Innovationer, innovationsarbete och arbetslivsforskning (debatt)

Innovationer, det vill säga utveckling och spridning av nya produkter, processer och tjänster är i centrum för samhällsdebatten och har blivit ett stort och väletablerat forsknings- och utbildningsområde. Det är ett mångvetenskapligt område som har dominerats av främst ekonomer. Här erbjuds nya möjligheter för arbetslivsforskare och för utbildningen av arbetsvetare eller personalvetare; möjligheter som förvånande nog inte har uppmärksammats.

A Microdata Analysis Approach to Transport Infrastructure Maintenance

Maintenance of transport infrastructure assets is widely advocated as the key in minimizing current and future costs of the transportation network. While effective maintenance decisions are often a result of engineering skills and practical knowledge, efficient decisions must also account for the net result over an asset's life-cycle. One essential aspect in the long term perspective of transport infrastructure maintenance is to proactively estimate maintenance needs. In dealing with immediate maintenance actions, support tools that can prioritize potential maintenance candidates are important to obtain an efficient maintenance strategy. This dissertation consists of five individual research papers presenting a microdata analysis approach to transport infrastructure maintenance. Microdata analysis is a multidisciplinary field in which large quantities of data is collected, analyzed, and interpreted to improve decision-making. Increased access to transport infrastructure data enables a deeper understanding of causal effects and a possibility to make predictions of future outcomes. The microdata analysis approach covers the complete process from data collection to actual decisions and is therefore well suited for the task of improving efficiency in transport infrastructure maintenance. Statistical modeling was the selected analysis method in this dissertation and provided solutions to the different problems presented in each of the five papers. In Paper I, a time-to-event model was used to estimate remaining road pavement lifetimes in Sweden. In Paper II, an extension of the model in Paper I assessed the impact of latent variables on road lifetimes; displaying the sections in a road network that are weaker due to e.g. subsoil conditions or undetected heavy traffic. The study in Paper III incorporated a probabilistic parametric distribution as a representation of road lifetimes into an equation for the marginal cost of road wear. Differentiated road wear marginal costs for heavy and light vehicles are an important information basis for decisions regarding vehicle miles traveled (VMT) taxation policies. In Paper IV, a distribution based clustering method was used to distinguish between road segments that are deteriorating and road segments that have a stationary road condition. Within railway networks, temporary speed restrictions are often imposed because of maintenance and must be addressed in order to keep punctuality. The study in Paper V evaluated the empirical effect on running time of speed restrictions on a Norwegian railway line using a generalized linear mixed model.

The Power of the Synthetic Control Method

The synthetic control method (SCM) is a new, popular method developed for the purpose of estimating the effect of an intervention when only one single unit has been exposed. Other similar, unexposed units are combined into a synthetic control unit intended to mimic the evolution in the exposed unit, had it not been subject to exposure. As the inference relies on only a single observational unit, the statistical inferential issue is a challenge. In this paper, we examine the statistical properties of the estimator, study a number of features potentially yielding uncertainty in the estimator, discuss the rationale for statistical inference in relation to SCM, and provide a Web-app for researchers to aid in their decision of whether SCM is powerful for a specific case study. We conclude that SCM is powerful with a limited number of controls in the donor pool and a fairly short pre-intervention time period. This holds as long as the parameter of interest is a parametric specification of the intervention effect, and the duration of post-intervention period is reasonably long, and the fit of the synthetic control unit to the exposed unit in the pre-intervention period is good.