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By Frode Halvorsen

In this second presentation of master’s theses from NTNU School of Entrepreneurship, we span over the last ten years and have found three theses that have had a close connection to the faculty’s research. Two of them include topics that have interested and been researched by the faculty, and the last where one student later became part of NSE’s faculty and continued his work. In addition, all of these theses have proved to be timely and interesting outside NSE, where researchers at other universities have shown great interest in the work.

We hope you get inspired and enjoy the reading! If you want to read more about our students’ prior theses, you can find January’s three theses here.

– The faculty of NSE

In 2018, NSE celebrates its fifteenth anniversary and as a part of the celebration, the faculty has gathered fifteen theses from prior NSE students, and intend to present three of these theses through the first semester of 2018. The theses presented will be a variety of academic prodigies, timely written investigations and theses not necessarily meaningful to the majority of the world, but with topics of profound importance to NSE’s students. Some will carry limited empirical foundation, nevertheless with impressive results. Others have a data collection that would cause professors to become envy, but where the students still handled the data in an impressive manner. Moreover, all of the above show the impressive span in the students’ theses.

In this series of presentations, we intend to provide you with an overview of what NSE students focus on, what outcomes the Master’s theses could give, and what the students themselves think of their theses – some of which written more than a decade ago! You will therefore find abstracts and interviews with the authors of the presented theses. If some of the works are of interest to you, the majority of the theses are available at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s library. If they are not available, we assume the authors would be happy to share some of their knowledge.

Opening the «Black Box» of Learning in Action-Based Entrepreneurship Education

The fourth thesis we present in this series is an example of a study that was timely, and that investigated an important topic – ourselves, or action-based entrepreneurship education and venture creation programs. One of the thesis’ findings is the importance of a community of practice for the learning situation, and through NSE faculty’s continued research on our alumni, we now experience that the community of practice is of much greater importance – it even spans beyond learning. As the interest within entrepreneurship education has bloomed in the past five years, their thesis from 2016 fits well into the stream of research, and international researchers applauded their work in entrepreneurship education forums. We took a call to the authors to hear their view of the work and to tell them they reached the top fifteen theses.

– Wow, that is a very nice call to receive! Thank you! As we were both students at NSE, and since NSE is reckoned to be one of the most prominent entrepreneurship educations, we wanted to understand if there were any factors that were key for such educations’ success, Amalie says, before Kaja adds:

– We also identified a gap in the literature regarding action-based educations, and therefore wanted to look into this.

The two authors tell us that they also wanted to write a thesis that could be of interest and value for NSE’s faculty, and that they ‘didn’t want the thesis to collect dust in a drawer.’ However, the topic entailed that the two studied ‘themselves’ which made the work a bit demanding, as the road to quick conclusions could be tempting and obvious, but they also stress the value of their enrolment.

– Without the insights in entrepreneurship education, we would not be able to extract the essence from the literature we read and from our interviewees at NTNU, Chalmers and in Lund. It was therefore rather beneficial and gave us a deeper understanding of the topic. However, with this interest, a small craving to include more in the thesis also followed, but we later figured out that a narrow focus is often better! Hence, we started with a too broad focus, and used a lot of time on finding the right view.

The two authors also tell us that reading the literature was important, as the development of a theoretical model, which was central in their work, would never occurred if they had not been well-read in the topic. Regarding their findings, the two state that the most important finding is the importance of the community of practice, where student-to-student learning was an important outcome. However, faculty’s role is also important as Amalie explains:

– We also saw that the faculty should be viewed as facilitators, where they offer a pedagogical framework that the students should act within, but in addition, we also identified the importance of trust and expectations among students and faculty.

– What would be the topic for your thesis if you wrote it today?

– We would have continued our work in entrepreneurship education, and perhaps explored how an entrepreneurship education influences the students’ future, both if they become entrepreneurs but also if they enter into paid employment.

Abstract

There exists an agreement among scholars that entrepreneurship can be taught, and the action-based approach is claimed as an appropriate teaching method to let students gain entrepreneurial competences within an academic context. The literature review in this thesis demonstrates the lack of empirical in-depth studies of how learning transpires within action-based entrepreneurship education, and few articles have empirically accounted for how a learning environment enhances entrepreneurial learning. This underlines a need for more empirical research examining entrepreneurial learning through social relationships. The purpose of this thesis is to open up the “black box” of learning within action-based entrepreneurship education programs to gain insights in how a learning environment stimulates entrepreneurial learning. Three research questions have been designed to fulfil the purpose of this thesis, where the authors have investigated how action-based entrepreneurship education is delivered by faculty, how students practice action-based entrepreneurial learning, and how learning materializes through interaction within a community of practice.

