Background: Reshoring is a growing phenomenon that refers to a company’s decision to move production back from a previously offshored location. There are many drivers and barriers to such decisions that display an increased complexity for managers. It gets even more challenging in a world with high levels of uncertainty shown in the past decade.    Purpose:  This study aims to investigate the drivers and barriers of reshoring and how managers perceive the risk of disruptive events as a driver of reshoring.    Method: This study uses a qualitative method and deductive approach, where empirical evidence was collected through semi-structured interviews with eight managers at clothing companies.   Conclusion: The findings of this study confirm several already established drivers and barriers to reshoring in the particular context of the clothing industry. Furthermore, the study shows that managers perceive an increased willingness to reshore as a response to disruptive events. This was to a large extent due to long lead times and higher coordination costs. Managers can use the findings as support in making decisions of where to locate their production.

<p>Millions of households around the world rely on intermittent water supply systems (IWS), where piped water supply is limited to specific hours during the day or on specific days during the week. Households relying on IWS systems, as their primary water source, often adapt to supply intermittency by installing in-house water storage and/or supplying water from non-piped sources (for instance, in the form of water tanker trucks). The piped water distribution network (WDN) in IWS systems is subject to short-term disruptions that cause dynamic behavior and interactions of the system’s stakeholders, including households, vendors of non-piped water, and the water utility. During disruptions of the WDN, households make decisions about obtaining water from different non-piped sources at different prices and wait times. These decisions, made by a large number of households, have an impact on the dynamics (in particular, the prices and availability) of the non-piped water market, which may in turn affect each household decision. Prior studies on the literature of the analysis of IWS systems focused on analyzing each of the components (namely the WDN, households, vendors of non-pied water, and the water utility) of the IWS in isolation, assuming static behavior of the other components.</p><p>The overreaching objective of this dissertation is to bridge the gap in knowledge and practice in analyzing the short-term dynamics within each component of the IWS system (focusing on the WDN and the households) and the interactions among all components of the IWS system when responding to physical disruptions of the WDN. First, a new framework for quantifying and analyzing the resilience of intermittent WDNs is presented. The framework incorporates the aspects of intermittent supply (including household storage and supply scheduling) into a hydraulic model that examines the network’s hydraulic performance and its topology to assess three resilience capacities: absorptive, adaptive, and restorative, against various types of physical disruptive events. The evaluation of the model, using the IWS network of a case study city in the Middle East, shows that household storage capacities, timing and length of the disruption, supply inequity, and the supply scheduling are significant factors in determining the resilience of the WDN, and the interactions of these variables result in different combinations of direct and post effects on households. The framework was also used to evaluate the impact of temporary modifications of the supply schedule on the network’s resilience. The results show that this short-term utility adaptive measure can significantly improve the resilience of the network. The proposed framework can assist utilities in the operation of the intermittent WDN under normal conditions and in the evaluation of the impact of different short- and long-term resilience enhancement strategies.</p><p>Next, based on empirical data from a survey of households in a city in the Middle East, the households’ decision-making in response to disruptions of the WDN was evaluated using econometric methods. A set of Binary Probit models were developed to model the decision of households regarding their risk attitudes toward running out of water (represented by the timing of their response actions), their willingness to pay for faster delivery of non-piped water, and their willingness to wait in-line to obtain water from a non-piped source. The results show how variables related to household characteristics, wealth, age and occupation of the household’s manager, knowledge of household manager about their households’ water situation, and prior experience with disruptions affect the households’ decisions when the piped-network is disrupted. The outputs of the econometric models can assist the city’s water managers in understanding the behavior of households that affect the demand and prices of different non-piped water sources.</p><p>The final component in this research integrates the two previous components into an Agent-Based Model (ABM) to evaluate the dynamics of the stakeholders’ interactions in response to disruptions of the WDN and to evaluate the impact of these interactions on the resilience of the whole system. The ABM examines the interactions between households and vendors of water tankers under utility’s policies that regulate the water tanker market while integrating variables that describe the response of the WDN to the disruption. The demonstration of the model using a representative subset of the IWS system in the case study city shows dynamic behavior patterns in: (a) the dynamics of households, and (b) the performance of the non-piped water market under different deterministic and stochastic scenarios of disruptions of the WDN.</p><p>The results of this research address many IWS systems in the Middle East and around the world that are characterized by household storage, as well as households’ dependency on the piped network as the main water supply. The models developed in this dissertation are expandable to adopt various systems’ configurations in terms of types and capacities of household storage, types and attributes of non-piped water sources, and attributes and preferences of households. The results of this doctoral research can assist water managers in cities in understanding the behavior of their IWS system (including the WDN and the system’s stakeholders), evaluating long-term resilience enhancement policies, and planning for short-term response to disruptions of the WDN.</p>

