The conversion of grasslands to woodlands is an ecosystem transformation that threatens grassland biodiversity, the provision of important ecosystem services, and the sustainability of rural livelihoods. A global phenomenon, woody plant encroachment (WPE) has been particularly problematic in the Southern Great Plains of the United States where the actions of private landowners are integral to sustaining grasslands. Increased diversity in landowners’ motivations for owning land have shifted the social landscape of rural areas necessitating a better understanding of landowners’ perspectives about WPE and their subsequent management actions. Towards this purpose, I employed a mail survey to private landowners in the Edwards Plateau of Texas, Central Great Plains of Oklahoma, and Flint Hills of Kansas to investigate landowner perceptions and management responses to WPE. First, I assessed landowners’ acceptance of WPE as a function of how they relate to their land (i.e., sense of place), their beliefs about the positive and negative consequences of woody plants, and their perceived threat of grassland conversion. Then, I examined the drivers of landowners’ goal intentions to manage woody plants and their current use of five adaptive management practices that prevent WPE. My results demonstrate that landowners vary in their sensitivity to WPE based on how they feel connected to their land. This was true even though most landowners had low acceptance thresholds for WPE, believed it led to numerous negative outcomes, and perceived it as increasingly threatening at greater levels of encroachment. Most landowners wanted to control or remove woody plants and were actively engaged in management practices to do so. These findings address uncertainties about landowners’ acceptance of WPE and grassland conservation actions and provide broad implications for how people perceive and respond to ecosystem transformation. / Master of Science / Around the world, grasslands are converting to tree and shrub woodlands at an unprecedented rate. This transformation profoundly reduces habitat available for grassland plants and animals and diminishes many ecosystem services that people and rural communities rely on. This loss of grasslands has been especially far-reaching throughout the Southern Great Plains of the United States. Because most of this region is privately owned, the management actions of landowners play a crucial role in preventing or allowing this conversion to continue. Recent shifts in land ownership motivations expanding beyond traditional agricultural production have created increased uncertainty about how private landowners view and react to this change. To investigate how landowners perceive and respond to this woody plant encroachment (WPE) phenomenon, I conducted a mail survey of landowners in the Edwards Plateau of Texas, the Central Great Plains of Oklahoma, and the Flint Hills of Kansas. Using sense of place, landowners’ beliefs about the potential positive and negative consequences of woody plants, and their perceptions of how threatening grassland conversion is, I assessed the thresholds at which landowners’ do or do not accept WPE. Then, I examined how acceptance of WPE relates to landowners’ management goals and current use of management practices to control or reduce woody plants. I found that most landowners believed that woody plants had many negative consequences and perceived increasing levels of threat at greater levels of encroachment. This related to low levels of acceptance for woody plants in grasslands. However, landowners’ threat perceptions and acceptance of WPE varied based on their sense of place. Finally, most landowners wanted to control or remove woody plants and were actively engaged in management practices to do so. My results provide critical information regarding how current landowners’ view and respond to grassland conversion and offer broad implications for how people perceive and respond to large-scale environmental change.

Technological transformations are changing the demands within the transportation industry in terms of services, consequently affecting the value proposition of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), thus calling for the need for initiatives in servitization. Responding to this, manufacturers are initiating partnerships with external actors to secure resources, competency and similar. However, the topic of this is relatively- unexplored for manufacturers within the heavy-truck industry, contributing to uncertainties regarding the elements needed for partnerships and successful servitization initiatives within this context. Hence, the purpose of this thesis has been to investigate relational changes between actors caused by higher levels of servitization inthe heavy-truck industry. To fulfill this, a case study was conducted with a central focus on two heavy-truck and seven other connected actors OEMs in Sweden. The study has been of qualitative character and utilizes theory concerning ecosystem transformation in conjunction with product-service systems.  The findings underline eight partnership elements crucial for navigating servitization in the heavy-truck industry, with implications for collaborative efforts and in-depth partnerships within the OEM ecosystem. Further, it is argued that these elements have to be considered in the context of transforming the business model for OEMs towards being more service-oriented. Thus, the influences on network tactics are elaborated upon for the business models in the product-service system. Overall, it is concluded that servitization within the heavy-truck industry is necessary for OEMs in order to acquire future competitive advantage parallel to technological transformations, and establishing partnerships is considered to aid in this due to the ever-changing landscape in the transportation industry calling for the need of strategic collaboration efforts. / Utvecklingar inom teknologi förändrar kraven för transportindustrin när det gäller tjänster, vilket påverkar värdeerbjudandet hos så kallade originalutrustningstillverkare (OEM:er), och kräver initiativ för tjänsteutveckling. Som svar på detta inleder tillverkare partnerskap med externa aktörer för att säkra resurser, kompetens och liknande. Detta är dock relativt outforskat gällande tillverkare inom lastbilsindustrin, vilket bidrar till osäkerheter kring vilka delar som behövs för partnerskap och framgångsrik tjänsteutveckling i detta sammanhang. Syftet med detta examensarbete har därför varit att undersöka relationsförändringar mellan aktörer orsakat av högre nivåer av tjänsteutveckling inom lastbilsindustrin. För att uppfylla detta genomfördes en fallstudie med centralt fokus på två svenska lastbilstillverkare och sju andra aktörer med kopplingar till dessa. För att uppfylla detta genomfördes en fallstudie med centralt fokus på två tunga lastbilar och sju andra anslutna aktörer till dessa OEM:er i Sverige. Studien har varit av kvalitativ karaktär och använder teori om ekosystems-transformation i samband med produkt-tjänstesystem.  Resultaten understryker vikten av åtta partnerskapselement som har identifierats som kritiska för att navigera tjänsteutvecklingen inom lastbilsindustrin, och alla ger implikationer för kollaborativa aktiviteter och djupgående partnerskap inom ett OEM-ekosystem. Vidare argumenteras det att dessa element måste beaktas i sammanhanget för att transformera OEM:ernas affärsmodeller mot att bli mer tjänsteorienterade. Fortsättningsvis så diskuteras dessa elements påverkan på nätverksstrategier i produkttjänstesystem. Sammanfattningsvis så dras slutsatsen att tjänsteutveckling inom lastbilsindustrin är viktigt för OEM:erna för att få framtida konkurrensfördelar i en miljö kantad av teknologiska transformationer. Detta ständigt föränderliga landskapet beaktas behöva kollaborativa insatser och slutsatsen dras att etablering av partnerskap hjälper i detta.