Since the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, commercialization (e.g., patenting discoveries, licensing technologies, and developing startups) has become increasingly prominent at universities across the nation. These activities can be beneficial for universities as mechanisms to increase research dollars, unrestricted funds, student success, institutional prestige, and public benefit, while developing an innovation and entrepreneurship culture. However, although faculty members are a key source of human capital within the university commercialization process, studies of faculty members' experiences with university commercialization are scarce. To better understand these experiences, I conducted a multiple case study exploring engineering faculty members' commercialization experiences at three land-grant universities, using Activity Theory as an analytical framework. Each case consists of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 5-6 engineering faculty members, 1-2 university administrators, and a technology transfer officer, as well as university commercialization documentation (e.g., university commercialization policy documents and web resources). I analyzed the data using provisional coding (activity system elements, supports, challenges, and affect), inductive coding, and within and cross-case analysis techniques. The study's findings include characteristics of the university commercialization activity system, supports for and challenges to faculty engagement, and provisional recommendations to enhance the university commercialization work system. Key findings include faculty members' desire to make an impact with their work, lack of training and expertise relative to commercialization, conflicting attitudes towards commercialization from colleagues and administrations, and tensions about the place of commercialization within the university's mission. This study highlights an important and underrepresented voice in university commercialization research—"the voice of the individual faculty member. By understanding how faculty members experience university commercialization, university leaders are able to make well-informed decisions regarding the university's mission, culture, work structure, resource allocation, and incentive systems related to this increasingly-prominent faculty activity. Moreover, faculty members and industry collaborators interested in university commercialization can use the study's results to make decisions regarding if and how to best proceed with university commercialization activities. Accordingly, this work not only contributes to faculty work system design, but it also contributes a unique systems research approach to the university commercialization literature. / Ph. D.

Halloween arrived in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century with the surge in immigration from the British Isles — especially Ireland. However, the folk holiday did not gain widespread attention until the late 1870s and 1880s when descriptive pieces containing both accounts of Halloween's long history increasingly appeared in some newspapers and periodicals. Over the next couple decades, these descriptive pieces became more prescriptive, instructing women how to throw a "proper" Halloween party; what food to serve, games to play, and atmosphere to evoke. By the turn of the twentieth century and up through the 1920s, the middle-to-upper class — specifically women — adopted the holiday all across the country and characterized it with parties, decorative displays, and the propagation of literature, imagery, and ephemera. Since Halloween had existed as an ethnic folk tradition in America for several decades, why and how did this particular group of Americans adopt — and adapt — Halloween to meet their needs? Which Halloween traditions did they retain and how did they shape the holiday for their own purposes? Finally, how did this particular celebration of Halloween reflect the interplay of certain values among these celebrants through literature, imagery, and ephemera? This study of Halloween asks what the celebration of holidays and rituals can tell us about the culture in which they are celebrated. By employing a method which gives equal weight to historical context, audience, and imagery, we gain valuable insight about the stratum of American society which made Halloween an American tradition. / Master of Arts

The increasing pace of technological change is creating significant disruptions in the marketplace. In these markets, successfully managing innovation has become a key competitive advantage. Global trends of low-cost manufacturing and environmental sustainability have mademanufacturing innovations increasingly important. Many alternative manufacturing solutions are developed in not-for-profit institutions such as universities and research centers. This has created a gap between the owners of new technologies and the potential beneficiary of the technology. Correctly asserting if an invention or technology has commercial potential is a challengingprospect.What methods can be used to evaluate the commercial potential of a new technology? Whatimportant considerations and delimitations must be made to provide a reliable value estimation?How should the commercial potential be communicated to stakeholders, financiers andcustomers? If there is commercial potential, how do you successfully commercialize thetechnology? These themes are explored in this study. The question of how to estimate the value of a ninvention is investigated in the first section. Using a case-study approach and looking at a new manufacturing technology in the solar cell market an attempt to estimate the value is made. The results show that the innovation value can be estimated using a quantitative approach where benefits and costs are estimated using publicly available data. This approach was found to work well for technologies that are sustaining the current manufacturing paradigm but struggled to provide an accurate estimation for newer technologies. The process was found to require a diverse set of skills and to preferably be made by a co-founder team with technical and industry knowledge. The second section focuses on how an invention can be successfully commercialized. By interviewing firms who had developed and sold manufacturing innovations and were growing quickly. They were found to have started their companies together with their customers and having had a close working relationship with them throughout the process. Furthermore, they were found to have founding teams who were close friends prior to starting the company. The firms also stressed approved patents and timing of financing as key factors to their success. As technology transfer between universities and large industrial firms become increasingly important the questions of how researchers and inventors can commercialize their technologies will attract much attention. This study provides clear guidelines on how to approach the processof finding and commercializing new technologies from the perspective of the inventor.

