Bachelor and Master Theses

The industrial green transition depends on collaboration across value chains and regional ecosystems. In Västmanland, large industrial companies, subcontractors, the university, the region and business-promotion actors are engaged in initiatives on energy, circularity and new technologies, for example industrial symbiosis, where residual flows from one company become resources for another.

In practice, subcontractors typically take a reactive supplier role, delivering to specifications set by others. Yet they often hold process knowledge, material flows and customer relationships that could make them solution providers, integrators, circularity enablers or innovation partners. When subcontractors remain passive, opportunities may be lost both for the firms themselves and for regional transition initiatives. At present, there is no clear overview of which roles subcontractors hold in the regional green-transition ecosystem.

Ecosystem research has largely focused on focal firms and orchestrators, typically large companies or platform owners. There is limited academic work that explicitly addresses how subcontractors, usually peripheral actors, can shift towards more active and leading roles in green-transition ecosystems, and which conditions enable such shifts in a regional context.

The aim of this thesis is to map the roles subcontractors hold in the green-transition ecosystem in Västmanland, assess the benefits of more proactive roles, and develop an evidence-based explanation of how subcontractors can move from reactive supplier roles towards active ecosystem orchestration roles.

·       RQ1: What roles do subcontractors hold in the current green-transition ecosystem in Västmanland?

·       RQ2: What benefits could arise for subcontractors and for regional green-transition initiatives if subcontractors assume more proactive and leading roles in the ecosystem?

·       RQ3: How can subcontractors move from reactive supplier roles to active ecosystem orchestration roles in the green transition?

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.