We congratulate Stig Ødegaard Ottesen with successful defense of his PhD thesis, March 9th 2017.

The title of the thesis is:

«Techno-economic models in Smart Grids: Demand side flexibility optimization for bidding and scheduling problems»

The Faculty of Economics and Management has appointed the following committee to evaluate the thesis:

Professor Pierre Pinson, Technical University of Denmark
Associate Professor Trine Krogh Boomsma, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Associate Professor Ruud Egging, NTNU
Dr. Anders Nordby Gullhav, NTNU
Associate Professor Ruud Egging at the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, NTNU, has administered the committee’s work until 7 March 2017. Dr. Anders Nordby Gullhav at the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, NTNU has administered the committee's work from 8 March 2017.

The trial lecture was held on the following topic:

«Scenario generation, reduction and validation for prices in sequential electricity markets»

The candidate’s main supervisor has been Professor Asgeir Tomasgard, NTNU. The candidate’s co-supervisor has been Professor Magnus Korpås, NTNU.

 

Summary of the thesis

Introduction of power-intensive appliances such as electric vehicle chargers and induction cooktops, as well as technologies for local renewable electricity generation from solar panels and wind turbines will provide challenges for distribution in the coming years. High power peaks, rapid power changes and less predictability will increase the need for transmission capacity and reserves. Traditionally, such problems are met with costly investments in new capacity. An alternative approach is to use flexibility from the end users, which means that generation and consumption of electricity is changed as a response to prices or other signals. Introduction of batteries in buildings, advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) increase the potential for demand side flexibility. Altogether, these technologies constitute the concept denoted the Smart Grid.

To realize this increased flexibility potential, financial incentives must be introduced. Major changes are therefore expected in the electricity market in the coming years, including introduction of new, innovative contract types and business models, changes in market designs and the establishment of new market roles.

To maximize the benefit of demand side flexibility, there is a need for development of new decision support models. This thesis proposes and analyzes models for trading in different markets and for the scheduling of flexible devices in an operational situation. The models are based on operations research. The decision problems are mathematically formulated, and a particular focus is on how to handle uncertain parameters, such as consumption, generation and market prices. Stochastic programming is used for this purpose.

The thesis consists of four articles. In Article 1 a basic model is established where flexibility is divided into different classes. The article analyzes a prosumer in the retail market, where flexibility gives cost savings by exploiting price variations over a day, between energy carriers and by reducing the demand charge at the grid tariffs. In Article 2 several prosumers are coordinated via an aggregator who buys and sells electricity in a spot market and where imbalances are settled in a balancing market. Article 3 focuses on flexibility trade, where the value of an aggregated flexibility portfolio is maximized by trading in three sequential markets. The last article analyzes the decision problem to a service provider who operates a charging site for electric vehicles, where the capacity is limited. All articles contain case studies that have been conducted in close cooperation with companies in the Norwegian electricity market.

 

Sammendrag av avhandlingen

Innføring av effektkrevende forbruksapparater som elbiler-ladere og induksjonskoketopper, samt teknologi for lokal, fornybar elektrisitetsproduksjon fra sol og vind vil gi utfordringer for distribusjonsnettet i årene som kommer. Høye effekttopper, raske effektendringer og mindre forutsigbarhet vil gi økt behov for overføringskapasitet og reserver. Tradisjonelt vil slike problemer møtes med kostnadskrevende investeringer i ny kapasitet. En alternativ tilnærming er å benytte fleksibilitet hos sluttbrukerne, som innebærer at innmating og uttak av elektrisitet endres som følge av priser eller andre signaler. Innføring av batterier i bygg, avanserte målings- og styringssystemer (AMS) og tingenes internett (IoT) gjør at potensialet for sluttbrukerfleksibilitet er økende. Til sammen utgjør disse teknologiene konseptet som benevnes det smarte nettet, Smart Grid.

For å realisere dette økte fleksibilitetspotensialet, må økonomiske insentiver innføres. Det forventes derfor store endringer i elektrisitetsmarkedet i årene som kommer, blant annet ved introduksjon av nye, innovative kontraktstyper og forretningsmodeller, endringer i markedsdesign og etablering av nye markedsroller.  

