Dynamic capabilities as enablers of value co-creation between an MBA school and its students

This study presents an understanding of how a U.S. based, international MBA school has been able to achieve competitive advantage within a relatively short period of time. A framework is built to comprehend how the dynamic capability and value co-creation theories are connected and to understand how the dynamic capabilities have enabled value co-creation to happen between the school and its students, leading to such competitive advantage for the school. The data collection method followed a qualitative single-case study with a process perspective. Seven semi-structured interviews were made in September and October of 2015; one current employee of the MBA school was interviewed, with the other six being graduates and/or former employees of the MBA school. In addition, the researcher has worked as a recruiter at the MBA school, enabling to build bridges and a coherent whole of the empirical findings. Data analysis was conducted by first identifying themes from interviews, after which a narrative was written and a causal network model was built. Thus, a combination of thematic analysis, narrative and grounded theory were used as data analysis methods. This study finds that value co-creation is enabled by the dynamic capabilities of the MBA school; also capabilities would not be dynamic if value co-creation did not take place. Thus, this study presents that even though the two theories represent different level analyses, they are intertwined and together they can help to explain competitive advantage. The MBA case school’s dynamic capabilities are identified to be the sales & marketing capabilities and international market creation capabilities, thus the study finds that the MBA school does not only co-create value with existing students (customers) in the school setting, but instead, most of the value co-creation happens between the school and the student cohorts (network) already in the recruiting phase. Therefore, as a theoretical implication, the network should be considered as part of the context. The main value created seem to lie in the MBA case school’s international setting & networks. MBA schools around the world can learn from this study; schools should try to find their own niche and specialize, based on their own values and capabilities. With a differentiating focus and a unique and practical content, the schools can and should be well-marketed and proactively sold in order to receive more student applications and enhance competitive advantage. Even though an MBA school can effectively be treated as a business, as the study shows, the main emphasis should still be on providing quality education. Good content with efficient marketing can be the winning combination for an MBA school.

Dynamic ecosystems under anthropogenic stress : how does macrotidal sandy fauna respond to green tides?

Highly dynamic systems, often considered as resilient systems, are characterised by abiotic and biotic processes under continuous and strong changes in space and time. Because of this variability, the detection of overlapping anthropogenic stress is challenging. Coastal areas harbour dynamic ecosystems in the form of open sandy beaches, which cover the vast majority of the world’s ice-free coastline. These ecosystems are currently threatened by increasing human-induced pressure, among which mass-development of opportunistic macroalgae (mainly composed of Chlorophyta, so called green tides), resulting from the eutrophication of coastal waters. The ecological impact of opportunistic macroalgal blooms (green tides, and blooms formed by other opportunistic taxa), has long been evaluated within sheltered and non-tidal ecosystems. Little is known, however, on how more dynamic ecosystems, such as open macrotidal sandy beaches, respond to such stress. This thesis assesses the effects of anthropogenic stress on the structure and the functioning of highly dynamic ecosystems using sandy beaches impacted by green tides as a study case. The thesis is based on four field studies, which analyse natural sandy sediment benthic community dynamics over several temporal (from month to multi-year) and spatial (from local to regional) scales. In this thesis, I report long-lasting responses of sandy beach benthic invertebrate communities to green tides, across thousands of kilometres and over seven years; and highlight more pronounced responses of zoobenthos living in exposed sandy beaches compared to semi-exposed sands. Within exposed sandy sediments, and across a vertical scale (from inshore to nearshore sandy habitats), I also demonstrate that the effects of the presence of algal mats on intertidal benthic invertebrate communities is more pronounced than that on subtidal benthic invertebrate assemblages, but also than on flatfish communities. Focussing on small-scale variations in the most affected faunal group (i.e. benthic invertebrates living at low shore), this thesis reveals a decrease in overall beta-diversity along a eutrophication-gradient manifested in the form of green tides, as well as the increasing importance of biological variables in explaining ecological variability of sandy beach macrobenthic assemblages along the same gradient. To illustrate the processes associated with the structural shifts observed where green tides occurred, I investigated the effects of high biomasses of opportunistic macroalgae (Ulva spp.) on the trophic structure and functioning of sandy beaches. This work reveals a progressive simplification of sandy beach food web structure and a modification of energy pathways over time, through direct and indirect effects of Ulva mats on several trophic levels. Through this thesis I demonstrate that highly dynamic systems respond differently (e.g. shift in δ13C, not in δ15N) and more subtly (e.g. no mass-mortality in benthos was found) to anthropogenic stress compared to what has been previously shown within more sheltered and non-tidal systems. Obtaining these results would not have been possible without the approach used through this work; I thus present a framework coupling field investigations with analytical approaches to describe shifts in highly variable ecosystems under human-induced stress.

Modelling ecological values in heterogeneous and dynamic landscapes with geospatial data

Our surrounding landscape is in a constantly dynamic state, but recently the rate of changes and their effects on the environment have considerably increased. In terms of the impact on nature, this development has not been entirely positive, but has rather caused a decline in valuable species, habitats, and general biodiversity. Regardless of recognizing the problem and its high importance, plans and actions of how to stop the detrimental development are largely lacking. This partly originates from a lack of genuine will, but is also due to difficulties in detecting many valuable landscape components and their consequent neglect. To support knowledge extraction, various digital environmental data sources may be of substantial help, but only if all the relevant background factors are known and the data is processed in a suitable way. This dissertation concentrates on detecting ecologically valuable landscape components by using geospatial data sources, and applies this knowledge to support spatial planning and management activities. In other words, the focus is on observing regionally valuable species, habitats, and biotopes with GIS and remote sensing data, using suitable methods for their analysis. Primary emphasis is given to the hemiboreal vegetation zone and the drastic decline in its semi-natural grasslands, which were created by a long trajectory of traditional grazing and management activities. However, the applied perspective is largely methodological, and allows for the application of the obtained results in various contexts. Models based on statistical dependencies and correlations of multiple variables, which are able to extract desired properties from a large mass of initial data, are emphasized in the dissertation. In addition, the papers included combine several data sets from different sources and dates together, with the aim of detecting a wider range of environmental characteristics, as well as pointing out their temporal dynamics. The results of the dissertation emphasise the multidimensionality and dynamics of landscapes, which need to be understood in order to be able to recognise their ecologically valuable components. This not only requires knowledge about the emergence of these components and an understanding of the used data, but also the need to focus the observations on minute details that are able to indicate the existence of fragmented and partly overlapping landscape targets. In addition, this pinpoints the fact that most of the existing classifications are too generalised as such to provide all the required details, but they can be utilized at various steps along a longer processing chain. The dissertation also emphases the importance of landscape history as an important factor, which both creates and preserves ecological values, and which sets an essential standpoint for understanding the present landscape characteristics. The obtained results are significant both in terms of preserving semi-natural grasslands, as well as general methodological development, giving support to science-based framework in order to evaluate ecological values and guide spatial planning.