Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
25 years in industry,
25 years as teacher
and researcher
SPi0_1-00_220906-02
I have almost 25 years of experience as senior executive and consultant in Scandinavian industry and 25
years of experience as researcher and university teacher.
My research, focused on innovation and how new knowledge is created, is presented in scientific articles
available here.
Based on my experience I have developed offerings to three categories of clients: companies, universities,
and individual students.
My offerings to companies go from inspirational lectures to consulting and board membership.
My offerings to universities are three ready-made master courses, which can be plugged into your program,
examination of master and bachelor theses, and the supervising of the theses of doctoral, master, and
bachelor students.
My offerings to individual students consist of preparatory courses and co-tutoring of theses.
This website presents my research and offerings to companies, universities and students
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
25 years in industry,
25 years as teacher
and researcher
SPi0_12-00_220904-02
Please, send questions and requests for quotes to sarahscphilipson@mac.com
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_101-00_220831-00
Here you find my published articles (and a conference paper, which I consider important, even though it is not published). You
will find the full reference, the abstract and the link to where the full paper can be found for each article. In some cases, slide
shows are available, presenting the paper. When copyright allows it, articles can be viewed and downloaded here.
Article News! My latest articles 13-8 you find here.
![Philipson, S. (2022). Value – The “Atom” of the Economy – A Conceptual Model of a New Approach for Marketing, Journal of Applied Business and Economics, 24(5) [online]](index_htm_files/3601.png)
![Philipson, S. (2022). Value – The “Atom” of the Economy – A Conceptual Model of a New Approach for Marketing, Journal of Applied Business and Economics, 24(5) [online]](index_htm_files/3610.png)
Older Article Archive: Articles 1-7
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_101-01_220831-00
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to verify whether relationship marketing is a new paradigm that has replaced
transactional marketing. Design/methodology/approach – A literature and empirical study indicated that relationship marketing
is neither an invention of the late twentieth century, nor prevailing in practice. This suggested that rather than a complete
paradigm shift, relationship marketing and transactional marketing are complementary. Through interviewing five Scandinavian
companies about their marketing priorities, their mix of transactional and relationship marketing approaches was studied.
Findings – The paper finds that no company exclusively used the relationship marketing approach. Some were merely utilizing
the traditional marketing concept of 4Ps; others were blending a relationship and transactional marketing mix.
Research limitations/implications – This is a limited study, which calls for further validating.
Practical implications – The Kotlerism of the 4Ps is still dominating. Relationship concepts are utilized to some extent. A
relationship strategy can be used as a supporting approach. Thus, there is need to blend relationship and transactional marketing
mixes.
Originality/value – The paper argues that the relationship marketing is not a paradigm shift; focus should be on relationship
management, not marketing. The paper also shows the complementarities of relationship management and transactional
marketing.
ABSTRACT
Article 1
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_101-02_220831-00
This is a conceptual paper. In her doctoral thesis, “Capital functions and the position of the workers” (in Swedish), published in
1980, Philipson, explored a Marxian theory of Business administration, based on a little known work by Marx, “Resultate des
unmittelbares produktionsprozesses”. She explored the three concepts “levels of functions of capital”, after Bettelheim, the
“generalisation of capital functions” and hence globalisation and the possibility to use the concept of “hegemony” in business
administration, after Gramsci.Two of the principle concepts were Marx’ “inner” and “outer” conditions of production. These
pre-empted the Resource-Based View (RBV) and the School of Industrial Organization (IO) with hundred years. In
Philipson36, she proposed 72 phenotypes for the principle strategic situations for companies, based on their inner and outer
conditions of production. The resource based view and the Industrial Organization School have long been two antagonistic
explanations of the strategic possibilities of firms.
This study is a synthesis of these two schools based on the framework developed in Philipson (1980). It suggests a
phenomenology for studying firm strategy that might possibly give precedence for a different mix of the two schools in the
phenomenological cases.
In spite of the development of the RBV and the IO over the last 30 years, the most interesting questions to pursue for strategy
research are how companies transcends their resources to reinvent themselves and how they transcend their resources to face
new environmental conditions of which they do not have enough experience and resources; hence the transcendence of their
limitations.