Syftet med fallstudien är att undersöka hur bioteknikföretaget agerar på en marknad med flertalet stora aktörer som tillsammans skapar ett brus som är svårt att höras genom samt kartlägga hur bioteknikföretaget agerar på den komplexa marknaden. Syftet är även att skapa en helhetsbild över bioteknikföretaget och deras strategiska beslut samt nästkommande steg. För att genomföra fallstudien på bioteknikföretaget användes en kvalitativ metod där tre semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes på företaget. Därefter samlades sekundärdata in inom de uppkomna teman från empirin. Det insamlade materialet bearbetades sedan i en analys för att underbygga slutsatserna. Forskningsfrågor: - Hur ser bioteknikföretagets situation ut som helhet och hur har deras tidigare beslut påverkat det nuvarande utgångsläget? - Hur kan bioteknikföretagets situation beskrivas i den nuvarande innovationsteorin? - Vilka utvecklingsmöjligheter finns det för bioteknikföretagets fortsatta affärsutveckling och implementering på marknaden? Slutsats: - Bioteknikföretaget har gått från att ha en innovativ produkt utan avgränsningar till att bli en entreprenöriell aktör med tydliga strategier. - Den kritiska framgångsfaktorn för bioteknikföretaget var när uppfinnaren insåg sina begränsningar och lämnade över ansvaret till nuvarande VD. - Bioteknikföretaget genomgår en innovationsprocess och är nu i en implementeringsfas. - Övergripande utmaningar har varit finansiella, företagets storlek och att höras genom bruset som uppstår på marknaden. - Väsentliga aspekter uteblev i uppstartsfas vilket har påverkat bioteknikföretagets utveckling. - Det går att ifrågasätta dagens innovationsprocesser då de är inte är fullständiga. - Det finns en del utvecklingsmöjligheter för bioteknikföretaget dock är de begränsade då de till stor del efterföljer det teorin redogör. / The purpose of this case study is to identify how the biotechnology company operates in a market with several large players, which together creates a climate that is difficult to be heard through and how they act on that complex market. The purpose is also to create an overall picture of the biotechnology company and their strategic decisions for the next coming move.  To accomplish this case study on the biotechnology company a qualitative method was used and three semi-structured interviews at the company were performed. Secondary data was gathered based on the upcoming themes from the empiricism. The collected data was processed in an analysis to substantiate the conclusions. Research Question: - How is the biotechnology company described as an entirety and how have their previous decisions affected their current state? - How can the situation of the biotechnology company be described in current innovation theory? - What possibilities for development are there for the biotechnology company’s continued business development and implementation in the market? Conclusion: - The biotechnology company has gone from having an innovative product without delimitations to being an entrepreneurial actor with clear strategies. - The critical success factor of the biotechnology company was when the inventor realized his limitations and handed over the responsibility to the current CEO. - Overall challenges include finances, company size and to be heard through the noise that occurs in the market. - Essential aspects did not occur in the start-up phase, which has affected the progress of the biotech company. - Today´s innovation processes are questionable because they are not complete. - There are some development potential for the biotechnology company, however, those are limited since they largely comply with what the theory describes.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the view of the ideal of objectivity in sports journalism and other factors that can effect a journalists terms to their journalistic ethic such as the commercialization, investigative journalism and their relationship to their sources. The purpose is further to investigate if these different factors differ on a national- or local level of sports journalism. For this study we have chosen the method of a qualitative interview, where six sports journalists and two news editors are included. The interviews have been deducted with help of an interview guide, which has been used the same way  the journalists that’s been interview.  This particular field of journalism studies is yet to be discovered in a bigger scale. Therefore, this study has used a great bit of earlier research and also three different theories to help us in answering the purpose of the study and our question formulation; News management, Media logic and the Swedish exchange-theory. The result of the study shows that there are some differences in how journalists on a national- and a local newspaper view the importance of investigative journalism, relationships with their sources and how they apply the ideal of objectivity in their role as a journalist. The study also shows that commercialization of the sports industry has an impact on sport journalism were several new actors such as public relation-experts and organizations want to effect the media and “sell” their product to the newspapers.

