Bakgrund: Inom företagssektorn prioriteras sociala- och miljömässiga hållbarhetsaspekter i större utsträckning vid utvärdering av nya och befintliga leverantörer. Leverantörer är i behov av att uppfylla kriterier från B2B-kunder varvid en hållbarhetsstrategi kan vara fördelaktig att verka utefter. Brewmaster vill konkurrera genom hållbar och spårbart framtagen malt, vilket förutsätter legitimitet samt uppfyllelse av potentiella bryggeriers hållbarhetskrav. Problematiken grundas i bristande transparens inom bryggeribranschen, begränsad insikt gällande vilka hållbarhetskrav som ställs av B2B-kunder kunder samt Brewmasters avsaknad av en hållbarhetsstrategi. Syfte: Syftet är att identifiera vilka kravställningar Brewmasters potentiella B2B-kunder kunder ställer på kommande partnerskap samt hur Brewmaster utifrån ett leverantörs- perspektiv, kan tillfredsställa dessa krav. Vidare granskas vilka konkurrensfördelar Brewmaster kan uppnå genom att arbeta utifrån ett strategiskt hållbart perspektiv inom hela organisationen. Metod: Utifrån en kvalitativ fallstudie med en deduktiv ansats har primärdata insamlats via ostrukturerade - samt semistrukturerade intervjuer. Primärdata har kompletterats av sekundär- data från bryggeriers hållbarhetsrapporter, litteratur, hemsidor samt vetenskapliga artiklar, vilket har analyserats i relation till det empiriska materialet för att besvara studiens frågeställningar. Slutsats: Brewmaster behöver säkerställa ett proaktivt och kontinuerligt hållbarhetsarbete som inbegriper upprätthållande av riktlinjer och policys. Hållbarhetskraven som ställs innefattar produktkvalitet och säkerhet, ett hållbart ansvarstagande genom resurseffektivitet och minimering av avfall. Vidare framgår ett behov av att integrera en hållbarhetsstrategi för att uppnå ökad legitimitet, marknadsandelar och konkurrenskraft på marknaden. Det kan medföra ökad betalningsvilja hos konsumenter samt utveckling av relationer med intressenter, där kostnads- och konkurrensfördelar skapas samt långsiktiga partnerskap. Vidare kan dessa fördelar differentiera företaget vilket kan generera konkurrensfördelar på marknaden. Studiens bidrag: Resultatet kan vara av praktisk nytta för andra företag inom likartade branscher i form av riktlinjer för hur en hållbarhetsstrategi kan förbättra verksamhetens konkurrensfördelar, samt hur ett hållbart agerande kan möjliggöra potentiella samarbeten. Teoretiskt bidrar studien med en djupare förståelse för samverkan mellan B2B-kunder och leverantörer, där studiens resultat öppnar upp för vidare diskussion gällande hållbart ansvarstagande inom försörjningskedjan samt värdet av transparens mellan intressenter. / Background: Social and environmental sustainability is increasingly prioritized when choosing a supplier in the corporate sector. This presupposes the suppliers meet the extended requirements of the B2B customers and thereby it can be beneficial to create a sustainability strategy. The malt house Brewmaster strives to compete through sustainable and traceable malt, which requires them to achieve legitimacy in the industry and fulfillment of desirable breweries' sustainability requirements. The issues that can accure for Brewmaster is, limitations to see the depts of wich significant environmental requirements potential B2B customers seek, and Brewmaster's lack of a sustainability strategy. Purpose: Identify which requirements Brewmasters' potential B2B customers demand on future partnerships and how Brewmaster, from a supplier perspective, satisfy these requirements. Furthermore, the study examines competitive advantages Brewmaster can achieve by working from a strategically sustainable perspective throughout the organization. Method: Based on a qualitative case study with a deductive approach, primary data has been collected via unstructured - as well as semi-structured interviews. It has been supplemented by secondary data from breweries' sustainability reports, literature, websites, and scientific articles, which have been analyzed into the empirical material to answer the study's questions. Conclusion: Brewmaster needs proactive and continuous sustainability work which includes maintaining guidelines and policies. The sustainability requirements contains product quality and safety, resource efficiency, and minimization of waste. Additionally, there is a need to integrate a sustainability strategy to achieve increased legitimacy, market shares, and competitiveness in the market. This can generate increased willingness to pay among consumers and develop relationships with stakeholders, where cost and competitive advantages are created as well as long-term partnerships. Furthermore, these advantages can differentiate the company, which can entail competitive advantages in the line of business. Contribution: The results of the study can be practically useful for other companies in similar industries. Due to the form of guidelines for how a sustainability strategy can improve the business's competitive advantages, and enable potential collaborations. Theoretically, the study contributes to a deeper understanding of collaboration between B2B customers and suppliers, where the results open for further discussion regarding sustainable responsibility in the supply chain and the value of transparency between stakeholders.

