Bachelor and Master Theses

Responding to the green transition demands more than compliance. As customers, regulation and technology shift towards lower emissions and more circular solutions, subcontractors need to recognise emerging demands, learn, experiment, adapt their processes and turn ideas into implemented solutions. At the same time, digitalisation is changing how firms can sense, develop and deliver such solutions; this combination of green and digital change is often referred to as the twin transition.

In practice, many subcontractors respond reactively: they act when a customer sets a requirement rather than anticipating demands and positioning themselves as solution providers. Innovation work is often informal and dependent on a few key individuals, and digital technologies such as production and energy data, simulation or digital product information are rarely used systematically to support green innovation. This limits their ability to move from compliance to proactive, value-creating responses.

Innovation capabilities and the role of digital technologies in innovation have been studied extensively, but mainly in larger firms. There is limited academic work that explicitly addresses which innovation capabilities subcontractors need to respond proactively to green-transition demands, and how digital technologies can augment these capabilities in resource-constrained firms.

The aim of this thesis is to identify the innovation capabilities that enable subcontractors to respond proactively to green-transition demands and opportunities, and to explore how digital technologies can strengthen these capabilities.

·       RQ1: What innovation capabilities help subcontractors respond proactively to green-transition demands and opportunities?

·       RQ2: How can digital technologies augment these innovation capabilities?

Background in Industrial Engineering and Management, Product Development, Product and Process Development, Innovation Management, or Business Management. The student should be familiar with performance measurement and KPIs, digital services and industrial digitalization, and servitization or service-oriented business models. Basic understanding of ecosystems, digital platform constellation, and decision-support concepts is considered an advantage.

The thesis is part of Green Twin Leadership, an EU co-funded project led by Region Västmanland with Mälardalen University (https://regionvastmanland.se/utveckling/projektoversikt/green-twin-leadership/).
Access to companies involved in the Region’s Green-Transition activities will be arranged by the project team at a later stage of the thesis.