Background: While technologies are progressing exponentially and inevitably becoming an essential as a means for business to adapt and survive, no exception is the finance division. Digitalization activities have become do or die tasks for many companies and have been a challenging process for finance departments. Yet, in the context of Finance 4.0 it is barely researched. Due to evolving understanding of how finance departments should look, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) as the leader of the whole finance division is going through a lot of changes surrounded by uncertainty. The expectations for CFO and finance department are increasing and it becomes unclear what financial specialists should actually deliver for business. Hence, this paper aims to identify how CFO’s role is changing because of Finance 4.0, otherwise known as finance function digitalization, and what skills will be needed to successfully work as CFO in the new environment that seeks to become fully digital and automated. Purpose: The purpose of this master thesis research is to identify and analyze how the CFO’s role is changing because of Finance 4.0 and what skills will be required in future for the CFO position.  Method: A qualitative study with interpretivism philosophy, inductive approach and narrative inquiry strategy is taken as the best options for this particular study. Semi-structured interviews with Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) is a method for primary data collection as well as thematic data analysis for gathered data analysis are chosen in order to answer research questions. Conclusion: This research investigates how Finance 4.0 is changing the role of CFO as well as explores what future skills are required for the profession. The research clearly reveals that digitalization is affecting CFO’s role significantly and brings more uncertainty. Research results show that fundamental responsibilities of a CFO will not undergo changes any time soon as well as the skills required for work will remain largely the same. This is because the professional skills of a CFO directly reflect the responsibilities and working tasks, and, moreover, the finance departments are not completely undigitized. However, even though the foundation of the CFO role remains the same, digital disruption causes expansion and increased complexity. While existing academic knowledge is focused mostly on the change process itself and the benefits of digitalization, CFOs revealed what is challenging for them during this digital journey and what negative effect they have experienced.

The motorcycle industry is experiencing a paradigm shift. Alternatives to fossil fuels and changing customer preferences have slowly begun phasing out parts of the traditional motorcycle market. As a result of this, electric motorcycles are growing in popularity. A theory which discusses and theorizes regarding these types of industrial paradigm shifts is the theory of disruptive innovation. Disruptive innovation was introduced by scholar Clayton Christensen and has received a lot of attention since. The aim with this degree project was to contribute to our collective understanding of the innovation process by examining the electric motorcycle industry from the perspective of disruptive innovation. This was accomplished by compiling an industrial history of electric motorcycles which was analyzed using the concepts introduced by Christensen and further developed by his critics. This study used secondary information compiled in an industrial history using the narrative approach to historical analysis. The results showed that Christensen’s version of disruption was the most suited to explain the early attempts at electric motorcycles. The versions of disruption proposed by Christensen’s critics provided insight into how customer needs and the motorcycle market developed disruptive susceptibility over the years. The results of the study suggest that producers of electric motorcycles are adapting their products to the mainstream market instead of considering low-end markets with disruptive potential, which indicates that the actors are not expecting disruption as Christensen describes it.

Background: By focusing on efficiency, supply chains became increasingly extensive and complex during the past years. This led to higher vulnerability, and the COVID-19 pandemic caused an incomparable impact on global supply chains. Consequently, researchers demanded more investigation of the pandemic to prepare for future disruptions and create more resilient supply chains.   Purpose: This thesis examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on operations in supply chain management. It seeks to understand the challenges during a pandemic and acknowledge experiences to create more resilient supply chains in the future.   Method: We applied an explorative single-case study with a focus on individuals working in SCM-related departments. Therefore, we conducted semi-structured following theory-guided - and maximum-variation sampling to get a holistic view. Following an abductive approach, we constantly compared theory and empirical findings to further expand on previous theory about supply chain resilience. We also increased the validity by triangulating our findings with quantitative secondary data.   Conclusion: The results of this study show that a pandemic causes multiple reoccurring disruptions to supply chains. Companies have to react flexibly to adapt to the fast-changing environment, but the extensive supply chains hinder fast reactions. The findings of this study allow making different theoretical and managerial implications to create more resilience in supply chains to face future pandemics and other disruptions.