ABSTRACT
Article 2
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_101-03_220831-00
This paper is a conceptual paper that develops a framework for how to provide an entrepreneurial learning environment in
higher education. The framework is based on Vygotsky’s pedagogics and Polyani’s concept ”tacit knowing”. The teacher will
instruct the students on how to do ”things”, getting experience of how to do things they cannot yet do, proposing methods how
to externalize and reflect on the tacit knowing, in order to acquire a reflected externalized knowledge.
ABSTRACT
Article 3
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_101-04_220831-00
During a trip from Budapest to Berlin in 1990, Joakim Philipson made observations about a grey market trade between
Rumanian Roma and Vietnamese guest students in Berlin. It was seemingly inexplicable how the two groups could enter
business relationships without a common language. The paper uses the narrative as a basis for a discussion and interpretation of
conditional trust and validates classical economic value theory. As “...research on trust... is relatively diverse and
multidisciplinary” (Dirks and Ferrin, 2001; Lewicki et al., 1998; both after Gordon, 2007), we are drawing on research in as
diverse fields as sociology, game theory, anthropology, and classical economics to question the paradigm that is the basis of
both transaction cost economics and relationship management. As such the paper is a narratived case used for conceptual
discourse.
ABSTRACT
Article 4
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_101-05_220831-00
Purpose – This paper aims to investigate key antecedents to the use of radical innovation of the business model of a service
firm to achieve competitive advantage. “Business model” emerged fairly recently as an academic concept, competing with
“sustainable strategic competitiveness”, “strategic fit” (Porter, 1996) and “dominant logic” (Prahalad and Bettis, 1986) to give
key explanatory understanding of firm performance.
Design/methodology/approach – The article is based on action research, in which the re-engineering of a service business
turned into radical innovation of the business model.
Findings – Radical innovation (conceived of as a new dominant logic) of the business model of a service firm is shown to give
sustainable competitive advantage. It shows how fundamental the concept of business model is to understanding the nature of
the business and links it to fundamental academic discussion of recent decades around concepts such as “sustainable
competitive advantage”, “structural capital” and “tacit knowing”.
Research limitations/implications – This is based on a case, and more research is needed to generalize the findings.
Practical implications – In contrast to the knowledge management and structural capital evangelization, much tacit knowing
cannot be converted to structural capital.
Originality/value – Business model is a central concept to understand business performance, but must not be conceived as all-
encompassing. We give a model for what the concept should cover and contrast it with other important models. We show the
role of tacit knowledge in a business model.
ABSTRACT
Article 5
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_101-06_220831-00
In the light of recent corporate scandals company failure is usually explained based on agency theory, leading to the conclusion
that corporate boards and regulators must use agency theory to control management better. The authors use institutional theory
to problematize this advice. We identify the role of accounting as to give predictability, hence preventing company failure. But
this predictability can be questioned; it implies stability. Albeit partly with circumstantial evidence, we question this stability
with factors making the conditions for management’s decision-making volatile, as explained by antecedents, and leading to
unmanageable entities. The implications of this volatility have consequences for corporate governance and question the going-
concern assumption, the basis of accounting. Hence, from the dominant explanations that corrupt management, or management
with different interests than the principal, leads to company failure, we evolve another chain of cause and effect: volatility, with
company failure as a result. It is argued that traditional accounting rituals are unsuitable for many companies. The paper
indicates a need for de-institutionalization and reconsidering of accounting practices, and thus particularly the assumption of
going concern.
ABSTRACT
Article 6
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_101-07_220831-00
This is a conceptual paper, accepted in 2017, giving a fundamental critique of knowledge management, as conceptualized by
Nonaka and colleagues, by a critical reading of Polanyi inspired by the Russian psychologist Vygotsky and the US engineering
professor Ferguson. The findings are that the externalization of tacit knowing is much more complex and less prone to
“management” than suggested in extant literature. In creating knowledge from such tacit knowing the community pf practice is
identified as crucial.
ABSTRACT
Article 7
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_101-08_220831-00
In his groundbreaking work Sources of Innovation, Eric von Hippel discussed from where in (and out of) the value-chain
innovations came in different industries: the customer, the manufacturer, the supplier, or third-party innovator (universities,
research laboratories, etc.). The world has changed, and new phenomena have become apparent. This article is a conceptual
paper that discusses these new phenomena and presents a tentative updated pheno-typology of the sources of innovation, adding
six to von Hippel’s original four. To build these phenotypes it draws heavily on Kaulio (1998), Borrus and Zysman (1997), and
Hart & Kim (2002).
