Waste-to-energy is currently at the forefront of clean technologies. It consists of the burning of different types of wastes (solid, liquid, gaseous) that provide heat and electricity. With high efficiency levels in energy production (80-90%) and low flue gas emissions, this type of energy production has quickly spread throughout Europe. In addition, laws created by both the EU and national governments have created new agendas regarding landfill and waste disposal.   Problem: We have identified three different problems that currently exist: (1) the lack of academic literature which explores specifically business models within the renewable energy industry and the potential that business models possess in exploiting the opportunity within the market place; (2) which methods are effective within a business model in achieving the value that a firm wishes to create, capture, and deliver; (3) current academic literature does not provide enough understanding of the influences and pressures that stakeholders place upon shaping a firm’s current/potential business model.   Purpose: The purpose of this investigation is to examine the business models used by three different waste-to-energy firms in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden and to identify the methods used to create, capture and deliver value. Moreover, we aim to identify and investigate the stakeholders within the waste-to-energy industry of these three companies with the goal of explaining the influence and pressures they place upon the firm’s business model through the use of institutional theory.

This thesis draws attention to understand how firms in the B2B commodity industry seek to utilize value-creating activities to achieve competitive advantage, which is also the overall purpose of this thesis. The premise of this thesis is of empirical nature, thus empirically applicable and experienced by other companies inside the commodity industry. In order to reach the purpose of this thesis a case study of Alpha International, Beta and Delta has been carried out which involved personal interviews with different respondents from the companies. The theoretical framework involves a description of competitive strategy, value creation, value chain, value proposition and finally value delivery. The empirical study is based on building a framework of how the companies create value by using different value creating activities.   In the analysis the theoretical framework is related to the results of the empirical study. It is here discussed how the different case companies value creating activities leads to a competitive advantage. In addition to analyzing the value creation activities; the value proposition of the case companies is analyzed and how these are delivered. It is concluded that the case companies studied seeks to utilize value-creating activities to achieve competitive advantage in many different ways.   Generally speaking, it is found that the case companies most commonly try to achieve similar types of value; delivery reliability and quality. However this is achieved in different ways; through different types of activities such as services, different types of integration strategies or a certain type of technology that surrounds the product offering that is utilized by different types of labor in the companies. The companies also have different ways in offering and communicating the value towards the customer by using a value proposition; depending on what type of benefit the customer seeks. At last, discussion and implications are given to present managerial and theoretical implications together with further research.

Background: How business is conducted is constantly developing and the design of the business model is a crucial part to have a clear vision of the company’s goals. Simultaneously, technologies are developed which generate new business opportunities. To fully exploit these opportunities, companies need to innovate their business model. The description of digitalization within previous literature has been mainly holistic, without much reference to specific mechanisms and activities enabling business model innovation. Little is known about the mechanisms of digitalization and their effect on business model innovation.  Purpose: The purpose of this is to understand how digitalization affects business model innovation in firms. It aims to identify mechanisms of digitalization and how they affect the underlying dimensions of business model innovation.  Method: An exploratory research design was applied within this qualitative study to fulfill the purpose. The data collection was done through nine semi-structured interviews with employees at manufacturing companies with good insight of the company’s digitalization process. Using an inductive approach, the data has been analyzed through a thematic analysis.  Conclusion: This study has shown what mechanisms of digitalization affect each of the dimensions of the business model. Further, it has contributed with an understanding of how the dimensions are affected by the mechanisms. The analysis resulted in the development of an emergent framework which depicts what the mechanisms are and how they can lead to a perceived positive effect on business operations.

The development and expansion of cities has led to increased public awareness of the influence of building sustainability on the environment, society, and economy. Green building eases the pressure of urbanization by saving energy, reducing waste, protecting the environment, improving the living standard, and encouraging industry. Consequently, green building has developed rapidly for 20 years. This study reviews the literature on green building, recognizes the stakeholders’ motivations for and barriers to green building development, uses value network analysis, cost–benefit analysis, and case study method for understanding value creation, value sensing, value delivery, and value capturing mechanism of green building to augment the knowledge of green building development for both academics and practitioners. This study proposes an applicable analysis tool. / Business Administration/Finance