For å maksimere nytteverdien av sluttbrukerfleksibilitet, vil det være behov for utvikling av nye beslutningsstøttemodeller. Denne avhandlingen foreslår og analyserer modeller for handel i ulike markeder og for planlegging av hvordan fleksible enheter skal benyttes i en driftssituasjon. Modellene baseres på operasjonsanalyse. Beslutningsproblemene modelleres matematisk, og det fokuseres spesielt på hvordan optimale beslutninger skal tas under forutsetning av at enkelte parametere, som forbruk, produksjon og markedspriser, kan være usikre på beslutningstidspunktet. Til dette benyttes stokastisk programmering.

Avhandlingen består av fire artikler. I artikkel 1 etableres en grunnleggende modell der fleksibilitet deles inn i ulike klasser. Artikkelen analyserer en prosument i sluttbrukermarkedet, der fleksibiliteten gir kostnadsbesparelser ved å utnytte prisvariasjoner over døgnet, mellom energibærere og ved å redusere effektledd på nettleiekontrakter. I artikkel 2 koordineres flere prosumenter via en aggregator som kjøper og selger elektrisitet i et spotmarked og der ubalanser avregnes i et balansemarked. Artikkel 3 rendyrker fleksibilitetshandel, der verdien av en aggregert fleksibilitetsportefølje maksimeres ved å handle i tre sekvensielle markeder. Den siste artikkelen analyserer beslutningsproblemet til en tjenestetilbyder som drifter et ladested for elbiler, der kapasiteten er begrenset. Alle artiklene inneholder case-studier som er gjennomført i tett samarbeid med aktører i det norske kraftmarkedet.

We congratulate Inge Norstad with successful defense of his PhD thesis, March 8th 2017.

The title of the thesis is:

«Ship routing and scheduling with speed optimization and voyage separation requirements»

The Faculty of Economics and Management has appointed the following committee to evaluate the thesis:

Professor David Pisinger, Technical University of Denmark
Senior Lecturer Maria Battarra, University of Bath, United Kingdom
Professor Bjørn Nygreen, NTNU
Professor Bjørn Nygreen at the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, NTNU, has administered the committee’s work.

The trial lecture was held on the following topic:

«Models and algorithms for land transportation of people illustrated by practical examples»

The candidate’s main supervisor has been Professor Kjetil Fagerholt, NTNU. Co-supervisor has been Professor Marielle Christiansen, NTNU.

 

Summary of the thesis

This PhD thesis discusses how operations research (OR) can be used to help ship operators with finding good solution for their tactical planning problems. The research has been a part of the larger research project DESIMAL (Decision support in maritime logistics) at NTNU.

The focus of this thesis has been on two important application-driven extensions of the ship routing and scheduling problem. The first extension is to include sailing speed as decision variables in the model. The second one is voyage separation requirements.

This thesis consists of five scientific papers. The first three deal with introducing sailing speed as decision variables in maritime routing and scheduling. Traditionally, mathematical models of ship routing problems assume that a ship has a fixed speed and fuel consumption rate. This leads to fixed sailing times and fixed sailing costs for a given distance. However, in real life, it is possible for the ship to adjust the speed within an interval, and hence change the sailing time. Furthermore, the fuel consumption rate is exponentially dependent on the speed. By optimizing the speed of each leg on a ship's route, without violating required time windows, the total fuel consumption can be reduced. The papers presents both exact and heuristic solution methods for the speed optimization problem. Computational experiments show that solving the speed optimization and the tramp ship routing and scheduling problem simultaneously, significantly improves the total fleet profit, and also reduces harmful emissions.

The last two papers consider the real tactical planning problem of a tramp ship routing company. The problem is to allocate ships of a fleet to a set of voyages. The contracts between the shipping company and the cargo owners state that voyages on the same trade line should be fairly evenly spread. This leads to a maritime fleet deployment problem with voyage separation requirements. One arc flow and two path flow formulations are presented and compared. A path flow model with routes as variables is solved by a priori column generation, while another path flow model with schedules as variables is solved by a branch-and-price approach.  