As principal take-away, the consequences for knowledge production and transfer are discussed for each of the 10 phenotypes, in
comparison to the in-house, non-open innovation, default phenotype
.
ABSTRACT
Article 8
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_101-09_220831-00
The objective of this paper is to build a model of how tacit knowing is externalized and becomes external knowledge.
Knowledge Management (Nonaka, 1991, 1994; Nonaka, Toyama, & Konno, 2000) is an important field in Business
Administration. Based on the model provided by Nonaka and his colleagues (Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995;
Nonaka et al., 2000) researchers and practitioners have fallen into the pipe dream that employees’ tacit knowing can be coded
and canned in computers (structural capital), eventually leading to the enterprise without humans. Earlier critics (Gourlay, 2002,
2006; Gourlay & Nurse, 2005, Grant, 2007; Philipson, 2016, 2019) of the knowledge management paradigm have shown that it
does not understand Polanyi’s concept tacit knowing and that it is much more complicated to “externalize” such knowing than
presumed by KM. The understanding in extant management literature of this process has been very problematic. Building on
concepts in philosophy, psychology, pedagogics, organizational science, and engineering, a model is built and exemplified. This
paper develops a theoretical framework for how tacit knowing can be externalized, what is required for such an externalization,
and discusses the problems in such externalization, limiting it.
ABSTRACT
Article 9
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_101-10_220831-00
This conceptual paper discusses the phenomenon of differentiation made possible through branding or innovation or a
combination of the two. Differentiation is eventually the driving force for the development of its own negation,
commoditization. When customers have endured a commoditized market long enough the opportunities open for creative
destruction, this concept of Schumpeter (1942), means that an entrepreneur invents a completely new way of satisfying the
customers’ unsatisfied needs, making the industry that no longer bothered about their customers. Many researchers have tried to
re/brand destructive innovation as their own, with concepts, such as ”transilience”, and “blue ocean strategy’ as opposed to ‘red
ocean strategy’.
The paper focuses on innovation as a differentiation strategy and on temporary monopoly rent as a driver of innovation.
Increased competition and shortening and life cycles makes capitalism more volatile and the strategies to reduce the risks
involved are discussed. These strategies lead to the real-world implementation of the concentration of capital forecasted by
Marx and feared by Schumpeter.
The paper identifies the need to continuously monitor the concentration of capital and to understand individual markets by
studying the firm’s profit.
ABSTRACT
Article 10
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_101-11_220831-00
This conceptual paper explores the phenomena of changing cost-structures and the implications for the volatility of capitalism
and the possibility to manage firms in such a hostile environment and proposes future research. It also provides an explanation
of why the relevance of accounting is lost, the so-called “relevance lost” debate (see among others Francis & Schipper, 1999).
The changing cost-structures raises fundamental questions concerning the resulting volatility of capitalism and the management
of firms in such an increasingly more volatile environment. In Philipson, Johansson & Schley (2016), we raised the question if
it was possible to “...to ride the dragon.” Considering the importance of these phenomena, it is astonishing that we have not
found any empirical research concerning them. They rest research questions, based on the author’s almost 25 years of
experience as a senior executive in Scandinavian industry.
ABSTRACT
Article 11
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_101-12_220906-02
This is a conceptual paper, originally accepted for another journal in 2020 that ceased publication, about the most fundamental
concept in the science of business administration, value. It traces its history, discusses the demarcation approach of the service
dominant logic, arguing against it. We hold that customer co-creation is already presumed in the concept of use-value; the
customer can realize the value-potential of a product or a service by satisfying experiences from the offering. Under certain
circumstances relationships influence the value, often motivating temporal suspension of market relations. In other cases
relationships do not give the potential for additional value and the exchange between seller and buyer continues to be a
transaction.
The micro-foundations of value are searched in the social psychology of these experiences and how they build the value.
The paper suggests the need for radical re-focusing of business practices, by proposing a conceptual model based on the macro-
foundations of value.
