This thesis aims to deepen the relationship between the different forms of proximity that emerge between economic actors and the consequent influence on their innovative capacity. Over the years, this topic has generated a great deal of attention in conference proceedings and scientific publications. The first step to deepen the understanding of this amount of knowledge was to identify a suitable methodology. In so do- ing, the recent advances of the Machine Learning community – particularly Natural Language Processing academics - have offered interesting insights. In particular, "Topic Modeling" was identified as a suitable methodology to bring out latent semantic structures. Therefore, the first chapter tries to study how this methodology has been implemented in the social sciences and, in particular, in management. The contribution offered is a rationalization of the achievable goals and their relationship with evaluation practices. Once clarified how to use this algorithm, the second chapter studied the relationship between proximity and innovation. Using an unsupervised machine learning technique, the research attempts to identify thematic management cores in a multifocal literature such as proximity. Together with a qualitative analysis, the study attempts to bring out the theoretical and empirical contributions offered to the management community. Once the theoretical and empirical expectations have been clarified, the third chapter introduces a strategic theme, namely the business model. This section proposes a mediating effect of the business model concerning the central relationship between proximity and innovation. After a theoretical introduction, the conceptual model is studied with an exploratory approach. Without any presumption of generalizability and completeness, a novel analytical key is offered to open further debate in the community of proximity.

This research investigates mobile service design and engineering in the mobile telecommunications industry. The mobile telecommunication business is shifting from one that was voice-centric to one that is almost all data-centric; thanks to recent rapid advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). The underlying reasons behind this shift can be traced back to two main issues that are interlinked. The first and major reason is that telecoms (telecommunication companies) are trying to generate new revenue streams based on data and information transmissions, given the saturation of the voice market. This is rational given the market opportunities in one direction and the pressures being generated by the current economic downturn from the other direction. The second reason relates to the flexibility of data, compared to voice. Indeed, the number of services that can be developed on the basis of data are much greater than those that can be developed on the basis of voice. However, the design and engineering of successful and innovative mobile data services has proven to be a complex undertaking. The number of effective mobile data services is relatively small and the revenue generated from such offerings has generally been below expectations. This research develops an ontological framework to help in changing this situation, and making mobile services engineering more effective and successful, following the design-science research paradigm. Design-science research, in general, aims to solve unstructured but relevant organizational or social problems through the development of novel and useful artefacts. As the current research aims to help in solving the mobile data services engineering dilemma by developing a purposeful ontological framework, the design-science research paradigm is deemed fitting. Within this paradigm, the author develops a novel design approach specified for ontology engineering, termed “OntoEng”. This design approach is used in this research for developing the ontological framework. The developed ontological framework is founded on business model thinking. The idea is that creating innovative mobile data services requires developing innovative business models. Indeed, innovative business models can help translate technological potential into economic value and allow telecoms to achieve their strategic objectives. The ontological framework includes the development of an ontology, termed “V4 Mobile Service BM Ontology” as well as “Mobile Key Value Drivers” for designing and engineering innovative mobile data services. The V4 Mobile Service BM Ontology incorporates four design dimensions: (1) value proposition including targeting; (2) value architecture including technological and organizational infrastructure; (3) value network dealing with aspects relating to partnerships and co-operations; and finally (4) value finance relating to costs, pricing, and revenue structures. Within these four dimensions, sixteen design concepts are identified along with their constituent elements. Relationships and interdependencies amongst the identified design constructs are established and clear semantics are produced. The research then derives six key value drivers for mobile service engineering as follows: (a) Market Alignment; (b) Cohesion; (c) Dynamicity; (d) Uniqueness; (e) Fitting Network-Mode; and (f) Explicitness. The developed ontological framework in this research is evaluated to ensure that it can be successfully implemented and performs correctly in the real world. The research mainly utilizes case analysis methods to ensure the semantic correctness of the ontological framework. Indeed, the developed ontological framework is employed as an analytical lens to examine the design and engineering of three key real-life cases in the mobile telecommunications industry. These cases are: (1) Apple’s iPhone Services and Applications; (2) NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode Services; and (3) Orange Business Services. For further validation, the developed ontological framework is evaluated against a set of criteria synthesized from ontology engineering and evaluation literature. These criteria are: Clarity; Coherence; Conciseness; Preciseness; Completeness; and Customizability. The developed ontological framework is argued to make significant contributions for theory, practice, and methodology. For theory, this research provides (1) a novel ontological framework for designing and engineering mobile data services; (2) a unified framework of the business model concept; and (3) a new design approach for ontology engineering in information systems. For practice, the current research provides practitioners in the telecommunications industry with systematic and customizable means to design, implement, analyze, evaluate, and change new and existing mobile data services to make them more manageable, effective, and creative. For methodology, the use of the design- science research paradigm for ontology engineering signifies the focal methodological contribution in this research given its novelty. This research also contributes to the understanding of the design-science research paradigm in information systems as it is relatively new. It provides a working example in which the author illustrates how recognizing design-science research as a paradigm is essential and useful to the research in information systems discipline.

