MASTER OF SCIENCE IN MANAGEMENT ENGINEERING

Authors: 2

Contacts: Jacopo Manotti

Content / Work description: In the last 20 years, the European Commission gradually developed a constellation of Earth Observation satellites named Copernicus. The infrastructure is today able to collect petabytes of data every day, making such data available for everyone for free. Some renowned firms decided to build their digital ecosystem to offer value-added services based on the combination of such free data with other sources of data (e.g., public records, in-situ sensors, etc.) or technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence, cloud, quantum). These digital ecosystems rely on different sources of data, different processing activities, and more broadly, different governance mechanisms. The thesis aims at deep diving into the configuration of digital ecosystems leveraging Copernicus data, exploring the antecedents and the process which led to their design. Couples of students will have the priority in the assignment of such work.

Additional Information: The project involve the interaction with the Space Economy Observatory's community

Authors: 2

Tutor: Antonio Ghezzi

Contacts: Jacopo Manotti

Content / Work description: The New Space Economy is forecasted to worth over 1 trillion dollars by 2040. The interest and commitment of billionaires such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson to Space represent worldwide examples of the timeliness in studying this area. However, the New Space Economy is not just about US. In the last 10 years, the European Commission launched a number of ambitious projects to make its Space Sector grow (e.g., Copernicus, Galileo). Many startups were founded based on the availability of this innovative technological infrastructure and the combination with the most advanced digital technologies. But what are the value propositions of these startups in Europe? Which are their customers? Which revenue model they implement? Drawing on the original database of European startups in the New Space Economy built by the Space Economy Observatory, students (preferably a couple) will be asked to conduct desk research to track and analyze the business model of more than 500 European startups. The thesis is intended as a Short Thesis, with the possibility to be extended to Dissertation by leveraging Business Model Innovation literature and analytical methodologies (e.g, QCA).

Additional Information: Possibility to interact with Space Economy Observatory's researchers and community

Authors: 2

Tutor: Luca Manelli

Co-Supervisor: Federico Frattini

Content / Work description: Description: This thesis project seeks to systematically collect cases and examples of large, incumbent companies which have undergone a process of radical redefinition of their business model, business strategy, culture, structure, and innovation stream portfolio. In particular, the thesis will look at those cases where inside-out corporate purpose has been instrumental for the successful formulation and implementation of the strategic renewal process. The data sources will involve published secondary sources, such as journal articles or newspaper articles.

Requirements: Fluent in English and Italian; Working knowledge of Microsoft Excel.

Additional Information: If you are interested in this thesis project, please send the updated version of your CV and transcript of records to prof. Luca Manelli (luca.manelli@polimi.it), possibly by the 10th October 2023.

Authors: 2

Tutor: Josip Kotlar

Content / Work description: Description: There is a growing interest in the phenomenon of family offices. These organizations are privately owned, often providing services such as account aggregation or concierge, and are thought of managing a sum of $6 trillion around the world. Their strategic agility and their care in maintaining secrecy over their activities makes them not just very influential long-term investors, but also severely understudied. By developing a systematic literature review from academic and practitioners’ sources, the objective of this thesis is to provide a deep overview of what we already know about family offices, and to offer new research directions to understand better this fascinating organizational phenomenon. 

Requirements: Fluent in English; Working knowledge of Microsoft Excel​

Additional Information: If you are interested in this thesis project, please send the updated version of your CV and transcript of records to prof. Luca Manelli (luca.manelli@polimi.it), possibly by the 10th October 2023

Authors: 2

Content / Work description: Description: The concept of corporate purpose is arguably one of the most diffused buzzwords in contemporary business jargon, and loosely refers to the presence of an aspiration to have an impact on stakeholders and society. Indeed, it is one of the most unclear and ambiguous business concepts as well. While research on corporate purpose has been gaining traction, it is fragmented in different streams, hampering the development of a coherent body of knowledge on the topic, and diminishing the potential relevance of academic research to business practice. By developing a systematic literature review, the objective of this thesis is taking stock of research on corporate purpose, analyzing the evolution of the concept, and generating a framework for organizing it.

