The convergence of mobile and social media, enabled by the ever-changing landscape of information and communication technologies and wireless technologies, has over the last decade, transformed our world into a Socio-Mobile Economy. Looking at the disruptive impact of this convergence on the global payment market, this study investigates the incentives behind different reactions and cooperation models that have been adopted by providers in the Swedish mobile payment market. The methodology of the study has been built on a combination of both theoretical and empirical bases. The theoretical base constitutes a literature review along the line of concepts such as innovation management, disruptive innovation, business model innovation, resource-based theory of the firm and the transaction cost theories, to identify existing gaps within the literature. The empirical base constitutes of qualitative in-depth interviews with three providers in the Swedish mobile payment market. The study shows three main reactions from the Swedish mobile payment providers. These providers have reacted to disrupt the disruption, attract a critical mass of customers, and to wrap their solutions with the right context. Currently, there is no cooperation between all three key input providers of a mobile payment solution, the banks, the MNOs and the card payment systems thus there are no full-integration or partial-integration models in the Swedish mobile payment market. Three cooperation models, the all-bank-centric, the MNO-centric and the light models were also identified in this market.

The evolution of technology has led to a need for business leaders to embrace disruptive technology for the purpose of capturing new markets and remaining competitive. Multiple challenges have been faced by business leaders in the processes of integrating and sustaining disruptive innovations, resulting in the failure to achieve expected efficiency and profitability. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies used by business leaders to integrate and sustain disruptive innovations. The conceptual frameworks were Roger's diffusion of innovation theory and Christensen's disruptive innovation theory. Semistructured interviews were administered to 10 business leaders and employees from institutions of higher learning in the Northeastern region of the United States. The participants were selected using a purposive nonrandom sampling technique. The selection criteria included organizational leaders, technology professionals, training and development professionals, and organizational end-users. Three themes and several subthemes were identified. The strategies for integrating and sustaining disruptive innovations include training, changeover mechanisms, and the use of critical resources. The procedural and structural factors in processes to integrate and sustain disruptive innovations include identifying critical success factors, ascertaining benchmarks, determining levels of support and effectiveness. Obstacles faced during the processes of integrating and sustaining disruptive innovations were categorized into human, technology, changeover, and external issues. Social change may be realized through the improved success rates of small business leaders implementing disruptive innovations by increasing meaningful employment and enhancing livelihoods.

With the rise of digital technologies, consumers can stream music content, which has made it more difficult for music companies to be profitable. Small business owners in the music recording industry in the West Indies have found this trend particularly challenging, affecting their profitability. This multiple case study explored the adoption of disruptive technologies by small business owners in the music recording industry to increase profitability. The research population included 5 small business owners in the music recording industry in the West Indies who successfully adapted to the changes in the industry's business model and whose businesses are profitable. Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation served as the conceptual framework for this study. Data from face-to-face, semistructured, in-depth interviews, observations, and analysis of internal company documents were collected and triangulated. Within-case analysis was used to understand the general meaning of the participants' responses. Each case was described and themes were identified. Cross-case analysis was used to compare the 5 case descriptions and identify 5 cross-cutting themes. These 5 themes included focus on live performances, focus on marketing and building a brand, adopt innovations in all functions of the business, diversify income streams, and adopt vertical integration strategies. The implications for positive social change include the potential to increase the profitability of small businesses in the recording industry in the West Indies by sharing the strategies emerging from the study. Profitable businesses can lead to improved livelihoods of the small business owners and their families.

Employees can be resistant to work-based change, specifically when the change is due to disruptive or new technology. The purpose of this descriptive phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of 20 Swiss-based educational employees adapting to online technologies introduced in their workplaces. Disruptive innovation theory provided the conceptual framework for the study. Data were collected using semistructured interviews with 20 purposely selected participants from 3 Swiss-based higher education campuses. The modified Van Kaam method was used to organize and analyze the data. Four themes from participants' responses were identified: educational employees are not resistant to technology-based change, educational employees can move forward and become excited even when frustrated, educational managers should develop commitment and a project-based focus to reduce additional expenditure of time and effort, and continued experience and personal development can enable technology use and reduce resistance. Findings from the study may be used to reduce employees' resistance to technological-based change in higher education. The successful development and use of online education tools by educators provides society with choices, mobility, flexibility, and a personalized approach to learning.