The issue of design quality in construction projects has long been a major concern for designprofessionals (Gann et al. 2003). The emphasis on improvement of processes in constructionin order to manage or reduce “cost, time and waste” in projects, at times has led to concernsthat the design of a building could become a matter of less importance due to such processimproving measures (Gann et al. 2003, p.319) “Design Quality” in architecture andconstruction is an ambiguous and “dynamic concept” in relation to its context, continuouslygoing through changes (Rönn 2010, p.48; Slaughter 2004).Quality itself is related to value and multiple definitions of it (Rönn 2010). It is often possiblefor both people and professionals to feel and experience design quality in buildings ratherintuitively, but to frame it in a recognizable manner has always proved challenging (Rönn2010). Essentially, human behavior apart from being influenced by the physical environmentis also influenced by the social context existing within the physical environment (Vischer2008).These challenges further extend to judgement, assessment and measurement of design quality,and setting out the relevant criteria for them (Rönn 2010, Slaughter 2004). Therefore, it’sdifficult for building designers, to structure design solutions that could guarantee theachievement of such ambiguous concept (Rönn 2010). / Frågan om designkvalitet i byggprojekt har länge varit ett stort bekymmer för designers (Gannet al. 2003). Betoningen på förbättring av processer inom konstruktion för att hantera ellerminska ”kostnad, tid och slöseri” i projekt har ibland lett till en oro för att utformning ochdesign av en byggnad kan bli av mindre betydelse på grund av sådana processförbättrandeåtgärder (Gann et al. 2003, p.319) ”Designkvalité” i arkitektur och konstruktion är ett tvetydigtoch ”dynamiskt koncept” i förhållande till sitt sammanhang, som ständigt genomgårförändringar (Rönn 2010, s.48; Slaughter 2004).Kvalité i sig är relaterad till värde och flera definitioner av det (Rönn 2010). Det är ofta möjligtför både människor och yrkesverksamma att känna och uppleva designkvalité i byggnaderganska intuitivt, men att rama in den på ett igenkännbart sätt har visat sig utmanande (Rönn2010). I huvudsak påverkas det mänskliga beteendet utöver den fysiska miljön även av densociala kontexten som finns inom den fysiska miljön (Vischer 2008).Dessa utmaningar sträcker sig vidare till bedömning, värdering och mätning av designkvalitéeroch fastställande av relevanta kriterier för dem (Rönn 2010, Slaughter 2004). Därför är detsvårt för byggnadsdesigners att konstruera designlösningar som garanterat kan uppnå ett sådanttvetydigt koncept (Rönn 2010).

台灣本身製造、設計、研發能力對於世界高科技產業的貢獻來說，已成為不可或缺的國際分工供應鏈體系，台灣製造的品質與聲譽，影響全世界各地消費者在採購時的決策。 本研究的主題是探討台灣國家品牌價值傳遞模式的過程，台灣政府、產業、企業與相關組織，致力於往建立台灣國家品牌的道路上前進，但到目前為止，整體台灣國家品牌的建立概念並未被強調，因此本研究從Michael Porter教授（1990）提出的價值鏈延伸到品牌價值傳遞模式，以同樣建立核心競爭力的觀點，不同於Porter應用於企業的分析觀點，套入Simon Anholt (2005)提出的國家品牌指標六要素，探討台灣國家品牌價值傳遞模式，並以Milan Zeleny教授（2006）提出的輔助資本型態：人為資本、人力資本、社會資本與自然資本重視與累積的相關成果，觀察台灣國家品牌建立過程中，著重台灣製造、創新台灣、品牌台灣、文化創意與地方城市的不同提升台灣國家品牌形象的活動，建構台灣國家品牌發展的價值傳遞模式。 研究結果建構出概念性的台灣國家品牌價值傳遞模式，並發現在台灣國家品牌價值傳遞模式的發展，須憑藉台灣本身的自然資本、人為資本、人力資本、社會資本四項輔助資本；目前台灣國家都會樣態的發展型態，逐漸強調自然資本與社會資本的重要性。 而台灣國家品牌價值傳遞模式的過程中，政府須扮演強大角色，建立由上到下規畫統籌，多元性的鼓勵與資助台灣國家品牌發展，由統一的發展單未來統合國家發展品牌的資源，但目前尚無一致的共識與主要的推動單位來規畫執行。 其中必須注意的是，打造國家品牌不是虛浮其外表，要建構強而有力的國家品牌前，要有國家品牌價值傳遞模式的過程，強化國家品牌塑造時的特色與競爭力。因此，各階段的未來發展應向下扎根、連結左右資源，並向上提升以建立台灣國家品牌形象，打造台灣國家品牌競爭 / Taiwan has been playing an important role in the world supply chain. Not only the capability of manufacture, but also design and the R&D are the reputation of “Made in Taiwan” which implants and affects the process of decision making in every customers’ mind. The main purpose of thesis is to develop and discuss Nation Brand of Taiwan, from the view of the Taiwan government, corporate and related institutions, in order to figure out whether the new emerging Nation Brand has been emphasized or not. After research framed the concept of Taiwan Nation Brand Net, extending from the theory of value chain of Prof. Michael Porter (1990), research selected five main activities: Made in Taiwan, Innovative Taiwan, Brand Taiwan, Culture and Creative Taiwan and City and District Taiwan, and Support Capital: Human Capital, Intelligence Capital, Social Capital and Nature Capital to analyze Taiwan Nation Brand Strength and Weakness by using the Nation Brand Hexogen proposed by Simon Anholt (2005). The finding of the thesis that Taiwan has been toward the way of building Taiwan Nation Brand and Taiwan has been increasingly emphasized the importance of the Social Capital and Nature Capital since Taiwanese government promoted the development of culture and creative industry. However, Taiwanese government is still in the beginning stage to build up the Taiwan Nation Brand. The necessary step for Taiwanese government has to leverage all resources from the related institutions of the government and reach the consistent concept of Taiwan Nation Brand to plan and execute overall process. Finally, the Branding Taiwan Nation Brand process would increase the competitiveness and Taiwan Nation Brand image of Taiwan.

