by Lam Wai-Tat. / Two pamphlets inserted. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 123-127). / APPROVAL --- p.i / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iii / LIST OF FIGURES --- p.vi / CHAPTER / Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter II. --- COMPANY BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES --- p.2 / Nortel and Nortel China --- p.2 / Corporate Goal --- p.5 / Goal of Nortel China --- p.5 / Product Group Goal (Wireless) --- p.6 / Chapter III. --- RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND DESIGN --- p.7 / Research Objectives --- p.7 / Research Design --- p.7 / Market Survey --- p.8 / Survey Design --- p.9 / Survey Results --- p.9 / Chapter IV. --- PRODUCT AND MARKET BACKGROUND --- p.12 / Wireless Communication Standards --- p.12 / Wireless Phone Types --- p.13 / Wireless Telecommunication Network Markets --- p.13 / Wireless Communications Equipment Market --- p.14 / Cellular Handsets --- p.15 / Chapter V. --- MARKETING ENVIRONMENT AND TRENDS - MACRO --- p.17 / General China Economy --- p.17 / Telecommunication Services and Regulation --- p.18 / Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) --- p.18 / Directorate General of Telecommunications (DGT) --- p.19 / Provincial Post and Telecommunication Administration (PTAs) and Local Telecom Bureaus --- p.19 / State Radio Regulatory Commission --- p.19 / Type Approval Procedure --- p.20 / Imported Pagers and Mobile Phones --- p.20 / Pagers and Mobile Phones Assembled or Manufactured in Mainland China --- p.21 / Cellular Operators --- p.21 / MPT --- p.22 / Unicom --- p.23 / CESEC --- p.24 / Tariff Structure - Mobile Services --- p.24 / Liberalization of Telecom Services --- p.25 / China Unicom --- p.25 / Liberalization of the Retail Market --- p.26 / China Consumer Market Size --- p.26 / China's Growing Urbanization --- p.28 / Cultural Forces --- p.30 / Technological Direction --- p.31 / Chapter VI. --- MARKETING ENVIRONMENT AND TRENDS - MICRO --- p.34 / Direct and Substitute Competition --- p.34 / Mobile Satellite Services --- p.34 / Nortel China Resources --- p.34 / Supplier Influence --- p.35 / End Customers --- p.35 / Consumer Profiles --- p.36 / Consumption Trends --- p.38 / Consumer Buying Decision Process --- p.38 / Cellular Handset Market Share --- p.40 / Competitors --- p.41 / Ericsson --- p.41 / Motorola --- p.42 / Nokia --- p.43 / Cellular Handsets in China (Competitive Products in the Market) --- p.44 / Nortel Wireless Handset Product Portfolio --- p.44 / Chapter VII. --- SWOT ANALYSIS OF NORTEL --- p.46 / Chapter VIII. --- STRATEGIES --- p.48 / Marketing Objectives and Strategies --- p.48 / Market Potential --- p.49 / Nortel's Position --- p.49 / Target Customer --- p.50 / Target Markets by Geographic Location --- p.52 / Beijing --- p.52 / Cellular network --- p.53 / Strategic relationship --- p.54 / Shanghai --- p.54 / Cellular network --- p.54 / Strategic relationship --- p.55 / Guangzhou --- p.55 / Cellular network --- p.56 / Strategic relationship --- p.56 / Target Markets by Demographics --- p.56 / Competitive/Differential Advantages --- p.58 / Chapter IX. --- MARKETING PROGRAM --- p.61 / Product --- p.61 / Core Product --- p.62 / Tangible Product --- p.62 / Augmented Product --- p.63 / Product Evolution --- p.64 / Distribution --- p.66 / Identification of Channel Members --- p.66 / Phase I --- p.67 / Primary distribution --- p.67 / Secondary distribution --- p.68 / Phase II --- p.68 / Physical Distribution --- p.69 / Promotion --- p.71 / Summary of Nortel's Current Promotional Activities --- p.73 / Advertising --- p.73 / TV commercial #1 (corporate) --- p.73 / TV commercial #2 (product) --- p.74 / Newspaper advertisements --- p.75 / "Magazine advertisements and ""advertorials""" --- p.75 / Outdoor advertising --- p.75 / Personal Selling --- p.76 / Sales Promotions --- p.77 / Point-of-purchase materials --- p.77 / Trade shows and exhibitions --- p.77 / Consumer promotions (replacement promotions) --- p.78 / Trade promotions (trade