Requirements: Fluent in English, working knowledge of Microsoft Excel

Additional Information: If you are interested in this thesis project, please send the updated version of your CV and transcript of records to prof. Luca Manelli (luca.manelli@polimi.it), possibly by the 10th October 2023

Authors: 2

Tutor: Luca Manelli

Content / Work description: Description: Family governance is a set of formal and informal rules, processes, and structures (e.g., family constitutions, family council, etc.) that enable the business family to regulate their participation and decisions to the ownership and family systems. Business families do not have family governance structures and rules from the get-go, but they come to structure it later, often beyond the 2nd generation. Even though it has been acknowledged by practitioners that this is of vital importance for families, research lags behind. How do family governance structures emerge within business families? This dissertation project employs a single case study of an Italian, multigenerational business family to trace a rich longitudinal analysis of how the interaction between family members and advisors leads to the emergence of a shared set of norms that regulate the conflicts and the decisions over the family affairs. Methodology: Qualitative

Requirements: Fluent in English and Italian; basic knowledge of Microsoft Excel

Additional Information: If you are interested in this thesis project, please send the updated version of your CV and transcript of records to prof. Luca Manelli (luca.manelli@polimi.it), possibly by the 10th October 2023

Authors: 2

Tutor: Luca Manelli

Content / Work description: Description: Much attention has been granted to the strategic management of the family-owned business: how to internationalize, how to manage cash, how to devise an effective succession plan. However, in the evolution of business families, family-owned companies can be also sold. The sale of the family business (the "liquidity event") represents an important discontinuity in the history of a business family. Particularly in Italy, since a few years, we are witnessing an increase in the number and size of liquidity events, which makes the headlines of newspapers. The purpose of this dissertation project is to systematically map the liquidity events of family businesses in Italy and highlight their key dimensions and consequences for the business family and the local economy.  Methodology: Quantitative

Requirements: Fluent in English; very good knowledge of Microsoft Excel; basic knowledge of statistical analysis programs (SPSS, STATA) and willingness to improve quantitative analysis skills.

Additional Information: If you are interested in this thesis project, please send the updated version of your CV and transcript of records to prof. Luca Manelli (luca.manelli@polimi.it), possibly by the 10th October 2023

Authors: 2

Tutor: Luca Manelli

Content / Work description: Description: Family offices are gaining much attention from analysts and entrepreneurs. Family offices, organizations that are entrusted with the management, allocation and investment of family wealth, are becoming more and more active investors in private markets. While this is a way to diversify the portfolio, it is also a way to ensure that the wealth-owning family remains entrepreneurial, even if it has sold the family business. Due to the family-centered goals, family offices are often considered as long-term investors and providers of patient capital, which makes them an interesting category of investors vis-à-vis private equity funds. However, we do not know much about the investments that family offices in Europe make. This dissertation project seeks to map the direct investments that European family offices have made in a given timeframe, and to understand their effect on the target firms’ performance after the investments. In a nutshell, this dissertation seeks to understand whether and under which conditions family offices create value for the target firm.  Methodology: Quantitative   ​

Requirements: Fluent in English; very good knowledge of Microsoft Excel; basic knowledge of statistical analysis programs (SPSS, STATA) and willingness to improve quantitative analysis skills.

Additional Information: If you are interested in this thesis project, please send the updated version of your CV and transcript of records to prof. Luca Manelli (luca.manelli@polimi.it), possibly by the 10th October 2023

Authors: 2

Tutor: Josip Kotlar

Content / Work description: Description: The textile cluster in Biella is home to some of the most famous brands in Italian fashion, such as Zegna or Fratelli Piacenza. Most of the companies in the clusters, both large and not-so-large, are family-owned businesses. Once the engine of the industrial revolution in Italy, the Biella textile cluster has been undergoing a severe change, due to increased competition and reconfiguration of the global value chains. How is the local territory and business actors responding to these threats? What are the elements that enable or impede the resilience of the cluster? What is the role of family firms in this picture? This exploratory thesis project employs a qualitative research design, combining primary sources (like interviews) and secondary, archival data, to make sense of these questions. Methodology: Qualitative ​

