In recent years, the financial and economic decisions have changed which has created and utilized new methods and techniques that have led to new and different products, processes, and services. However, the changing methods and techniques have led to the movement of digital technology and enabling financial services within the financial industry. The changes have resulted in the phenomenon of FinTech that has derived from financial services. In order for companies to be competitive in the industry and create value for their customers, they need to use a business model as a conceptual tool to help improve their performance. High dynamics in technological solutions within the financial industry provides the base for business model innovation. Whilst there is little empirical insight about business model and business model innovation within the qualitative field, this study aims to explore how FinTech companies are developing their business models to enable business model innovation in Sweden, as well as what is influencing business model innovation. An explorative study with semi-structured interviews was conducted to explore how FinTech companies’ business models are built. The empirical findings were supplemented with data from the company’s websites and financial reports. This study’s findings show four key factors within the FinTech companies' business models: Technological innovations, digitization, value propositions, and human resources. All companies have developed innovative technology and software solutions and created new technical systems. Hence, all companies are innovative by creating new processes and methods through their technical development and resulting in different innovations such as API-systems and self-built algorithms. Further, business model innovation within this study has been influenced and driven by exceptional events as the market changes and problems occur within the company that forces innovations to be created for companies to overcome these obstacles. In addition, market pressure has influenced business model innovations by e.g. competitors and customers changing the market demand and making the companies adjust continuously.

L’objectif de cette thèse consiste à analyser de quelle manière l’usage du Cloud Computing (CC), présenté comme une nouvelle forme de droit de propriété intellectuelle (DPI), peut modifier l’intensité et l’usage des Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (TIC) au sein des entreprises. Parmi les résultats novateurs de cette thèse sont les suivants nous en citons trois : Premièrement, dès lors que les firmes cherchent à innover, l’adoption du CC dépend de la capacité d’absorption technologique. La capacité d’absorption technologique, telle que nous l’avons redéfinie, construite par l’accumulation de connaissances et de procédés en matière de gestion des innovations et des technologies permet une intégration plus facile des nouvelles technologies dans les schémas de fonctionnement de l’entreprise. Deuxièmement, les compétences numériques sont fondamentales dans la décision d’adoption afin d’insérer le CC dans la continuité des anciennes TIC, de gérer la perception de la complexité de la technologie et des risque associés. Enfin, la diffusion du CC dépend en grande partie de la perception des consommateurs de cette nouvelle technologie. Plus les consommateurs font confiance à la sécurité du CC et plus la concurrence entre les entreprises permet de relâcher la concurrence en prix. Les perceptions des consommateurs concernant la sécurité du CC impactent la concurrence en prix et en qualité des firmes et déterminent ainsi le degré de diffusion. Ces perceptions des consommateurs à propos du CC jouent un rôle important dans la pénétration du Cloud. / The objective of this thesis is to analyze in what way the use of cloud computing (CC) presented as a new form of intellectual property right (IPR), can modify the intensity and use of information and communication technology (ICT) within companies. Among the innovative results of this thesis, three ‘aspects’ will be mentioned as follows: In the first place and since the firms are looking for innovation, the adoption of cloud computing depends on the technological absorptive capacity as we have redefined it, built on the accumulation of knowledge and processes related to the management of innovations and technologies allows an easier integration of the new technologies in the plan of the company’ functioning. Secondly, the digital skills are fundamental in the decision of adoption in order to insert the cloud computing in the continuity of former technologies, to manage the perception of the complexity of this technology and the associated risks. Finally, the distribution of the cloud computing depends largely on the consumers perception of this new technology. The more the consumers trust the security of the cloud computing, the more the competition among the companies allows to the competition in prices. The perceptions of the consumers about the security of the cloud computing have an impact on the competition for both price and quality among the firms (service providers) and determine the level of the distribution. These perceptions play an important role.

The presented thesis addresses the topic of innovation corporate culture and instruments of measurement. The thesis is built systematically from the general to the specific. The first part deals with the general definition of culture and its characteristics, and further it is described the phenomenon of organizational culture with the elements, by which is determined. The last theoretical part is about the definition of a specific type of corporate culture, of which domain is to support long-term innovation capability. It is based on literature review on this topic. Then it is introduced several tools that try to measure innovation culture or similar concepts and these are commented in relation just to the definition of an innovation culture. The following part is research, which contains the results of the use of tools, which was developed by Rao and Weintraub (2013) and evaluation of this tool. This tool was applied to a company, by which business is consulting in the field of innovation and designing of new products and services. The research was conducted for the basic purpose of the tool - measuring the innovation corporate culture, but to evaluate the quality of the measurement instrument from the perspective of validity and from the methodology of the creation of the questionnaire, too. The...

