Industry is a key player in the transition to a sustainable society where manufacturing companies need to respond to the challenges of environmental concerns in several ways. Still, even if several efforts have been made in practise and academia, more research within operations management is addressed in relation to implementing sustainable solutions. The management of change in production systems, such as energy efficiency, will be one of the important future areas for the industry. In accordance, the objective of the licentiate thesis is, by theoretical and empirical work, focused on developing a model to support the implementation of environmental requirements. Literature reviews as well as two empirical case studies have been conducted in order to explore the environmentally driven change. The first case study conducted is an retrospective multiple case study, including four cases studying the implications of implementation of technology and identifying key factors effecting the outcome of the change. The second case study is an international multiple study, including nine case companies. The study explores what needs to be considered, the drivers for initiating change as well as the key factors effecting the outcome of the change process. The studies conducted and the results are presented in five appended papers. The research identifies three important links for managing environmentally driven change: how the requirements are introduced, how and if the link between strategic and operational level has been considered and how the need for change is transferred to action and implementation. By providing a system approach for managing change, it also points out the importance of understanding the organisational abilities and maturity of the companies that influence the projects. The result points out sets of drivers as well as key factors, related to the organisational abilities, that are effecting the outcome. As future research the model, that is developed to support operations management in their work to implement environmentally driven change, needs to be validated in practise. In particular research on the personal commitment and the collaboration is addressed to be studied in relation to a systematic approach as well as how to balance the priorities during the implementation. / INNOFACTURE - innovative manufacturing development

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) är en allt mer framväxande teknologi och används i organisationer för att automatisera och effektivisera manuella affärsprocesser. Det finns en rad fördelar med att använda denna teknik. Implementeringen av RPA kan dock kopplas till blandade reaktioner hos anställda och det är inte ovanligt att en del anställda motsätter sig tekniken på grund av rädsla och okunskap för automatiseringens påverkan. Denna fallstudie syftar att undersöka hur implementeringen av RPA påverkar organisatoriska aspekter som arbetssätt, roller och ansvar samt att undersöka om det finns skillnader i hantering och upplevelse kring detta i konsult-, privat- och offentlig verksamhet. För att undersöka ovan nämnda områden skedde datainsamlingen genom semistrukturerade intervjuer hosorganisationer som implementerat RPA samt genom litteraturundersökning. Resultatet visar att det finns en hel del likheter i hur RPA påverkar arbetet i organisationer, men skillnaderna ligger i hur arbetet med RPA bedrivs. / Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is an increasingly emerging technology and is used in organizations to automate and streamline manual business processes. There are a number of advantages to using this technology. However, the implementation of RPA can be linked to mixed reactions among employees and it is not unusual for some employees to oppose the technology due to fear and ignorance of the influence of automation. This case study aims to investigate how the implementation of RPA affects organizational aspects such as working methods, roles and responsibilities, and examine whether there are differences in management and experience regarding this in consulting, private and public activities.In order to investigate the above-mentioned areas, the data collection was conducted through semistructured interviews with organizations that implemented RPA and through literature research. The result shows that there are a lot of similarities in how RPA affects the work in organizations, but the differences lie in how the work with RPA is conducted.

In einer multimethodalen Studie mit 98 angehenden Topführungskräften der Polizei in Deutschland wurde auf Basis einer integrativen Change Management-Theorie die Rolle von führungs- und managementspezifischen Erfolgsfaktoren in organisationalen Veränderungsprozessen untersucht. Im Mittelpunkt der Studie stand die Frage, in welchem Ausmaß und welcher Art die Verantwortung für einen persönlich als Erfolg oder Misserfolg eingeschätzten Veränderungsprozess führungs- und managementspezifischen Faktoren und Verhaltensmerkmale den beteiligten Führungskräften und Projektleitern zugeschrieben werden. Mit Hilfe halbstrukturierter qualitativer Interviews in Kombination mit einer Fragebogenerhebung sowie Fokusgruppen wurden die subjektiven Erfolgstheorien der Befragten auf der Basis 153 erlebter organisationaler Veränderungsprozesse erfasst. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Führungskräften und Projektleitern im Rahmen von Veränderungsprozessen insbesondere bei als Erfolg eingeschätzten organisationalen Veränderungen eine Schlüsselrolle zugeschrieben wird. Die mit dem Change Explorer-Fragebogen zu Erfolgsfaktoren erhobenen quantitativen Ergebnisse werden durch qualitative Daten aus Einzel- und Gruppeninterviews gestützt und ergänzt. Als erfolgskritisch werden u. a. eine Vorbildfunktion, glaubwürdige Informationen, Offenheit für Innovationen, die Gewährung von Handlungsspielraum und die Einbindungen von Mitarbeitern wahrgenommen. Ebenso stellen eignungs- und selektionsspezifische Aspekte wie ein breites Kompetenzspektrum sowie die Auswahl von Schlüsselpersonen eine kritische Einflussgröße dar. Subjektiv bedeutsame Erfolgs- und Misserfolgsindikatoren wie Mitarbeiterzufriedenheit und -akzeptanz, Projektumsetzung, Veränderungen in polizeispezifischen Strukturen, Abläufen und Arbeitsbe-dingungen sowie wirtschaftliche Kriterien wie Effizienz und Effektivitätssteigerung werden mit Führungs- und Managementkompetenzen sowie Einstellungen der Führung assoziiert.

