<p>Bachelor thesis, Trolley Innovation Project, has been unique in the sense that it has been carried out over the borders of Sweden. Iacobucci S.p.A, located outside of Rome in Italy is one of the largest manufacturers of interior equipment for aircraft in the world. With approximately 30% of the market Iacobucci S.p.A is one of the world's largest manufacturers of catering trolleys.</p><p>The aim has been to produce a new competitive catering trolley for the airline industry. With customers and users in focus, the project team found that weight, ease of use, ergonomics and design were important aspects. Having a low weight of all the interior is particularly important when there is lots of money for the airlines to save in reduced fuel costs. The weight is really important, because of the currently major liquidity problems in the industry. </p><p>There are a lot of requirements how to build a catering trolley. For example, size, material, weight, safety, etc. This makes it extra hard to be innovative. Trolley Innovation Project has nevertheless, managed to build a catering trolley, that is up to three kilograms lighter than the existing variants from Iacobucci S.p.A. Among other things, a new brake system is developed, which is nearly 80% lighter than previously and also more ergonomic and user friendly. A new multi-functional side panel have been developed, whose structure is up to three times stiffer against a flat surface, and at the same time fulfills the purpose of shelves on the inside. </p><p>What will Trolley Innovation Project lead to? Thanks to the project new business links with Swedish and international companies have been created. The project team hopes that these contacts will remain valuable in the future. The innovations that have been developed during Trolley Innovation Project will inspire the product development work in a conservative industry and in particular lead to a more customer-and user-adapted catering trolley. The catering trolley will as a whole, or parts of it, lead to Iacobucci S.p.A's market share increases.</p>

Bachelor thesis, Trolley Innovation Project, has been unique in the sense that it has been carried out over the borders of Sweden. Iacobucci S.p.A, located outside of Rome in Italy is one of the largest manufacturers of interior equipment for aircraft in the world. With approximately 30% of the market Iacobucci S.p.A is one of the world's largest manufacturers of catering trolleys. The aim has been to produce a new competitive catering trolley for the airline industry. With customers and users in focus, the project team found that weight, ease of use, ergonomics and design were important aspects. Having a low weight of all the interior is particularly important when there is lots of money for the airlines to save in reduced fuel costs. The weight is really important, because of the currently major liquidity problems in the industry. There are a lot of requirements how to build a catering trolley. For example, size, material, weight, safety, etc. This makes it extra hard to be innovative. Trolley Innovation Project has nevertheless, managed to build a catering trolley, that is up to three kilograms lighter than the existing variants from Iacobucci S.p.A. Among other things, a new brake system is developed, which is nearly 80% lighter than previously and also more ergonomic and user friendly. A new multi-functional side panel have been developed, whose structure is up to three times stiffer against a flat surface, and at the same time fulfills the purpose of shelves on the inside. What will Trolley Innovation Project lead to? Thanks to the project new business links with Swedish and international companies have been created. The project team hopes that these contacts will remain valuable in the future. The innovations that have been developed during Trolley Innovation Project will inspire the product development work in a conservative industry and in particular lead to a more customer-and user-adapted catering trolley. The catering trolley will as a whole, or parts of it, lead to Iacobucci S.p.A's market share increases.

The thesis research innovation projects in temporary teams. The differences between stationary organization and temporary project teams lead the distinctions of their performances. Especially in innovation projects, many problems exist and are difficult to manage. Many innovation projects are operated by temporary teams; very few of them are successfully completed on time with good quality and cost as planned. The purpose with this study is to find out how innovation projects in temporary teams can be successfully managed.The research approach used is case study of one innovation project in a temporary team and additional data collection has been done with a survey. The case study describes an innovation project in a temporary team in China and the survey covers 43 persons with experience of innovation projects in temporary teams. An innovation process model by Bessant and Tidd (2007) is used as reference model but is found not suitable for temporary teams because of its specific mission with short life cycle and weak relations and uncertainty. With the combination of theoretical and practical knowledge, and to fulfil the requirements of temporary project teams, some changes are made on the original innovation process model. A new model named TT (Temporary Team) Innovation Process Model is proposed to support the innovation project management and operation process of temporary teams. Hopefully this model could be supportive for temporary teams who work with innovation projects.