rebates) --- p.78 / Sales forces promotion --- p.78 / Product demonstrations --- p.79 / Sponsorship --- p.79 / Publicity --- p.80 / Budget --- p.80 / Pricing --- p.82 / Mobile Handset Prices and Service Charges in China --- p.82 / Estimated Costs of Other Vendors' Handsets --- p.82 / Pricing Considerations --- p.83 / Revenue Analysis --- p.84 / Chapter X. --- LIMITATIONS --- p.87 / Chapter XI. --- CONCLUSION --- p.89 / ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS --- p.90 / APPENDIX 1 --- p.91 / APPENDIX 2 --- p.96 / APPENDIX 3 --- p.100 / APPENDIX 4 --- p.102 / APPENDIX 5 --- p.104 / APPENDIX 6 --- p.105 / APPENDIX 7 --- p.107 / APPENDIX 8 --- p.109 / APPENDIX 9 --- p.111 / APPENDIX 10 --- p.113 / APPENDIX 11 --- p.115 / APPENDIX 12 --- p.116 / APPENDIX 13 --- p.118 / APPENDIX 14 --- p.119 / APPENDIX 15 --- p.122 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.123

by Ho Ka Pui. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-82). / Abstract --- p.iii / Acknowledgments --- p.v / Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter One --- From Monopoly Telephony to the Rise of Cellular Communication --- p.17 / Chapter Two --- Oligopoly of the Cellular Communication Market in the Digital Era --- p.36 / Chapter Three --- The Irony of a Free Market Place --- p.53 / Chapter Four --- Cellular Communication Market and1997 --- p.67 / Conclusion --- p.72 / Bibliography --- p.78

The increasing number of smart systems inevitably leads to a huge number of systems that potentially provide independently designed, autonomously operating services. In near-future smart computing systems, such as smart cities, smart grids or smart mobility, independently developed and heterogeneous services need to be dynamically interconnected in order to develop their full potential in a rather complex collaboration with others. Since the services are developed independently, it is challenging to integrate them on-the-fly at run time. Due to the increasing degree of distribution, such systems operate in a decentralized and volatile environment, where central management is infeasible. Conversely, the increasing computational power of such systems also supersedes the need for central management. The four identified key problems of adaptable, collaborative Smart Service Systems are on-demand composition of complex service structures in decentralized environments, the absence of a comprehensive, serendipity-aware specification, a discontinuity from design-time specification to run-time execution, and the lack of a development methodology that separates the development of a service from that of its role essential to a collaboration. This approach utilizes role-based models, which have a collaborative nature, for automated, on-demand service composition. A rigorous two-phase development methodology is proposed in order to demarcate the development of the services from that of their role essential to a collaboration. Therein, a collaboration designer specifies the collaboration including its abstract functionality using the proposed role-based collaboration specification for Smart Service Systems. Thereof, a partial implementation is derived, which is complemented by services developed in the second phase. The proposed middleware architecture provides run-time support and bridges the gap between design and run time. It implements a protocol for coordinated, role-based composition and adaptation of Smart Service Systems. The approach is quantitatively and qualitatively evaluated by means of a case study and a performance evaluation in order to identify limitations of complex service structures and the trade-off of employing the concept of roles for composition and adaptation of Smart Service Systems.:1 Introduction 1.1 Motivation 1.2 Terminology 1.3 Problem Statement 1.4 Requirements Analysis 1.5 Research Questions and Hypothesis 1.6 Focus and Limitations 1.7 Outline 2 The Role Concept in Computer Science 2.1 What is a Role in Computer Science? 