With many research available on IT governance, this research differs from most of them due to its delimitation. The focus of this research lies in the two domains of value creation and performance measurement. Furthermore, the area of research has been small and medium Enterprises located in the area of Småland, Sweden. Brisebois, Boyd & Shadid (2001) gave us the following definition of IT governance: “How those persons entrusted with governance of an entity will consider IT in their supervision, monitoring, control, and direction of the entity. How IT is applied will have an immense impact on whether the entity will attain its vision, mission, or strategic goal.” An objective of IT governance is to align the IT resources of an enterprise in a way that it fast-tracks the business priorities of the enterprise and assures that the investments in IT generates business value and that the IT is performing to its expectations. The research questions and the outcome of this research paper sheds light on the challenges of both value creation and performance measurement within the SMEs, but it also showcases what the driving forces of IT value creation are and which benefits arise from measuring the IT performance within the SMEs. Through semi-structured interviews with four SMEs, based in the region of Småland, numerous amounts of challenges and driving forces for IT value creation and challenges and benefits to measuring IT performance have been extracted. Based on the extracted information from the interviews, an analysis and a conclusion have been formed by the authors. In the end, the authors provide their thoughts for suggestions for further work and how all of this contributes to the field of Informatics.

In today’s dynamic and often unstable business environment, Information technology (IT) and how IT is controlled has become pervasive due to the high dependency of IT within organizations. The IT-investments are increasingly becoming more important within the overall budget for many organizations today and are distributed all over the organizations. This dependency requires the importance of aligning between IT units and how the strategy for business direction can be realized. Thus, the alignment between IT and business is the primary goal of IT. A clear and well-defined structure of what factors affect the organization to ensure control over IT is utterly important. Today, no straightforward structure of factors to ensure successful achievement of IT governance goals within organizations exists. This thesis aims to assess and analyze the importance of IT governance factors to successfully achieve IT governance goals. The survey data gathered from 40 IT governance experts are presented in this thesis. The results show that there exist differences on how factors affect, with factors concerning the boards’ responsibility being the most important and critical factors for successfully achieving IT governance goals. This thesis also identifies and discusses some of the factors that may be less important and hence seldom prioritized within organizations.