In order to answer the research questions, secondary data through a literature review and primary data through qualitative research have been obtained and combined. Since the authors have studied a contemporary phenomenon in real-life context, a case study design has enabled a possibility to investigate how action-based entrepreneurial learning occurs, and how a learning environment stimulates the students ́ learning. Based on a literature review, a conceptual model of action-based entrepreneurial learning has been developed. This conceptual model has been further developed based on insights from in-depth case studies. The authors selected three university programs; Chalmers School of Entrepreneurship, NTNU School of Entrepreneurship and Sten K. Johnson Centre for Entrepreneurship. All three have extensive experience with action-based learning, which ensured relevant empirical data. All the programs provide new venture creation as a part of the educational curriculum. Empirical data has been acquired through individual interviews with the faculty and focus group interviews with students of the program. The empirical findings have been analyzed and discussed with the aim of understanding the interaction between the individual student, co-students and faculty.

The authors found that proactive behavior, the level of motivation, educational background and the level of effort are all important characteristics of the students attending action-based entrepreneurship education programs. The empirical findings underline that action-based entrepreneurship education programs requires the faculty to operate as facilitators, where they provide an educational framework that the students can operate within. Further, it was found that faculty should have confidence in the students taking responsibility for their learning at the same time as the students need to take responsibility in obtaining entrepreneurial competencies. The empirical findings also emphasize a need for guidance in where the students focus their actions and in their process of reflection. Summarized, the faculty should support and challenge their students, rather than being controllers of learning. By investigating the involvement of students and faculty within a learning environment, the authors have identified how students enhance each other’s learning through share of knowledge, engagement and support. It has become evident that learning materializes through collective learning between co-students, and the culture that is created within action-based entrepreneurship education programs is seen as essential for how students learn. This underlines how entrepreneurial learning should be understood as a social phenomenon, rather than purely individual.

The main contribution of this thesis is how entrepreneurial learning is stimulated by the interaction between students within a community of practice, termed student-to-student learning. Based on theoretical perspectives and in-depth case studies, a conceptual model has been developed to obtain an overall understanding of the research scope. This can provide higher educational institutions that want to establish or further develop their action-based entrepreneurship education programs, with a deeper understanding of how entrepreneurial learning takes place within such programs. This thesis further provides students with a deeper understanding of their requirements and responsibility of learning. When the students recognize their role within action-based entrepreneurship education, they are able to adjust their expectations to the educational program and act accordingly. You cannot judge a book by its cover, and the same can be applied for action-based entrepreneurship education, where the “black box” of learning has to be opened up to grasp the meaning of entrepreneurial learning as student-to-student learning.

Strengthening Start-Up Innovation: Exploring Acquisition of Innovation Competences in University Spin-Off Companies

The fifth thesis in this series is one where the work and interest later resulted in a PhD in 2017 for one of the authors, Marius. Thus, the question on what topic they would focus on if they were to write their thesis today is perhaps superfluous, but this also shows that their thesis was important and timely. In addition, they are both working in start-ups that commercialise new technology, and it is safe to say that their interest in entrepreneurship has not weakened after their graduation in 2007. When telling them they made the list, shouts of joy meets us in the phone, but they shiver a bit when realising it is more than ten years ago since they wrote their thesis, consisting of one conceptual and one empirical paper.

– It is a long time ago but we still remember that we worked quite organised. We chose the topic ourselves, and did so based on the experiences and challenges that we met in our own start-ups, Marius tells us.

– We also wrote separate project theses the semester before; thus, we were reading a lot of literature in the beginning of our work. However, we were two in the team, and that helped us a lot! The entire thesis was written through discussions about theory and our empirical data, so that is our most important learning – to be two working together.

Nevertheless, going from a technological education, where the answer often is quite clear, to social science, is something the authors experienced as a bit challenging. When being enrolled in their engineering educations, they used to plan their projects from the beginning in a linear matter; now they had to work in a more iterative matter. Stian remembers they struggled a bit with this issue:

– We had to evaluate our hypotheses and our models constantly, as these were changing when we discovered new knowledge. Even though this demanded a lot of time, it helped us ensure that we both worked towards a common goal and objective. The answers often occurred when exploring data and reflecting upon the theory, and thus was it quite hard to know where we would end in the beginning.

