Kim Wikström

• Dr.
• Professor (Full) at Åbo Akademi University

The COVID-19 pandemic devastated substantial portions of the tourism industry; the cruise industry particularly suffered from negative publicity as the virus spread rapidly on cruise ships. The pandemic is a disaster that the industry has been forced to adapt to. This study illustrates, through a mixed-methods research design, what factors cruisefe...

Sustainability involves multiple environmental, technical, social and economic factors, and such complex analysis requires systemic solutions. Delivery models are key to achieving system benefits and enhancing sustainable development in infrastructure investments. They define the phases of a project, incentive structures, risk sharing and the relat...

Highlight The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected the cruise and ferry industry as the passenger numbers and revenues have plummeted. Therefore, we developed a holistic approach for mitigating COVID-19 during seaborne transportation in a cost-efficient way by combining behavioral changes, procedural workflows, and technical innovation...

Infrastructure projects where many partners and technologies must work together to produce a functioning and sustainable outcome are often challenging. Australia, Canada and UK are among the few countries that have actively been rethinking infrastructure procurement. In these countries, the private sector has been given a bigger share in infrastruc...

New technologies are at the heart of industry transformation. Virtual and augmented reality companies provide fundamentally new ways of communication, treatment, education, and specialist training within the medical industry. However, business models for new ventures that target the medical industry have received scant attention within academic res...

Purpose This study aims to identify how the personal social capital of opinion leaders contributes to the market adoption of start-up innovations. Design/methodology/approach A design-oriented case study is undertaken with a start-up company focusing on the development and commercialization of innovations in the veterinary market. Based on a liter...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the conservative business ecosystem and to identify opportunities for new companies to create value. Authors used a design-oriented case study with a start-up concentrating on the commercialization of the university research. The authors consider a novel business model used by the start-up company. By ana...

Ports, a critical link in sea logistics, are currently undergoing a digital transformation. In this paper, we review recent digital innovations that affect the way port infrastructure and operations are managed and discuss their effect on the business models of future smart ports.

Purpose: This paper focuses on medical device university spin-offs, taking into account the peculiarities of financial and non-financial support and intellectual property rights. We declare that these parameters play a significant role in business development at the early stages. Design/methodology/approach: Our empirical data consist of individua...

Purpose Business accelerators have recently received increasing attention as important cogs in business ecosystem development. However, their exact role in the ecosystem is not yet well known, especially outside the IT sector. The purpose of this study is, therefore, twofold: to determine the position of life science accelerators in the business ec...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the conservative business ecosystem and to identify opportunities for new companies to create value. Authors used a design-oriented case study with a start-up concentrating on the commercialization of the university research. The authors consider a novel business model used by the start-up company. By ana...

There exists little research into how value is effectively generated by temporary projects from the wider perspective of a permanent organisation. This paper investigates empirically how ‘Governance of Projects’ – the way in which a single, permanent organisation identifies, creates, and subsequently harvests value through multiple projects – occur...

Purpose Projects are an inherent part of implementing strategies. Still, the challenge is to connect a long-term strategy for larger ecosystem development to the individual projects being undertaken. The purpose of this paper is to test the ability of seven project management office (PMO) roles to achieve strategic planning in large society develo...

This article develops a conceptual framework to analyze the governance of projects within a business ecosystem. The framework is applied to the case of a vessel delivery project in the short sea shipping business ecosystem, which is a cargo and logistics infrastructure service at sea. We develop a model that identifies contentious lock-ins among th...

This article contributes to engineering project research by studying how projects relate to their surrounding context. The article presents a framework for the analysis of workflow interdependencies in a project that is situated in a business ecosystem. The analysis is used to reduce costly conflicts in the business ecosystem, and the framework sho...

The objective of this paper is to discuss the challenges and opportunities involved in the pricing of industrial IT solutions and to propose practical advice on how to implement value-driven strategy in pricing. A case study of an organisation moving towards value-based pricing is presented. The results provide clarification of new pricing strategi...