Future magnetic fusion reactors such as tokamaks will need innovative, fast, deep-fueling systems to inject frozen deuterium-tritium pellets at high speeds and high repetition rates into the hot plasma core. There have been several studies and concepts for pellet injectors generated, and different devices have been proposed. In addition to fueling, recent studies show that it may be possible to disrupt edge localized mode (ELM) formation by injecting pellets or gas into the fusion plasma. The system studied is capable of doing either at a variety of plasma and pellet velocities, volumes, and repetition rates that can be controlled through the formation conditions of the plasma. In magnetic or inertial fusion reactors, hydrogen, its isotopes, and lithium are used as fusion fueling materials. Lithium is considered a fusion fuel and not an impurity in fusion reactors as it can be used to produce fusion energy and breed fusion products. Lithium hydride and lithium deuteride may serve as good ablating sleeves for plasma formation in an ablation-dominated electrothermal plasma source to propel fusion pellets. Previous studies have shown that pellet exit velocities, greater 3 km/s, are possible using low-z propellant materials. In this work, a comprehensive study of solid lithium hydride and deuteride as a pellet propellant is conducted using the ETFLOW code, and relationships between propellants, source and barrel geometry, pellet volume and aspect ratio, and pellet velocity are determined for pellets ranging in volume from 1 to 100 mm3. / Master of Science

No description available.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第20179号 / 理博第4264号 / 新制||理||1613(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院理学研究科物理学・宇宙物理学専攻 / (主査)准教授 上田 佳宏, 教授 嶺重 慎, 教授 長田 哲也 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

No description available.

Background: From digitalization acceleration, digital disruptions such as edge-cutting technologies, have caused challenges and changes to business’ natures in terms of value, structures, and strategies. No industry nor organization is immune to these impacts, especially multinational enterprises in the information technology industry, whereas these businesses have started to overlook and disregard traditional ways of working to enhance these impacts. Agility has become a new vital dynamic capability in today’s environment, whereas organizational agility is argued to support businesses to cope with this turbulent era of increased competition, globalization, and digitalization. Although, to enhance this, traditional business processes and operations must be rethought and extended to a digital context.  Purpose: As digital disruptions have become a threat to businesses' values and operations, it has gained increased attention in both practice and research. Organizational agility is raised as a tool and response to cope with these new digital threats and changes to fundamental business values, however, this has also increased pressure on managers to create and maintain cohesion and motivation when change is imposed. Nonetheless, how this is managed and experienced within local subsidiaries of multinational enterprises lacks both exploration and understanding, and thus, suggesting that there is much left to uncover. This, especially on how to maintain local responsiveness while enhancing global fundamental values when introducing organization agility to cope with changes and digital disruptions.   Method: With a relativism ontology, interpretivism epistemology, and inductive research approach, this research studied how to be organizationally agile under digital disruptions, from a subsidiary perspective in an IT multinational enterprise. Through a qualitative explorative research and multiple-case study design, the empirical data was gathered from 12 semi-structured in-depth interviewees and observations, where the employee perspective set the foundation of how organizational agility and digital disruptions are managed and experienced within their local subsidiaries. The data were analyzed through a thematic analysis, including separate within-case analyzes, a cross-case analysis, and lastly, a comparison with existing literature.  Conclusion: The findings show how multinational enterprises in the information technology industry could manage organizational agility when digital disruptions occur and how this is experienced amongst employees. Subsidiary Management is vital for coping with digital disruptions whereas Strategic Decision-Making for responding to the same, fundamentally relying on the Organizational Culture with the six key factors of Ownership, Learning, Diversity, Inclusion, Trust, and Mindset. Moreover, organizational agility could cause a negative tradeoff of work-life balance and a negative tradeoff between increased workload and individual growth, whereas increased autonomy creates a tradeoff between local independence and global cohesiveness. This, however, was experienced as both positive and negative. Being organizationally agile is vital on both global and local levels to utilize efficiency, flexibility, and be locally responsive to regional market demands where the attention must be given to people rather than structures to be agile and digitally responsive.

