Ph.D. theses
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Towards Sustainable LawyeringHøedt-Rasmussen, Inger (Frederiksberg, 2014)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The role of the lawyer is in transition and the formerly predominantly homogeneous profes-sion has become a heterogeneous group of lawyers with diverging perceptions of the lawyer’s identity and of the main characteristics of the profession. The European Union has extended the perception of democracy and the fundamental rights to include more collective rights, social concerns, global responsibility and sustainability. The dissertation’s main question is: How can the identity and competences of lawyers be developed so that they can practise sustainable and proactive lawyering in the European Union? Theoretically as well as methodologically this research constitutes an interdisciplinary study, where legal science meets sociology and social learning theories. Identity development is perceived as a reflective project; there is a range of lifestyle choices which contribute to a composed but constantly shifting maintenance of self-identity in relation to democratic principles and the ideal of justice connected to the role of lawyers. The study builds on Anthony Giddens’s structuration theory. This involves looking at how lawyers connect the questions ‘What to do?’ (societal level) and ‘How to act?’ (professional level) with ’Who to be?’ (personal level). The study depicts a European identity ideal based on legal sources while empirical data from focus groups and individual interviews makes it possible to identify six different identities among Danish practising lawyers. It is possible to recognise the following identities: lawyer-businessman, lawyer-performer, lawyer-entrepreneur, lawyer-humanist, lawyer-integrator and lawyer-statesman. The fragmentation of the profession, with greater demand for specialist knowledge, in-creased individualisation and participation in new communities of practice, requires each lawyer to reflect on their identity and establish criteria for what, when and how they will use their lawyering skills. For this to succeed, lawyers’ identities and competences will depend more on self-directed learning and individual learning plans, where the legal identity combines (global) societal responsibility with job satisfaction, authenticity and adherence to personal values. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8908 Files in this item: 1
Inger_Rasmussen.pdf (5.288Mb) -
Fux, Sebastian (Frederiksberg, 2014)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This thesis consists of three essays of which two are about return predictability while the last essay covers term structure models. Return predictability is still a heavily debated issue among nancial economists as well as practitioners in the nancial industry. The ability to predict stock returns out-of-sample, that is, by relying on information available at time t, is still controversial. In a recent paper, Goyal and Welch (2008) comprehensively reexamine the performance of 14 predictor variables that have been suggested by the academic literature to be powerful predictors of the U.S. equity premium, that is, the S&P 500 index return minus the short-term interest rate. The authors conclude that none of these predictor variables led to robust predictions across di erent forecast horizons and sample periods which consistently beat benchmark models such as the historical mean. In a response to Goyal and Welch (2008) Campbell and Thompson (2008) nd evidence of out-of-sample predictability by putting some economically meaningful restrictions on the coe cients of the predictive regressions. However, the out-of-sample explanatory power is nil, but nonetheless it is economically signi cant for investors with mean-variance preferences. The predictability literature argues that the out-of-sample predictability deteriorates due to structural breaks such as macroeconomic instability, changes in monetary policy, new regulations etc. Thus, not only the predictor model changes over time, but also its coef- cients. Goyal and Welch (2008) explain that more sophisticated models accounting for structural breaks might be able to consistently beat historical mean predictions. Additionally, predictability su ers from model uncertainty, meaning that there is only little consensus about the correct predictor variables and hence, the correct speci cation of the predictor model is unknown. The Bayesian framework accounts for model uncertainty by computing posterior model probabilities for all possible predictor models. Thus, Bayesian forecasts condition on the whole information set as opposed to conditioning on a single predictor variable and lead to more accurate forecasts. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8906 Files in this item: 1
Sebastian_Fux.pdf (1.090Mb) -
The Role of Ambidexterity, Standard, and Decision ProcessMei, Maggie Qiuzhu (Frederiksberg, 2014)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Innovation is the engine of sustained organizational performance and is central to organizations’ competitive advantage. In an effort to understand how to foster innovation at firms, extant research has highlighted the role of organizational learning in shaping innovation capabilities at firms. Motivated by the importance of innovation, this PhD dissertation aims to improve our understanding of the complex relationship between organizational learning and innovation capabilities at firms. The dissertation consists of three studies using various datasets and methodologies that investigate the relationship between organizational learning and innovation creation in an organizational context. Taking a nuanced view of organizational learning, the dissertation investigates how three different organizational learning processes could affect innovation creation at the firm level and project level. Specifically, essay 1 focuses on how to manage