Fit in to stand out : An experience perspective on value creation

In order to grow and survive, a firm must create value with consumers in ways that both fit in with consumer demands and stand out from competitors. Focusing on and understanding consumer and firm assessments of value and creation of value has become a central scope in the contemporary strategic management and marketing literature for understanding and explaining firm survival and success. Consequently, the overall aim of this thesis is to provide a conceptually and empirically grounded understanding of consumers’ and managers’ value assessments and behavior in value creation. This thesis draws on a consumer experience perspective and theories on social construction, organizational identity, self-congruence, and the theory of attractive quality, and combines multiple qualitative and quantitative studies. The findings in this thesis shed light on the interplay between consumers, firms, and contextual structures in value creation. Contextual structural, cultural, and political forces are shown to affect and be affected by the shared and individual cognitions of value creation that firms and consumers use in their assessment and creation value. The results of the study enhance the understanding of how firms can adopt various strategic schemas or organizing logics to optimize different types of use value creation when choosing between opposing and contradictive demands in their value creation. Furthermore, the thesis provides a deeper understanding of the hierarchical nature of consumer judgments of value that can be used to enhance the effectiveness of firm prioritizations and as a foundation for future value-creating strategies.

Added value from biomass by broader utilization of fuels and CHP plants

The present work, where additional value-creating processes in existing combined heat and power (CHP) structures have been examined, is motivated by a political- and consumer-driven strive towards a bioeconomy and a stagnation for the existing business models in large parts of the CHP sector. The research is based on cases where the integration of flash pyrolysis for co-production of bio-oil, co-gasification for production of fuel gas and synthetic biofuels as well as leaching of extractable fuel components in existing CHP plants have been simulated. In particular, this work has focused on the CHP plants that utilize boilers of fluidized bed (FB) type, where the concept of coupling a separate FB reactor to the FB of the boiler forms an important basis for the analyses. In such dual fluidized bed (DFB) technology, heat is transferred from the boiler to the new rector that is operating with other fluidization media than air, thereby enabling other thermochemical processes than combustion to take place. The result of this work shows that broader operations at existing CHP plants have the potential to enable production of significant volumes of chemicals and/or fuels with high efficiency, while maintaining heat supply to external customers. Based on the insight that the technical preconditions for a broader operation are favourable, the motivation and ability among the incumbents in the Swedish CHP sector to participate in a transition of their operation towards a biorefinery was examined. The result of this assessment showed that the incumbents believe that a broader operation can create significant values for their own operations, the society and the environment, but that they lack both a strong motivation as well as important abilities to move into the new technological fields. If the concepts of broader production are widely implemented in the Swedish FB based CHP sector, this can substantially contribute in the transition towards a bioeconomy.