When it comes to their findings, they stress that commercialising new technology is demanding and complex, and that a team needs complementary competences to be able to succeed. They also found that tacit knowledge is important to implement and involve in these projects, as this knowledge is hard to transfer to other members. More interesting, perhaps, for students and faculty at NSE, is that the authors also identified the importance of students in these new ventures. Marius explains for us:

– We identified that students could play an important role in such projects, as they hold a very important resource that others in such projects might not hold: time and work capacity. Experience and technological expertise is important, but it occurs that these projects become stationary due to lack of time or work capacity.

Abstract (conceptual article)

Commercializing university research through spin-off companies has proven to be a source of significant wealth creation. However, suffering from a lack of competence in distinct areas, founders of university spin-off companies struggle to bring their inventions to market. In this conceptual study the authors developed a typology based on the experiential and educational background of three types of entrepreneurs commercializing university intellectual property. Through creating a conceptual framework consisting of resource-base theory and social capital theory, and discussing their perspective on entrepreneurial activities, this study proposes a general positioning of the entrepreneurs, and advice on how to develop the initial resource-base of the firm. More specifically, we argue that academic and so-called surrogate entrepreneurs possess different sets of resources, and must thus develop their resource-bases in different directions in order to increase the probability of venture success. The study aims to provide researchers with a theoretical basis for further investigations using empirical samples.

Abstract (empirical article)

University spin-off companies have proven to be a wealth-creating strategy in commercializing intellectual property from research. However, suffering from a lack of competence in distinct areas, founders of university spin-off companies struggle to bring their inventions to market. This study has tested the conceptual typology created by Mathisen and Remåd (2007), which differentiates three types of entrepreneurs’ competence-base when commercializing university intellectual property. Through a qualitative investigation of 14 new ventures we investigated the competence-base of academic, surrogate and student entrepreneurs, their gaps, and their methods for closing them in order to reach the stage of having a marketable product. We found support for the conceptual typology, but also aspects which were found to require further investigation. Moreover, we propose a set of implications which may help entrepreneurs in assessing potential intellectual property, and to help them acquire the right type and quality of competence.

Venture Capital Trade Sale Exits

February’s last thesis is an extensive work, where the final deliverable consisted of four papers. The authors show a deep gratitude when we tell them about including them in our top fifteen, and the work is one that fits well in our list. The topic of venture capital trade sale exits was an under-researched field when this thesis was written in 2011, and the field is in many ways still under-researched today. However, while the gap led them into the field, their interest in the topic also motivated them to write the thesis, Alexander recalls:

– We chose to work on venture capital because we shared the interest of the investor-entrepreneur relation in building successful ventures, where exit is an unavoidable topic and outcome. A successful VC investment means a trade sale the majority of the time, but the topic of trade sale exits was under-researched, so trying to contribute to new knowledge was also a motivation for us.

When it comes to the findings from their work, the most interesting insight was that the relationship between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, which often is pictured as a conflictual relationship, appeared to be the opposite.

– The relation was mutually beneficial and the topic of exits was usually well aligned already early after an investment by the venture capitalist was made, Robert explains.

However, investigations of a new or under-investigated topic often demands a qualitative approach, and the authors decided to interview investors and entrepreneurs, not only in Norway, but also in the US. Through their network in both countries, the authors arranged meetings to obtain the necessary insight in the field – a work that gave more than only academic results:

– With limited data on this topic before, we chose to base our study on qualitative research. That meant interviewing investors and entrepreneurs in Norway and the US about their experiences on specific exits they had participated in – a very rewarding experience both academically and personally, Alexander says.

– One of the most striking characteristics of the process that led to the thesis was the unanimous willingness among respondents to participate, and share their experiences with such detail. It just goes to show that if you’re open to input and have a question, most people will set aside time to help you. All you need to do is ask. We were and are very grateful for that, Erik adds.

– If you had to write a new thesis today, what would the topic be?

– With our sample being based on ventures that was successfully sold, it would have been interesting to see if there are similar aspects that characterizes investments that are less successful, or to analyse the similar research questions in light of a statistically broader sample.