Increased competition, rapidly changing technology and customer expectations have caused the innovation process to become more complex and uncertain. This study examines the possible benefits of integrating some of the concepts of risk management into the innovation project. However, adopting rigorous risk management at every stage of the innovation process could be costly: some risk management could be valuable, but too much, or inappropriate risk management might stifle innovation. There are many separate models for innovation and risk management. This study develops a combined theoretical model which aims to help the understanding of appropriate risk management in innovation. The theoretical model is based on the classic innovation process but emphasises critical decision points and information needs at various stages, with various possible contributions from risk management. The stage-gate innovation process model, with its emphasis on decisions, provides a basis for incorporating risk management with decisions related to criteria and information needs; this stage-gate model was employed in the study as the core of a theoretical model combining innovation and risk management. The theoretical model was tested in a series of empirical case studies in the United Kingdom and Iran. These involved 40 detailed interviews in five medium-large companies from a variety of industries. The case studies suggest that the combined model of risk and innovation management should be relevant across diverse industries: staff from different countries (UK and Iran), industries and functional backgrounds could all relate to it and the theoretical model provided a useful structure for developing a more detailed understanding of the possible roles and implementation of risk management in innovation. The study suggests that there is no simple guidance that companies can apply in all situations. The choice of risk management techniques varies with different innovation projects, the characteristics of the particular industry and the environment. In addition, different aspects of the risk management system are useful in different stages of the innovation project and attempting to apply a standard technique throughout the innovation project could lead to failure. A prime example is in the creativity stage: simple risk identification at this stage may be useful but more rigorous risk analysis may be stifle creativity. More rigorous risk analysis may be more appropriate in the later stages of the innovation process. Companies can use this theoretical model to help people appreciate the possible contribution of risk management at the different stages of the innovation project.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to address the, by scholars and managers alike, expressed need of development in the project portfolio selection. The research will aim to investigate how the selection of innovation projects portfolios could change if flexibility, and with it uncertainty, were added to the project portfolio selection. The aim is further to investigate how options value can be incorporated as additional value to a portfolio selection decision, with the goal to choose projects that maximize the goal function of the firm. Method: This thesis takes a qualitative approach as such approach is favourable when studying social science. The empirical research is carried out at a large international company conducting in an extensive amount of R&amp;D as well working with innovation projects. The data is collected by unstructured and semi structured interviews with management at the company subjected to the study. Results: The results show, that by adapting the real options framework to a static way of selecting projects, the incorporation of flexibility to the selection process can add economic value by accounting for options value and handle uncertainty. The real options framework will substantiate a dynamic approach to the selection process of innovation projects, as flexibility is changing the selection process from individual project selection to the selection of portfolios. / Syfte: Syftet med följande uppsats är belysa och utveckla det, av forskare och chefer, uttryckta behov av utveckling av projektportföljval. Uppsatsen syftar till att undersöka hur valet av innovationsprojekt genom portföljvalsmodeller kan förändras om flexibilitet och osäkerhet adderas till beslutsprocessen. Syftet är vidare att undersöka hur ytterligare värde kan inkorporeras i ett beslut, med målet att välja den portfölj som maximerar företagets målfunktion. Metod: Denna uppsats tar en kvalitativ metodansats då ett sådant tillvägagångssätt är fördelaktigt i studier av samhällsvetenskap. Den empiriska undersökningen har bedrivits på ett stort internationellt företag vilket deltar i ett omfattande FoU arbete, samt i stor skala arbetar med innovationsprojekt. Data har samlats in genom ostrukturerade samt semistrukturerade intervjuer med ledningen på företaget. Slutsatser: Resultaten visar att genom att inkorporera reella optioner, i en statisk beslutsprocess, så kan ett bättre beslutsunderlag genereras genom inkluderandet av osäkerhet och värdet av optioner. Ett sådant beslutsunderlag genereras genom att real options adderar flexibilitet till urvalsprocessen. Genom att inkorporera flexibilitet kommer en statisk metod att välja individuella projekt på, skifta till fördel för en dynamisk metod att välja portföljer.