In recent years, some scholars have turned their attention towards the problem of multiple simultaneous peace operations (MSPOs), but with little focus on state motivations for their initiation. This thesis examines the case of the conflict in Mali and the high amount of operations deployed there by different actors. It does so through an instrumental case study of the establishment of these operations and of the French role in this process. The thesis finds that France was at first eager to deal with the conflict by supporting regional actors, but with the crisis deteriorating, becoming ever more involved. Next to its own intervention, it led various international organizations to operate alongside it in order to share the conflict management burden while remaining critically influential and securing its goals. This approach allowed France to balance the interests of its domestic audience, western allies, as well as those of the governments in the region. Based on the analysis, the thesis suggests that the proclaimed logic of division of labor between different organizations deploying MSPOs might be a justification for primarily generating as much resources as available while reducing various kinds of costs, although without any explicit evidence for it being a conscious effort of using the...

Magister Artium - MA / Recent years have seen an upsurge of interest from governments and development organisations in adopting the Public Private Partnership (PPP) approach when developing and operating ecotourism projects. A PPP is a contract between a public sector institution and a private party, in which the private party assumes substantial financial, technical and operational risk in the design, financing, building and operation of a project (South African National Treasury 2004). Countries such as India, China and Kenya have developed numerous projects through PPPs. Protected Areas have followed suit in adopting the PPP approach, to be able to focus on their core business, namely conservation. To date, relevant research on PPP ecotourism projects, specifically pro-poor tourism approach is fragmented, limited in scope, and lacks examples that can assist practitioners in embedding pro-poor tourism principles in the PPP methodology. Academically, studies are largely evaluations that compare progress against projects’ defined objectives or broad based sustainable tourism goals. However, this study is an assessment of a tourism development from a pro-poor tourism perspective. Thus, this study interrogated the extent to which ecotourism PPP at De Hoop is pro-poor. Furthermore, the study sought to establish if rural local communities living in and near De Hoop PPP benefit and how their benefits can be enhanced. Pro-poor tourism indicators are used in this study as a theoretical base to evaluate De Hoop PPP.

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In the heavy truck industry, sales and service networks play an important role. Investments in network infrastructure are costly, and to be profitable, there is a critical service volume to fulfil. This is especially challenging in new markets, where service demand is low and uncertain. A possible solution is to share sales and service networks with competitors. Simultaneous cooperation and competition, co-opetition, is a complex and contradictory phenomenon that has been previously researched, but with focus on cooperation in input activities like R&D. This thesis investigates co-opetition in output activities, in sales and services, by analysing how heavy truck companies could form competitor partnerships in sales and service networks. This is done by a literature review and a multiple case study. From the analysis, a framework for assessing and designing potential competitor partnerships is presented. The framework consists of seven factors that are significant for competitor partnership success in sales and service networks; cultural fit, noncompeting products, compatible goals, excess network capacity, dedicated salespersons, high commitment, and patient implementation. This thesis contributes to science by research on co-opetition research in output activities, and by a discussion on the meaning of competition, success and partnerships. / I tunga lastbilsbranschen spelar sälj- och servicenätverk en viktig roll. Investeringar i nätverken är dyra, och för att vara lönsamma krävs en viss servicevolym. Det är särskilt utmanande på nya marknader, där efterfrågan är låg och obestämd. En möjlig lösning är att dela sälj- och servicenätverk med konkurrenter. Simultant samarbete och konkurrens, så kallad co-opetition, är ett komplext och motsägande fenomen, som tidigare forskats på med fokus på samarbete inom utveckling. Denna uppsats undersöker co-opetition inom sälj, genom att titta på hur tunga lastbilsföretag kan ingå partnerskap inom sälj- och servicenätverk tillsammans med konkurrenter. Detta görs genom en litteraturgenomgång samt en flerfallstudie. Utifrån vår analys presenteras ett ramverk för att bedöma och utforma potentiella partnerskap med konkurrenter. Ramverket består av sju viktiga faktorer för framgångsrika partnerskap inom sälj- och servicenätverk tillsammans med konkurrenter; kulturell passform (cultural fit), icke-konkurrerande produkter, kompatibla mål, överbliven kapacitet i nätverket, dedikerade säljare, högt engagemang och tålmodig implementering. Uppsatsen bidrar till forskning inom co-opetition inom sälj och med diskussion kring begreppen konkurrens, framgång och partnerskap.