Abstract

Even though venture capital trade sale exits are the most common and successful exit vehicle, historically most academic attention has been given to IPO exits. This thesis takes the first steps towards opening the black box that is trade sale exits. The thesis is paper-based, and the main academic contributions belong to the four papers appended. This document opens with an introduction to the field of study as well as overall reflections in order to offer the reader a contextual background. Paper one is based on a literature review, while paper two through four are based on an inductive multiple-case study covering 19 venture capital trade sale exits from Norway and the U.S.

Paper one conducts an extensive literature review of venture capital exits in general, leading up to the development of a model denoted The Road to Venture Capital Exit . This model identifies the variables that influence the exit process in the different phases, and describes how these variables influence the exit process.

Paper two explores the relation between pre-planned exit strategies and value-adding, and suggests the existence of two different venture capitalist mindsets; the Tailor and the Architect. The Tailor uses exit possibilities as an addition to traditional deal evaluation criteria, has a pre-planned exit strategy, and adds value with exit in mind. The Architect does not use exit possibilities as an evaluation criteria, and adds value in a more general manner.

Paper three examines the relationship between the venture capitalist and the entrepreneur during the trade sale exit process, finding that this relationship is characterized more by consensus and cooperation than by conflict and defection. Further, it is found that four factors influence the relationship during the exit process, and are determining for the conflict level. These factors are: pre-investment alignment, strategic hurdles and personal motives faced by the entrepreneur, the reputation and connectedness of the venture capitalist, and the probability for entrepreneurial recycling.

Paper four explores the role of financial advisors in trade sale exits, by looking closer at why advisors are utilized, as well as by examining the factors determining the choice of a specific advisor. It is found that advisors are considered especially useful in bargaining situations, through playing the role of bad cops, and also by letting venture capitalists and entrepreneurs focus on their primary tasks. With regards to selection criteria, venture capitalists emphasize industry experience, prior relations and the size of the advisory firm. Finally, the findings are integrated in a framework explaining the role of financial advisors in venture capital trade sale exits.

By Vilde Øines Nybakken

Kristoffer Slåttsveen got tired of cramming theory he might or might not make use of in the future when he was a student. He would rather see students learning theory by making use of it in a more realistic context. As a PhD Candidate at NTNU Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, he wants to figure out how.

– I think the principle behind confidence and self-efficacy is applicable to any profession, Slåttsveen says. Creative confidence comes from the term self-efficacy, a term established by the psychologist Albert Bandura, the main source for Slåttsveens work. In his dissertation, he is writing about creative confidence in the design engineer education. Creative confidence is a personal skill that many successful designers and developers have in common, according to Slåttsveen.

– Confidence in your creative capabilities is what drives the motivation and ambition of people that dare to take chances. I want to see how that skill can be learned in an educational context. How can we create students with a higher level of creative confidence?

More practical work in the classroom

For the last 18 months or so, Slåttsveen has been in the process of making an online facilitation platform for problem based projects called The Makerbox. Stated in his paper presenting the project, Slåttsveen finds the many maker communities around the world inspirational, and he has a desire to expose children to design and decision-making problem in early ages. The Makerbox aims to lower the threshold for doing something practical in the classroom.

– The project is a web page with a database with practical problem solving assignments. The assignments does not necessary have one solution. The teacher has to change his or her role from being a transmitter of knowledge to being a facilitator, he says.

Instead of looking to the teacher for the right answers, the students will try and fail, to see if the gadget they have built from the Makerbox assignment works the way it is supposed to. That way the students learn to trust their own design choices.

– The students will use simple materials such as milk cartons, copy paper and pipe cleaners. The platform is supposed to be simple, cheap and available to everyone. The practical assignments can motivate by being as simple as the fun of making holes in milk cartons, Slåttsveen explains.

Learning-by-doing meets gamification

Slåttsveen does not only have an interest in education. He also has a passion for making gadgets. In his office, he is surrounded by various gadgets he has built himself from different materials easily available for anybody.

– My work and research is a good excuse to make gadgets and play around, he says jokingly.

The gadgets is meant to be used for educational purposes. One of them is the Qbot, a robot built using Arduino, an open source electronics platform, and a learning project. By building it with Arduino, the students can transfer what they learn directly to other domains of programming.

– It combines gamification and learning-by-doing. This is a small robot platform that can be programmed to perform various tasks, like following a black line on the floor or avoiding obstacles.

Government strategy to increase Norwegian students’ digital competence

The Prime Minister of Norway, Erna Solberg, the Minister of Education and Research at that time, Thorbjørn Røe Isaksen presented a digital strategy for primary and secondary education and training about six months ago.