As global competition is increasingly intensified, radical innovation has become more and more important for corporations in high-velocity industries. Thanks to the advances of information systems and communication media, corporations can easily reach out to experts all over the world and form project teams dedicated to the innovation effort. However, research shows that while some innovation teams are very successful in achieving significant breakthroughs, many struggle to make their collaborations work. In this dissertation, we aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of the collaboration challenges that an innovation team faces. By considering the simultaneous needs for differentiation and integration in the innovation effort and taking a communication/ interpretive perspective, we develop a theoretical model to investigate how the processes of differentiation and integration are shaped through team communication and influence an innovation team's collaboration outcomes. Specifically, we delineate four structural properties of team communication to capture these two processes - the number of issue streams explored, the number of attention switches initiated, the conceptual linkage between issue streams, and the level of deliberation after each attention switch - and identify four categories of factors that influence the development of these two processes - team composition, semi-structures, communication contexts, and communication environments. We conduct a case study as a preliminary test of our theoretical model, and find that the model provides comprehensive explanations for the collaboration dynamics and issues of these teams. We believe such a theoretical model can contribute to a better understanding of the complexity involved in an innovation project and bring fresh insights to the design of information systems for supporting an innovation team.

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Studiens syfte är att (1) kartlägga de faktorer som påverkar implementering av innovationsprojekt i externt reglerade organisationer, (2) att utveckla en förklaringsmodell som beskriver sambanden mellan dessa faktorer. Undersökningen består av en fallstudie där ett läkemedelsföretag följs under uppstartsfasen av ett innovationsprojekt. Metoden som användes var induktivt kvalitativ. Data samlades in via semistrukturerade intervjuer, öppna observationer och dokument som var kopplade till innovationsprojektet. Studien visar att följande faktorer: interna relationer, resurser, extern reglering, ledningens inställning, intern styrning och intern kommunikation påverkar implementering av innovationsprojekt och att dessa faktorer både kan ha en positiv och en negativ inverkan på implementeringen. Vid utvecklingen av förklaringsmodellen fann studien att interna relationer och resurser är faktorer som har en direkt påverkan på implementering av innovationsprojekt och att extern reglering, ledningens inställning, intern styrning och intern kommunikation är faktorer som har en indirekt påverkan.

Multinational Corporations (MNCs) currently face not only a dynamic business environment and challenging profit target, but also increased expectations from the public to take responsibility for addressing social, economic, and environmental issues. There is a tendency that the leading companies in the global market, especially MNCs, put more effort to the Social Innovation (SI). This study is to investigate what drives the MNCs to be involved in social innovation. In order to find out the reasons, we make use of the literature related to social innovation and social entrepreneurship to develop a framework of the motivation of MNCs towards social innovation. The framework combines three different perspectives (Individualistic Perspective, Organizational Perspective, and Institutional Perspective) to describe the motivation of MNCs. It includes ten main factors: philanthropy, ethics, self-awareness, new business opportunities, interfuntional collaboration, corporate culture, laws and regulations, market demands, strategic collaboration and territorial development. The study is also built on rich data collected through semi-structured interviews together with secondary sources from four MNCs in the different industries: KPMG, Coca-Cola, Porsche, and Philips. However, the empirical evidence indicates a revised framework of motivations of the social innovation in MNCs, including six main factors: self-awareness, new business opportunities, interfuntional collaboration, corporate culture, market demands, and strategic collaboration. Our research made a step into unexplored field of motivation of the MNC being involved in SI and hopefully will go further to investigate the rationale for such involvement.