 

Sammendrag av avhandlingen

Denne PhD-avhandlingen tar for seg hvordan operasjonsanalyse (OA) kan brukes for å hjelpe skipsplanleggere med å finne gode løsninger for sine taktiske planleggingsproblem. Forskningen har vært en del av et større forskningsprosjekt DESIMAL (Decision support in maritime logistics) ved NTNU.

Fokuset for denne avhandlingen har vært på to viktige anvendelsesstyrte utvidelser av skipsrutingsproblemet. Den første utvidelsen er å ta med seilingshastighet som beslutningsvariabler i modellen. Den andre er krav til tidsseparasjon mellom reiser.

Avhandlingen består av fem vitenskapelige artikler. De tre første handler om innføring av seilingshastighet som beslutningsvariabel i maritim ruting og schedulering. Tradisjonelt sett har matematiske modeller for skipsrutingsproblemer antatt at et skip alltid seiler med samme hastighet og har en fast rate for drivstofforbruk. I virkeligheten kan imidlertid skipet variere hastigheten innenfor et gitt intervall og dermed endre seilingstiden. Videre, så er forbruket av drivstoff eksponentielt avhengig av hastigheten. Ved å optimere hastigheten på hvert leg av skipets rute, uten å bryte tidsvinduene, kan det totale drivstofforbruket reduseres. Artiklene presenterer både eksakte og heuristiske løsningsmetoder for hastighetsoptimeringsproblemet. Beregninger viser at ved å optimere hastigheten samtidig som man løser rutingsproblemet, kan man oppnå betydelig forbedring i totalt resultat for flåten, og også redusere skadelige utslipp.

De to siste artiklene omhandler et virkelig taktisk planleggingsproblem for et trampshippingsrederi. Problemet er å allokere flåtens skip til et sett av reiser. Kontraktene mellom rederiet og vareeierne sier at reiser på samme rute skal være rimelig jevnt fordelt i tid. Dette gir oss et flåtedeployeringsproblem med krav til reiseseparasjon. En bueflyt-modell og to ulike stiflyt-modeller presenteres og sammenlignes. Den ene stiflyt-modellen bruker ruter som beslutningsvariable og løses med a priori kolonnegenerering, mens den andre bruker schedules som variabler og blir løst med en branch-and-price-tilnærming.

We congratulate Kenneth Stålsett with successful defense of his PhD thesis, February 6th 2017.

The title of the thesis is:

«At the Frontline: Enabling Teams to Adapt to Uncertainty and Ambiguity»

The Faculty of Economics and Management has appointed the following committee to evaluate the thesis:

Associate Professor Eva Hammar Chiriac, Linköping University, Sweden
Commander Tommy Krabberød (PhD), Royal Norwegian Naval Academy, Norway
Professor Arild Aspelund, NTNU
Professor Arild Aspelund at the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, NTNU, has administered the committee’s work.

The trial lecture was held on the following topic:

«Can you predict team performance? Discuss the fruitfulness of using Spin theory»

The candidate’s main supervisor has been Associate Professor Endre Sjøvold, NTNU. Co-supervisor has been Professor Elsebeth Holmen, NTNU.

 

Summary of the thesis

This thesis investigates various aspects that are important for developing teams that are able to excel through uncertainty. It is possible to read the Part I as a short summary of the whole work. The first part begins with a literature review that can be used to understand the various trends in the team literature, and thereby help leaders to understand the implications from the different perspectives. At the same time, the perspective I advocate builds on the premise of enabling teams to adapt to their contextual demands, which means that a focus upon the teams’ internal interplay is highly important. The second part of the thesis consists of four separate articles that visit topics such as team building; team insights and perceptions; the distribution of influence, and leadership perspectives and structures. These articles can be read separately, but reading the whole thesis will help to give a broader insight.

For many leaders, some of the suggestions will be inconsistent with long-held leadership- and team theories. The focus on the “soft” sides of teamwork, instead of task and procedures, can be quite different from established practices and knowledge bases. Indeed, the implications of focusing on behaviors, curiosity, and collective mutual understanding can be quite far from focusing on technical and task-oriented discussions. However, these “soft” oriented discussions help teams to foster new insight and knowledge and to facilitate adaptable behaviors.