Cloud computing is a technology that has gained increasing attention because of its considerable benefits, which include reduced costs, reduced complexity and increased flexibility. To obtain these benefits, cloud computing utilizes existing technologies, such as grid computing, virtualization and web services, for online delivery of scalable information technology (IT) services, frequently on the basis of a pay-per-use pricing model. In 2008, the Gartner Group predicted that cloud computing would reach the mainstream within two to five years. However, in their latest hype cycle for emerging technologies, they stated that cloud computing had not yet reached the plateau of productivity but rather was still in the trough of disillusionment. The reason for this situation may be that cloud computing continues to face skepticism because of various concerns regarding, e.g., data privacy and security. In particular, (enterprise) customers transfer (sensitive) data to cloud computing providers, and the end-user rents the right to use cloud computing services via a web browser with minimal need to interact or even without the necessity of interacting directly with a sales assistant. These two aspects result in a strong unilateral dependency and require a high degree of trust in the provider. Additionally, publicity regarding the PRISM program has brought these aspects to the forefront of public interest. Consequently, specific requirements regarding, e.g., security, privacy, accountability, and auditability, must be met to fulfill the expectations of business partners and to build long-term business relationships. Thus, overcoming information asymmetry, enhancing transparency and eradicating behavioral uncertainty is of high importance to build trust between cloud computing providers and their (prospective) customers. Therefore, although most research to date has focused on technical aspects and aimed to improve the actual security of cloud computing services, there is also an urgent need to understand the factors that affect the adoption of cloud computing services from the points of view of both private users and companies. If cloud computing is to reach its full potential, a clear understanding of the factors that influence its adoption is mandatory to improve both present and future cloud computing services. Motivated by these considerations, the aim of this doctoral thesis is to explore, describe, analyze and explain the factors that influence the adoption of cloud computing using various qualitative and quantitative research methods, i.e., by employing a mixed-methods analysis. As a first step, a serious game is conducted to explore various factors that influence the adoption of cloud computing services. Based on these initial findings, the factors explored during the serious game and some additional factors are described and analyzed in detail. These factors include the cloud computing market, costs, trust, affectedness, shadow IT, and sustainability. Furthermore, the factor of information asymmetry, especially regarding bridging the information asymmetry with various information presentation methods, is explained. Following these findings, a research agenda, which contains a recommended research design and lists the theories that are relevant in the context of the adoption of cloud computing, is proposed. Subsequently, a synthesis of the research findings in terms of their implications for practice and research, including limitations, are discussed.

The interconnectedness of global supply chains, combined with disruptive events like the Covid-19 pandemic, has emphasized the significance of enhancing supply chain resilience (SCRes). Thus, this study aims to investigate how businesses employ SCRes recovery strategies to address extreme supply chain disruptions (SCD). To contribute empirical evidence on reactive SCRes strategies, qualitative methodology was employed, with a specific emphasis on the construction department at Northvolt. The construction industry serves as an apt context for assessing and offers valuable insights. Unstructured and semi-structured interviews were conducted with supply chain executives within the company to collect the data. The findings reveal specific challenges faced by the construction department at Northvolt in the face of global supply chain disruptions, shedding light on their responsive strategies. This study not only emphasizes the necessity of cultivating all SCRes capabilities but also contributes valuable empirical evidence to the field. The implications of these findings extend beyond Northvolt, providing actionable insights for businesses in the construction industry and offering recommendations for enhancing overall supply chain resilience. / Den ökande globala kopplingen mellan leverantörskedjor, tillsammans med störande händelser som Covid-19-pandemin, har understrukit betydelsen av att förbättra leverantörskedjors motståndskraft (SCRes). Denna studie syftar därför till att undersöka hur företag använder sig av SCRes-återhämtningsstrategier för att hantera extrema störningar i leverantörskedjan (SCD). För att bidra med empiriska bevis om reaktiva SCRes-strategier användes kvalitativ metodik, med särskild tonvikt på byggavdelningen på Northvolt. Byggbranschen fungerar som en lämplig kontext för bedömning och erbjuder värdefulla insikter. Ostrukturerade och halvstrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes med företagets leverantörskedjechefer för att samla in data. Resultaten avslöjar specifika utmaningar som byggavdelningen på Northvolt står inför i ljuset av globala störningar i leverantörskedjan och belyser deras responsstrategier. Denna studie betonar inte bara nödvändigheten av att odla alla SCRes-förmågor utan bidrar också med värdefulla empiriska bevis till området. Resultatens implikationer sträcker sig bortom Northvolt och ger handlingsbara insikter för företag inom byggbranschen, samt erbjuder rekommendationer för att förbättra övergripande motståndskraft i leverantörskedjan.