Services and innovation are the drivers of today’s economy, yet, there is a lack on academic literature on what matter the interactions between these two forces. On that sense, Barras, in 1986, established one of the most representative models regarding innovation within service firms. The “Reverse Product Cycle” (RPC) argue that service firms, trigged by IT advancements, would follow an opposite innovation evolution if compared to the classic manufactured view of novelty progress. Besides representing an important breakthrough on the services differentiation from the predominant industry view, it was replete of problematic that are now reinforced by the present high dynamic environment. On that present scenario, the role knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) play is of crucial importance to innovation dissemination within a diversity of industries. It features are intrinsically related to tailored co-produced solutions to specific clients requirements that, by the case study of an ongoing KIBS shared solution development, seems to bring back the innovation pattern defended by the RPC model. The present study aims to analyze this hypothesis and revisit the RPC model through the optics of current KIBS innovation process.

Boosting economic growth and competitiveness in different spatial contexts such as national, regional, metropolitan etc. has always been in the epicenter of both large and small-scale planning efforts pursued at different levels of government from local to extra- regional and their significance is still, and probably will always be, on the rise given the ever increasing competition in today’s, and yet-to-come future world. In order to achieve this, relevant authorities have devised and implemented a vast variety of policies and approaches which are, more often than not, based on abundance of theoretical contributions in the field of economic geography. This thesis explores one of the main theoretical contributions to this field being Innovation Systems theory and tries to adapt the concept, originally intended for application at a larger scale, to the perspective of an individual firm rather than a whole production system while briefly using empirics from the spatial context of Adelaide/South Australia, loosely defined as a region, and the sectoral context of electricity infrastructure. The initial conclusion here is that applying the concept to the more manageable context of an individual firm, may have the potential to enable one to identify the relevant organizational and institutional setup more effectively and present a better explanatory description of their role in the whole Innovation system and in turn, can contribute to a more informed planning and policy- making process for regional economic growth.

Innovation is a necessity for organizations long term survival in today's rapidly changing society. Many organizations struggle with their innovation management and a prerequisite to succeed with innovation is considered to be, creating and maintaining an innovation. Large established organizations are by many seen as one of the greatest sources of innovation. They have several advantages when it comes to innovation; like a large set of resources and an extensive network. On the other hand many large organizations face difficulties with flexibility and bureaucracy and are being outperformed by small startup organizations. The purpose of the thesis was to investigate a large established Swedish high-technology organization’s innovation culture and give suggestions for how it could be improved in order to support the capability of generating ideas. The investigation was performed at Saab Naval Operations. To find improvements, the current culture and the desired culture that supports innovation were identified. Finally necessary changes were identified to be able to achieve the desired culture. Semi structured interviews were held to understand the prevailing problems today and the desired future state. Additionally a climate questionnaire was sent out to all coworkers at Naval Operations to reveal the current state from coworker’s perspectives. The analysis of the qualitative and quantitative results together provided an overall understanding of the existing culture. Workshops were held to determine the changes needed to reach the desired culture. Finally an action-plan with four improvement areas was identified. The empirical, qualitative and quantitative studies were distributed into the improvement areas. The factors identified are considered as a good starting to positively contribute to an innovative culture though the list is not considered as complete. The improvement areas were; Leadership for innovation, Idea Management, Understanding and Knowledge Transfer. These improvement areas were considered to be of great importance in order to positively contribute to the innovative culture where a variety of ideas emerges from everyone at Saab Naval Operations. / För organisationers långsiktiga överlevnad i dagens snabbt föränderliga samhälle är innovation en nödvändighet. Trots detta har många organisationer svårigheter med att hantera sitt innovationsarbete. En förutsättning för att lyckas med innovation anses vara att skapa och upprätthålla en innovationskultur. Många anser att stora etablerade organisationer är en av de största källorna till innovation. De har många fördelar, så som en stor andel resurser och ett omfattande nätverk. Å andra sidan får många stora organisationer svårigheter med flexibilitet och byråkrati och blir därför överträffade av små start-up organisationer. Syftet med denna uppsats var att undersöka ett stort etablerat svenskt högteknologiskt företags innovationskultur och föreslå förbättringsåtgärder för att främja förmågan att generera idéer. Undersökningen genomfördes på Saab Naval Operations i Järfälla. För att finna förbättrings-åtgärder utreddes först hur den existerande kulturen som stödjer innovation såg ut, därefter identifierades den önskade kulturen. Slutligen identifierades de förändringar som kunna möjliggöra den önskade kulturen. Semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes för att förstå problemen och det önskade framtida tillståndet. En klimatenkät skickades ut till medarbetarena på Saab Naval Operations för att identifiera deras uppfattning av klimatet. De kvalitativa och kvantitativa resultaten gav tillsammans en övergripande förståelse av den befintliga kulturen. Workshops hölls för att finna förslag till åtgärder som skulle hjälpa att nå den önskade kulturen. Slutligen togs en handlingsplan med fyra förbättringsområden fram.Resultatet utmynnade i fyra förbättringsområdena. De identifierade faktorerna anses vara en bra utgångspunkt för att förbättra innovationskulturen. Förbättringsområdena som identifierades är: Ledarskap för innovation, Idéhantering, Domänkunskap och Kunskapsöverföring. Dessa anses vara av stor betydelse för att positivt bidra till en innovationskultur där en mångfald av idéer uppstår, från alla på Saab Naval Operations.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how middle managers attempt to enhance internal innovation processes with digital usages. To do so, this research aims to open up an internal innovation process improvement ‘black box’ by looking not only at issues related to digital delivery but also at elements related to innovation culture and leadership. Design/method/approach To fulfill this purpose, this qualitative research develops a case study employing the lenses of middle managers to generate empirical data based on an interpretative approach and an in-depth semi-structured interview methodology. Findings Middle managers' attempt to enhance internal innovation processes with digital usages involves major elements related to influencing people’s mindset, motivating and embracing ideation, as well as collaboration across units leveraged by digital usages. Nonetheless, the core element of the attempt stands for the ability to root the digital tool usages not only at the individual or team level but also at the innovation process level. Contributions This study mainly contributes to theory extension by putting the individual at the heart of the organization's innovativeness culture and enlightening the leadership role of middle managers to influence innovative behaviors to embrace digital tools in the line of the organization’s strategy with major demands for change management. Originality/value By integrating the perspective of middle managers to the conceptual, this case study brings an additional piece to the puzzle of how digital tools nurture the internal innovation processes.