We are trying to explore and analyze the possible relationship between digitalization and the valuation of global logistics companies. We focus on the top 70 global logistics companies listed on reputable stock exchanges around the world by market value and go through their annual reports and audited financial accounts with a view to create an insight on their level of digitalization. We observe that there is an obvious increase in attention to digitalization by the logistics service providers throughout the world over the last decade. While we are not in the position to prove a causal relationship between digitalization and valuation, we find that an increase in digitalization awareness is strongly related to growth in both financial performance and market valuation in the logistics industry, especially during the recent disrupting period caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It seems that investors across different major capital markets, from New York to London, Frankfurt to Tokyo, Hong Kong to Shanghai, are willing to reward digitalization efforts made by a logistics company in the form of both higher absolute value and rate of increase of market capitalization. / Business Administration/Finance

Disruptions such as pandemics, demand changes, and geopolitical tensions in the semiconductor supply chain are essential due to their significant impact on all industries and economies worldwide. The semiconductor industry is vital for modern technology, but disruptions can interfere with production and availability. Understanding these disruptions is crucial, since they create ripple effects across the supply chain, affecting downstream manufacturers and end consumers. Among the affected is Saab, a Swedish aerospace and defense company, affecting operations and supply chain performance. The complex nature of the semiconductor supply chain and its vulnerabilities require both proactive and reactive measures to create resilience against disruptions. By studying these disruptions, resilience strategies can be developed and contributed to better disruption management. Therefore, the aim was formulated as: The aim of the study is to provide supply chain resilience strategies for identified disruptions in the semiconductor supply chain The study aimed to address two key questions. The first question focused on identifying disruptions in the semiconductor supply chain and assessing their severity. A comprehensive list of disruption categories was compiled through a literature review and interviews with Saab and supplier employees. These disruptions were categorized into severity groups based on their probability and impact. The study identified ten disruption categories from the literature and gathered additional disruptions mentioned by respondents that were further divided into 23 sub-categories. The disruptions were then divided into four severity groups. The low probability/low impact group contained disruptions that had multiple systems or strategies to manage but were not given significant attention by the respondents. The low probability/high impact group consisted of disruptions originating from a single actor, that could potentially create ripples throughout the supply chain. The high probability/low impact group contained disruptions not perceived as severe by the respondents but were expected to increase in severity over time. The high probability/high impact group considered the most severe, included disruptions that had already caused significant impact or were highly anticipated. The second key question aimed to identify and propose strategies to enhance resilience against the identified disruptions. Five fundamental elements contributing to supply chain resilience were examined: Robustness, Flexibility, Velocity, Visibility, and Collaboration. Respondents actively contributed strategies and insights on the utilization of these elements, which addressed both vulnerabilities in the supply chain causing disruptions and the disruption categories brought forth. By analyzing the literature and incorporating the responses from interviews, the identified strategic clusters were applied to the specific disruption categories. It was observed that the resilience elements of Robustness and Collaboration effectively addressed all disruption categories, highlighting their significance in mitigating disruptions. However, it is crucial to utilize all resilience elements in order to maximize overall resilience in the semiconductor supply chain. The identified strategies was found to be applicable to all disruptions identified through interviews. Notably, disruptions that impact the focal company often stem from ripple effects caused by initial disruptions upstream, thereby necessitating the application of strategies across the supply chain. Overall, the study provides valuable insights into increasing resilience against disruptions in the semiconductor supply chain, offering a range of strategic options that target vulnerabilities and contribute to improved supply chain performance.