What can large corporations and start-ups learn from each other? How do you make circular economy work in the pharmaceutical industry? And how do you foster creativity in that business? These are some of the questions that Sif Bregnballe and Laura Karppinen set out to investigate in their thesis. We also touch upon their process of writing a thesis when almost exclusively meeting online, as well as their take on what is important to keep in mind when you have to find a thesis partner....
Nov 27, 2020•39 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Do you know what a Food Science Park looks like? Johannes (Joe) Neft and Hedvig Henrekson have investigated how being part of such a science park influences product innovation for its tenants. We talk about the main takeaways of their thesis both content-related and personal, their insights and whether being good friends is actually beneficial for writing a thesis together.
Nov 12, 2020•26 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Navigating your own business during a global pandemic while writing a thesis about the consequences of said pandemic simultaneously can be... challenging. This week’s guest, Luis Xavier Mariscal, tells us all about how the process of writing his thesis actually helped him with his work in his own company. We also touch upon the struggles of splitting up with your thesis partner, how to stay focused when your mind tends to go wondering and how one’s definition of a company can help you see things...
Oct 29, 2020•39 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Laura Katzensteiner and Signe Dreyer Elkjær have taken the buzzword sustainability into an academically very unresearched field. In their thesis, they dealt with the question of how accelerators actually integrate sustainability into their business models. They tell us how they approached this topic, how they managed to stay productive during lockdown and how they finally designed a framework that answers their research question.
Oct 15, 2020•40 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Jakub Taptik and Catrine Bek are guiding us through the many ups and downs of their nail-biting thesis process. We talk about how on earth they could write an entire discussion in 24 hours, and how they managed to get a high grade when they haven't even read the entire thesis before they handed it in. Their tips will save your ass.
Oct 01, 2020•42 min•Season 2Ep. 2
New hosts. New guests. New topics. Listen in to hear what The Thesis Talks is all about and what's new!
Oct 01, 2020•3 min•Season 2Ep. 1
How can universities collaborate on innovation in a meaningful and efficient way? And how should we speak about collaboration to truly incentivize strong and active relationships? Language is one core element that frames our understanding and thus our bahavior with collaboration. The Triple Helix functioned as guiding theory to detect this language of collaboration.
Aug 07, 2020•21 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Despite value co-creation becoming an increasingly common practice, the knowledge of how co- creation is enabled in business-to-business contexts remains scant. Therefore, this thesis seeks to enrich the understanding of the drivers and facilitators that influence the co-creation process to inform the knowledge gap of how value co-creation is enabled. Guided by the research question - how can incumbent firms within the financial services industry enable value co-creation activities with fintechs...
Aug 02, 2020•19 min•Season 1Ep. 26
This master’s thesis examines the decisive organizational factors for practising a successful innovation culture in Danish Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). An extensive amount of literature on the field of innovation, organizational culture and innovation culture have been reviewed, and the relevant literature has by a deductive approach been used as a framework. A comparative case study has been chosen as a strategy to research the field of innovation culture, and here, mixed methods have b...
Jul 13, 2020•18 min•Season 1Ep. 25
Artmoney is not a currency for people interested in art, it's a currency for people interested in people. As an alternative currency, the burning question is "Why are people using the currency?" In this episode we are dissecting the value and the aim of an alternative currency such as Artmoney.
Jul 12, 2020•17 min•Season 1Ep. 24
With increasing diversity at the workplace, it becomes essential for businesses to find out how that diversity can be used as a competitive advantage. Addressing a gap in the literature, this thesis explores how diversity in companies may be leveraged through dialogue: what are the benefits and challenges, and how may it be done in practice? Taking a critical realist approach, the theories of Thomas & Ely (1996) on diversity and of Isaacs (1999) on dialogue are linked as the basis for qualit...
Jul 12, 2020•15 min•Season 1Ep. 23
Can we outsource knowledge to Big Data to scale a business to the next level - especially when it captures such precious information such as the one about our brain? Mads investigated this question while seizing the opportunity to do some self exploration of his brain activities; The case of a neurofeedback clinic
May 18, 2020•20 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Within the recent hype surrounding blockchain technology, not much attention has been given to the question if there is a potential use for social businesses. Based on an extended PESTEL analysis, Julia derives opportunities and challenges for organizations with a social-impact agenda and finishes off with concrete steps for the implementation of blockchain - a real hands-on manual!
Apr 20, 2020•17 min•Season 1Ep. 21
The food industry - a complex world of actors which creates conditions for resource waste. Emerging digital platforms such as Fresh.Land, ToGoodToGo or Platjammer sprout in Copenhagen at the moment. With a fresh approach and innovative business models, they reshape an inefficient food supply chain and thereby show consumers and traditional market players how to move towards a future without (or with less) food waste.
Apr 13, 2020•19 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Why did Nintendo Wii and the first Apple phone go through the roof? Because Apple and Nintendo performed radical innovation and envisioned new product-meanings. In this episode, Michael takes us on a journey of finding product-meanings of communication mediums through the use of metaphors. Meanings are embedded in the metaphors we use: So, what colour is a phone call and what transportation means are emails?
Apr 11, 2020•17 min•Season 1Ep. 19
The purpose of this project was to understand how social enterprises in Mexico are a mean to reduce poverty. This because the notion of social entrepreneurship has shown to effectively contribute with innovative and effective solutions using a range of organizational formats to maximize social impact and bring about change (Nicholls & Cho, 2006); nevertheless, the concept itself has only been recently recognized in Mexico and therefore the research is still new and limited (Conaway, 2018). M...