The idea of abandoning an authoritative controlling leadership style in crisis settings will truly be counterintuitive and surprising, and maybe even provoking, for many leaders. Nevertheless, I hope that reading this thesis helps to broaden leadership perspectives and, by this, spark interesting discussions within organizations that rely on teamwork in uncertain and ambiguous contexts.

 

Sammendrag av avhandlingen

Denne avhandlingen ser på ulike elementer som er viktig for å utvikle grupper som evner å håndtere og tilpasse seg usikkerhet og stadig endrende omgivelser. Det er mulig å lese Del 1 som et kort sammendrag av hele arbeidet. Denne delen begynner med en litteraturgjennomgang som kan brukes til å forstå de ulike trendene som eksisterer i team og gruppelitteraturen. Det perspektivet jeg framhever bygger på ideen om at team må evne å tilpasse seg de kontekstuelle kravene, noe som gjør at det interne samspillet mellom medlemmene er av avgjørende betydning. Den andre delen av avhandlingen består av 4 artikler. Disse ser på tematikk som teambuilding, gruppeinnsikt og forståelse, distribusjon av dominans, og lederskapsperspektiver og strukturer. Disse fire artiklene kan bli lest hver for seg, men å lese hele avhandlingen kronologisk vil sannsynligvis gi leseren både bredere og dypere innsikt.

For mange ledere vil noen av funnene og implikasjonene være inkonsistent med deres forankrede perspektiver og teorier. Det er særlig fokuset på den “myke” delen av teamarbeid, framfor oppgaver og prosedyrer, som vil avvike mest fra etablert praksis og forståelse. I så måte anbefaler jeg å fokusere å mellommenneskelig atferd framfor teknologi- og oppgaverelaterte dimensjoner. Samtidig, det er dette “myke” fokuset som hjelper grupper til å utvikle nye perspektiver og kunnskaper. Igjennom et slikt samspill er team bedre rustet til å håndtere nye og endrende situasjoner.

Ideen om å forlate en dominerende og autoritær lederskapspraksis i krisesituasjoner vil utvilsomt være overraskende, og kanskje provoserende, for mange ledere. Uansett, jeg håper denne avhandlingen bidrar til å utvikle nye lederskapsperspektiver, og i så måte også setter i gang interessante diskusjoner innad i organisasjoner som er avhengige av tilpasningsdyktige team.

We congratulate Vegar Lein Ausrød with successful defense of his PhD, December 14th 2016.

The title of the thesis is

«Commercialization of renewable energy in rural India: Entrepreneurial activities for building a profitable venture at the base of the pyramid»

The Faculty of Social Sciences and Technology Management has appointed the following committee to evaluate the thesis:

• Associate Professor Diamanto Politis, Lund University, Sweden
• Associate Professor Steffen Korsgaard, Aarhus University, Denmark
• Professor Øystein Moen, NTNU

Professor Øystein Moen at the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, NTNU, has administered the committee’s work.

The trial lecture was on on the following topic

«The business model concept: past, present and future»

The candidate’s main supervisor has been Professor Roger Sørheim, NTNU. Co-supervisor has been Professor Helle Neergaard, Aarhus University.

Summary of the thesis

This thesis seeks to achieve two objectives. First it aims to understand how entrepreneurs are able to provide products and services to the base of the pyramid (BoP) while simultaneously generate profits. Thus, the overall research question of the thesis is: how do commercially driven entrepreneurs build a firm in a BoP context? The answer to this unfolds in the cover of this thesis by combining the theoretical contributions found in each of the four articles. Second, the thesis seeks to contribute to existing theories and literature often applied to explain entrepreneurial actions. This is done through the four articles.

Article 1 seeks to contribute to resource-based theory (RBT) as it says little about resource management and its interplay with context. The findings suggest that entrepreneurs at the BoP can apply dispersed spatial and business contexts to structure and bundle resources.

Article 2 contributes to resource management and resource mobilization. This article argues that the inability of presumed strategic resources to become intricately embedded in the local context is the reason for their failure. Conversely, the ability of presumed ordinary and weak resources to become intricately embedded in the local context is the reason for their success.