The problem that most, if not all, large companies deal with in one way or another, is to stay relevant and competitive as their industry evolves. They need to keep improving their current services or products but still need to keep their eyes open for disruption. This requires them to make long-term investments in research and development, which does not always result in a quick return. To stay relevant, corporations need to increase corporate innovation. Research on collaboration between startups and corporations has grown substantially in recent years, but there is a gap in academic literature focusing on the barriers of these collaborations. This qualitative study focuses on what perspective Icelandic corporate managers have towards collaborating with startups as part of their corporate innovation. To accomplish that, eight semi- structured interviews with top-level managers from large corporations were conducted. It was clear that all interviewees were very positive about collaborating with startups even though most of them had little or no experience from doing so themselves. Icelandic companies seem to be reluctant to invest the required time and resources it takes for these collaborations to be successful because of the lack of successful examples in Iceland so far. This research only looked at the barriers and benefits from the perspective of top-level managers in large corporations but future research could include the perspective of startups as well.

The technological development has enabled structural changes in the real estate market and created a growing concept of space-as-a-service. Space-as-a-service has emerged from the concepts of sharing economy, digitalization and servitization to meet the demand for flexible solutions on the commercial real estate market. The idea of space-as-a-service is to offer simple and flexible access to spaces as well as providing extra services for tenants to create added value. From a sustainable perspective the intention is to decrease the need for new construction and take advantage of the existing building stock to meet demand for space. Most of the previous research on the space-as-a-service concept focus on coworking and sharing spaces but not as much on the broader concept and its rampaging on the real estate market. This study aims to investigate if the concept of space-as-a-service is disruptive for the real estate industry and how real estate owners approach this development. A qualitative research method was applied, using both structured and semi-structured interviews with real estate owners with property holdings in Sweden to get more in-depth information and understanding of the growing concept of space-as-a-service. The Theory of Disruptive Innovations was used as a framework for investigating disruptive signs of space-as-a-service. The driving motives behind space-as-a-service are concluded to mainly derive from an observed demand for freedom of effort and flexibility in the real estate owners´ offerings. We can see a new complex competitive environment, where the real estate industry's service goes from selling “space” to offer a concept. This puts new requirements on real estate owners to justify for more than the location of their premises, in order to keep their competitive position. What positions the real estate owners take in this new landscape differentiates. The attitudes towards space-as-a-service are generally positive, but the perceived risks are explicitly present. External actors and regulations also counteract the development. Thresholds and attitudes collide, making it clear that a change in mindset is needed. However, from the results of our study we can conclude that the concept of space-as-a-service fulfills the characteristics of a disruptive innovation, indicating that this evolution will be disruptive for the real estate industry. / Den tekniska utvecklingen av teknik har möjliggjort strukturella förändringar på fastighetsmarknaden, där man går från att sälja yta till att erbjuda ett koncept. Yta-som-tjänst har växt fram från begreppen delningsekonomi, digitalisering och tjänstefiering för att möta efterfrågan på flexibla lösningar på den kommersiella fastighetsmarknaden. Idén med yta-som-tjänst är att erbjuda enkel och flexibel tillgång till ytor samt att tillhandahålla tjänster till hyresgäster för att skapa mervärde. Ur ett hållbarhetsperspektiv är avsikten att minska behovet av nyproduktion och dra nytta av det befintliga fastighetsbeståndet för att möta efterfrågan på lokaler. Tidigare forskning relaterat till yta-som-tjänst fokuserar främst på coworking och delade ytor, men det saknas studier på konceptet ur ett bredare perspektiv och dess framfart på fastighetsmarknaden. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka om konceptet yta-som-tjänst är disruptivt för fastighetsbranschen samt fastighetsägares inställning till denna utveckling. Resultatinsamlingen genomfördes med en kvalitativ forskningsmetod, där både strukturerade och semistrukturerade intervjuer med kommersiella fastighetsägare i Sverige användes för att få en djupare förståelse för konceptet yta-som-tjänst. Studiens akademiska förankring grundar sig i teorin om Disruptiva Innovationer som används för att granska disruptiva tecken av konceptet yta-som-tjänst. Vi kan dra slutsatsen att drivkrafterna bakom konceptet yta-som-tjänst främst är ökad efterfrågan på besvärsfrihet och flexibilitet i tjänsterna som idag erbjuds av fastighetsägare. Detta skapar en ny och komplex konkurrensmiljö som sätter nya krav på fastighetsägare, de blir tvungna att rättfärdiga för mer än bara läget på en lokal för att behålla sin konkurrenskraft. Vilka roller som fastighetsägare väljer att ta i detta nya landskap varierar sig. Attityderna mot yta-som-tjänst är generellt positiva, men det upplevs finnas flera risker som tillsammans med externa aktörer och regelverk motverkar utvecklingen. Resultatet visar att attityder och trösklar i utvecklingen motsäger varandra och att ett tankeskifte är nödvändigt i flera olika led. Resultatet av vår studie visar att konceptet yta-som-tjänst uppfyller karaktärsdragen för en disruptiv innovation och förväntas expandera till en bredare marknad framöver.