Background: Organizations today are having to initiate the necessary changes as they are pressured to keep up with market environments that often yield unpredictable and complex events. When initiating, and more importantly, attempting to implement these changes, the theory states that 70% of these efforts fail. One of the reasons behind this high rate of failure is the ineffective internal communication during strategic change, which results in misunderstandings and perhaps even resistance among employees. Here, building on previous research, it is argued that visual management can play an important role. However, the current theory lacks empirical research that investigates or examines the current usage of visualizations as a strategic tool during change, as the majority focuses on providing literature reviews or theoretical frameworks. Research question: To what extend do organizations use visualizations within the process of organizational change? Purpose: The purpose of this dissertation is to get a better understanding of the usage of visualizations as a strategic tool during the process of organizational change. Method: In order to fulfil the purpose of the thesis and to be able to explore the research question, a quantitative research design was chosen. The data for this thesis was collected through a web-based questionnaire among organizations situated in The Netherlands. A specification was made towards organizational structure whereas the retail sector can be characterised as having multiple hierarchical levels. The survey consisted of three parts each dedicated to a sub-question relating to the main research question. In total, 282 respondents participated in the research. Theoretical framework: An overview of the current literature is provided starting with describing the topic of change, where several aspects such as the factors supporting and hampering change and the process of strategic change are discussed. In addition, a specification is made towards communication, where especially internal communication during change is highlighted. The final component in this theoretical framework is visualizations, which is discussed by summarizing what the current theory states regarding characteristics, types, strategic usage and the field of visual management. All of this through a strategic scope and within the setting of organizational or strategic change. Findings: In this dissertation, it was discovered that a very low amount of organizations perceives their change efforts to be successful. This may be due to things not always going according to plan, where interestingly, a high number of organizations did state that plans are created during strategic or organizational change. Secondly, the data showed how organizations are already showing a significant use of visualizations as a strategic tool during change. However, the more ‘complex’ visualizations scored noticeably lower on usage and frequency. Lastly, within the findings of this thesis it became apparent that organizations perceive the usage of visualizations during change to be very positive. Especially high numbers were found on how using visualizations can lead to employees better understanding why the changes are needed.

La gestion des changements d’ingénierie, appelée aussi ingénierie du changement, est un domaine de recherche qui s’intéresse à l’étude des changements et des modifications apportés par les concepteurs industriels sur un produit durant l’une des phases de son cycle de vie. Ces changements peuvent exister dans le cadre de renouvellement d’un produit dans un but d’amélioration ou de reconception. Dans la littérature, plusieurs méthodes et outils ont été mis en place pour évaluer l’impact d’un changement en utilisant les dépendances existantes entre les éléments d’un produit, prédire de façon efficace la propagation du changement et évaluer ensuite ses conséquences possibles. Mais aucun d’entre eux n’a tenté de caractériser la relation de dépendance sous la forme d’une fonction polynomiale, en plus des caractérisations classiques par valeurs qualitatives et quantitatives. Nous proposons donc, une nouvelle méthode pour générer les variations possibles d’un changement, afin de modéliser ces variations par paire sous formule analytique, d’étendre les variations par paire aux variations de plusieurs variables et de vérifier formellement la cohérence des résultats obtenus. Visuellement, un graphe de dépendance est construit oú les noeuds représentent les éléments de produit et les arcs portent les fonctions qui les relient. Nos résultats montrent que cette caractérisation fonctionnelle de la dépendance est instructive et permet une propagation de changement et une évaluation efficace. Un modèle géométrique 2D d’un vélo est utilisé pour illustrer l’approche proposée. / Engineering Change Management, also known as Change Engineering, is the research domain that focuses on the study of changes and modifications brought by industrial designers on a product during one of the phases of its life cycle. These changes can exist in the case of product renewal for improvement or re-design. In the literature, several methods and tools have proposed to assess the change impact using the existing dependencies between the product components, predict effectively the change propagation and then evaluate its possible consequences. However, none of them attempted to characterize the dependency relationship in the form of a polynomial function in addition to the qualitative and quantitative values. Therefore, we propose, a new method to generate change variations, in order to model these variations in pairs with an analytical formula, expand the variations in pairs to changes in several variables and formally check the consistency of the results obtained. Visually, a dependency graph is constructed where nodes represent the components of product and edges are the functions that connect them. Our results show that this functional characterization of dependency allows an effective assessment of change propagation. A bike with 2-D geometric model is used to illustrate the proposed approach.