ABSTRACT
Article 12
![Philipson, S. (2022). Value – The “Atom” of the Economy – A Conceptual Model of a New Approach for Marketing, Journal of Applied Business and Economics, 24(5) [online]](index_htm_files/3664.png)
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_101-13_220831-00
This conceptual paper traces the history of production from simple offerings, with the logic of a product structure to a virtual
structure, then how components are outsourced in a supply chain. In Wintelism, individual functions, within a product
architecture and specified interfaces, are outsourced. Focal firms view the value chain as an ecosystem to optimize value.
Destructive innovation re-structs and destructs ecosystems that are outperformed by eco-systems providing new offerings.
Fundamental destructive innovations disrupt the very way production is made, the mode of production, replacing it by another.
This paper raises the question if we are close to such a fundamental disruption.
ABSTRACT
Article 13
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_102-00_220908-02
Inspirational lectures for kick offs, top management team, or teams more directly involved in innovation.
The consultancy services are in the same fields as the inspirational lectures, giving teams the chance to
work hands-on with the issues involved, in order to improve performance.
I am also offering to participate as board member in innovation-intensive companies. I have previously
been board member of two smaller listed companies and some 20 SMEs.
Consultancy based on extensive industry and research experience
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_1021-00_220901-00
To introduce important issues for your management team, a team of engineers, or a
team of product developers, inspirational lectures can be a good starting point.
We give such lectures, in areas where we have both practical and research expertise.
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_10211-00_220901-00
Both business model innovation and new product innovation is based on new
knowledge, new knowledge that competitors don’t have. How is such knowledge
created? Such knowledge creation is a necessary precondition for development and
implementation of new business models and new products. Management theory
generally has a very simplistic understanding of these issues. We give practical and
theoretical examples and structure for the understanding of new knowledge creation.
How is new knowledge created and why is it important?
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_10212-00_220901-00
Organizing innovation is not trivial. New product innovation teams need to be
consciously recruited, educated and trained, regarding to experience, competence
and attitude. They must be given the necessary work conditions and support.
Management must facilitate their work.
Organizing innovation
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_10213-00_220908-02
Many managers mistakenly have the idea that shop-floor workers cannot contribute
to innovation. This is not correct and if properly motivated workers can make
important contribution to products and processes. But it requires a change in
leadership style, both from top management, production managers, and engineers.
The lecture can be given at kick-offs, for top management teams, for engineering
teams, workers’ representatives or other groups involved in innovation.
Shop-floor workers; an underused resource for innovation
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_1022-00_220908-00
I offer focused hands-on consulting to improve performance in business model
innovation and new product innovation. Apart from being researcher in the field, I
have almost 25 years of experience as a consultant and senior executive, working
with such issues in as diverse environments as engineering, publishing, and telecom.
Consulting based on extensive industrial and research experience.
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_10221-00_220908-02
I have extensive experience of working with innovation in engineering, media,
and telecom and as a researcher of innovation.
I offer, coaching, hands-on advice and management for hire, in order to improve
the organization and outcome of your innovation work.
Consultancy for developing the organization of innovation
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_1023-00_220908-02
Based on my industrial experience of innovation (Engineering, media, and telecom) and my research on
different aspects of innovation, I am a resource in your board, I have been on the board of two smaller,
listed companies and some 20 SMEs.
Do you need a new board member, who can help you with innovation?
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_103-00_220907-02
I have been academic leader, researcher, and teacher for 25 years and have also extensive industry
experience. Here you find my proposals to assist universities with programme and course development
and three ready-made courses, 7,5 ects, the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System, credits,
which can be plugged into any master programme. I also offer the examination and supervising of
theses.
Professional services to universities
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_1031-00_220907-02
I offer to examine bachelor and master theses, online or at campus
Examiner for hire
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_1032-00_220905-02
With extensive industry, research, and teaching experience I can give
perspectives to the students. I have tutored some 600 bachelor and
200 master theses and reviewed some 100 scientific articles, rich
experience translated into tangible concrete tutoring.
Supervising of bachelor, master and doctor theses.
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_1033-00_220901-00
7,5 ects credit master courses, with syllabus, and me as an experienced teacher.