– We want understanding of coding and technology included in the school curriculum already in the primary school. This strategy will take Norwegian education into a new era, Prime Minister Solberg stated in a government press release.

When 60 000 Norwegian six year olds had just started school, The Prime Minister emphasized the importance of preparing them for a more digital future.

– A lot of these children will work in professions we’re not familiar with yet. The digital development runs faster and faster. The educational system has to play a leading role in preparing our children in the best possible way for the future, was further stated in the press release.

Hopefully, Slåttsveen’s work can facilitate the governmental digital competence goals in the future. Further, the government believes the appropriation of digital competence in the school is determined by yet another decisive factor; the teachers. In a study performed by “Monitor skole” in 2016, one of three teachers stated they do not get sufficient support in pedagogical IKT use.

– We want to educate designated IKT learning specialists, that can contribute to a higher competence amongst teachers, said the Minister of Education and Research.

Developing individual confidence is important

Slåttsveen thinks the political goals can be reached by not only focusing on transferring knowledge, but by also developing individual confidence. The school can be used as a golden opportunity to expose everyone for something, like Arduino programming, for instance.

– Confidence gets a lot of attention in sports. In schools, it is all about knowledge. Why hasn’t the connection between knowledge and confidence gotten more attention? The challenge for me is to prove this and transfer my vision to measurable results with large statistic source data.

Some of the data for his research is collected through a course in Machine Design and Mechatronics he teaches at NTNU. Below you can see a video from November 2017, when students from the course presented their robots.

We look forward to see what results Slåttsveen’s work will bring in proving creative confidence is the key to a new era in Norwegian education.

By Ingvild Forseth

An early Saturday morning, 18 students gathers at the innovation collective FRAM NTNU to help “The Operation Room of the Future” (FOR) solve real hospital problems. FOR is a collaborative between NTNU and the St. Olavs hospital that was established to develop an integrated university clinic. The day starts off with the leader of FOR, Jan Gunnar Skogås, painting a vision of what future hospitals can look like.

DRIV NTNU is a professional and social meeting place for NTNU students interested in innovation in the health care sector, and the host of the workshop. The organization aims to create interdisciplinary cooperation between students that can take on the challenges ahead. In that regard, DRIV NTNU has teamed up with the research facility.

– We need new solutions to cumbersome methods. Through this workshop we will get input from students and facilitate relevant theses. In the future, we might not need the operating room or even the surgeon. Instead, the patient might swallow a robotic pill that will do the work, says Skogås.

Supports students to further develop their ideas

This is the first day of the workshop, which will take place in a total of two days. The first day involves presentation of the problems the students will work with. Then, two weeks ahead, the students will present their ideas to a jury from FOR. The winner will get their hands on a really cool prize, according to DRIV NTNU leader, Milena Egiazarian.

– If everything goes as planned, the winning team will get approximately 20 000 Norwegian kroner to further develop their idea. They can use the financial support to do what they want, for instance develop a prototype or go to a conference, but we want to know their plans. It is important that the students get support for further development in addition to a nice experience, Egiazarian says.

A rotating chair and remote clinics

After the highly topical problems is presented, the students are put to work in groups. Student Sara Edvardsen is in a group that has chosen to work with solutions to a decentralized outpatient clinic for skin treatment. The idea is to enable remote doctor’s appointments through high resolution images and tactile feedback.

– I participate in this workshop because I want to work with medical electronics. It is much more fun working with technology to help someone. I want to direct my master thesis in Electronics Systems Design and Innovation towards medicine, says Edvardsen.

Other problems put up for the teams to solve are how to produce 3D display from a 2D recording, or the construction of a rotatory chair to treat balance disorder such as crystal disease.

Two weeks with work and mentoring

The sound level raises and gets loud in FRAM once the groups proceed in their work. There is no doubt that the students are enthusiastic about their tasks. Each of the groups is supported by a mentor from Spark NTNU, to help the group with the entrepreneurial aspect of the task, and professionals from FOR.

In the two weeks ahead, the groups will continue to work with their mentors before the day of presentations. At the end we have provided you a short YouTube video to show what the future for hospital operating rooms are all about. Engage will wait with excitement to see what innovative solutions the groups have come up with!

