show that by using the well-established year-long contract as a frame, masters and male servants were able to create flexibility. At the same time, the subservient position of a servant became less acceptable for men, since the possibility to become a landed head of household at the end of the period of service was eroded during the agrarian revolution. I find that the servant position underwent a discursive feminization, and those aspects point to a situation where the servant position became feminized and wage labour became a new power base for men. The analysis of servants’ wages shows that there were considerable opportunities to use the court to demand unpaid wages, for both male and female servants, although only a quarter of the cases concerned females. However, the legal right to be taken care of in the event of sickness does not seem to have been complied with. Taken together, this leads to the conclusion that servants were already regarded less as family members and more as part of modern labour relations during the agrarian revolution. Finally, the concept of agency is analyzed, showing a subtle gender difference in that the labour of female servants was taken more for granted than that of male servants.

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