Industrial Economics and Management

The researchers are interested in the interaction between technology, innovation and industrial dynamics. They study entrepreneurship and its significance for sustainable growth and societal development, how institutional frameworks affect enterprise and the conditions for the commercialisation of technical innovations.

The researchers study both established as well as new and emerging industries and businesses. The research is conducted in collaboration with other social actors – nationally and internationally.

BTH researchers are involved in the economic debate and often participate in debating issues related to business.

The research in industrial economics and management is mainly conducted at the Department of Industrial Economics.

Research themes

Management of innovation and technology

This line of research has the firm, project or project organisation as its natural unit of analysis. The focus is on analyses of resource bases, strategy, competence and capabilities, and how these interplay with technology and innovation. The research span business models, strategy, investment risks and competence and capability development.

Industrial dynamics and technological change

The research in this theme is focused on analyses of market, industry and business dynamics, and the role of policy. It comprises studies of entrepreneurship, development of new industries and businesses, diffusion of innovations and new technologies. It also comprises analyses of economy-wide change processes that span businesses across time and space, for example initiated by general purpose technologies like ICT. Part of the research is to study the efficiency and productivity consequences of such changes.

Example of projects

ANAKIN – About the opportunities and challenges of AI-based decision-support for delay root cause coding

This project is funded by Trafikverket within the KAJT cooperation.

Trafikverket has since 2012 adopted and applied a delay charge model in order to provide financial incentives for the railway companies as well as Trafikverket to strive towards a well-functioning infrastructure and high punctuality of the trains. The computation of delay charges relies on that the root cause of the different delays that occur can be correctly identified and hence also the responsible party. The initial root cause analysis and root cause coding is done manually in real-time by the traffic management, which later is analyzed further in a coding quality assessment step. The task of root cause analysis and coding is complex and based on multiple, scattered sources of information and sometimes dependent on that key causal relations can be observed.

This project aims to analyze the process of delay root cause analysis and coding, and also to investigate whether there could be opportunities to support the current manual process by some relevant computational functionalities.

Contact

Professor Jonas Månsson
Head of subject industrial economics and management
E-mail: jonas.mansson@bth.se
Telephone: +46 455-38 56 12