Innovation in mature firms is commonly explained in terms of the impersonal domain of knowledge. The contradiction is, however, that the origin of innovation is known to be the job of a few critical individuals. Our point of departure is the innovation management research field. This empirical study builds on the role characters known as promoters...

Shipping in the Baltic Sea forms an essential part of Finnish industry. At present, the utilization rate of bulk and general cargo ships serving Finland is under 40%, and the old-fashioned routines in ports lead to ships sailing at non-optimal speeds and thereby to unnecessary fuel consumption. Lack of transparency and coordination between the larg...

Biogas production and its use as traffic fuel are discussed in this chapter as an example of a system eco-innovation that is struggling to become implemented in a focal municipality. The biogas producer and distributor as the owner of the “core technology” have the potential to become the integrator of a functioning ecosystem required for the innov...

In this paper we focus on the early stages of projects and their governance implications by investigating the introduction of nuclear power in Finland. We look at the early stages through the lens of path dependence and illustrate how early decisions may lead the project down the wrong path. However, we also develop a path creation perspective in o...

Services are receiving an increasing amount of attention in project-based firms. This has led project suppliers to employ new business models; the project supplier can offer services as an additional component of the project or take full responsibility for the operation and maintenance of the facility throughout its life-cycle. In this paper, we bu...

Recent management and business research has demonstrated the importance of business models for value creation and company performance. So far, extant research on business models has not investigated the particular requirements, characteristics and combinations of business models in project business. This paper seeks to fill this void. The paper rep...

This paper analyses drivers, barriers and business logic used to include services in the business model of a project-based firm. The empirical study includes six project supplier firms from different industries. Differences in the complexity of project delivery and variations in the project suppliers’ degree of maturity in delivering services, serv...

This article presents results from a four-year study of various integration mechanisms in industrial project business. The projects analysed are complex solutions, which include demanding efforts in both engineering and organisation. Mechanisms for combining products and the processes needed to deliver projects are described and categorised accordi...

Project supplier firms are solution providers. A solution may consist of a core project delivery with specific service contents, and/or of separate service deliveries. This paper analyzes the role of services in the business model of a project-based firm. The empirical study focuses on the business models of five project supplier firms, and on the...

This paper evaluates how turnkey project deliveries create value for their customers and how the purchasing strategy of the buyer affects value creation. Literature focusing on the distinguishing characteristics of turnkey projects and the different strategies available for purchasing them is reviewed. The concept of customer value is opened up and...

The aim of this paper is to discuss the phenomenon of uncertainty in projects and attempt to integrate it as part of project management. Despite the fact that project risk management discipline has gained a lot of attention in the past decade from both academia and practitioners, there is still considerable potential for development in this field....

This paper presents and analyses integration as a project management concept in industrial system deliveries. Attention is given to the aspect of integrating products and services as a functional whole, i.e. a solution. The study is based on interviews regarding the commissioning process in a number of different project companies. Commissioning is...

This article defines project business and employs a bibliometric study for considering the relevant characteristics of this concept. The motivation for this study is the shallow definition of project business in contemporary project studies. Furthermore, there is no overview on such relevant academic business sources that the project business conce...

Well-structured products, delivery processes and project management functions have become pre-requisites and a means for competing for many project companies. These structures should take into account the unique customer needs and the continuously emerging situations that are characteristic to project business. In this paper, project companies are...

This paper presents the results of a study on the deviations that are encountered in power plant projects in developing countries, their effects and the key solutions for planning and steering of these projects. The study recommends a planning and scheduling system that is based on performing continuous detailed planning throughout project executio...

In this paper we compare the value creation logics in industrial services of a provider and his customers in order to explain why industrial services fail in delivering value to the customer. The case study used is of a remote monitoring service within an industrial company. The service was being developed at the time of our study from its first ge...

This paper discusses the similarities between project management and the playing of improvisational jazz. General characteristics for projects and jazz are compared and the five most important linkages be- tween projects and jazz are discussed. The paper also explains why disorder is not chaotic and pro- jects can be successfully managed. Jazz migh...

Extra t.p. with thesis statement inserted. Thesis (doctoral)--Åbo akademi, 2000. Includes bibliographical references (p. 234-243).