2.2 Roles in RoleDiSCo 3 State of the Art & Related Work 3.1 Role-based Modeling Abstractions for Software Systems 3.1.1 Classification 3.1.2 Approaches 3.1.3 Summary 3.2 Role-based Run-Time Systems 3.2.1 Classification 3.2.2 Approaches 3.2.3 Summary 3.3 Spontaneously Collaborating Run-Time Systems 3.3.1 Classification 3.3.2 Approaches 3.3.3 Summary 3.4 Summary 4 On-Demand Composition and Adaptation of Smart Service Systems 4.1 RoleDiSCo Development Methodology 4.1.1 Role-based Collaboration Specification for Smart Service Systems 4.1.2 Derived Partial Implementation 4.1.3 Player & Context Provision 4.2 RoleDiSCo Middleware Architecture for Smart Service Systems 4.2.1 Infrastructure Abstraction Layer 4.2.2 Context Management 4.2.3 Local Repositories & Knowledge 4.2.4 Discovery 4.2.5 Dispatcher 4.3 Coordinated Composition and Subsequent Adaptation 4.3.1 Initialization and Planning 4.3.2 Composition: Coordinating Subsystem 4.3.3 Composition: Non-Coordinating Subsystem 4.3.4 Competing Collaborations & Negotiation 4.3.5 Subsequent Adaptation 4.3.6 Terminating a Pervasive Collaboration 4.4 Summary 5 Implementing RoleDiSCo 5.1 RoleDiSCo Development Support 5.2 RoleDiSCo Middleware 5.2.1 Infrastructure Abstraction Layer 5.2.2 Knowledge Repositories and Local Class Discovery 5.2.3 Planner 6 Evaluation 6.1 Case Study: Distributed Slideshow 6.1.1 Scenario 6.1.2 Phase 1: Collaboration Design 6.1.3 Phase 2: Player Complementation 6.1.4 Coordinated Composition and Adaptation at Run Time 6.2 Runtime Evaluation 6.2.1 General Testbed Setup and Scenarios 6.2.2 Discovery Time 6.2.3 Composition Time 6.2.4 Discussion 6.3 The ›Role‹ of Roles 6.4 Summary 7 Conclusion 7.1 Summary 7.2 Research Results 7.3 Future Work

This thesis answers how a circular economy-based offering can be designed for increased value creation and decreased environmental impact, compared to a current offering. The study concerns a case company and their current offering of a fire safety solution, namely a 6 kg powder fire extinguisher. The concept Product-Service Systems is used as a base for the research and a foundation of the result.Throughout the study, the method Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is used as a tool to evaluate and compare the current and the suggested solution in the sense of environmental sustainability amongst different impact categories. It provides a holistic perspective within the study which has been proven by theory to be an important factor when providing a circular economy-based offering. Another important factor is customising the offering to the specific case. This is attended to through an investigation of the company characteristics, the current offering and provider and customer values to find opportunities for the suggested solution. Opportunities found was e.g. a demand for an environmentally sustainable solution and existing infrastructure which can create valuein the future.The process includes, apart from the LCAs, interviews, a workshop at the case company and a survey addressed to end users. The use of visualisation tools such as actors map and Product-Service Blueprint benefits the understanding of both current and suggested solution and provides insights, evaluation and possible improvements. A cost calculation is made to evaluate if the solution is financially making business sense to the provider. Through this thesis, a circular economy-based solution which designs out waste is found. It is proven through the study and LCAs that this solution decreases the investigated environmental impact categories compared to the current existing solution. The suggested solution is based on a refilling process for circulating material which is established through the thesis to be theoretically feasible, hence needs consideration in order to be implementable in reality and make business sense to the provider. / Den här studien svarar på hur ett erbjudande baserat på cirkulär ekonomi kan designas för att öka värdeskapande och sänka miljöpåverkan i förhållande till ett existerande erbjudande. Studien