Article 3 unfolds the business model design dilemma of adapting to or shaping the context in which they are deployed. Specifically designed interim business models in which each model design either facilitates an “adaptation to” process or a “shaping of” process.

Article 4 focuses on the modes of growth. This article suggests that growth modes should be studied in combination with the business model; that not only organic growth takes place in new ventures; and it offers a perspective to understand erratic growth patterns in a new venture.

Because creating profitable firms targeting the BoP is an under-explored and complex phenomenon, a qualitative research design has been adopted. All research questions are answered through a single case study of Husk Power Systems (HPS), the world-leading mini-utility firm providing rural electricity based on renewable energy sources for the BoP segment.

 

Sammendrag av avhandlingen

Denne avhandlingen har to hovedformål. Den bidrar til en forståelse av hvordan entreprenører kan tilby produkter og tjenester til verdens fattigste – også omtalt som “the base of the pyramid” (BoP) – under kommersielle betingelser. Det overordnede forskningsspørsmålet er: Hvordan bygger kommersielt motiverte entreprenører et selskap i en BoP kontekst? Ved å kombinere de teoretiske bidragene i hver artikkel, gis svaret på dette spørsmålet i kappa av avhandlingen. Det andre formålet med avhandlingen er å bidra til eksisterende teorier og litteratur som ofte blir brukt til å forklare entreprenørielle handlinger. Dette gjøres i de fire artiklene.

Artikkel 1 bidrar til ressursbasert teori (RBT) som kun i begrenset omfang behandler ledelse av ressurser i samspill med kontekst. Funnene viser at BoP-entreprenører kan ta i bruk ulike kontekster for å strukturere og kombinere ressurser.            

Artikkel 2 bidrar til teorier for ressursledelse og –mobilisering. Det argumenteres for at antatt strategiske ressurser feiler på grunn av deres manglende evne til å integreres i konteksten. Likeledes kan antatt ordinære eller svake ressurser bli verdifulle nettopp på grunn av deres integrasjonsevne.

Artikkel 3 viser at det oppstår et dilemma når en forretningsmodell skal utvikles: Skal forretningsmodellen tilpasses kontekst eller skal den forsøke å endre konteksten den skal implementeres i. Det argumenteres for at midlertidige tilpassede forretningsmodeller kan støtte en ”tilpasning til” eller en ”endring av” kontekst.

Artikkel 4 tar for seg vekst. Artikkelen hevder at ulike vekstformer bør sees i sammenheng med valg av forretningsmodell, og at vekst i nye selskaper ikke kan begrenses til organisk vekst. Den forklarer også hvordan ulineære vekstmønstre i nye selskaper kan forstås.

Etablering av lønnsomme selskaper rettet mot BoP har i liten grad blitt studert, og temaet er komplekst. En kvalitativ tilnærming er derfor velegnet for forskningsformålet, og et slikt design har blitt brukt i dette arbeidet. Alle forskningsspørsmålene har blitt besvart gjennom et enkelt case studium av Husk Power Systems (HPS). HPS er verdensledende innenfor minielektrisitetsnettverk basert på fornybar energi i BoP.

We congratulate Godfrey Mugurusi with successful defense of his PhD, August 24th 2016.

The title of the thesis is:

«Offshoring & the aftermath: Implications for the management of the purchasing and supply function»

The Faculty of Social Sciences and Technology Management has appointed the following committee to evaluate the thesis:

• Professor Veli Matti Virolainen, Lappeenranta University of Technology
• Associate Professor Kajsa Hulthén, Chalmers University of Technology
• Associate Professor Tim Kristian Andreas Torvatn, NTNU
   

Associate Professor Tim Kristian Andreas Torvatn at the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, NTNU, has administered the committee’s work.

The trial lecture was on on the following topic:

«Theory and practice of offshoring – an overview in time from historical roots to current trends»

The candidate’s main supervisor has been Professor Luitzen de Boer, NTNU. Co-supervisor has been Professor Arild Aspelund, NTNU.

 

Summary of the thesis

This thesis investigates the broad question: what happens to the purchasing and supply management (PSM) function when the firm engages in production offshoring?

