Current Ph.D. students and their projects

Pernille Gjerløv Jensen

Jacob Rubæk Holm

Kristian Nielsen

Allan Dahl Andersen

Bram Timmermans

Kristian Hegner Reinau

Pernille Gjerløv Jensen

Thesis working title: Labour mobility and organizational change
Supervisor(s): Michael S. Dahl
Start date: July 1, 2009 - Estimated submission date: June 30, 2012
 
The PhD project will be a collection of articles analyzing the effects of organizational change and executive migration. For long organizational ecologists have argued that organizational change and transformation are rarely completely positive experiences for firms and employees, especially when core features and core identities are subject to change. Hannan and Freeman (1977, 1984) argue that there are substantial obstacles to fundamental structural changes in organizations, because changes can fuel undesirable effects on employees such as increased uncertainty, fear, frustrations and occupational stress. The reason is that change can alter the implicit contract between the organizations and employees. As shown in Dahl (2009), fundamental organizational changes increase the risk of stress for employees. It is likely that this negative effect on the employees will influence future performance of the organization and hazard of exit. On the other hand, organizations do not change in order to stress and demotivate its employees. It changes its structure(s) to increase productivity, survival, growth and to deal with competition, financial difficulties etc. Nelson & Winter (1982) argue that organizations continuously adapt to changing environments without notable consequences. Even though organizational change might have negative effects for individual employees, the firms might experience only minor and temporary effects, and positive effects on firm performance in longer terms may outweigh these potential negative effects. I will investigate how organizational changes or shocks (e.g. losing key personnel) affect firm performance. How are the firms affected by organizational change? And for how long are they affected? I will look at firm performance (financial performance, employment growth and survival) following change.

Jacob Rubæk Holm

Thesis working title: Healthy Industry
Supervisor(s): Esben Sloth Andersen
Start date: November 1, 2008 - Estimated submission date: October 31, 2011
 
An analysis of the evolutionary nature of industry and competition in Denmark with the aim of statistically identifying the processes, which are associated with economic growth and development.

Kristian Nielsen

Thesis working title: Bringing the person and situation together in explaining entrepreneurship
Supervisor(s): Michael S. Dahl and Poul Rind Christensen
Start date: July 1, 2008 - Estimated submission date: September 15, 2011
 
Existing broad studies of entrepreneurship are typically focusing on three questions: “Why they act?” (Antecedents/Motivations), “How they act?” (Behaviour), and “What happens when they act?” (Effects). The typical answers to these questions (especially, why they act) are derived in many different disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, and economics. The usual approach taken in these studies has been to compare entrepreneurs with non-entrepreneurs. This involves significant empirically challenges, where studies suffer from no (or weak) control groups as well as selection bias and retrospective bias. The purpose of this research is to combine the inner environment (the individual) with the outer environment (the situation) in studying for a given situation who become entrepreneurs and who does not. Common situations could be sudden unemployment, completed higher education, or presence of entrepreneurial role models (peer-effects). What happen to those that do not become entrepreneurs in these situations? What type of businesses do entrepreneurs start, when taking the person and situation in account? Does these differences have an impact on subsequent firm performance? It is crucial to better understand, which people act, and how they act, given their situation. The main argument is that individuals cannot be divided into entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs just on basis of their personal characteristics; the important thing is the combination of person and situation. The goal is to renew our knowledge on entrepreneurial processes and performance by integrating individual and environmental factors from psychology, sociology and economics. Findings are important for the future empirical design of entrepreneurship research.

Allan Dahl Andersen

Thesis working title: A natural resource-based development path? The case of the Brazilian sugarcane-ethanol industrial complex
Supervisor(s): Björn Johnson and Bengt-Åke Lundvall
Start date: August 1, 2007 - Estimated submission date: September 30, 2010
 
The dissertation looks, among other things, into the role natural resources in structural change and economic development. The context here is to understand how concerns about global warming and climate change generate a transformation pressure on natural resource-based and bio-mass industries in the search for new sources of energy. Activities in the primary sector are often dismissed as drivers of economic development. This argument is critically analyzed and tested against developments in the Brazilian sugarcane-ethanol industrial complex.

Bram Timmermanns

Thesis working title: How does the composition of human resources in knowledge-intensive startups affect their performance
Supervisor(s): Michael S. Dahl and and Bengt-Åke Lundvall
Start date: January 1, 2007 - Estimated submission date: December 31, 2009

Kristian Hegner Reinau

Thesis working title: Affiliates of Multinational Corporations and the Evolution of Clusters in the Wireless Telecommunications Industry
Supervisor(s): Søren Kerndrup, Bent Flyvbjerg and Bent Dalum
Start date: August 1, 2006 - Estimated submission date: July 31, 2009
 
Graduated as Master of Science in Geography from Aalborg University in 2006. From August 2006, a PhD student at Department of Development and Planning, Aalborg University.
 