baseras på ett företagsfall och deras nuvarande brandsäkerhetslösning, nämligen en 6 kg pulversläckare. I studien involveras teori om Product-Service Systems som en bas för forskningen och en grund för resultatet. Genom studien har metoden Livscykelanalys (LCA) använts som ett verktyg för att utvärdera och jämföra den nuvarande lösningen med den föreslagna i ett miljömässigt sammanhang och med flera olika påverkanskategorier. Detta skapar ett holistiskt perspektiv, vilket teorin visar är en viktig faktor under utvecklingen av ett erbjudande baserat på cirkulär ekonomi. En annan viktig faktor är att anpassa designen av erbjudandet till ett specifikt fall. Detta uppmärksammas genom en undersökning av företagets egenskaper, det nuvarande erbjudandet och leverantörs- och kundvärde för att finna möjligheter till en föreslagen lösning. Sådana möjligheter var till exempel en efterfrågan på miljömässigt hållbara lösningar och en existerande infrastruktur som kan gagna företagets värdeskapande i framtiden. Processen inkluderar, förutom LCA, intervjuer, en workshop, och en kundundersökning adresserad till slutanvändare. Användandet av visualiseringsverktyg, sådana som aktörskarta och Product-Service Blueprint, gynnar förståelsen för både den nuvarande och den föreslagna lösningen och skapar insikter kring utvärdering och möjliga förbättringar. En kostnadskalkyl görs för att utvärdera om lösningen är finansiellt bra för företaget. Genom denna avhandling upptäcks en cirkulär ekonomi-baserad lösning. Studien visar att denna lösning minskar miljöpåverkan för de valda påverkanskategorierna jämfört med den nuvarande lösningen. Den föreslagna lösningen är baserad på att återfylla brandsläckare och därigenom cirkulera material vilket är teoretiskt genomförbart. Dock behövs ytterligare övervägande för att lösningen ska vara implementerbar och för förföretaget realiserbart.

Empresas de manufatura tradicionalmente concentram os seus esforços em concepção, desenvolvimento, fabricação e comercialização de produtos físicos. No entanto, alguns fabricantes têm alterado suas estratégias de negócio, complementando a venda de produtos com o fornecimento de serviços, incorporando conhecimentos e atividades associados ao seu uso, e gerando maior percepção de valor por parte dos seus clientes. Com isso, a competição estratégica por meio de serviços tem se tornado uma marca distintiva das empresas de manufatura inovadoras, proporcionando à empresa um meio robusto para proteger o seu mercado dos concorrentes. Assim, observa-se um interesse crescente em pesquisas sobre o papel dos serviços para sustentar a competitividade da indústria. Abordagens orientadas a serviço, que incorporam esta mudança de foco do negócio, da oferta de produtos isolados para soluções integradas, têm sido tratadas na comunidade acadêmica como servitização, e tipicamente acarretam inovações no modelo de negócios (MN) da empresa. O objetivo deste trabalho é investigar como as empresas podem promover inovações em seus MNs para suportar suas estratégias de servitização, e propor um conjunto de artefatos para apoiá-las na implantação destas estratégias, a partir do seguinte problema de pesquisa: \"Como inovar o MN de uma empresa que adota a estratégia de servitização?\", que se desdobra nas seguintes questões: (i) quais são os principais fatores motivadores para uma empresa adotar a estratégia de servitização?; (ii) como representar o MN de uma empresa incorporando a lógica dominante de serviço, mais adequada para servitização?; (iii) como inovar o MN de uma empresa para implantar sua estratégia de servitização?; e (iv) como aplicar os artefatos propostos para apoiar a implantação da estratégia de servitização em uma empresa? Realiza-se uma pesquisa de natureza exploratória e prescritiva, baseada no método design scienceresearche amparada por uma revisão sistemática da literatura sobre os temas correlatos, visando propor artefatos em resposta às questões colocadas. A demonstração de um dos artefatos propostos é feita com