This question emerges from varied and contemporary debates on the implications of the offshoring strategy on the firm’s value chain, the re-configuration of its capabilities in new environments, and the changes in firm level competences as a result of emerging complexity.  The thesis particularly focuses on the PSM function, which despite its known strategic importance to firm performance, has not received a lot of attention on how it deals with the challenges that emerge from offshoring. Yet clearly, and as I empirically show, the events in the disintegration and geographical dispersal of firm activities for cost and other related reasons, undermines PSM function’s existing routines, effectiveness and performance.

In general, the research adopts a qualitative approach in which the case study methodology is used mainly to answer and build on the conceptual, theoretical and empirical questions raised in the earlier parts of the research. The contributions and findings are reported in 4 papers – 3 of these are published journal articles and 1 article is an unpublished research paper.

The article 1 examines the state of the research on the production offshoring phenomenon and subsequently investigates, how, following the disintegration of the firm, the aspect of reintegration of disaggregated and dispersed activities is considered in production offshoring research. First the article shows that production offshoring research is largely conceptual, and second, it shows that reintegration of dispersed activities is seen as both an issue of intra-firm governance, and also that of building on existing linkages in production network activities.  

The article 2 contributes to the theoretical understanding of the production firm as it implements the offshoring strategy, suggesting that the existing piece-meal theoretical explanations of the offshoring firm’s behavior ignore the systemic changes these firms make in order to remain viable.  The article 3 builds on the existing offshoring evolutionary models to explain the specific changes that occur in the purchasing and supply organization as a result of offshoring. The findings suggest that offshoring is not only PSMs key change lever, but also presents momentum for reorganizing in the PSM function.

Finally article 4 examines the level of coordination of the PSM function’s activities in the face of offshoring. The article suggests that the current view of coordination in PSM which addresses mainly the interface between activities and purchasing’s personnel is inherently flawed. It sidelines the role of coordination of information exchanges among purchasing process actors as a fundamental enabler of PSM activities coordination. 

In conclusion, the thesis demonstrates that offshoring strategies have significant implications for organizations that pursue them. Yet to PSM, these implications also present significant opportunities for the reinvention of PSM’s role in the firm thus assuring better purchasing performance, and ensuring that the firm remains viable in the long term.

We congratulate Øyvind Bjørgum with successful defense of his PhD, June 9th 2016.

The title of his thesis is:
«New firms developing novel technology in a complex emerging industry: The road towards commercialization of renewable marine energy technologies»

The Faculty of Social Sciences and Technology Management has appointed the following committee to evaluate the thesis:
Professor Gary Knight, Willamette University, USA
Professor Niina Nummela, University of Turku, Finland
Associate Professor Lise Aaboen, NTNU

Associate Professor Lise Aaboen at the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, NTNU, has administered the committee’s work.

The trial lecture was held on the following topic:
«Quantitative research designs for investigating complex emerging industries – Potential contributions to theory building and research»

The candidate’s main supervisor has been Professor Øystein Moen, NTNU. The candidate’s co-supervisor has been Professor Tage Koed Madsen, NTNU/University of Southern Denmark.

 

Summary of the thesis

This thesis addresses new technology firms in a complex emerging industry. New firms are typically important participants in emerging industries because of their introduction of new innovative ideas and technologies. However, in addition to their limited resources related to funding, technology expertise and network, new firms in emerging industries are also challenged by a limited socio-political legitimacy compared to firms operating within existing industries. This thesis focuses on how firms can overcome these challenges.

The context of the research has been the emerging marine energy industry, which consists of firms developing devices to harness energy from ocean waves and tides. Through multiple-case studies of firms within the industry, four papers addressing different aspects related to technology commercialization have been developed.

Article 1 studies the extent of early internationalization among Norwegian marine energy firms. It shows how firms, through international activities, access resources such as funding and technology competence which help them to further develop their technology towards commercialization.

Article 2 contributes to the understanding of investors’ non-financial involvement in new technology firms in the early stages of an emerging industry, and focuses on the positive contributions of different types of investors such as business angels, venture capitalists and larger corporations.