ambidextrous learning for superior radical and incremental innovation capabilities; essay 2 examines how learning through knowledge sharing in the context of standard setting impacts on firms’ innovation performance; and essay 3 moves down to project level and explores how and when strategic decision comprehensiveness can affect new product development performance. Taken together, though examining three separate approaches that firms employ to manage organizational learning for innovation creation, the three studies in this dissertation collectively contribute to the understanding of managing organizational learning for innovation creation at firms. The three studies in this dissertation show how three prominent organizational learning processes impact on firms’ innovation performance. Furthermore, the studies in this dissertation emphasize that there are limitation and boundary conditions for different organizational learning processes. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8898 Files in this item: 1
Maggie_Mei.pdf (937.8Kb) -
How Material Practices and their Symbolic and Physical Meanings Form a Colonising LogicLauesen, Linne Marie (Frederiksberg, 2014)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This PhD thesis is the outcome of three-year doctoral study of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and stakeholder engagement in the water sector. This study contributes to new knowledge about water companies formed as hybrid organisations in the aftermath of the new public management (NPM) era worldwide. Today we see different hybrid organisations of water companies around the world that have either been fully privatised or quasi-privatised. Quasiprivatisation in Denmark means that water utilities are still perceived as natural monopolies, which has not made them into for-profit driven companies. Instead a simulated market and state regulation has been introduces with annual, national benchmarking to set a price cap as an upper limit for the consumer-price of water. Similar systems are seen in fully privatised water companies in the United Kingdom, the United States, and partially in South Africa. However, here the water companies are typically owned by private companies and not established as municipalityowned limited liabilities1 as in Denmark and elsewhere in Scandinavia. This PhD thesis proposes new models and principles and corporate social responsibility and stakeholder engagement of these water companies. The findings of the study suggest a new definition of a colonising logic of CSR competing and coexisting with the regulators’ colonising logic of NPM. Through the study and definition of these logics as colonising the water sector this PhD theisis provides an understand of new perspectives of how CSR is enacted through stakeholder engagement and how the logic of CSR frames the top managers’ claim: ”We are CSR!” (Interview B, March 2011) and the consequences of this logic. Both the logic of CSR and the logic of NPM is found to be based on the materials that the water companies are organised around, namely water. Water is perceived as a natural good that should ideally be free and plentiful for all citizens around the world. However, the competition between the two colonising logics stems from another material, namely the money or price that providing clean and pure water for all are allowed to cost the citizens. Through the dialectical interaction of these in terms of material practices between producing water and infrastructure to distribute it and collecting money as a payment for it and the regulation of this, this PhD thesis proposes a new definition of the role of materials and material practices underlying several institutional logics such as the institutional logic of capitalism, state, democracy, family, religion/science, profession, and corporation (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Thornton et al., 2012; Friedland, 2013). URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8896 Files in this item: 1
Linne_Marie_Lauesen.pdf (8.076Mb) -
Monografi om dobbeltheden i tænkning af strategi, dels som vidensfelt i organisationsteori, dels som kunstnerisk tilgang til at skabe i erhvervsmæssig innovationGylling, Martin (Frederiksberg, 2014)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This thesis is a study of processes of commercial artistic creation focusing on the practice of processual strategy in a context of designed strategy. The thesis focuses on the practice of processual strategy, seeing as strategy within the field is primarily understood and practised in a designerly approach. This concerns constructivist and objective thinking which, according to critical voices in organizationstudies, has difficulties explaining how strategic organisation creation gains a processual character. This is the critique that comes from the more poststructuralist positions in research on process theory and strategy, which in these years aims to move focus away from the dominance of designed strategy. I.e. an approach to practice understood as methodological individualism and pragmatic rationality (Chia & Holt 2009; Steyaert 2007; Stacey 2011; Hjorth 2012). Through recent poststructuralist currents in the field of processual strategy thinking and organisational entrepreneurship, for example Chia & Holt’s creation philosophical research in strategy without design and Steyaert’s (2007) thinking on the concept of entrepreneuring; the process theoretical thinking of entrepreneurship and innovation, the aim is to look beyond constructivist thinking of practice in order to understand processual dynamics in strategic work at the level of the organisation. In relation to this thinking the present thesis provides an empirically based discussion of processual strategy with an aim to contributing to the field of organisational entrepreneurship. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8895 Files in this item: 1
Martin_Gylling.pdf (1.873Mb)