You can plug them in into any programme
in business administration. I take care
of all teaching and examination or
integrate or develop specific
moments that you want to add.
Three courses, ready to plug-in in your master program
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_10331-00_220907-02
I have 25 years of industry experience, to a large extent working with innovation.
Innovation is also my primary research area, with 9 articles published in scientific
journals. I have developed a master course in innovation; now offered as a plug-in
module to your programme, complete with teaching and examination. The syllabus
of the course is offered on request.
A master course in Innovation, 7,5 ects credits, with a built-in course
in writing the theory chapter of the future thesis; ready to plug-in
into your master programme.
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_10332-00_220901-00
I have been teaching marketing theory on master’s level for almost 20 years. I have
developed a master course in marketing theory; now offered as a plug-in module to
your programme, complete with teaching and examination. The syllabus of the
course is offered on request.
A master course in Marketing Theory, 7,5 ects credits, with a built-in
course in writing the theory chapter of the future thesis; ready to
plug-in into your master programme.
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_10333-00_220907-02
I have examined or tutored some 600 bachelor theses and 200 master theses. I Have
reviewed some 100 articles for scientific journals.
Apart from lectures, the students will write several texts, on which detailed
feedback is given.
Plug-in course, 7,5 ects credits, in thesis writing for master students.
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_1034-00_220901-00
I have been academic leader and have created an integrated one-
and two-year master programme, two bachelor programmes,
and co-created an integrated bachelor and one-year master
programme, and more than 30 courses.
Consultancy in program building
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_104-00_220906-02
I have 25 years of experience as university and as such a rich experience of developing programmes
and courses and then driving these. I have examined or tutored some 600 bachelor theses and 200
master theses. I have also developed university pedagogics for business administration. What I
propose here are courses that are preparatory, which will help you to excel; both in your studies and
indirectly to get the job you want.
These are preparatory courses that help you to excel in your studies.
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_1041-00_220901-00
I offer two preparatory courses, one in thesis writing and one in informal thesis
coaching.
Two preparatory courses each for the master and bachelor level
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_10411-00_220901-00
My experience is that many universities presume that you can write your thesis
and will not actually give any course on how this is done. This course will give
hands on understanding on how to actually do it and also the background for
understanding why you should do it in this way.
Thesis writing
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_10412-00_220901-00
Usually when writing a thesis, you have the assistance of a teacher at your
university, but sometimes the relation with the tutoring teacher does not function,
or she/he are not enough engaged in the task, or again your ambitions are higher
than what the help from your university seems to give you possibility to reach. I
will help you to realize those ambitions, by being a shadow supervisor.
Informal thesis coaching, feedback, and timely advice on how to
improve your thesis
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_1042-00_220906-02
I am not a university. You will not get university
credits by these courses. The courses are developed
to help you with your thesis writing.
Sarah Philipson, Associate Professor Emerita
SPi0_1043-00_220906-02
“Many thanks for a fantastic course and your strong ambition and willingness to help. Itis evident that you
are knowledgeable and know the subject. Clearly the best course... Daniel
“it is a rare opportunity to have learned under you.” Sandra
“Thank you so much for your advice, guidance and support!” Mehadi
“It was nice to have you as professor.” Philipp
“I am very satisfied with the course and Sarah's motivation to guide us when you are stuck. It is evident
that she put in much time in the feedback on our papers, we got clear instructions what needs to be
changed and how to write on high academic level. I have learned by my mistakes and improved with each
paper, for which I am incredibly thankful. it was easy to communicate with Sarah through mail, you often
got an answer in 5-10 minutes, independently on the hour of the day, which is much appreciated. The
course had a clear structure. it was also good that we had to make opposition on each other's papers and
present before the class. You also got clear instructions for how to improve your presentation skills. I
learned skills that I can use in work life. Very good and instructive lectures that were relevant for the
course.” Anonymous
“Best professor ever I have been taught by.
Sarah Philipson is one of the best course instructors I have ever met at university of Gävle. It was a very
good semester with her.
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One of the best teachers I have ever met in my life. I learned a lot. This js really help me to develop
myself in future research... Thanks for given us a tremendous opportunity. I would like that she will take
another course for us. Thanks.
The course is well structured and gives you a lot of valuable information.” Diverse anonymous
comments
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