Nyligen genomförda studier angående digitalisering visar att det kan nyttjas och spela en viktig roll när det kommer till förändringsprocesser inom organisationer. Den rådandepandemin har bidragit till en kraftigt ökad utvecklingshastighet där flertalet teknologiskt, drivna projekt initieras. Dock har det visat sig att flertalet av dessa projekt misslyckas med att väsentligt förändra företagen, detta då integreringen i samspråk med operationella och organisatoriska förändringsstrategier inte går hand i hand. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur organisationer har påverkats av digitaliseringen med särskilt fokus på organisationsstruktur samt förändringsledarskap. Utöver det är vår ambition att undersöka ifall det existerar någon skillnad när det kommer till ledarskap mellan mer traditionella banker jämfört med nykomlingar inom branschen. Studien görs med en kvalitativ forskningsmetod där vi har genomfört intervjuer med chefer i högt uppsatt position samt mellanchefer på två olika företag. För att till fullo förstådigitaliseringens påverkan har vi konstruerat ett teoretiskt ramverk som inkluderar relevanta teorier. Vår studie avslöjade att digitalisering är ett högst adekvat område, däremot skiftardess betydelse av olika orsaker. Digitaliseringen kan placeras i två olika kontexter, inre samt yttre. Den inre kontexten är att digitalisering utav de existerande interna systemen och processerna rationaliseras, medan den yttre baseras, i mångt och mycket, utefter vad kunder efterfrågar samt till att säkerställa en högre grad av nöjdhet när det kommer till digitala affärer med banker. Sammanfattningsvis har pandemin, känd som COVID-19, påskyndat digitaliseringen inom banker för att möta diverse förväntningar där den digitala förändringen ses som normativ. Den finansiella branschen är i konstant förändring, även om regleringar representerar ett hinder för den digitala utvecklingen. Därav har den här studien kommit fram till att digitalisering kraftigt påverkar förändringsledarskapet på organisatorisk och operationell nivågenom konkurrens, kundmöten samt rättsliga faktorer. Framtida forskning behövs för att vidare analysera vår forskningsfråga och huruvida fenomenet är unikt för studiens valda bransch, och inkluderandet av medarbetsperspektivet. / In light of recent research regarding digitalization, it shows how it can be utilized and play an important role in both the organizational change process and content. The technological change indicates a rapidly increasing rate, even so during the occurrent pandemic, and more technology driven projects are being initiated. However, numerous of them fail to institutionalize significant change, instead of being integrated within the operational nor organizational change strategy. The purpose of this study is to examine how organizations have been affected by digitalization, with a focus on the organizational structure and its change management. Additionally, we intend to examine if there is a difference in leadership between traditional bank institutions and the new bank entrants. This study is based on a qualitative research method, where we executed interviews with top to middle management, in two different companies. To fully comprehend the impact of digitalization, we constructed a theoretical reference of frame that incorporates appropriate theories. The findings of this study revealed that digitalization is a highly relevant subject. However, we find that the focus differs for various reasons. The desired future state of digitalization separates into two contextual factors, internal and external. The internal factor is that digitalization rationalizes the existing internal processes and systems. The external factor is mainly based on the customers’ expectations and ensuring greater satisfaction regarding digital banking. In conclusion, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digitalization of banking due to meeting various expectations, this digital change is being a normative response. Even thought he banking industry is in constant change, legislation is one of many factors hindering the development. Thus, this study concludes that digitalization heavily influences the change managements’ strategy through rivalry, customer service and legal factors. Future research is needed to further explore our research question and whether our results reflect a phenomenon unique to the banking industry, and also include the employee perspective. This thesis is written in Swedish.