Purpose: To explain how some of the local TV stations of Swedish Television relate to the rules of public service when using social media. Method: This essay is written by a qualitative method and is the result of interviews with eight respondents from four different editorial offices in Sweden: SVT Väst, SVT Skåne, SVT Västernorrland and SVT Västmanland. After having interviewed the respondents and read relevant literature, we could draw conclusions and discuss how the editorial offices deal with the contract of public service while being on social media. Main results: Our results showed that the difference between commercial media and public service media is getting smaller. It’s important for the editorial offices of the local TV stations to use social media as a platform for their news, even though there are commercial ads on Facebook, for instance. It’s also important for them to be where the public is, although it’s on a commercial digital platform as Facebook or Twitter. We also found that the rules of public service may be changed in a near future. The bigger editorial offices want to get viewers by having sensational headlines, whereas the smaller ones focus on the relationship with the public.

<p>This thesis investigates, describes and understands the extensive process of technology commercialization. What stages there are, important aspects and implications. It is structured as a case analysis of project CHRISGAS development. CHRISGAS is a Swedish project, based in Värnamo, developing the technique of direct gasification of biomass to fuels.</p><p>The work has its origin in the debate of the imminent climate changes, where society needs to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels. The automotive sector (particularly transport) is significantly reliant. However, current attempts to transition to biofuels have not completely succeeded. New, efficient technologies must be commercialized, and the technology of wood gasification is said to be particularly promising for launching the next generation of biofuels.</p>

In den zeitgenössischen slavischen Literaturen ist Gewalt allgegenwärtig – als Echo der Revolutionen, Kriege, Diktaturen und Systemumbrüche des 20. Jahrhunderts, als Reaktion auf andauernde und neu ausbrechende Konflikte, als Faszination, Sensation und Kaufanreiz. Gewalt erscheint als narrativ-ästhetischer, tradierter Bestandteil der literarischen Darstellung und als aussagekräftiges, tabubrechendes Motiv. Dieser Band trägt die Ergebnisse einer internationalen Konferenz an der Universität Hamburg zusammen, die sich im Herbst 2012 diesem Thema unter der Trias "Verbrechen – Fiktion - Vermarktung" gewidmet hat. Das breite Spektrum der untersuchten Literaturen (von ost- und west- über südslavische Literaturen, von Prosa über Lyrik und Dramatik) aber auch der Blick über die Literatur hinaus (unter anderem auf Film und Musik), die Vielfalt der Themen, Darstellungsweisen und analytischen Zugänge ergeben ein vielfältiges Bild, das eine Annäherung an die Frage nach den Spezifika literarischer Gewaltdarstellungen ermöglicht. / Violence is omnipresent in contemporary Slavic literatures: in response to revolutions, wars, dictatorships and changes of regimes in the 20th century, and as a reaction to continuing and new conflicts, as fascination, sensation and sales appeal. Violence appears as a narrative-aesthetic, traditional part of literature and as a meaningful and taboo-breaking motif. In September 2012, an international conference at Hamburg University dealt with this topic entitled "Crime – Fiction – Commercialisation". This volume presents the results of this conference. The wide range of the analyzed literatures and genres (Eastern, Western and South Slavic literatures, prose, poetry and drama), the look beyond the borders of literature to film and music, the variety of topics, ways of representation and analytical approaches create a polyphonic picture that allows us to discuss the specific character of the presentation of violence in literature.

