About the thesis
When we talk about innovation, we often think about novel and better solutions, improved products or services that give higher value. Analogously, we often focus on understanding how innovation comes out of “favourable conditions”, for example abundance of resources. This thesis considers innovation in a different situation. It sets out to study how new things are made in a situation of deviation from these “favourable conditions”.
The thesis looks the downturn in the oil and gas industry since the collapse of the oil prices in mid-2014 as a situation of industry crisis. The aim is to examine how the breaking of the normal conditions makes room for novelty, or in other words: how an industry crisis yields innovation. To be specific, I study the innovation activities of a set of supplier companies in the oil and gas industry on the Norwegian continental shelf and how they have changed as a consequence of threats arising from the industry downturn.
The studied link between industry crisis and innovation is narrowed down to three specific dimensions. The first paper looks at how a set of suppliers adapted themselves to contribute to collaborative innovation processes in the industry as an immediate response to crisis threat. The second paper looks at how one supplier shaped the technology strategy to tackle the severity of the crisis over time. Finally, the third article studies how a supplier adapts existing R&D projects to a changed market situation in the industry after the first shock is over.
Supervisors
- Magnus Gulbrandsen (TIK)
Commentator
- Per Ingvar Olsen (Handelshøyskolen BI)
The Final Seminar
The final dissertation seminar is organised towards the end of a candidate's PhD period, in the format of a trial disputation.