NHH Brage (Norges Handelshøyskole)
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Hva skjer når kunden endrer spillereglene? En studie av inspeksjonsleverandørene sin respons på Equinor sitt STEP-program
Full text linkVi undersøker i denne masteroppgaven hvordan Equinors effektiviseringsprogram STEP (Statoil Technical Efficiency Programme) har påvirket leverandører av inspeksjonstjenester på norsk sokkel og landanlegg. Programmet, som ble innført i 2015, medførte en ny kontraktsstruktur preget av økt standardisering og tydelig kostnadsfokus, og det ble senere supplert med insentivbaserte prismekanismer gjennom endringer i rammekontraktene. Studien søker å identifisere hvilke strategiske tilnærminger og organisasjonskulturer som best rustet leverandører til å håndtere disse endringene, nærmere bestemt om selskaper med vekt på utforskning eller utnyttelse var bedre egnet for å lykkes under STEP.
Problemstillingen belyser hvordan samspillet mellom strategi og kultur påvirker finansielle resultater hos utforskende eller utnyttelsesorienterte leverandører. Studien tar utgangspunkt i fem leverandører med ulik tilnærming: Aker Solutions, Axess, IKM, Oceaneering Asset Integrity og CAN (konkurs i 2023).
Vi benyttet et eksplorativt og deskriptivt forskningsdesign. Den eksplorative delen bygger på kvalitative, semi-strukturerte dybdeintervjuer og undersøker hvordan leverandørene forstår STEP og hvordan de forholder seg til strategiske valg knyttet til utforskning og utnyttelse. I tillegg ble det gjennomført en kulturkartlegging blant de samme respondentene. Kartleggingen undersøker hvordan organisasjonskulturen i selskapene er fordelt mellom fire kulturtyper: Byråkrati, marked, klan og adhocrati, som vi deretter vekter mellom utforskning og utnyttelse. Hensikten er å vurdere i hvilken grad organisasjonskultur, i kombinasjon med selskapenes strategiske orientering mot enten utforskning eller utnyttelse, kan gi bedre finansielle resultater i møte med kravene i Equinors STEP-program.
Den deskriptive delen av studien inkluderer en finansiell analyse av leverandørenes årsregnskap, med særlig fokus på vekst, driftsmargin og avkastning på totalkapital i perioden 2010 til 2023. Det er også gjennomført en korrelasjon- og enkel lineær regresjonsanalyse med to forklaringsvariabler: vekten av utforskning i strategi (basert på intervjuer) og vekten av utforskning i organisasjonskultur (basert på kulturkartlegging). Responsvariablene er vekst, driftsmargin og totalkapitalrentabilitet.
Vår konklusjon er at ingen strategisk orientering alene gir finansiell suksess. Det er graden av samsvar mellom strategi og en støttende organisasjonskultur som er avgjørende. STEP har styrket Equinors kontroll og lagt til rette for økt utnyttelse ved høyt prispress og krav om effektivisering. Samtidig har dette, kombinert med en insentivordning som ikke følges tilstrekkelig opp eller kommuniseres tydelig, bidratt til høyere barrierer for utforskning hos flere leverandører. Langsiktig utforskning ser ut til å kreve tett sammenheng mellom strategi og organisasjonskultur. Virksomhetene må evne å balansere effektiv drift med kontinuerlig utvikling. Studien gir innsikt i hvordan endringene i kontraktsformen etter STEP, inkludert insentivstruktur, standardisering og kapasitetsstyring, har påvirket leverandørenes strategiske valg mellom utforskning og utnyttelse og hvordan disse valgene har hatt direkte konsekvenser for selskapenes lønnsomhet, tilpasningsevne og posisjon i markedet.nhhma
Media attention and price competition: Evidence from Norwegian grocery retailing
Full text linkConsumer journalism guides purchasing decisions when consumers lack complete information about attributes such as price, quality, and location. We focus on consumer journalism in the grocery market, where it is too time consuming for consumers to check all prices in different stores. This makes it attractive for media to attract readers by publishing grocery price comparisons. Norway’s largest newspaper has published grocery price comparisons over more than 20 years. However, the comparisons appear only sporadically (a few times each year) and include a relatively small number of items. Despite this, our empirical analysis of the Norwegian grocery market reveals that these price comparisons have a significant impact on market performance. They intensify competition, leading to price reductions when market players anticipate upcoming comparisons. Conversely, after a comparison is published, prices increase. Remarkably, sporadic consumer journalism, offering snapshots of prices for a few products, thus has a significant impact on grocery chains’ competitive pricing behavior. Chains heavily utilize a win in a price comparison in their own advertising, further reinforcing the competitive impact of consumer journalism
European market integration and price convergence: A panel quantile regression analysis of NordLink
Full text linkThe European Union aims to strengthen electricity market integration as part of its transition to a low-carbon energy system, with substantial investments in cross-border transmission infrastructure. This paper presents the first empirical analysis of a new interconnector, NordLink, on price convergence between southern Norway (NO2) and Germany. Using a novel panel quantile regression model, we estimate the impact of NordLink on the full distribution of hourly electricity prices in both markets. We find that the cable raised average prices in NO2 and lowered them in Germany, but with substantial heterogeneity across the price quantiles. In NO2, lower-quantile prices fell while upper-quantile prices rose. In Germany, the largest reductions occurred in the upper price quantiles. Regarding volatility, NordLink increased price fluctuations in NO2 and reduced them in Germany. We also find that the interconnector has altered the relationship between electricity prices and key fundamentals. Notably, electricity prices in NO2 have become substantially more exposed to gas prices post-NordLink, while Germany has become less exposed. Our findings highlight that market integration influences not only average prices, but also the dynamics and structure of electricity prices, with important implications for policymakers and market participants navigating the future of cross-border transmission in Europe