Background: The advancement of digital technologies and hence the emergence of new opportunities but also changing customer needs force incumbent firms to increase their innovation capacities. Therefore, they must find ways to explore the opportunities of digital innovation, while simultaneously exploiting their core business and ensuring a secured revenue stream. This phenomenon, called organizational ambidexterity, can amongst others be achieved by implementing a digital innovation unit (DIU). DIUs, structurally separated units, especially within Germany, Switzerland and Austria are declared to be successful instruments to increase incumbent’s innovativeness but also to foster an innovation culture and advance the corporate digital transformation while the core organization can focus on core business activities. Research Problem: Despite the prevalent perception of DIUs being successful initiatives to find remedy for incumbents’ conflict of being innovative while simultaneously advancing the core business, in recent years more and more DIUs were closed. This development is particularly interesting as the amount of DIUs is still increasing while on the other hand especially business press claims the end of these units. However, regarding this paradox, academic literature is still rare and has until now primarily focused on the challenges of DIUs but not on their closure. Correspondingly, DIU closure poses a significant research gap. Research Purpose: The study primarily aims to clarify why DIUs are being closed and derive a general theory explaining this phenomenon. Above that, a secondary purpose is to advance knowledge regarding DIUs as a digital innovation instrument and what characterizes a DIU. Finally, we aim to examine whether a closure can be equated with a failure. Research Question: Why are Digital Innovation Units being closed? Research Method: Qualitative, inductive research; Ontology – Relativism; Epistemology – Social Constructionism; Methodology – Grounded Theory; Data Collection – 14 semi- structured in-depth Interviews; Sampling – Purposive, Snowball, Theoretical; Data Analysis – Grounded Analysis Conclusion: Resulting from the findings, a model was developed, that explains five major statements related to DIU closure. On the one hand, we ascertained distinct symptoms that anticipate a closure such as personnel measures and budget cuts. On the other hand, we identified factors that significantly influence the fate of a DIU such as corporate politics or cultural dissonances and identified remnants of closed DIUs. Finally, the immediate reasons why DIUs close can be related to strategic changes within the parent company and to how the DIU is evaluated.

The literature emphasises the need to integrate innovation initiatives under the umbrella of the total quality management (TQM) philosophy. Such integration is instrumental towards achieving and sustaining a superior organisational performance. Using a sample of 229 Portuguese manufacturing organisations, factor and regression analyses procedures were used to assess the impact on organisational performance of innovation for small and large organisations in the Portuguese TQM business context. The results of this study point to the significance of the size of the organisation, and product and process innovations for organisational performance. Organisational innovation was not found to have a significant impact on organisational performance. These results might be attributed to specific ownership, which is associated with process and product innovation. Based on the results of this study, it is concluded that small organisations might want to consider directing their innovation investments towards management aspects such as processes and products. In this context, top-down organisational innovation might take more time and effort.

User inertia is a real innovation adoption problem that cannot be seen or grasped. How to overcome user inertia while introducing innovation has become a key factor in today's society. Based on the background of requirements engineering, the goal of this thesis is to study and understand the relationship between user inertia and innovation adoption, including whether the type of innovation has an impact on user adoption and how to use strategies to reduce this impact. Through an online survey of 60 users and a systematic literature review of a series of articles, we have concluded the following points: RI has a greater impact on user inertia, while II has almost no impact; neither RI nor II has a significant impact on user satisfaction. Not only that, but through literature review, we have also concluded a comprehensive strategy to deal with the adoption problem caused by user inertia.