By Engage

Although NTNU School of Entrepreneurship (NSE) has bred forth numerous new ventures, tech development in world class, and graduates with extensive knowledge and experience in entrepreneurship, its students are also presenting academic work with high standards. Through NSE’s years of existence, a number of Master’s theses have been written; investigating interesting topics, answering important questions, and providing the students with an insight into the world of academic writing. Some of these theses had, and still have, a potential of being important for researchers, scholars and practitioners. Thus, these theses should neither be forgotten, nor defined as just an academic task, because, as you will see below, NSE fosters more than new ventures.

In 2018, NSE celebrates its fifteenth anniversary and as a part of the celebration, the faculty has gathered fifteen theses from prior NSE students, and intend to present three of these theses each month onward. The theses presented will be a variety of academic prodigies, timely written investigations and theses not necessarily meaningful to the majority of the world, but with topics of profound importance to NSE’s students. Some will carry limited empirical foundation, nevertheless with impressive results. Others have a data collection that would cause professors to become envy, but where the students still handled the data in an impressive manner. Moreover, all of the above show the impressive span in the students’ theses.

In this series of presentations, we intend to provide you with an overview of what NSE students focus on, what outcomes the Master’s theses could give, and what the students themselves think of their theses – some of which written more than a decade ago! You will therefore find abstracts and interviews with the authors of the presented theses. If some of the works are of interest to you, the majority of the theses are available at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s library. If they are not available, we assume the authors would be happy to share some of their knowledge.

We hope you will enjoy reading!

– The faculty of NSE

Innovation and Innovation Processes in a Decentralized Multinational Corporation

Halvor A. Gregusson and Konrad R. Fagertun

The first thesis presented is from the class of 2008, but it could easily be written by the current graduation class. As illustrated in yesterday’s Dagens Næringsliv (January 30^th, 2018), a Norwegian economics newspaper, the case company is still focusing on the issues investigated in the thesis. Thus, the authors’ work is not only timely in 2008, but also an important topic today. The rumour also has that the authors were offered jobs in the case company as a result of their excellent work, but they pursued an entrepreneurial career instead.

When asked why they chose the topic and the research question, the authors explain that a new initiative, Centre for studies of Radical Organisational Change (CROC), a collaboration between NTNU and Hydro, gave them the opportunity to write about a topic in which they both had a great interest. As Hydro is a global organisation and world leading in aluminium production, their innovation processes are of special interest as the organisation is quite distributed. Since the authors had a special interest in innovation, an opportunity to work with such a huge organisation was not something they passed.

With Hydro being a large and global organisation, one could expect the data gathering and process to be a bit challenging. The authors confirmed this. As Konrad stated, ‘I would like to say that our work was strictly structured’, but that is seldom the case for good research and their work had rather innovative features, as they had to work in a repeatedly manner to improve their writing and reach the final product. Moreover, as some of the important divisions of Hydro are located in different locations in the world, their work involved a lot of travel and in addition to Norway, the authors visited Denmark, Austria and Italy.

Regarding the learning from both the process and the topic in the thesis, the two authors agree that the insights they obtained in the organisation were as predicted, but that they also experienced the wheel being reinvented in the organisation’s different departments at some occasions. Being able to investigate Hydro from the inside as young students was also a great experience, Halvor states, and follows up with an example where the organisation destructively competed with itself inside departments. All in all a great experience, and in the end a paper valued by Hydro!

When asked about what they would focus on if they were to write another Master’s thesis, it would be the same topic, innovation, but with a lean focus.

Executive Summary

Based on previous research, we have written definitions and framework on innovation and the innovation process, formal and informal organization and communication. With this as a foundation, four case studies were carried out in Hydro Aluminium Products. Through interviews and meetings, observations of innovations and communication activities are described and explained. Three different plants in hydro Extrusion Eurasia, and one in Hydro Automotive Components were chosen, to cover a diversified part of Europe. The different philosophies for innovating in a decentralized company are compared, and the discussion of how organization structure, culture and KPI affect innovation lead to interesting findings. Addressing the vulture and climate for creativity, there is a strong culture for safety within Hydro and the climate for creativity is good at the decentralized plants. The culture for safety has brought with it several key aspects required to build a creative environment, and this is a good starting point for implementing an innovative culture. The key to establish a creative climate is to ensure frequent communication through “rich” channels such as personal contact. This has resulted in numerous creative achievements at the different plants. However, sharing innovations is not done effectively, and there are several issues regarding corporate communication.