Optimal Insurance Policies and Saving in a Temporal World
Full text linkWe consider Pareto optimal risk sharing between a buyer and a seller of insurance contracts, as well as consumption substitution and saving in a two-period context. The separation of the time periods allows us to consider the substitution effect. We show that the classical result of Pareto optimal risk sharing between a customer and an insurer is robust, and remains so also with recursive utility. For both expected utility and recursive utility we obtain precautionary savings with prudence. With recursive utility we identify the connection between the coefficient of elasticity of substitution in consumption and optimal saving, both under certainty and uncertainty. The separation of consumption substitution from risk aversion is shown to be partial
Cognitive and Emotional Aspects of Leading in the Face of Competing Demands: A Phenomenological Study of Top Executives
Full text linkThis dissertation explores how executives cognitively and emotionally relate to
competing demands. As organizational life becomes increasingly complex, leaders’ ability to
address organizational paradoxes may determine organizations’ short-term performance and
long-term prosperity. Through a phenomenological study of 10 top executives, the study
elicits two understudied precursors of paradoxical leadership—cognitive complexity and
emotional equanimity—and explores how these are related and how they influence
executives’ decision-making. The study further investigates the interrelation between the
executives’ paradox mindset (i.e., cognitive complexity and emotional equanimity) and the
management teams’ dynamics. The findings indicate that executives’ cognitive complexity
forms dynamic cognitive patterns of differentiating and integrating opposing mental frames.
Moreover, executives build emotional equanimity through personal values-based purposes
and continuous self-care. Recurrent emotional strain tied to leading in the face of competing
demands may indicate tolerance limits and serve to protect leaders with high cognitive
complexity from over-complication. Executives with medium to high levels of paradox
mindsets adopt distinct decision-making processes characterized by slow, circular, and
values-based decisions. Finally, the study of the management teams indicates that a higher
level of executive paradox mindset is connected to distributed authority, emergent processes,
and openness to challenging assumptions in the management team. The study impacted the
participants and the researcher through mutual sensemaking (a.k.a., double-hermeneutic
process), changing how we view the leadership of complexity.
Keywords: cognitive complexity, competing demands, decision processes, emotional
equanimity, organizational paradoxes, paradoxical leadership, and phenomenology
Technical versus Environmental Efficiency in Steel Production: A Global Perspective
Full text linkThis study provides the first global, plant-level assessment of both technical and environmental efficiency in steel production using a novel micro-dataset covering 147 steel mills across 50 countries from 2019 to 2023. Applying a Stochastic Directional Distance Function, we estimate each plant’s distance to the production frontier and compute the shadow price of CO2e emissions. Our results reveal a robust negative correlation between inefficiency and marginal abatement cost: technically efficient electric arc furnace (EAF) mini-mills — particularly prevalent in North America — display low inefficiency scores (∼0.2) and face high marginal abatement costs (up to 13.4 USD/ton). Conversely, integrated plants in developing countries often operate inefficiently (scores up to ∼0.8) but can abate emissions at very low cost (∼0.4 USD/ton), with Europe positioned between these two extremes. Estimated shadow prices are consistently lower than prevailing carbon market rates, highlighting a systemic under-valuation of emissions in the absence of regulatory pressure. This underpricing, in turn, reflects the highly uneven technological and economic conditions across steel plants worldwide, reinforcing the need for climate policies that account for both efficiency levels and plant configurations, and that tailor interventions to the specific costs and capacities of decarbonization
Channel Coordination on Exclusive vs. Non-Exclusive Content under Endogenous Consumer Homing
Full text linkWe analyze competition between two digital platforms selling subscriptions for unlimited access to their content catalogs (e.g., streaming and TV broadcasting platforms). A content provider offers additional content to the platforms. The content provider chooses between offering a revenue sharing contract and a per-consumer wholesale pricing contract towards the platforms, thereby endogenously determining whether its content will be distributed non-exclusively (on both platforms) or exclusively (on one platform). Our model yields clear predictions: In markets with low initial exclusivity, the content provider and both platforms prefer per-consumer wholesale pricing to endogenously promote non-exclusive distribution. Platforms set subscription prices that lead to full consumer singlehoming. Conversely, in markets with high initial exclusivity, all market players prefer a revenue-sharing contract that induces exclusive distribution, with platforms setting prices that encourage some consumers to multihome