It is known from the literature on multinational corporations (MNCs), that that MNCs increasingly internationalize R&D activities to exploit and/or augment their technological capabilities. A number of studies have examined the consequences of locating MNC subsidiaries in clusters. These studies however, are focused mainly on the consequences for the subsidiaries and MNCs, e.g. access to knowledge, employees etc., and only to a lesser degree on the consequence for the cluster experiencing entry of MNCs. This PhD project investigates how the behaviour of firms located in clusters in the wireless telecommunications industry change after they are acquired by MNCs, and the implications of these changes for the evolution of the clusters.

Kari Kristinsson

Thesis working title: The Role of in Technological Change in Industrial Evolution
Supervisor(s): Björn Johnson and Bengt-Åke Lundvall
Start date: May 1, 2005 - Estimated submission date: July 9, 2008
 
Graduated Master of Science in Economics and Business Administration from Copenhagen Business School in 2004. From January to May 2005, he worked as a research assistant at IKE-Group, Aalborg University. From May 2005, a PhD student at Department of Business Studies, Aalborg University.
 
The purpose of the thesis is to examine the role of technological change in industrial evolution. The thesis takes its starting point in innovation system approaches and evolutionary economics.

Selected Ph.D. students from the past

Martin Lehmann

Thesis working title: Environmental Management - capacity and conceptual development in environmental networks
Supervisor(s): Olav Jull Sørensen and Björn Johnson
Start date: March 1, 2002 - Estimated submission date: June 1, 2006
 
Graduated as Master of Science, Environmental Engineering (Cand. Polyt.), from Department of Environmental Engineering, Aalborg University, in October 1999.
 
The doctoral research project is co-financed by DUCED-I&UA and is part of a joint effort of Thai, Malay, South African and Danish universities to conduct collaborative research on the overarching theme "Environmental Management: Globalisation and Industrial Governance in Developing Countries". The PhD project is expected to conclude ultimo 2005.
 
The purpose of the PhD project is to adress whether/how environmental networks via capability and conceptual developments influence the dissemination of cleaner production and environmental management in SMEs, and whether such networks can function as exponent of new types of governance/regulation and co-operation between public and private enterprises and as such be instrumental in bringing about higher environmental standards, quantitatively as well as qualitatively?
 
Internal/external projects:
- Project Manager, AUNP financed project on Urban Quality Development & Management
- Member of AUDREP (Aalborg University Development Research and Education Programme)
- Member of DUCED-I&UA (Danish University Consortium for Environment and Development - Industry & urban Areas)
- Member of ReNED (Reseach Network for Environment and Development)

Recent completed Ph.D.s

Dagmara Störring

Thesis working title: The new role of governments and cluster policy in emerging clusters. The effect of cluster policy on regional economic development
Supervisor(s): Jesper Lindgaard Christensen
Start date: June 1, 2003 - Defended succesfully on 25th of September 2007

René Nesgaard Nielsen

Thesis working title: University-industry relations in innovation systems
Supervisor(s): Esben Sloth Andersen and Bengt-Åke Lundvall
Start date: November 15, 2003 - Defended succesfully on 9th of March 2007

Keynor Ruiz

Thesis working title: The Impact of Labour Institutions on Learning and Innovation Capability Building Case Studies in Costa Rica
Supervisor(s): Bengt-Aake Lundvall and Herman Knudsen
Start date: March 1, 2002 - Defended succesfully on 26th of February 2007
 

Pun-arj Chairatana

Thesis title: Learning and Evolution of Innovation Systems in Less Successful Developing Economies: Lessons from Thailand
Supervisor(s): Bent Dalum
Start date: August 1, 1999 - Defended succesfully on 10th of August 2006

Christian Ø. R. Pedersen

Thesis title: The Development Perspectives of the ICT Sector in North Jutland
Supervisor(s): Bent Dalum
Start date: July 1, 2001 - Defended succesfully on 13th of April 2005

Michael S. Dahl

Thesis title: Knowledge Diffusion and Regional Clusters: Lessons from the Danish ICT Industry
Supervisor(s): Bent Dalum
Start date: October 1, 1999 - Defended succesfully on 26th of January 2004

Toke Reichstein

Thesis title: Firm Growth Rate Distributions, Firm Size Distributions and the Industry Life Cycle
Supervisor(s): Esben Sloth Andersen
Start date: December 1, 1999 - Defended succesfully on 13th of December 2003