Article 3 investigates how new technology firms organize their technology development and manufacturing of components in the context of the emerging marine energy industry. The study proposes and discusses three different supply chain configurations.

Article 4 studies how MNCs’ assessment of different uncertainties affects their governance mode when entering an emerging industry. More specifically, if MNCs choose modes giving flexibility (minority investments) or control (internal development or acquisition).

The summary chapter divides the commercialization process in the marine energy industry into three specific technological and financial gaps: 1) ‘From laboratory to scale models’, 2) ‘From scale models to the real world’, and 3) ‘Towards commercialization’. These gaps are increasingly more technologically advanced and capital demanding, and it is discussed how different investors and strategies related to internationalization and supply chain configuration, can help overcome these gaps. Finally, implications for research, managers and policy makers are discussed.

We congratulate Lars Hellemo with successful defense of his PhD, June 6th 2016.

The title of his thesis is:
«Managing Uncertainty in Design and Operation of Natural Gas Infrastructure»

The Faculty of Social Sciences and Technology Management has appointed the following committee to evaluate the thesis:
Professor Laureano F. Escudero, King Juan Carlos University
Professor Mette Helene Bjørndal, Norwegian School of Economics
Professor Bjørn Nygreen, NTNU

Professor Bjørn Nygreen at the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, NTNU, has administered the committee’s work.

The trial lecture were held on the following topic:
«Equilibrium models for infrastructure planning, theory and practical applications (The applications should not be taken from the Norwegian continental shelf or other gas applications)»

The candidate’s main supervisor has been Professor Asgeir Tomasgard, NTNU.

 

Summary of the thesis

This thesis concerns the management of uncertainty in design and operation of natural gas infrastructure by means of mathematical programming. The export of natural gas is an important industry in Norway. Investments in infrastructure such as subsea pipelines and processing facilities with long lifetime are capital intensive and mandate thorough analysis of future cash flows to assess profitability.

Several crucial parameters are uncertain, such as resources, costs and future prices, and analysis of net present value should consider this uncertainty carefully. The long lifetime with significant short-term uncertainty and variability in addition to long-term uncertainty makes this particularly challenging.

Natural gas is not a homogenous commodity, and different composition of gas from each field makes the management of gas quality an important consideration. Gas quality may be altered through mixing in the transport pipeline network, or in processing facilities. Accounting for pooling in the network with quality constraints introduces computationally expensive non-convex formulations.

The main contributions of the work in this thesis consists of modelling short- and long-term uncertainty for design and operation of natural gas networks in models that combine these demands and introduce multi-horizon stochastic programming.

The pooling problem is addressed by a novel discretization scheme and auxiliary linear programs that will improve solution times in many instances. A generalized global optimization multi-commodity pooling formulation with processing facilities and composite quality constraints is appropriate for analysis in this context.

Traditionally, analysts consider uncertainty as exogenous, i.e. unaffected by the decisions in the model. In this thesis, the work on stochastic programming with endogenous uncertainty is reviewed with an expanded taxonomy, with several novel models with decision-dependent probabilities. This demonstrates how this problem may be addressed through the framework of stochastic programming with recourse.

We congratulate Tyson John Weaver with successful defense of his PhD, April 28th 2016.

The title of his thesis is:
«STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF POWER PRODUCERS: Implementing international renewable power production growth strategies»

The Faculty of Social Sciences and Technology Management has appointed the following committee to evaluate the thesis:
Professor Sami Saarenketo, Lappeenranta University of Technology
Associate Professor Per Servais, University of Southern Denmark
Professor Lars Øystein Widding, NTNU

Professor Lars Øystein Widding at the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, NTNU, has administered the committee’s work.

The trial lecture were held on the following topic:
«Internationalization of established firms: motives, market selection processes and the role of institutions»

The candidate’s main supervisor has been Professor Øystein Moen, NTNU. The candidate’s co-supervisor has been Professor Erling Holden, Sogn og Fjordane University College.

 

Summary of the thesis

This thesis investigates internationalization motives and methods for electric power producers. Using international business and strategic management literature streams, it focuses on the business dynamics that are driving or hindering internationalization of these firms. Additional focus is placed on firm characteristics and strategies that embody successful internationalization of the power producer.