<p>Over the course of history, innovation has been the forefront of industrial change. New innovations have continuously surpassed old solutions, which have contributed to the trajectory of mankind. In today’s market IT has an increasingly important role. Innovation within IT is characterised by high degrees of visionary thinking and optimism towards the success of the venture. This has contributed to bubble effects emerging in the economy of a highly speculative nature.</p><p>A central issue lies in the complexity of evaluating innovation and especially more radical and visionary ones. In general terms of evaluation, innovations are evaluated in two main phases: internally and externally. For visionary innovations it is not evident how and on what grounds the innovation should be evaluated both internally in terms of feasibility and externally in terms of market response. In that aspect there is a gap in evaluation and especially <em>how </em>visionary innovation can be evaluated. The aim of the research is to investigate the phenomenon of visionary innovation and contribute with knowledge about the characteristics that influence growth and adoption.</p><p>The research is based upon a two-step qualitative investigation. Firstly the research is imed at constructing a framework for evaluating the innovation and thereafter objectifying the characteristics on case studies within the IT sector.</p><p>The research has found three major areas for evaluation: (1) <em>the eco-system, </em>(2) <em>the  ustomer </em><em>behaviour </em>and (3) <em>the target market</em>. The eco-system is focused towards the ompetitive environment, the technology and the infrastructure. The customer behaviour  ddresses customers’ existing behaviours, their needs and demands and the surplus value  he new offering brings. In terms of the customer behaviour the switching costs and benefits  of other alternatives is also important to consider. Finally, the target market  onsists of the market characteristics, the customer segmentation and the overall  ttractiveness of the market. Based on the characteristics of these factors and the market  nd industry, constraints and drivers can be identified to either support or contradicts the  peed of adoption of new solutions.</p><p>The main findings of the report are that growth is dependent on and influenced by positive and negative drivers. The three elements the drivers are thus connected and correlating, in the sense that the drivers can have different levels of severity. For instance, a negative driver that is negatively correlated with another element has a high level of severity related to growth.</p>

