Offer Master’s Thesis
Title Business models for market expansion of environmental technologies –
What makes a firm success or fail?
Date
[2013-10-07]
Author
[Wisdom Kanda]
Background
Municipalities have long been involved in the provision of social amenities. Among
several responsibilities, Swedish municipalities remain active in decreasing
environmental pressure from human settlements. One important dimension to this
responsibility is to develop and use different technological solutions. Areas of interest
include waste management, energy supply, waste water treatment, etc. This has led to
a build-up of expertise and knowledge on how to solve the municipalities’ own
problem. Among varying reasons and perhaps including restrictive policies and
improper business development in outer markets, much of this environmentaltechnology-knowledge is locked in municipality-owned companies.
This bigger research project has collected and documented information from outside
and inside Linköping about market expansion activities by municipality owned
companies. This information has led to some new findings regarding business models
for market expansion of environmental technologies. An initial suggested method to
comprehensively identify pertinent stakeholders, their relationships with each other,
and their role in the product’s life cycle is also under consideration.
Objectives
The task for the student in this specific master thesis project is to apply this new
findings and methodological developments on a selected case providing opportunities
for further refinement of the concepts and insight.
Proposed Research Questions
(1) How are the different environmental technologies provided by selected
companies successfully for market expansion?
(2) What are the differentiating factors between success and failure for market
expansion of environmental technologies?
(3) How can one support design of business model for market expansion of
environmental technologies?
Proposed Methodology
Methods to be employed include review of literature (which in many cases will be in
Swedish); both grey and scientific (e.g. environmental technologies,
internationalization, business model, customization) and interviews with relevant
actors, such as companies providing gas turbines, researchers etc. The contact
information may be provided in most cases by the supervisors. Chances of interacting
with Swedish companies (Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery, etc.) may be expected.
Environmental Technology and Management,
Department of Management and Engineering
SE-581 83 Linköping
http://www.iei.liu.se/envtech/utbildning/examensarbete
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An analysis of the different approaches to customize environmental technology
knowledge for market expansion purposes to derive the possibilities, risks, challenges
and obstacles involved.
Qualifications
English in communicating with supervisors. Note this theme prefers for the student(s)
to have the Swedish language skills because of the language of the literature reviewed.
Other information
Language: Swedish/English
Proposed time: 6 months
Number of Students: 2
Location of Research: LiU
Examiner/Supervisor/Co-supervisor: Olof Hjelm and Tomohiko Sakao
Contact person Wisdom Kanda – wisdom.kanda@liu.se
Department of Management and Engineering
SE-581 83 Linköping
www.liu.se/iei
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