De ideella elitidrottsföreningarna börjar till stor del bli kommersialiserade och gränsen mellan dem och vinstdrivande företag är på väg att suddas ut. De är dock fortfarande en ideell idrottsförening till formen som ska vara allmännyttig, demokratisk, ha folkrörelsekaraktär, vara jämlik och jämställd – de ska med andra ord genom sin huvudsakliga verksamhet bidra till samhället. Trots det tenderar elitidrottsföreningarna att ta ytterligare samhällsansvar genom att bedriva olika projekt och verksamheter med syfte att på olika sätt hjälpa till exempel utsatta grupper i samhället. Syftet med studien är att förstå vilken betydelse de sociala samhällsengagemangen har för ideella elitidrottsföreningar i förhållande till deras intressenter. Genom att utföra semistrukturerade intervjuer med representanter från fem olika ideella elitidrottsföreningar har vi skapat en förståelse kring deras sociala ansvarstagande för att därefter tolka vilken betydelse detta har för föreningarna och för vilka de arbetar med socialt ansvarstagande. Uppsatsen bidrar till att förstå att det finns nya strategier att använda sig av när det handlar om att bedriva en ideell elitidrottsförening. Vi önskar att uppsatsen kan bidra till att inspirera personer inom föreningsvärlden att våga gå nya vägar när det kommer till att leda och utveckla Sveriges idrottsföreningar. / The non-profit elite sports associations are beginning to be largely commercialized and the gap between them and private sector are on the verge of disappearing. However, they still are a non-profit sports association that should be public, democratic, have a people operating character and be equal - they should, in other words, through its main activity contribute to society. Although the elite sports unions tends to take more social responsibility by conducting various projects and activities aimed to help for example vulnerable groups in society. The aim of the paper is to understand what the social community engagements means to the non-profit elite sports association in relation to their stakeholders. By carrying out semi-structured interviews with representatives from five different non-profit elite sports associations, we have formed an understanding of their social responsibility and then interpret the meanings of this for the non-profit elite sports association and for whom they work with social responsibility. The paper helps to understand that there are new strategies to use when it comes to operating a non-profit sports association. We hope that the paper can help to inspire people in sports associations to take new paths when it comes to managing and developing sports associations in Sweden.

The global problems of climate change, by the emissions of CO2 have over the past decenniums, led to a development of new innovations of renewable energy technologies, with the goal to phase out fossil fuels such as coal and oil. Many forms of renewable energy have already solved part of the energy consumption problems, but there are still large energy intensive industries that rely heavily on fossil fuels. One possible renewable product that could phase out fossil fuels in these industries is the black pellet, which is a processed bioenergy product. If commercialized, the black pellet could change major parts of the industry, thus making it a radical innovation.   One alternative to produce the black pellet is by using the torrefaction technology. The torrefaction technology has a historical record of many failed introductions. The step from pilot production to full scale commercialization is problematic in many ways, especially for a smaller developer. This study is focusing on the external commercialization problems for a radical innovation, the product black pellet and the technology torrefaction. The thesis aim to understand which these external barriers are for a torrefaction developer in Sweden and to answer our research question:   “What is the industry specific external barrier for a new entry-firm to commercialize black pellet with torrefaction technology?”   The theoretical framework is structured in two parts. The first one has a broad focus of theories regarding external barriers for commercialization of radical innovations, with a focus on small- and medium size enterprises. The second part focuses on general effects of industry structure and these two parts are combined in a conceptual theoretical framework. The findings in the study are based on empirical data collected through a total of six interviews with a supplier of torrefaction and black pellet, potential customers and market experts in Sweden.   The study’s analysis combines the theoretical and empirical data together with the industrial chapter, to create an understanding of the external barriers to commercialize black pellet with torrefaction technology. From the analysis we have understood many barriers, which could be summarized in four main barriers; lack of credibility, political incitements, strategic leadership and the costs of commercialization.   The answer to our research question, regarding the industry specific external barrier within the case of torrefaction and black pellet, is that black pellet and especially the torrefaction technology suffers from a lack of credibility by the actors in the market. From this answer, we have contributed with extended theoretical insights, that failures by previous actors create an external barrier for the current and future actors in their commercialization of a new technology.