Innovation has proven to be an important way for companies to be competitive and relevant in a dynamic market. The construction industry has tended to focus on incremental innovations and is not as familiar with methods for developing radical innovations. Scenario-based portfolio management is a way of structuring radical innovation projects according to possible future scenarios. Within these portfolios, it is necessary to assign the different areas a priority order where the most prioritized areas require a sufficiently high inflow of ideas. The purpose of this study was therefore to investigate how the innovation hub of a large Swedish company in the construction industry can steer the idea generation of radical innovations towards specific areas of development. By conducting internal and external semi-structured interviews, difficulties and opportunities in the company's idea generation could be identified. The results showed that the case company is missing specific methods to increase the number of generated ideas and that there is a lack of communication of the priority domains that exist in the innovation portfolio. It was also shown that there are some organizational difficulties for innovation in the construction industry. An analysis based on the results and a detailed literature study resulted in a number of recommendations. These recommendations demonstrate how open innovation as well as communication and changes in organizational structure should be implemented to achieve an increased number of ideas for the priority areas in a company's innovation portfolio. The recommendations from this study apply to large companies in the construction industry that work actively with innovation. / Innovation har visat sig vara ett viktigt sätt för företag att vara konkurrenskraftiga och relevanta på en dynamisk marknad. Byggindustrin har haft en tendens att fokusera på inkrementella innovationer och saknar i många fall utarbetade metoder för utveckling av radikala innovationer. Scenariobaserad portföljhantering är ett sätt att strukturera radikala innovationsprojekt efter möjliga framtidsscenarion. Inom dessa portföljer är det nödvändigt att tilldela de olika områdena en prioriteringsordning där de mest prioriterade områdena kräver ett tillräckligt högt inflöde av idéer. Syftet med denna studie var därför att undersöka hur innovationshubben på stort svenskt företag inom byggbranschen kan styra idégenerering av radikala innovationer mot ett specifikt utvecklingsområde. Genom att utföra interna samt externa semistrukturerade intervjuer kunde svårigheter och möjligheter i företagets idégenerering identifieras. Resultatet visade att det saknas specifika metoder för att öka mängden idéer som genereras, samt att det finns en brist på kommunikation av de prioriterade domäner som existerar i företagets innovationsportfölj. Det påvisades även att det finns vissa organisatoriska svårigheter för innovation kopplade till byggbranschen. En analys baserad på resultatet samt en utförlig litteraturstudie resulterade i ett antal rekommendationer. Dessa rekommendationer påvisar hur öppen innovation samt kommunikation och förändringar i organisationsstruktur bör implementeras för att uppnå en ökad mängd idéer till de prioriterade områdena i ett företags innovationsportfölj. Rekommendationerna från denna studie är applicerbara på stora företag inom byggbranschen som arbetar aktivt med innovation.

Increasingly, firms like Patagonia, IKEA, General Mills, or Barilla actively seek to understand their interdependence with nature, build innovative capabilities, and generate more radical shifts toward sustainability. This creates exciting opportunities to investigate exactly how these companies obtain knowledge about ecosystem dynamics and processes and how they use it both to cope with climate change or declining ecosystem resilience and contribute to maintain or even strengthen ecosystems. Despite the considerable potential to advance research on organizational strategy and corporate sustainability, the notion of ‘ecological knowledge’ has yet to enter the scholarly work of management and business organization in a substantive manner. At present, we know almost nothing about the processes, mechanisms, and routines that enable an organization to, first, recognize the value of such knowledge and to, then, systematically access, co-create, integrate and utilize such knowledge into its broader knowledge and resource base. My dissertation attempts to fill this gap and opens up new directions for research on the role of ecological knowledge in corporate sustainability management. More specifically, I ask: What are the processes through which organizations can effectively access, co-create, integrate and utilize ecological knowledge with current organizational knowledge and strategies? I link strategic and organization-focused concepts of knowledge and the perspective of absorptive capacity with the notion of ecological knowledge from modern ecology, especially from the social-ecological systems literature, to shed light on the processes through which organizations can effectively access, co-create, integrate and utilize new ecological knowledge into their operational and strategic decision making. I adopt a qualitative, emergent, and inductive strategy drawing on a grounded research approach to gain an in-depth, cross-validated, and processual understanding of the mechanisms through which organizations can promote and enhance ecosystem health including biodiversity. I undertook my study on the organic agriculture sector, a sub-sector of the modern agriculture and agri-food industry. I collected data from nineteen agriculture and agri-food organizations based in British Columbia (BC), the westernmost province of Canada, using multiple data sources including in-depth interviews, observations, company