suporte de um estudo de caso em uma empresa multinacional, fabricante de equipamentos médicos, seguida por uma avaliação empírica desta demonstração, suportada pelo método thinkingaloud. A partir das quatro questões de pesquisa, são obtidos os seguintes resultados: (i) identificação, análise e categorização dos principais fatores motivadores para adoção da servitização; (ii) proposição de uma arquitetura de MN incorporando a lógica dominante de serviço, para facilitar o estudo da servitização; (iii) proposição de um processo de inovação do MN da empresa, para implantar a servitização. e (iv) demonstração e avaliação da arquitetura proposta de MN para servitização. A pesquisa oferece contribuições à literatura de MN e servitização, e aos gestores de empresas, propondo os artefatos canvas do modelo de negócios para servitização (CMNS) e o processo IPIDI para inovação do MN para servitização, além de contribuições metodológicas relativas a design scienceresearch e thinking aloud. / Manufacturing companies traditionally are focused on designing, developing, manufacturing and marketing physical products. However, some manufacturers are changing their business strategies, complementing the sale of products by providing services, adding knowledge and activities associated with their use, and creating a higher perception of value by their customers.Strategic competition through service delivery has become a hallmark of the innovative manufacturing companies, providing the companies with a robust means to protect their market from competitors. Thus, there is a growing interest in researching the role of services in sustaining the competitiveness of manufacturing industry.Service-oriented approaches, which incorporate this shift in business\' focus from offering isolated products, to proposing integrated solutions, have been addressed in the literature as servitization, and typically entail innovations in the company\'s business model (BM). The goal of this research is investigating how companies can promote transformations in their BMs to support their servitization strategies, and proposing a set of artifacts to support them in the implementation of these strategies, since the following research problem: \"How to innovate the BM of a company which adopts the servitization strategy? \", which unfolds in the following questions: (i) what are the main motivating factors for a company to adopt the servitization strategy?; (ii) how to represent the BM of a company incorporating the service-dominant logic, more suitable for servitization?; (iii) how to innovate a company\'s BM to implement its servitization strategy ?; and (iv) how to apply the proposed artifacts to support the implementation of the servitization strategy in a company? An exploratory and prescriptive research is carried out, based on the design science research methodology, and supported by a systematic literature review on the related subjects, aiming at proposing artifacts in response to the questions posed. The demonstration of the proposed artifacts is done by means of a case study in a multinational company, which manufactures medical devices, followed by an assessment of this demonstration, supported by the thinking aloud method. From the four research questions, the following results are obtained: (i) identification, analysis and categorization of the main motivating factors for servitization adoption; (ii) proposing a BM architecture according to the service-dominant logic, to help the servitization study; (iii) proposing an innovation process for the company\'s BM, to implement the servitization; and (iv) demonstration and assessment of the proposed BM architecture for servitization. The research offers contributions to the literature of BM and servitization, and to practitioners, proposing the artifacts business model canvas for servitization (BMCS) and the IPIDI process for innovation of BM for servitization, besides some methodological contributions related to design science research and thinking aloud.