Requirements: Fluent in English and Italian; Working knowledge of Microsoft Excel

Additional Information: If you are interested in this thesis project, please send the updated version of your CV and transcript of records to prof. Luca Manelli (luca.manelli@polimi.it), possibly by the 10th October 2023

Authors: 2

Contacts: Debora Bettiga

Content / Work description: These last years have seen the arise of immersive technologies (Mixed Reality continuum (Flavián et al., 2019)), which saw application and adoption in several industries. Historically, technology acceptance and adoption have been highly investigated, and numerous theoretical models have been developed in this regard, such as the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1989), the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) (Venkatesh et al., 2003), and the Augmented Reality Acceptance Model (Marto et al., 2023), highlighting the most influential drivers to the adoption. But drivers are not the only factor contributing to technological diffusion, in fact, barriers to the adoption are relevant as well. In this domain, studies have been performed to assess factors of resistance to this technology in specific sectors such as construction (Maqsoom et al., 2023) and manufacturing (Schein and Rauschnabel, 2023). It is then important to note that literature on one side suggests that “better theories or models of user resistance would lead to better implementation strategies and desired implementation outcomes” (Laumer and Eckhardt, 2012, p.67), while on the other side critiques classical models such as TAM for the lack of barriers and situational factors (Benbasat and Barki, 2007). It becomes clear the importance of developing a new model, able to incorporate both drivers and barriers to the adoption of this technology, while also considering situational factors that may influence users’ intentions to adopt Mixed Reality technologies. This thesis wants to investigate these three aspects, with the goal of building a robust theoretical model, able to fill the current research gap in the domain of Mixed Reality adoption.  Such model would benefit the research world, by providing a solid reference point in the field, and would also benefit practitioners, by providing relevant insights about the most influential factors to take into account. The proposed methodology is:

• Perform a literature review with the scope of identifying the most relevant and influential models, barriers and drivers to the adoption of immersive technologies, and situational factors.
• Identification of a specific current research gap to be filled with the research.
• Development of a theoretical model and identification of measurement metrics
• Design of a data collection phase to empirically validate the theoretical model (proposed methodology: online survey to be distributed).
• Data collection.
• Analysis of the gathered data, with the aim of testing the research hypotheses.
• Discussion of the results and identification of managerial and policymakers’ implications.

  Literature: Flavián et al., (2019). The impact of virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies on the customer experience. Journal of Business Research 100 (2019) 547-560. Davis, (1989). Perceived usefulness perceived ease of use and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 319–340. Venkatesh et al., (2003). User Acceptance of Information Technology: Toward a Unified View. MIS Quarterly vol. 27, No.3, pp.425-478. Marto, A.; Gonçalves, A.; Melo, M.; Bessa, M.; Silva, R. ARAM: A Technology Acceptance Model to Ascertain the Behavioural Intention to Use Augmented Reality. J. Imaging 2023, 9, 73. Maqsoom et, al. (2023). Drivers of, and Barriers to, the Adoption of Mixed Reality in the Construction Industry of Developing Countries. Buildings 13(4). Schein and Rauschnabel, (2023). Augmented Reality in Manufacturing: Exploring Workers’ Perceptions of Barriers. IEEE transactions on engineering management, vol. 70, no. 10. Laumer and Eckhardt, (2012). Why Do People Reject Technologies: A Review of User Resistance Theories. Information Systems Theory, Y. Dwivedi, M. Wade, and S. Schneberger, Eds. New York, NY, USA: Springer, 2012, pp. 63–86. Benbasat and Barki, (2007). “Quo vadis, TAM?,” J. Assoc. Inf. Syst., vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 211–218.

Deadline: 31-10-2023

Work Location: Milano

Requirements: Good statistical knowledge is needed