This thesis investigates the performance of business model innovation (BMI) by incumbent power utility and clean-tech start-up firms influenced by the German Energiewende. It emphasises the factors that impact BMI from a managers’ perspective, examines success factors for managers to overcome BMI challenges, and addresses contingencies to perform BMI in a more structured way. The research is driven by the German Energiewende. It has been chosen as Germany is considered one of the world’s leading markets for renewable energies and a transformation of the power sector is currently underway. Therefore, established power utility firms face severe changes, which have the characteristics of a potential disruption to their business model (BM). At the same time, new players are challenging these incumbents with new BMs. The research is underpinned by the extant literature on BMs and BMI. The research approach is based on two case studies; the incumbent power utility and the clean-tech start-up sector. The qualitative study comprises of 24 semi-structured interviews conducted with top tier managers, from 18 firms, responsible for BMI within these firms. Key findings: This study extends our knowledge of BMI in both a start-up and an incumbent environment that is influenced by various contingent events. It portrays barriers to BMI and depicts critical success factors for BMI that point out solutions on how to overcome these barriers. It provides a structured BMI framework for established firms and illustrates future BM archetypes in this sector. It clearly documents the German Energiewende is regarded as a disruptive threat from the perspective of incumbent power utility managers. The theoretical contribution of this thesis is a process framework including all identified drivers and challenges for BMI in both established and start-up firms. Contributions to practice include critical success factors for BMI, recommendations to overcome barriers to BMI and future BM archetypes within the newly evolving Energiewende industry based on sustainable technologies.

Although the Dimensions of the Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ) has been widely accepted by the HRD community, it has not been tested in a startup context for reliability. The purpose of the current study is to explore if the DLOQ is a reliable instrument for startups to help them be more successful. The current study seeks to address some of the questions, which have been posed by previous researchers. The study utilizes a mixed-method design applying Cronbach alpha values to check the reliability of the instrument in a startup learning environment, with more than 600 participants and 42 startup businesses at a university in the Mountain West. The study uses objective financial measures for startup firms to explore the correlation between the seven dimensions of the DLOQ and startup companies at the university. Cronbach alphas for the instrument measured at the .80 level or higher. Four of the dimensions were found to be statistically significant resulting in a model that accounted for 30% of the variance in predicted Operating Income (p<.004) and 29% of the variances in predicted Net Income (p<.003). The study also uses qualitative analysis to explore what activities relate to the seven dimensions of the DLOQ, and if those activities would be considered complex and disruptive. Thirteen activity clusters were identified and found to be relevant to startups and the seven dimensions of the DLOQ.

Disruptive innovation pertains to a process wherein a modest idea can grow and transform the entire landscape among established companies within the same industry. While this type of innovation has the potential to revolutionize markets and industries, it also presents challenges, particularly in securing funding. Financing disruptive companies can be a difficult endeavor as they may be challenging to comprehend and assess. Traditional financiers may not recognize the potential in these ideas and may be reluctant to risk their resources on what may appear to be uncertain ventures. Thus, the question arises whether the financing process for entrepreneurs engaging in disruptive innovation differs from that of other entrepreneurs. The purpose of this study is to observe the factors that influence disruptive entrepreneurship and how they are reflected in the financing process. Empirical findings were analyzed alongside theoretical findings. The results indicated that external financing capable of primarily providing knowledge was valued more highly than external financing that could only offer capital. / Disruptiv innovation handlar om en process där en liten idé kan växa och förändra hela spelplanen bland etablerade företag inom samma bransch. Denna typ av innovation har potentialen att revolutionera marknader och industrier. Men med disruptiv innovation kan det också uppstå utmaningar, särskilt när det gäller att hitta finansiering. Att finansiera disruptiva företag kan vara en svår uppgift eftersom de kan vara svåra att förstå och värdera. Traditionella finansiärer kanske inte inser potentialen i dessa idéer och kan vara ovilliga att riskera sina pengar på vad som kan verka vara osäkra satsningar. Det kan således ifrågasättas huruvida finansieringsprocessen för entreprenörer som ägnar sig åt disruptiv innovation skiljer sig från andra entreprenörer. Syftet i denna studie är att se vad som har en inverkan på disruptivt entreprenörskap och hur det speglas i finansieringsprocessen. Empiriska fynd analyserades med teoretiska fynd och resultatet visade att extern finansiering som kunde bidra med främst kunskap värderas högre än extern finansiering som bara kunde erbjuda kapital.