Rural communities have been disconnected from the global world in the past due to lack of infrastructure that rendered connectivity a challenge for them. Recent developments in information and communication technology (ICT) have led to improved connectivity in these areas. As a result, mobile phones have become ubiquitous in these rural communities. A matrix was proposed in this study in order to evaluate and assess the impact of mobile devices on development of the rural communities. Existing measurement tools have not yet explored how the usages of mobile phones and other ICTs are impacting the lives of people in rural communities of South Africa. The aim of this study was to understand the existing criteria used to measure the impact of ICTs in rural communities. This was be achieved by focusing on the use of mobile phones in the community of Phake Rebone, taking into account different users. Once this was established, the study had a primary objective to design a matrix that would assist in evaluating and assessing the impact of a mobile phone in social activities such as learning, business and governance. This was achieved by using a case study method, employing qualitative and quantitative research methods. Cases within a case study were used to uncover how the core groups within the community used the mobile phone. A mixed method approach was used in data gathering and analysis to enable the researcher to identify usages and challenges related to the mobile phones. Data was collected from 401 participants and was analysed through the computer-aided tools such GoogleDocs and Microsoft Excel. The findings of the study showed a greater usage of the mobile phone. The literature findings of the use of the mobile phone for basic communication as well as growing adoption of applications such as social media and Internet were confirmed. The use in community related activities and work purposes that impacted the community members were minimal. The need of training to gain knowledge on how to use the device more effectively was established. The proposed matrix therefore seemed v relevant not only to measure impact but also to highlight the areas in which the community members can be trained on. The noted usage trends and needs by the community were then used to formulate indicators that could be used for the matrix. The indicators were then used to develop a matrix that could be used by community members and other interested parties to measure the impact of mobile phone on development of the users. The results of the matrix were also proved to be efficient in assisting individual users in recording the skills acquired through the use of the mobile phone. The matrix can be used in consultation with the guidelines that were formulated to ensure that each user, particularly from rural communities, benefits from such an evaluation tool / Development Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Development Studies)

Empresas de manufatura tradicionalmente concentram os seus esforços em concepção, desenvolvimento, fabricação e comercialização de produtos físicos. No entanto, alguns fabricantes têm alterado suas estratégias de negócio, complementando a venda de produtos com o fornecimento de serviços, incorporando conhecimentos e atividades associados ao seu uso, e gerando maior percepção de valor por parte dos seus clientes. Com isso, a competição estratégica por meio de serviços tem se tornado uma marca distintiva das empresas de manufatura inovadoras, proporcionando à empresa um meio robusto para proteger o seu mercado dos concorrentes. Assim, observa-se um interesse crescente em pesquisas sobre o papel dos serviços para sustentar a competitividade da indústria. Abordagens orientadas a serviço, que incorporam esta mudança de foco do negócio, da oferta de produtos isolados para soluções integradas, têm sido tratadas na comunidade acadêmica como servitização, e tipicamente acarretam inovações no modelo de negócios (MN) da empresa. O objetivo deste trabalho é investigar como as empresas podem promover inovações em seus MNs para suportar suas estratégias de servitização, e propor um conjunto de artefatos para apoiá-las na implantação destas estratégias, a partir do seguinte problema de pesquisa: \"Como inovar o MN de uma empresa que adota a estratégia de servitização?\", que se desdobra nas seguintes questões: (i) quais são os principais fatores motivadores para uma empresa adotar a estratégia de servitização?; (ii) como representar o MN de uma empresa incorporando a lógica dominante de serviço, mais adequada para servitização?; (iii) como inovar o MN de uma empresa para implantar sua estratégia de servitização?; e (iv) como aplicar os artefatos propostos para apoiar a implantação da estratégia de servitização em uma empresa? Realiza-se uma pesquisa de natureza exploratória e prescritiva, baseada no método design scienceresearche amparada por uma revisão sistemática da literatura sobre os temas correlatos, visando propor artefatos em resposta às questões colocadas. A demonstração de um dos artefatos propostos é feita com suporte de um estudo de caso em uma empresa multinacional, fabricante de equipamentos médicos, seguida por uma avaliação empírica desta