The Investment bank industry is considered to be an essential element of not only the financial system but also the whole economy. Understanding multiple business models employed by multi-services industry such Investment bank is a matter of great significance for Investment banks’ executives, regulators and analysts. In 2008 the business model that had been employed by investment banks for almost two decades vanished due to the global financial crisis. Investment banks were forced to change and innovate their traditional business models. This research intends to develop a conceptual framework which helps to realize and study investment banks’ business models with the core components and related activities. Multiple business models mapping for investment banks is developed to give seniors executives core and possible activities and alternatives to innovate and change various business models for different lines including asset management, brokerage, investment banking and custody services. In addition, the business model (innovation) drivers are investigated to empirically explore the most powerful drivers on investment banks’ multiple business models (innovation), potential changes and degree of alteration on its activities for each business line. For these aims, a systematic literature review was carried to synthesise the recent advancements in the business model literature and explore how firms approach business model innovation. As result, a conceptual framework for business model (innovation) was developed, which encompasses four components value proposition, operational value, human capital and financial value. This framework can be utilized by practitioners as a 'navigation map' to determine where and how to change their business models. By using the qualitative methodology through semi-structured interviews with 29 senior executives from 10 fully-licensed investment banks in Saudi Arabia and secondary data including financial statements, annual reports and pillar III disclosures, the empirical study mapped the investment banks’ multiple business models and identified a business model for each business line. Sixteen activities for each business line were determined to provide core and possible activities and alternatives. This research contributes to our understating of managing and innovating multiple business models in the industry when investment banks should run these multiple business models. The Investment banks’ business models are different in terms of business lines, core offerings, clients, key assets, key process, revenue streams and costs structure. Over and above, each line shows diverse business models applied by investment banks. Furthermore, unlike other studies, this research contributed by investigating drivers that force investment banks to change their existing business models, the degree of changes and which activities did investment banks consider when responding to particular drivers. This study found that clients, crisis and economic changes, rivalry, top management and regulations are the five drivers forcing investment banks to not only embark on change events, but also carry out business model changes in most investment banks’ business lines.

Rhein.-Westf. Techn. Hochschule, Diss.--Aachen, 2005. / SENEKA = Service-Netzwerke für Aus- und Weiterbildung.

The use of process models to support business analysts' idea-generation tasks has been a long-standing topic of interest in process improvement. We examine how two types of representations of organizational processes - textual and diagrammatic - assist analysts in developing innovative solutions to process-redesign tasks. The results of our study clarify the types of process-redesign ideas generated by analysts who work with text versus those who work with models. We find that the volume and originality of process-redesign ideas do not differ significantly but that appropriateness of ideas varies. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and practice in process improvement.

The aim of the thesis was an analysis of factors influencing the competitiveness of selected industry in foreign markets. For this purpose, the aircraft manufacturing industry was chosen. Firstly I analysed current trends in the aircraft manufacturing, external factors influencing the industry and competitive forces of industry. Based on the lessons learned factors having the greatest influence on the international competitiveness of the aircraft manufacturing industry were identified. These factors were afterwards individually analyzed and the conclusion of this analysis was identifying of opportunities for increasing the competitiveness of the Czech aircraft manufacturing industry on foreign markets in various areas.

Marketing is a broad subject with many different areas. Part of the marketing that has been of great importance is the 4P:s also known as the marketing mix. Marketing mix is included in one of the traditional marketing approaches. In recent years there have been some changes and have begun looking at new ways of looking at marketing. One of the ways is entrepreneurial marketing to the effect that the company tries to use its resources optimally. For example, usage of network marketing and creative resource-commercial, which is useful for small and resource-poor firms. The purpose of this study is to investigate and understand how entrepreneurial companies market and establish themselves. The survey methodology in the study is a qualitative case study. A study of four interviews with innovative companies. The companies included in the study are Creality, Avtal24, FlexGrip and Brottsportalen.se. The interviews were recorded with a dictaphone and has since become the basis of empirical data in the work.From data collected in the empirical data was then carried out an analysis in which empirical evidence and theories were contrasted and analyzed. The findings showed that companies in the study were innovation-oriented and was based on themselves and their ideas when they created businesses, something that came naturally to an entrepreneurial companies and individuals have created. They also showed that companies had deliberately positioned itself but that it was a process that evolved. Advertising was also something that was a low priority because of lack of resources meant that the companies used the methods that are affordable and natural resources, such as joint-ventures with other companies. Instead of the traditional methods for collecting information, companies have used the personal network and contacts with potential customers to obtain information on the market. The companies in this study has shown signs of making use of an entrepreneurial marketing, while also using techniques that may belong to a traditional way of marketing themselves. / Marknadsföring är ett brett ämne med många olika områden. En del av marknadsföringen som har haft stor betydelse är de 4P:na även kallat marknadsmixen. Marknadsmixen ingår i ett av de traditionella marknadsföringssynsätten. Under senare år har det skett en del förändringar och man har börjat titta på nya sätt att se på marknadsföring. Ett av de sätten är entreprenöriell marknadsföring som går ut på att företaget försöker utnyttja sina tillgångar optimalt. Exempelvis användande av nätverket i marknadsföring och kreativ resurssnål marknadskommunikation, vilket kan vara användbart för mindre och resursfattiga företag.Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka och förstå hur entreprenöriella företag marknadsför och etablerar sig på nya marknader.Undersökningsmetoden i studien är en kvalitativ fallstudie. En studie med fyra intervjuer med innovativa företag. Företagen som ingår i studien är Creality, Avtal24, FlexNgrip och Brottsportalen.se. Intervjuerna spelades in med diktafon och har sedan blivit grunden för empirin i arbetet.Från data som samlades in till empirin gjordes sedan en analys där empiri och teorierna ställdes mot varandra och analyserades.Slutsatserna visade att företagen i studien var innovationsorienterade och utgick från sig själva och sina idéer när de skapade företagen, något som kom naturligt för ett entreprenöriellt företag som privatpersoner har skapat. De visade även på att företagen inte medvetet hade positionerat sig utan att det var en process som växte fram. Reklam var även något som var nedprioriterat då bristen på resurser medförde att företagen använde sig av metoder som är överkomliga och resurssnåla till exempel samarbeten med andra företag. Istället för traditionella marknadsundersökningar för inhämtning av information har företagen använt av sitt personliga nätverk och genom kontakter med potentiella kunder för att få information om marknaden. Företagen i studien har i sin marknadsföring visat tecken på att använda sig av en entreprenöriell marknadsföring, samtidigt som de även använder tekniker som kan tillhöra ett traditionellt sätt att marknadsföra sig.

