In 2015 the RiseB thesis prize was awarded for the second time (for theses written in 2014). Eight theses that were in compliance with the rules were nominated from universities and business schools all over Sweden. The prize is a scholarship of 25 000 SEK which is financed by Umeå Energi.
2015 Prize winners
The RiseB thesis prize in 2015 was awarded to Katarina Werder och Klaudia Wojtkowiak for the master thesis Decision Making in a Sustainable City: A Case Study of Chicago.
Award motivation
The winning essay of Werder and Wojtkowiak is theoretically and empirically ambitious with a developed framework for understanding and developing urban sustainability initiatives. The thesis shows the challenges with urbanization from a sustainability perspective and the traps that policy makers may fall into when the marketing of city brands go before the radical and necessary changes. It is a well-timed, readable thesis which should be studied by regions and cities with genuine sustainability ambitions.
The authors have written the thesis at the the department of business administration, School of Economics and Management at Lund University and were tutored by Tomas Kalling. The thesis is available here.
Two theses received honorable mentions for 2015. The first on was for the thesis by Anders Reje and Elena Dreger: Marketing Sustainability in Charter Tourism: The Influence of Brands, Eco-Labels and their Combination on the Swedish Charter Tourist´s Decision Making. The thesis was written at department of Business administration at Umeå School of Business and Economics, Umeå University and was supervised by Vladimir Vanyushyn. The thesis is available here.
The second honorable mention was to the thesis by Francesca Martinelli and Konstantinos Psychogyios: CSR reporting as a signal of good management: Do investors really care? This thesis was written at Stocholm School of Economics and was tutored by Kenth Skogsvik. The thesis is available here.
The jury for the 2015 thesis price included: Associate Professor Johan Jansson, RiseB, Umeå School of Business and Economics, Professor Lars Hassel, Vice Chancellor, Umeå School of Business and Economics, Professor Tommy Jensen, Stockholm University, HR Manager Mari-Louise Johansson, Umeå Energi, Operations Manager Marianne Bogle, CSR Sweden.
The RiseB essay prize was awarded at the Umeå School of Business and Economics graduation ceremony on June 5, 2015 (World Environment Day).