demonstração, suportada pelo método thinkingaloud. A partir das quatro questões de pesquisa, são obtidos os seguintes resultados: (i) identificação, análise e categorização dos principais fatores motivadores para adoção da servitização; (ii) proposição de uma arquitetura de MN incorporando a lógica dominante de serviço, para facilitar o estudo da servitização; (iii) proposição de um processo de inovação do MN da empresa, para implantar a servitização. e (iv) demonstração e avaliação da arquitetura proposta de MN para servitização. A pesquisa oferece contribuições à literatura de MN e servitização, e aos gestores de empresas, propondo os artefatos canvas do modelo de negócios para servitização (CMNS) e o processo IPIDI para inovação do MN para servitização, além de contribuições metodológicas relativas a design scienceresearch e thinking aloud. / Manufacturing companies traditionally are focused on designing, developing, manufacturing and marketing physical products. However, some manufacturers are changing their business strategies, complementing the sale of products by providing services, adding knowledge and activities associated with their use, and creating a higher perception of value by their customers.Strategic competition through service delivery has become a hallmark of the innovative manufacturing companies, providing the companies with a robust means to protect their market from competitors. Thus, there is a growing interest in researching the role of services in sustaining the competitiveness of manufacturing industry.Service-oriented approaches, which incorporate this shift in business\' focus from offering isolated products, to proposing integrated solutions, have been addressed in the literature as servitization, and typically entail innovations in the company\'s business model (BM). The goal of this research is investigating how companies can promote transformations in their BMs to support their servitization strategies, and proposing a set of artifacts to support them in the implementation of these strategies, since the following research problem: \"How to innovate the BM of a company which adopts the servitization strategy? \", which unfolds in the following questions: (i) what are the main motivating factors for a company to adopt the servitization strategy?; (ii) how to represent the BM of a company incorporating the service-dominant logic, more suitable for servitization?; (iii) how to innovate a company\'s BM to implement its servitization strategy ?; and (iv) how to apply the proposed artifacts to support the implementation of the servitization strategy in a company? An exploratory and prescriptive research is carried out, based on the design science research methodology, and supported by a systematic literature review on the related subjects, aiming at proposing artifacts in response to the questions posed. The demonstration of the proposed artifacts is done by means of a case study in a multinational company, which manufactures medical devices, followed by an assessment of this demonstration, supported by the thinking aloud method. From the four research questions, the following results are obtained: (i) identification, analysis and categorization of the main motivating factors for servitization adoption; (ii) proposing a BM architecture according to the service-dominant logic, to help the servitization study; (iii) proposing an innovation process for the company\'s BM, to implement the servitization; and (iv) demonstration and assessment of the proposed BM architecture for servitization. The research offers contributions to the literature of BM and servitization, and to practitioners, proposing the artifacts business model canvas for servitization (BMCS) and the IPIDI process for innovation of BM for servitization, besides some methodological contributions related to design science research and thinking aloud.

The degradation of natural resources as a result of consumption to support the economic growth of humans society represents one of the greatest sustainability challenges. In order to allow economic growth to continue in a sustainable way, it has to be decoupled from the consumption and destruction of natural resources. This thesis focuses on an innovative manufacturing technology called additive manufacturing (AM) and its potential to become a more efficient and cleaner manufacturing alternative. The thesis also investigates the benefits of accessing the technology through the result-oriented Product-Service Systems (PSS) approach. The outcome of the study is the quantification of raw materials and energy consumption. The scope of study is the application of AM in the scale model kit industry. The methods used are the life cycle inventory study and the system dynamics modeling. The result shows that AM has higher efficiency in terms of raw material usage, however it also has higher energy consumption in comparison to the more traditional manufacturing techniques. The result-oriented PSS approach is shown to be able to reduce the amount of manufacturing equipment needed, thus reducing the energy and raw materials used to produce the equipment, but does not completely decouple economic growth from the consumption of natural resources.

