Prize for an essay on business scaling

Julia Lyxell Stålnacke and Ebba Karlsson have been awarded first prize for Sweden’s best essay by the Swedish Project Academy. The thesis was written as part of the Master of Science in Industrial Engineering and Management program.

In addition to the prize money of 10 000 SEK, the two winners will receive a certificate and the opportunity to record a podcast episode about their work, which the Swedish Project Academy will release. Julia Lyxell Stålnacke and Ebba Karlsson extend special thanks to their advisor, Johan Frishammar, Professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at Luleå University of Technology.

“It’s great that what we’ve been working on together for six months is generating interest and isn’t just going to sit in a desk drawer somewhere,” says Ebba Karlsson.

Both agree that working together has gone well and that they have complemented each other.

“I think it was good that we set a goal together right from the start about what we wanted to achieve with this project. Otherwise, there’s a risk in group work that people end up working in silos. It sounds cliché, but good communication really is the be-all and end-all.”

Non-technical challenges

The thesis itself focused on the non-technical challenges that arise when scaling up a so-called greenfield project. This type of project involves starting a project from scratch, without existing constraints or infrastructure. The opposite is a brownfield project, which involves upgrading or modifying existing systems, processes, infrastructure, or organisational structures.

– Non-technical challenges linked to scaling up, as well as methods for addressing them effectively, are already a hot research area. We therefore chose instead to focus on which challenges are being addressed and which ones fall through the cracks.

They based their work on a theory called the Attention-Based View, which, simply put, means that attention is a limited resource. This implies that only a selection of all identified challenges will receive attention. The question, therefore, is what happens to the challenges that are not addressed and how this affects scaling up.

“The most important contribution of our paper is that we have developed a framework that helps companies identify and prioritise non-technical challenges to ensure successful scaling,” says Julia Lyxell Stålnacke.

Clear trend

In the paper, they analyse non-technical challenges from three dimensions: organisation, finance, and market.

The results show a clear trend where organisational challenges emerge as the most critical. A common problem in organisations is that project participants want to develop the project in different directions, and that there are both formal and informal decision-makers. Formal decision-makers—that is, senior managers—can make more strategic decisions. Informal decision-makers make less operational decisions on a daily basis.

“When formal and informal decision-makers do not collaborate sufficiently, there is a risk that the non-technical challenges in a project will not receive the attention they deserve. It is therefore important that the various stakeholders communicate with one another so that they better understand each other’s perspectives and challenges.” Our framework helps project participants prioritise the right challenges at the right time, explains Ebba Karlsson.

Julia Lyxell Stålnacke is currently in a trainee program at NCC, while Ebba Karlsson works at the IT consulting firm Netlight. Both feel they have benefited greatly from the program, especially the essay project.

Learning teamwork

– Industrial Economics involves a lot of group work. It’s a really important experience for me since I work on various projects in my current job. You learn how to work with different people.

Ebba Karlsson agrees and adds:

– Another valuable aspect of the programme is that all our courses involve various forms of problem-solving, ranging from math and physics to tackling strategic challenges within an organisation.

The essay award is intended for students who have written an essay at the bachelor’s or master’s level that addresses issues relevant to projects, project management, and project-based operations.

The essays are evaluated by a jury consisting of representatives from both the business community and colleges/universities who are represented on the Academy’s research committee. Julia Lyxell Stålnacke and Ebba Karlsson share the 2026 prize with Alice Johansson and Minou Lardotter from Linköping University.

With the aim of actively initiating and supporting scientific research and the development of project knowledge and expertise, the Swedish Project Academy, the world’s first project academy, was founded in September 1994.

• Read the full essay.
• Learn more about the Master of Science in Industrial Economics