A key challenge in software development is managing Technical Debt (TD), which arises from trade-offs made to meet deadlines and expectations, often resulting in “not quite right code.” Managing TD requires balancing speed and quality, which is an individual skill fostered by the organizational context. Processes, structure, and culture must support this balance; if the organizational context fails to do so and resists change, TD can accumulate and become unmanageable. This thesis uses the theoretical lens of contextual ambidexterity to examine how software development companies achieve a balance between speed and quality by identifying essential contextual factors—such as processes, structure, and culture—that steer contextual behavior. The focus lies on small- and medium-sized companies, since they have more limited resources than large firms and can be more affected by unmanageable TD. By identifying these factors, the study advances the understanding of how organizational contexts support TD management and contribute to achieving contextual ambidexterity in software development.

Author: Camilla Reis

The mobility sector is facing an unprecedented transformation towards less carbon-intensive and highly efficient passenger mobility and freight transportation systems and therefore seeking for the emergence of new business models (BMs) as well as the innovation of already existing ones. In this thesis, a systematic literature review, case study research, and qualitative content analysis will be applied to gain expertise on extant and novel BMs, analyze implications of new technologies/services on BMs, and identify related scenarios for the future.

Author: Florian Ratz

Over the last years the concept of sustainable development has more and more been addressed by the business sector. Innovative as well as sustainable business models are needed to achieve both economic and environmental goals. The dissertation project will focus on sustainable business models of start-ups in order to better understand how they operate and what the drivers for developing these business models are. Using a cross-industry sample covering start-ups showing notable sustainable activities, this study aims to analyse the characteristics of their business model. 

Author: Martin Glinik

Small enterprises (SE) increasingly face a competitive business environment, where they have to compete with firms of any size. Furthermore, a small enterprise is not just a small version of a large enterprise (LE). Which is why SEs business models significantly differ from LEs business models. In a qualitative study small enterprises in business-to-business markets are researched. The purpose of the study is to find factors that, according to literature, influence the elements of SEs business models most and to analyze to what degree those factors are present in the sample cases.

Author: Fabian Pirker

In today's software developing firms software product management (SPM) is part of business and it is done often by practitioners to the best of their knowledge and belief. Nevertheless many scientific research has been done on this topic. The dissertation project covers a systematic mapping study about the research which have been done within last recent years. The second part of this dissertation will focus on empirical research on SPM under particular consideration of medium- and large-sized business applications.

Author: Thomas Salzmann