Hydro Extrusion Eurasia is a group of decentralized plants, operating in their own geographical “kingdoms”. Managed from Lausanne in Switzerland, Hydro has used a clear and effective approach to benchmark performance with Key Performance-Indicators (KPIs). Production and sales –data is well documented, and by sharing improvements regarding safety, accidents have been drastically reduced. However, this model is not implemented for innovation, which remain decentralized. The result is sub optimal sharing of innovations, and customers, on an ad hoc basis. Some innovations are shared instantly, and some coincidentally, on meetings among managers. The lack of communication structure regarding new ideas, lead to “reinventing of the wheel” at different sites, and also that plants are turning down customers that could have been served by other plants in the system.

We recommend a more centralized control of innovations managed by R&D, to benefit from the well functioning idea generation, while remaining decentralized. To monitor these activities, they should be incorporated in the already successful KPI. Such an implementation could be the first step in increasing communication between the plants that operates in own geographical kingdoms. One suggestion in how to manage the ideas and problems on each plant is by assigning an innovation manager that will communicate with other equals, and an innovation coordinator in Lausanne. This will ease communication, and clarify areas of expertise among the sites. Another finding we have done is the small focus put on AVA-Added Value Activities. Processes done on the profiles for customers are actually a market innovation that can prove significant in increasing earnings and staying competitive. 95% of customers need some form of AVA done on their profiles. With this in mind, Eurasia seem dynamically conservative in keeping only aluminium extrusion as a core competence, while increased competition continue to make margins on pure aluminium profiles smaller. AVA seems more and more important, and should be included in the KPIs for easy comparing and improving.

Key Factors in the Process of Customer Acquisition for Startups Launching a Platform in a Two-Sided Market

Agnes Dyvik and André Sebastian Wærness-Vold

The second thesis presented is from 2015 where the authors wanted to use findings from their work in their own start-up. Moreover, to learn about the thesis’ topic, the authors used a former NSE start-up as their case, as this would provide interesting insights that helped them understand customer acquisition in their own context. The topic was formed by their start-up’s situation, and as they state, ‘we wanted to reflect theoretically and practically about what we had coming for us’. You will therefore find both the paper’s preface and its abstract below, as both provide the reader with an understanding of why the topic is investigated, and why it is important for the authors.

In the process of writing the thesis, the two authors state that the data collection and project thesis (written in the former semester) shaped their work and effort, and that the writing was conducted in a quite short time. However, as they also stress, the thesis was of profound interest for them and the topic was something they had in their mind while working in their start-up. In that regard, the thesis was probably moulded in their subconscious while being entrepreneurial.

Their main finding was that there does not exist a strategy to develop a two-sided platform, but that there exists good strategies for growth hacking that others have copied and succeeded with. This, together with community and fan building is something they would focus on if they once in the future should sit down and write another thesis. Which we guess they might not. However, there is no need, as their first attempt made it to NSE’s top 15.

Preface

This paper is written by two students at the NTNU School of Entrepreneurship and is a master thesis that builds on a literature review, with the same title, delivered in December 2014 at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

The authors of this paper are currently working to launch an online service for long-form journalism called Vio. By purchasing a monthly subscription, Vio will allow users to read unbundled (article by article) journalism from a variety of sources. This is done by extracting content directly from printed magazines and newspapers, and presenting these articles online to paying users.

In short, Vio is a “Netflix for journalism” and operates in a two-sided market with a business-to-business (B2B) side comprised of several large media corporations as well as a business-to-consumer (B2C) side with users eager to read journalism.

Compared to larger competing corporations such as Norway´s leading publisher Schibsted Media Group with their large user base and budget, it is challenging to acquire both customer groups effectively, especially when bootstrapping with minimum resources. However, a competing startup in the Netherlands by the name of Blendle has shown that this is possible. Having undergone rapid growth since launching in April 2014, by September the same year Blendle had more than 100,000 users that joined the service in under 6 months (Edge, 2014). Despite bootstrapping in the early stages, this service recently received $3.9 million in funding due to their growing user base and are now looking to expand internationally (Gani, 2014). The authors rationale for writing this thesis is based on these exact challenges, that their startup Vio is also currently facing.

Abstract

This thesis will present research in the form of a single case study of the bootstrapping startup Dirtybit. When launching their second game, Fun Run, it grew from zero users to acquiring 1 million new users per day within 2 months. A prime example of resource efficient rapid customer acquisition.

Startups with limited resources find it difficult to launch platforms acquiring a critical mass of users. The value of the platform to each of the customer groups is heavily contingent on this critical mass, and must be rapidly driven in the early stages of the platform’s launch.

