The Internet and e-business has had enormous impact on many companies in Nigeria and there has been much research on how e-business influences the environment, but little can be found on how the environment of a developing country like Nigeria influences e-business. In e-business, technology tells the business what can be done in smarter ways. Technology not only can make business more efficient but also can make business more effective in targeting and reaching markets, however technology cannot enhance business in isolation as there are other vital factors that equally impact business. This thesis presents an adapted version of the PESTEL (Political, Economic, Socio cultural, Technology, Environment, and Legal) framework so called e-business PESTEL framework, as a method for structural analysis of macro environment forces in the future. In addition to this PESTEL framework, the Porter’s five forces model was employed to analyse the industrial forces that also influence MTNN e-business strategy. The main goal of this research is to give an overview of industry and macro-environment forces influencing the e-business strategy MTN-Nigeria and the impact of future developments. The research methodology was explorative and descriptive. A further method for future analysis of the macro-environments influences and a suggestion on how to incorporate it in this research work is given. The e-business strategy of MTNN consists of four areas: E-procurement, E-collaboration (CRM), Supply chain management and E-commerce. The influences found on macro-environments level are political and sociocultural forces and in the industry levels are bargaining power of customers and suppliers of its products and services .The most recommendations are that MTN-Nigeria should add e-business PESTEL framework described in this thesis to its e-business strategy check. Furthermore MTNN should include environment analysis more extensively in their e-business strategy approach as the factors in this research work shape the environment in which it carries out its business. / toks_philip@yahoo.com,adac06@student.bth.se,++447976105543

Service innovation is an important component for service business through its applicability in development and accretion that promotes business operations. The service innovation process can be created and maintained through interaction between the actor and the customer, where mutual value is being created through collaboration. However, disruptive external forces that reconfigure businesses environment and changes behavior of customers can have an impact on the conditions for service processes, where the need for innovative solutions increases to continue to reach customer satisfaction. In addition, it may further impact the underlying processes of innovating services, not at least within the facility service sector since interacting and operating within customer’s sites. Therefore, the authors want to contribute with knowledge regarding how service innovation processes are being affected by disruptive external forces, investigated through a single case study. The empirical data has been collected through semi-structured, in-depth interviews with six respondents within a global market-leading provider of facility services where the study has addressed the Swedish market. The empirical findings acknowledged that a changed customer behavior imposed by disruptive external forces causes challenges and changes to the business environment of facility services. The collected data highlighted disruptive forces such as technological, environmental and, especially prominent, the pandemic as particularly influential to the processes of facility service innovation. Business environment in a reconfigured state has, among other, affected the parts of developing, testing, and implementing innovative solutions, thereby influencing the implementation process of service innovation. In conclusion, disruptive external forces imposed new areas of focus and requirements from customers, leading to customers becoming more involved in the process of facility service innovation. The case company has been required to adopt a form of Service-Dominated (S-D) logic on the approach of developing value propositions, implicating that the customers are taking an increased and active part in the facility service innovation process. In relation to a changing customer need imposed by disruptive external forces, psychological senses and perceptions have been distinguished to be a requirement of facility service innovation and have therefore constituted an active component of the innovation process.

This thesis consists of four independent essays, which consider different topics in information economics and political economy. The first two papers are variants of the same idea. An uninformed principal, e.g., a government, will make a decision. In order to gain more information it may consult two experts; however, these experts have a private interest in certain policies being implemented. The question is, to gain as much information as possible, should the principal consult experts who are biased in the same direction, or experts who prefer different decisions? The main result is that, as long as collusion between experts can be prevented, homogeneous panels are superior to heterogeneous ones, and this advantage increases with the experts’ informational precision. In the third paper, two firms consider entry in a new product market and must decide when to enter the market and how to design their product. Firms do not know for certain what the best design is, so both firms want to outwait the other’s decision in order to gain more information. The focus of the paper is on which firm will make the first decision. The main result is that if products are strong (strategic) substitutes, the worst informed firm makes the first decision in equilibrium. The analysis should apply to a range of other contexts, such as investors’ trading decisions or the policy choices of political candidates. The final paper asks the following question: Could it be that parties in a two-party system may benefit from using several candidates in the same election? To promote the use of multiple candidates, I assume that a party never runs the risk of having its votes split up among its candidates. Despite this, it turns out that parties have a strong incentive to restrict their number of nominees. Paradoxically, it seems that the more uncertain parties are about voter opinion, the fewer candidates they want to use. In particular, with a uniform voter distribution the optimal number of candidates is one. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk., 2001 S. v-vii: sammanfattning, s. 1-72: 4 uppsatser

International trade ties the world together and is hypothetically fair and equal. In reality, it is highly asymmetrical and poses a significant challenge for developing countries. A massive sea change occurred in the international trade regime during the Uruguay Round of negotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) from 1986 to 1994. Developing countries as a whole began to embrace liberal trade policies which seemed to be the only alternative to failing import substitution industrialization (ISI). An historical comparative account describing and explaining this transformation of developing countries’ attitudes toward the GATT is used in this dissertation to provide an alternative explanation for the transition of developing countries from having little interest in the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations to sharply changing course and adopting neo-liberal policies which supported the conclusion of the Round. Three theoretical approaches seek to explain why this change occurred, including: liberal trade theory (economic reforms), dependency theory (external forces) and constructivism (the role epistemic communities). The Uruguay Round negotiations were dynamic and heavily influenced by two power-house developing economies, India and Brazil, who were initially opposed to the Round itself. Kenya found itself in a starkly different situation with minimal ability to participate or influence negotiations. These three countries constitute the study’s illustrative case studies. As negotiations progressed, India and Brazil changed course and agreed to the Round’s ‘single-undertaking’ and the ‘inequitable Grand Bargain’ between the developed and developing economies. This subsequently led to other developing countries following suit through a powerful demonstration effect in a trade-off between the inclusion of trade in services and intellectual property for reforms in agriculture and textiles & clothing. While economic reforms began to occur and attitudes began to change during the Uruguay Round itself, assessing developing countries during the Round found that no single theoretical approach can explain developing countries’ transformation; rather each had their own trajectory for their economic reforms. A multi-dimensional conclusion provides the most comprehensive account of this transformation of the global trade regime.

A new municipal group house is emerging - and intentions are affected. Swedish welfare is described as something that is transforming. This essay is a case study on how a group house for young adults with mild mental retardation and social problems, developed in a municipal. The purpose of the essay is to gain a better understanding of a new group house with the help of theoretical concepts such as internal and external forces in relation to organizational change. The conclusion is that a group house emerges through a complex context where different factors influence the ability to reach or fail intention, where the intention of the group house is to give the residents greater autonomy and hence have less need for welfare. Internal pressure such as the physical design of the home and external pressure such as how different laws are interpreted and followed in everyday situations are examples of important forces.