Submitted by Irene Nascimento (irene.kessia@ufpe.br) on 2016-06-22T17:17:22Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) dissertacao-emp-ABNT.pdf: 3116407 bytes, checksum: 8cd23c19daed8b6c62acf21e44c510b4 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-22T17:17:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) dissertacao-emp-ABNT.pdf: 3116407 bytes, checksum: 8cd23c19daed8b6c62acf21e44c510b4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-01-29 / Existem muitos estudos sobre inovação em modelos de negócios com startups e grandes empresas, mas a realidade das pequenas empresas é bem diferente e requer uma atenção especial. Neste sentido, o objetivo do trabalho é investigar como uma pequena empresa estabelecida do segmento de Tecnologia da Informação inova em seu modelo de negócio ao longo do tempo. Realizamos então um estudo de caso para identificar os fatores que incidiram sobre o modelo de negócio, sob a ótica dos nove blocos de construção do Business Model Canvas. Avaliamos também a aplicabilidade da ferramenta com relação às facilidades e dificuldades do processo de elaboração, à completude da ferramenta e às oportunidades futuras de inovação a partir do Canvas. O fator mais importante foi a inovação aberta, pois, além de manter o foco no negócio principal, a pequena empresa conseguiu responder às necessidades do mercado mais rapidamente e manteve os clientes engajados com a inovação. É essencial construir um ambiente interno capaz de fomentar a inovação e disseminar a visão sistêmica do negócio com toda a equipe, usando o Canvas como ferramenta auxiliar e permitindo à empresa se relacionar com agentes externos (institutos de pesquisa, grandes e pequenas empresas, startups). As boas parcerias incentivam o crescimento da empresa, gerando benefícios para ambos os lados e promovendo uma solução mais completa para o cliente. / There are many studies on business model innovation with startups and big corporations but the scenario for small businesses is quite different and requires special attention. The objective of this study is to investigate how an established small company of Information Technology innovates on its business model over time. To do this, we conducted a case study to identify the factors that impacted on the business model, from the perspective of nine building blocks of Business Model Canvas. We also evaluated the applicability of the tool related to strengths and difficulties of the drafting process, tool completeness and future opportunities of innovation from the Canvas. The most important factor was the open innovation, because in addition to keep the focus on the core business, the small business can respond to market needs faster and keeps customers engaged with innovation. It is essential to build an internal environment capable of fostering innovation and spreading to the whole team a systematic view of business, using Canvas as assistant tool and enabling the company to relate to external stakeholders (research institutions, big and small companies, startups). The good partnerships encourage the growth of the company while creating benefits to both and providing a complete solution to customers.

This thesis is focused on French innovation system and its outputs. The aim is to analyze innovation performance of France, as well as its innovation policy and to find out the meaning of the innovation system for French economy and its competitiveness. The thesis also includes a case study of a shareholder and presents his perspective. The first chapter explains basic definitions and innovation related terms and reviews innovation associated theories. The second chapter examines the French innovation system evolution and its performance based on statistical data. Moreover, the French innovation business conditions and an innovation policy will be discussed. Following the analysis of the French innovation system, the last chapter evaluates whether the target of reinforcing innovation capacity is met. At the same time, the third section presents a player of the system, Raise company, and its position within this innovation system.

Aim of this thesis is the analysis and proposal of changes in marketing strategy of Internet Company. The theoretical part of work focuses on the specifics of doing business on the Internet. The part continues with the description of Internet marketing. The analytical part of the thesis defines the business environment of the selected company, including market analysis and situational analysis. The analysis of marketing strategy of the company follows. At the end of the work the information were synthesized and evaluated. On the basis of these synthesized information the final suggestions were recommended to innovate the company marketing strategy