The research in this thesis is based on a theoretical framework found through a preliminary literature review. Empirical data was collected from Dirtybit employees, as well as both customer groups. Interviews, questionnaires and different data archives have been used as sources.

By answering the stated research questions in terms of what are the most resource efficient ways of acquiring customers to a two-sided platform in order to achieve the result of rapidly acquiring a large user base, key factors have been outlined. Platforms are heavily dependent on network effects, and this thesis focuses on this.

Different mechanisms can be used to achieve network effects in the different groups, as well as between them. Key factors leveraging these effects are explained through a model, for a startup launching a platform in a two sided market, and vary from word-of-mouth and the bandwagon effect, to implementing subsidization and trialability.

The model contributes to the field of platform entrepreneurship with key factors that hopefully will equip entrepreneurs with a model that they can use in order to maximise their odds of success when launching a platform in a two-sided market.

Opportunity Formation of Digital Services in a Well-Established Firm

Karoline Kaspersen and Valentina Luzmira Fernandez Sørlie

The third thesis presented is from 2017, and is in many ways unique. The theoretical approach in this work can be seen as extreme, and this holds for the authors’ project thesis as well. As a professor in the faculty said, ‘I have never seen master students discuss epistemology in their thesis,’ and it might take some years until it occurs again. Thus, the theoretical work is thorough and well-argued which is illustrated and supported throughout their empirical evidence.

The two authors tell us that the thesis was selected late. Their interest in the case business and its issues triggered them to leave their initial plan and set out toward investigating this well-established firm. They found the innovation process in this firm interesting to compare with their own experiences from their start-up activities, and if they were to write a new thesis, the topic would have been similar but the context might have shifted to new ventures instead.

With work that holds this level of quality, the process demands a lot from the authors, and they describe it as ‘challenging’ and ‘frustrating.’ It starts with an over-complex view of their work, and then the focus is honed until the progress leads to a clear outcome. Especially the amount of data collected made the process challenging, and their learning from the work is to set a clear plan for how to conduct the work. As Karoline states, ‘it would be valuable to use some extra time to understand the way to write academic papers.’

Their main learning from their work is that big organisations have a deep will to be innovative, but to actually migrate toward becoming an innovative firm is often difficult for these giants.

Abstract

In order to gain markets and stay competitive, it has never been as important as of today to form new digital opportunities. Despite this, previous research has not offered in-depth empirical studies within the opportunity theory, as most of the research have failed to include different factors such as the resources that affects the opportunity formation process (Hajizadeh & Zali, 2016).

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate how well-established firms can form new digital opportunities within an innovation project by utilizing their prior knowledge and social network in the process. To fulfill this purpose, the authors have investigated how different activities conducted in an innovation project enables well-established firms to form new digital opportunities (Research Question 1). Moreover, how a well-established firm can utilize its employees’ essential resources, prior knowledge and social network in the opportunity formation process (Research Question 2).

The authors conducted a single-case embedded study where they researched how individuals within two innovation projects, within the same innovation program, conducted different activities to form an opportunity. The empirical data was acquired through two interview rounds with a total of 16 individual, semi-structured interviews. The empirical findings are compiled into events in time, to enable a comparative analysis where the given events were put in light of a theoretical framework developed through a literature review.

The conclusion of the thesis is that there exists a deeper level of activities within the different phases of the opportunity formation process. Each phase can be divided into single events, which again can be divided into one or more activities. This contributes to the existing literature of opportunity formation presented by Ardichvili et al. (2013) who solely looked at the overall phases of the formation process. Further, the thesis concludes that the combination of opportunity recognition and opportunity creation is not performed as an initial process in the opportunity formation process, and that it rather occurs in the next phase of iteration. This is contrary to previous researchers’ statements, and contributes to the theory by exploiting another possible formation process. More detailed, the thesis concludes that prior knowledge and social network affects the formation process at different stages of the opportunity formation process, and further reveal that the resources are interlinked.

Consequently, the thesis has incorporated both the activities and the resources in a proposed model, illustrated in Figure 5.5. This model illustrates the activity based process and how the resources coher with the recognized activities. This is an issue which has not previously been studied. The authors’ thesis provides insight to the gap identified by, amongst others, Hajizadeh and Zali (2016), where there exist few empirical studies within the opportunity theory where the resources have been incorporated in the opportunity formation process.