Apr 10, 2020•21 min•Season 1Ep. 18
In this BONUS episode we talk to MSO Professor in an open event at CBS Library forum on fieldwork, and specifically doing fieldwork abroad. We (Lena & Doa) were lucky to have Mark as our supervisor and learn from his experiences abroad that we could take with us when we went to Kenya a year ago for our fieldwork. Listen as he tells us why it is important, doing quantitative and qualitative analysis “in the field”, and ethical considerations to take into account. For the purpose of duration a...
Feb 01, 2020•28 min•Season 1Ep. 17
This work investigates the role of interorganizational proximities (IOP), knowledge attributes and organizational learning dynamics in innovation collaboration (IC) among startups and large firms. In the context where knowledge is seen as a pivotal resource in building and maintaining a sustainable competitive advantage, both large firms and startups aim to access new expertise which they cannot produce behind closed doors, through mutual collaboration. We have developed three main theoretical p...
Nov 28, 2019•14 min•Season 1Ep. 16
The urgency to act towards more circular practices has been set by the European political agenda but still many initiatives fail to address Circular Economy from a system perspective and reshape our Linear Economy. Kristine researched on Danish small & medium sized companies which push Circular Economy models through technological innovations.
Nov 19, 2019•16 min•Season 1Ep. 15
In the last 5 years the number of immigrants in Denmark has increased and so did the number of foreign enterprises. In his thesis, Gor noticed the creation of immigrant entrepreneurial “communities” and main challenges that they are facing. Further, some Denmark-specific challenges were found such as building a network from scratch and the Danish language.
Nov 12, 2019•16 min•Season 1Ep. 14
The central topic of this master’s thesis is the simultaneous pursuit of competition and co- operation, coined into one term; “co-opetition”. This phenomenon has received increased attention by scholars and practitioners in the past two decades since it adapts to today’s fast- changing business environment and enables mutual benefits for rival companies. This paper addresses the lack of literature regarding the interplay between co-opetition and specific innovation types. A co-opetitive relation...
Nov 05, 2019•14 min•Season 1Ep. 13
How can businesses keep up with the constant flow of new innovations and embrace creativity? A design thinking mindset that is acquired by a learning process might be the key to success. But DT is not just applicable in business, Dayana will share with us other fields that could use some more interaing and failing.
Oct 29, 2019•16 min•Season 1Ep. 12
The Universe of innovation exploded from the first industrial revolution of water-steam systems and continues with the fourth industrial revolution of Cyber-physical systems. Among the currently emerging technologies, blockchain technology also known as Distributed ledger technology (DLT) has set its own mark as a second layer to the internet, disruption of multiple industries, decentralization and new harbinger of human digital identity, democracy and peer to peer transactions. Anam explored th...
Oct 22, 2019•14 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Innovation is increasingly gaining traction as a way for the corporate company to stay competitive in a dynamic and unpredictable market. The changing landscape of knowledge forces corporate organizations to search outside the boundary of the firm, thus taking a participatory approach and engaging with external stakeholders through open innovation. This thesis focuses on the way corporations innovate and engage in inter-collaborative activities with stakeholders. The findings reflect that a corp...
Oct 15, 2019•14 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Over many decades, the pharmaceutical industry has been characterized by heavy product-focused business operations. Rising health care costs, pressure from health care payers as well as impending patent expirations are now pushing for a shift towards addressing patients’ needs ‘beyond the pill’. In addition, advancing digital technologies enable the patients to become active and self-directive on their health care management. How does the integration of digital technologies affects the implement...
Oct 10, 2019•18 min•Season 1Ep. 9
The thesis in this episode sought to understand the causes of and potential remedies to the challenges facing young adults who are trying to become homeowners in the US and Denmark. On the housing demand side, it considers long-term national-level data in four categories: state influence, economic and financial indicators, labor market factors, and socio-demographic trends. These findings, which are similar for both countries, support existing studies that argue that young adults are increasingl...
Oct 02, 2019•14 min•Season 1Ep. 8
In today’s society, it is undeniable that the process of global warming is threatening the existence of human and ecological systems. Yet though it is acknowledged that finite resources need to be managed as to counter this development, fashion supply chains continue to rely on linear throughput systems. How can the fashion industry become more sustainable and what part plays the consumer in this systemic change that we so urgently need?
Sep 24, 2019•16 min•Season 1Ep. 7
The sharing economy (SE) is a growing alternative to traditional value chains and reduces the fundamental need for ownership. It increases the exploitation of under- utilized resources, most effectively on costly durable goods such as cars, buildings and machinery yielding prospects of higher profitability. The global success stories of Uber and AirBnb have familiarized the world with the potential of sharing privately owned resources. Strategic literature, however, is ill equipped to determine ...
Sep 18, 2019•20 min•Season 1Ep. 6
A universal model that is able to generate innovations in large organisations?! That implies a paradox between the need for control and bureaucracity versus creativity and the need for pace. But if a universal model is not the answer to keep pace with our rapidly changing world than how can large and established organisations such as Carlsberg implement a process that boosts their level of innovation?
Sep 10, 2019•15 min•Season 1Ep. 5
The purpose of this study was to understand the value in which Copenhagen’s early-stage social enterprises are experiencing when joining Enterprise Assistance Organisations. The first objective was to find out why these social enterprises are joining Enterprise Assistance Organisations and to comprehend the extent to which they are contributing to the growth and success of the social enterprises. The second objective sought to assess the characteristics of the value in which Copenhagen’s social ...
Sep 03, 2019•14 min•Season 1Ep. 4