documents, reports, newspaper articles and field reports. Based on my analysis, I develop a grounded theory about the processes through which organizations can successfully deepen their ecological knowledge and then utilize this knowledge to more sustainably manage their relationships with nature and contribute to protecting or even strengthening ecosystem functionality. With my dissertation, I address the call from scholars in Organization and the Natural Environment (ONE) and Corporate Sustainability for more transdisciplinary cross-fertilization as an essential approach to building compelling new theory and models in the field. First, my analysis offers a more fine-grained understanding of the types, components, dimensions, and characteristics of ecological knowledge. Second, my analysis uncovers a micro-level account of the processes by which individuals as critical actors identify, evaluate and make sense of the organization-environment interrelationships across various scales of time and space. I also identify the multiple personal characteristics of individual actors that influence these processes in various stages and circumstances. Third, my study offers insights into the factors that can strengthen an organization’s relational capacity to build mutual trust and collaboration with holders of ecological knowledge. Fourth, it sheds light on how firms engage with and motivate multiple community stakeholders in building a collaborative process of mutual learning, knowledge sharing, and knowledge co-creation to build joint capacity for coping successfully with many complex challenges of sustainability, thus contributing to the wellbeing of the entire social-ecological system. Collectively, these contributions provide a deeper and more holistic understanding of the processes of acquiring and co-creating ecological knowledge that can allow an organization to transition successfully towards greater ecological sustainability. My dissertation also offers numerous practically relevant insights for businesses facing the challenges of economic, social and environmental sustainability, as well as specific guidance on how companies can protect or enhance their supply of natural capital and contribute toward greater stability of the broader human-nature systems in which they are embedded. / Graduate / 2023-11-15

The research problem is to identify and justify the participation of graduates of the University in creating an educational environment at the University that would promote personal and professional development of students. The aim of the study is to develop a set of measures to create an educational environment of the University alumni. In the framework of the dissertation research is the analysis of the research four categories of respondents: alumni, students, organizers and educational activities and leaders of student government, the analysis of the experience of working with graduates in institutions of Russia and 154 universities Russia, proposals in the concept of educational work of the Ural Federal University, developed the project routine work with graduates to fill the educational environment of the University, the Practical value of results - based studies, the studied experience and analysis of the scientific literature have been proposed additions to the Concept of educational activity of the University, the subroutine for the alumni's participation in the educational activity of the University, which will be useful for use by organizers of educational activities in the institutes of the University, responsible for the organization works with alumni and leaders of student self-government. The dissertation consists of introduction, two chapters, contains 13 figures, 3 tables, and references. / Воспитательная деятельность в современном вузе – это целостный процесс совершенствования личности, носящий сложный комплексный характер. Для его реализации необходимо иметь большое количество структурных элементов, которые сами так же являются процессами и в своем развитии требуют привлечения методов различных наук, к которым относятся экономика, социология, психология, психофизиология, политология, культурология. В современной науке и практике существует множество подходов к организации воспитательного процесса, к программному подходу к формированию высокодуховного гражданина. Одним из них, на наш взгляд может являться программа по формированию воспитательной среды вуза через привлечение выпускников в данный процесс. Проблема исследования состоит в выявлении и обосновании участия выпускников вуза в формировании такой воспитательной среды в вузе, которая способствовала бы личностно-профессиональному становлению обучающихся. Цель исследования – разработать комплекс мероприятий по формированию воспитательной среды вуза с участием выпускников. В рамках диссертационного исследования проведен анализ исследований четырех категорий респондентов: выпускники, студенты, организаторы воспитательной деятельности и лидеры студенческого самоуправления, анализ опыта работы с выпускниками в институтах России и 154 вузах России, сформулированы предложения в концепцию воспитательной работы Уральского федерального университета, разработан проект подпрограммы работы с выпускниками по наполнению воспитательной среды вуза, Практическая ценность результатов – на основании проведенных исследований, изученного опыта работы и анализа научной литературы были предложены дополнения в Концепцию воспитательной деятельности вуза, подпрограмма по участию выпускников в воспитательной деятельности вуза, которые будут полезны для использования организаторами воспитательной деятельности в институтах УрФУ, ответственным за организацию работы с выпускниками, а также лидерам студенческого самоуправления. Диссертация состоит из введения, двух глав, содержит 13 рисунков, 3 таблиц, и списка литературы.