This thesis is organized into two parts, one for my main area of research in the field of stochastic games, and the other for my contributions in the area of service systems. We first provide an abstract for my work in stochastic games. The field of stochastic games has been actively pursued over the last seven decades because of several of its important applications in oligopolistic economics. In the past, zero-sum stochastic games have been modelled and solved for Nash equilibria using the standard techniques of Markov decision processes. General-sum stochastic games on the contrary have posed difficulty as they cannot be reduced to Markov decision processes. Over the past few decades the quest for algorithms to compute Nash equilibria in general-sum stochastic games has intensified and several important algorithms such as stochastic tracing procedure [Herings and Peeters, 2004], NashQ [Hu and Wellman, 2003], FFQ [Littman, 2001], etc., and their generalised representations such as the optimization problem formulations for various reward structures [Filar and Vrieze, 1997] have been proposed. However, they suffer from either lack of generality or are intractable for even medium sized problems or both. In our venture towards algorithms for stochastic games, we start with a non-linear optimization problem and then design a simple gradient descent procedure for the same. Though this procedure gives the Nash equilibrium for a sample problem of terrain exploration, we observe that, in general, it need not be true. We characterize the necessary conditions and define KKT-N point. KKT-N points are those Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) points which corresponding to Nash equilibria. Thus, for a simple gradient based algorithm to guarantee convergence to Nash equilibrium, all KKT points of the optimization problem need to be KKT-N points, which restricts the applicability of such algorithms. We then take a step back and start looking at better characterization of those points of the optimization problem which correspond to Nash equilibria of the underlying game. As a result of this exploration, we derive two sets of necessary and sufficient conditions. The first set, KKT-SP conditions, is inspired from KKT conditions itself and is obtained by breaking down the main optimization problem into several sub-problems and then applying KKT conditions to each one of those sub-problems. The second set, SG-SP conditions, is a simplified set of conditions which characterize those Nash points more compactly. Using both KKT-SP and SG-SP conditions, we propose three algorithms, OFF-SGSP, ON-SGSP and DON-SGSP, respectively, which we show provide Nash equilibrium strategies for general-sum discounted stochastic games. Here OFF-SGSP is an off-line algorithm while ONSGSP and DON-SGSP are on-line algorithms. In particular, we believe that DON-SGSP is the first decentralized on-line algorithm for general-sum discounted stochastic games. We show that both our on-line algorithms are computationally efficient. In fact, we show that DON-SGSP is not only applicable for multi-agent scenarios but is also directly applicable for the single-agent case, i.e., MDPs (Markov Decision Processes). The second part of the thesis focuses on formulating and solving the problem of minimizing the labour-cost in service systems. We define the setting of service systems and then model the labour-cost problem as a constrained discrete parameter Markov-cost process. This Markov process is parametrized by the number of workers in various shifts and with various skill levels. With the number of workers as optimization variables, we provide a detailed formulation of a constrained optimization problem where the objective is the expected long-run averages of the single-stage labour-costs, and the main set of constraints are the expected long-run average of aggregate SLAs (Service Level Agreements). For this constrained optimization problem, we provide two stochastic optimization algorithms, SASOC-SF-N and SASOC-SF-C, which use smoothed functional approaches to estimate gradient and perform gradient descent in the aforementioned constrained optimization problem. SASOC-SF-N uses Gaussian distribution for smoothing while SASOC-SF-C uses Cauchy distribution for the same. SASOC-SF-C is the first Cauchy based smoothing algorithm which requires a fixed number (two) of simulations independent of the number of optimization variables. We show that these algorithms provide an order of magnitude better performance than existing industrial standard tool, OptQuest. We also show that SASOC-SF-C gives overall better performance.

The thesis introduces a framework for analysing market monitoring and surveillance systems in order to provide a common foundation for researchers and practitioners to specify, design, implement, compare and evaluate such systems. The proposed framework serves as a reference map for researchers and practitioners to position their work in the context of market monitoring and surveillance, resulting in a useful instrument for the analysis, testing and management of such systems. More specifically, the thesis examines the new requirements for the operation of financial markets, the role of technologies, the recent consultations on the structure and governance of EU and US markets, as well as, future usage scenarios and emerging technologies. It examines the context in which market monitoring and market surveillance systems are currently been used. It reports on their processes, performance, and on the organisational and regulatory environments in which they exist. Furthermore, it develops a set of taxonomies which cover the majority of the concepts of market manipulation, market monitoring, market surveillance, entities, technologies and actors that are relevant for the work in this thesis. Building on the gaps and limitations of the current systems, it proposes a new framework following the Design Science methodology. The usefulness of the framework is evaluated through four critical case studies, which not only help to understand with practical exercises the way how markets monitoring and surveillance systems work, but also to investigate their weaknesses, potential evolution and ways to improve them. For each case study, the thesis develops a fully working prototype tested using a sample prosecution case and evaluated in terms of the appropriateness and suitability of the proposed framework. Finally, implications relating to policies, procedures and future market structures are discussed followed by suggestions for future research.