Purpose: This study explores circular business models from the perspective of distributors, focusing on how they can create, deliver, and capture value within circular supply chains. Method: This study is an exploratory case study of a leading Nordic distributor. Qualitative data were gathered through 36 interviews conducted in three phases with the distributor, six customers, and six suppliers. Thematic analysis was utilized to analyze the data. Findings: The results indicates that there are multiple activities distributors can conduct to create, deliver, and capture value in a circular business model. Distributors can create value through these activities: create awareness, curate and develop products, ensure compliance with legislation and coordinate partnerships. Distributors can deliver value by manage transportation, manage warehouse logistics, provide reused, refurbished, and repaired products, provide rental and leasing models, offer service agreements, and recycle products and materials. Distributors can capture value by evaluate investments and costs, create pricing strategies, implement additional revenue streams, and manage warranties. Managerial implications: The result of this thesis concretizes activities that distributors can incorporate within a CBM regarding circular value creation, circular value delivery and circular value capture. The activities are either categorized as unique for distributors or activities that can be managed either by distributors or other parties such as suppliers, customers, or a third party. Distributors should execute activities unique for distributors within a CBM to contribute to a CSC. Furthermore, distributors can execute activities that are not unique for distributors when applicable and determined favorable for their CBM. Additionally, the listed activities concern different departments at distributors including sustainability, sales, purchasing, logistics, and management. The different departments should bear responsibility for their respective activities. Theoretical contribution: This study contributes to previously unexplored area within circular business models from the distributor perspective. First, it addresses the pivotal role of distributors in fostering collaboration within the circular supply chain, demonstrating how distributors are not just participants but enablers of the flow of goods, information, and money. Distributors can manage their own CBM or contribute to another party’s CBM. Secondly, it broadens the current understanding of value creation and value delivery in a circular business model. Our findings regarding circular value creation reveal that educating customers about the benefits of circular products is essential for fostering acceptance and driving circular value creation. Our findings regarding circular value delivery reveal critical and previously underexplored challenges in the logistics processes. Distributors face significant hurdles in handling products as specific units rather than in batches, complicating reverse logistics and exponentially increasing costs. Limitations and future research: The exploratory nature of our study highlights the nascent understanding of CBMs for distributors. Consequently, the results of this study are indicative rather than definitive. Future research can explore diverse company sizes to enhance generalizability. Additionally, deeper investigation into specific mechanisms of value creation, delivery, and capture within circular business models is recommended. Furthermore, the concept of whether distributors should create their own CBM or contribute to another party’s CBM could be further investigated since this a concept we introduced in this thesis. Additionally, further studies could therefore consider a perspective broader range of company sizes and types, of the research. Additionally, another area for future research could involve taking a global perspective, as practices and systems related to circular activities can differ significantly between countries.

台灣自早期便憑藉著優異之風土條件，進行一系列農業相關的經濟生產活動，稻米、茶葉等相關風土農作，皆曾是台灣重要之出口產品。然而，隨著時代的發展演變，台灣農作雖仍保有其特殊性，卻因他國低價農作之衝擊而陷入經貿困境，茶葉便是其中一例。 台灣茶作為百年傳統之農業，已孕育出無數技藝精湛之茶匠，亦涵養出獨特茶藝文化，此兩者皆能夠作為台灣茶品牌之價值創造來源，創造其附加價值。因此，目前產業鏈之上、中、下游皆有新興茶品牌創立者憑藉著過往對於茶之生活感知及產業經驗，試圖自台灣悠遠的茶文化萃取具廣度與深度的元素，再創新出符合現代消費需求的產品與服務體驗。 故，本研究試圖從三方向探討，分別為：品牌創立者作為一文化媒介人，如何運用其對於茶之生活感知與產業知識影響品牌價值創造；品牌創立者如何將台灣之風土條件轉化為風土資本，作為品牌價值創造來源；以及品牌創立者如何運用體驗之媒介將其所創造之品牌價值傳遞予消費者。 本研究最終結論得出，品牌創立者會將其對於茶之「感」轉化為品牌理念，再透過累積之茶之「知」落實其品牌理念，並依據此兩項「感」與「知」選擇不同之風土資本類型進行價值創造，最後透過各項體驗媒介之工具組合傳遞品牌之文化與經濟價值予消費者。 / People living in Taiwan have engaged in a series of agriculture-related economic activities by means of the “Terroir” from the early stage, such as rice and tea. With time, although agricultural products of Taiwan still reserve the distinctiveness, those of other foreign countries are increasing the market share with the lower price, especially Taiwan tea. There are many artisans with excellent skills of making tea and splendid tea culture with a long story since Taiwan tea is one of the most traditional agriculture. As a consequence, the knowledge of the artisans and the impressive tea culture in Taiwan can be sources to create brand value and competiveness. Currently, some people make innovative tea products and experiences to meet consumer demand by using their perception of tea in life and industrial know-how. As a result, this research will discuss three viewpoints. First, the brand founder uses his tea experience and know-how to affect the value creation. Second, the brand founder transfers terroir into terroir capital and make the terroir be the source of brand value. Third, the brand founder uses all kinds of experience tools to express the brand value to consumers. The conclusion of this research also shows three perspectives. First and foremost, the brand founder converts the “sense” of the tea into brand concept and produces products and services with brand concept by means of the “knowing” of the tea. Besides, the brand founder chooses the type of terroir capital to create brand value according to his “sense” and “knowing”. Last but not the least, the brand founder uses seven experience tools to express the cultural and economic value to customers.