The four articles that comprise this thesis use a variety of methods and data, often combining qualitative and quantitative methods with several diverging data sources in mixed method designs.

Article 1 underpinned the financial attractiveness of deploying offshore wind energy in the UK. Two operational projects were selected as cases to utilize five years of empirical data as the foundation for the analysis. Financial viability was subjected to a sensitivity analysis to determine the effects of cost of capital on profitability.

Article 2 investigated firms in the Norwegian power sector by mapping out international investment plans and their motivations and barriers for pursuing such activities.

Article 3 looked more global in orientation, using six case companies to track their development patterns after choosing internationalization pathways. We focused on their chosen market entry modes and roles of management in internationalization processes.

The last article sought to understand how firms assess the potential of foreign markets. After collecting macroeconomic parameters, a model was built to produce a list of the most attractive future markets for hydropower development and operation.

The summary chapter of the thesis concludes with a discussion on 5 key findings: 1) companies are motivated, but face many obstacles; 2) the public ownership model restricts growth potential; 3) returning focus to core business results in less new business development; 4) internationalization provides a financial hedge to the market downturn; and 5) fresh capital and new ownership structures are needed to go abroad. Implications are then derived for theory, managers, and policy.

We congratulate Anders Nordby Gullhav with a successful defense of his PhD, March 3rd 2016.

The title of the thesis is:

«Optimization-based Resource Allocation in Cloud Computing»

The following committee has evaluated the thesis:

• Professor Stefan Voß, University of Hamburg
• Professor M. Grazia Speranza, University of Brescia
• Professor Kjetil Fagerholt, NTNU

The trial lecture was held on the following topic:

«Matheuristics theory and applications in techno-economic decision making»

The candidate’s main supervisor has been Professor Bjørn Nygreen, NTNU. The candidate’s co-supervisors have been Professor Poul Einar Heegaard, NTNU, and Professor Lars Magnus Hvattum, NTNU/Molde University College.

 

Summary of the thesis

This thesis considers the resource allocation problem of a cloud service provider (SP), which provides at set of services delivered through the software-as-a-service model. The SP owns and operates a private cloud, but in periods of high demand, the SP also relies on infrastructure resources provided by a public cloud in the service provisioning. Even though the market for cloud computing services has been growing and is expected to grow further in the future, low quality of service (QoS) is seen as an important issue to be resolved by the cloud computing industry.

The focused resource allocation problem translates to the problem of allocating appropriate resources to the services of the SP in a cost-efficient manner, and so that the QoS is in accordance with the requirements specified in the service level agreements (SLAs) between the provider and the users. This problem is represented as an optimization problem. However, analytic and simulation-based models are used to describe the relationship between a given allocation or resources to a service and the resulting QoS.

This thesis consists of five research papers, and in short, these papers try to answer the following two interrelated questions: 1) Given a certain resource allocation to a service, does this service satisfy the QoS guarantees of the SLA? 2) How can the set of services offered by the SP be deployed in a cost-efficient manner, while ensuring the appropriate QoS?

The two first papers of the thesis concern the former, which is answered by developing both analytic and simulation-based models. Whether the analytic or simulated-based approach should be preferred is dependent on the underlying properties of the services. The second question is considered in the three remaining papers, where optimization models are formulated and solved by both exact and inexact algorithms. Specifically, we provide exact algorithms based on branch and price (B&P) and metaheuristics based on the adaptive large neighborhood search (ALNS) framework. While the B&P approach can provide optimal solutions for small and medium-sized providers, the ALNS approach provides high-quality solutions more quickly.

 

 

Writer Endre Sjøvold has been looking at the use of power in organizations, and established a framework that can help us understand and recognize the many nuances of power. In this book, Sjøvold shows us how power-plays can be used efficiently to affect others; and how you can recognize and defend yourself against abuse of power.

You will also find an excerpt from the book. Read more about the book.

Contact the publisher for more information about the book:

Marketing consultant Maria Almaas
maria.almaas@universitetsforlaget.no / Phone: 926 05 465