Countries that are committed to official development assistance are also interested in how to increase aid effectiveness. One important measure to do so has been the introduction of the triple nexus approach. The triple nexus refers to the cooperation in the fields of humanitarian, development, and peace and how conscious collaboration between the different actors may lead to better outcomes. For this purpose special guidelines were adopted by DAC in 2019, in which the triple nexus approach was recommended to be applied in all humanitarian-, development- and peace work. These guidelines apply to many donor organizations and this thesis aims to understand the prevailing triple nexus environment within in particular the Finnish NGOs. The hope is to contribute to the research of the triple nexus approach by gaining knowledge of its organisational implementation. Abductive logic of inquiry is applied to this research and qualitative methods are chosen to explore the research questions. Semi-structured interviews are carried out to form an understanding of the triple nexus environment in Finland. The empirical data collected for this thesis hopes to bring new knowledge to the parties involved in the triple nexus work. The topic is relevant for development studies and has a strong linkage to the current situation of development cooperation. The scope of this study does not make it possible to draw generalization from the findings and therefore the results of this research are only valid for the specific Finnish context. Collaboration entails shared interest and finding a common ground to reach shared goals, change in thinking and ways of working is needed. Change and collaboration are at the heart of the triple nexus approach and therefore collaboration and change management frameworks serve this research. Kotter’s 8-step change management model and five dimensions of collaboration are used to guide the data collection and findings are analyzed using the most relevant steps of change management and collaborative dimensions. The results show how the triple nexus is understood within the NGOs. Different viewpoints came to the fore which can indicate that better communication and more coherence are needed. Concerning the collaboration NGOs have a good foundation to deepen the collaborative relationships which creates positive prospects. The collaborative arrangement benefits all parties and especially at the end the beneficiaries since they are at the core of all the work and the reason why better procedures are sought for.

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Background: The average hours per week of full-time employees have decreased since 1870, however, stayed at 40 hours per week for a long time. Now, in the early 21st century, there is a new interest of lowering the weekly hours even more. The reasoning behind the new interest is because it has been proven to increase a variety of benefits, both on an organizational and individual level.   Research Problem: Even though there is an increased interest for Reduced Working Hours per week globally, the existing research mainly focuses on the employees' side where Work-Life Balance and other benefits is highlighted. We find little research and documentation of the potential differences it entails for managers; therefore, it seems to be of lower interest to document the managers side of the phenomenon. Here we find a lack of research and a gap that needs further attention.   Research Purpose: The purpose of this study is to fill the research gap by identifying the managerial practices and strategies when reducing the weekly working hours within an organization. Thus, with the intention to create a framework for future managers to be able to make use of when implementing this strategy.   Research Question: How do different managerial practices and strategies facilitate the implementation of Managerial Innovation of Reduced Working Hours effectively for better Work-Life Balance?   Research Method: This study is done with a qualitative and inductive approach. Since our research is of this form, a relativistic ontological approach was used together with the epistemological assumptions of constructionism. We conducted a multiple case study to investigate the managerial practices that changed or had the most impact on the implementation of Reduced Working Hours. This is done in combination with grounded theory, where the aim is to develop theory that is grounded in our data.   Conclusion: Our findings show that certain practices had increased impact on the facilitation of Reduced Working Hours but the managerial focus shifts depending on the stage of implementation. We created a framework with the managerial practices that are most important during each stage of the implementation. First, planning is essential in the Pre-implementation stage with gathering knowledge and inspiration and having meetings to prepare before implementing Reduced Working Hours. The second stage, During-implementation presented manage as the essential focus. With guiding, communicating, and involving as the key practices. Lastly, in the Post-implementation stage, managers need to iterate. This is done by collecting feedback, revising the information to improve processes and practices.

Background and problem: Earlier research within the change management field suggests that implementation of new projects have a high rate of failure. This is problematic considering that successful implementation of projects correlates well with an organization's long term survivability. The lack of consensus among academics regarding which are the crucial factors for successful change management have inspired the authors to study this phenomenon further. Purpose: The aim of the study is to define underlying success factors and improvement potentials within change management projects with a high staff impact. Method: A qualitative case study has been the method of choice to answer the research questions. To gather empirical evidence, nine middle managers at Systembolaget AB were interviewed. The interviews were constructed in a semi-structured way. Conclusion: One of the most prominent findings in this study is the importance of having a dedicated management and senior managers during the whole change management process. Their ability to communicate a clear goal is crucial for, in our case, store managers to steer their businesses in a united direction.