Gen Z, born between the mid-1990s and late-2000s, has unique workplace behaviours and expectations due to their upbringing in the digital age. This generation often lacks real-world work experience and necessary communication skills which can often lead to unrealistic job expectations and higher susceptibility to mental health issues. As a result, there is a considerable loss of human resources in the workplace which can be circumvented with better management of the Gen Z cohort. Adopting a growth mindset can help the Gen Z cohort navigate their issues in the modern workplace. Prevailing research on the application of mindset theory in the workplace posits a growth mindset helps sustain strong mental health in a hectic and stressful workplace. Consequently, a culture of growth mindset improves the productivity and leadership qualities of the employees.

This research investigates the extent of influence the growth mindset has on Gen Z employee attitude as well as the potential pitfalls of adopting such a mindset in the workplace. The study aims to investigate how mindset can impact the attitude of Gen Z individuals in the workplace, specifically focusing on their approach to challenges, preferences for work compensation, and levels of satisfaction. The study proposes that Gen Z employees with a growth mindset are more likely to take on challenging tasks and place greater importance on skill development in their compensation preferences. Additionally, the study anticipates that behavioural inhibition system (BIS) and behavioural approach system (BAS) personality traits will moderate the attitude and preference changes due to mindset adoption. To measure the effects of mindset interventions, the research utilizes a PreTest-PostTest experimental design to assess task choices, work compensation preferences, and satisfaction.

The results of the study reveal that participants with a growth mindset were significantly more likely to choose challenging tasks, aligning with mindset theory. However, the lack of significant change in skill development preferences underscores the challenge of fostering a genuine growth mindset. The interaction of mindset and BIS/BAS traits indicated complex underlying dynamics.

In conclusion, the study finds that promoting a growth mindset among Gen Z employees can positively impact their engagement with challenging tasks and overall satisfaction in the workplace. However, achieving a genuine growth mindset requires addressing both internal motivations and external compensation structures. The study acknowledges limitations, such as the small sample size and potential biases, and suggests further research to explore the interaction between mindset and BIS/BAS personality traits in more depth. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of Gen Z's unique needs and preferences, offering valuable insights for developing effective management strategies tailored to this new generation of employees.

One of the biggest challenges start-ups encounter is establishing themselves within the market. A widely recognized contributing factor to increasing chances of outrunning competition, is the implementation of a branding strategy with the purpose of creating a strong brand identity. Whether investing in developing a brand identity is profitable, depends on the brand relevance of a company. Brand relevance is the level of the overall role of brands in customers’ decision-making. Business-to-business start-ups have access to limited resources, hence it is important to them to only invest in creating a brand identity, when their level of brand relevance shows that this would be profitable.

The current exploratory research combined a desk research and a qualitative panel study to gain insight into the presence of an association between the two, as well as which factors are considerd to be of influence to the perceived brand identity.
Using a desk research, the level of brand relevance for a total of 30 start-ups related to the Delft Technical University was determined. Next, a focus group was hosted to gain insight into which factors are considered to be important to the perceived brand identity of B2B start-ups. Four overarching aspects were indicated: brand personality, corporate visual identity, clarity of the product/service and its relevance, and clarity of the competitive advantage. Furthermore, the current research aimed to investigate whether an association between the level of brand relevance of B2B technology-based start-ups and perceived brand identity was present. The results of the focus group were used to test whether this association was present. In the scope of this research however, no association was found.

The research provides start-up entrepreneurs with hands-on tips on which factors influence their perceived brand identity which makes it managerial relevant. The academical relevance can mainly be found in recommendation for future research, since this should show whether the absence of an indicated association between brand relevance and brand identity, can be explained by the absence of awareness among B2B technology-based start-ups.

Enhancing women’s negotiation performance has shown to be a complex task as existing stereotypes diminish the effectiveness of traditional negotiation strategies and traditional means for negotiation training lack accessibility and scalability. To target these issues, this research investigates to what extent Negotiation Support Systems (NSS) can be leveraged to teach Strategic Empathy - a recently introduced negotiation strategy - to women and whether this can improve their negotiation performance. In specific, the effect of teaching Strategic Empathy by means of NSS was tested with respect to enhancing women’s main performance barriers: i) low self-efficacy, and ii) a lack of persistence. Based on a literature review, a tutoring system that integrated Strategic Empathy was developed and tested through the online experiment. The findings provided strong evidence on the effectiveness of using a NSS to teach Strategic Empathy. Women revealed significantly higher levels of perspective-taking and their understanding and use of Strategic Empathy was shown to increase over time. Also, a significant positive effect was found of Strategic Empathy on women’s self-efficacy. No significant positive effect was found of Strategic Empathy on persistence. The high cognitive load of the experiment and a lack of intrinsic motivation were suggested as potential causes for this finding.
Overall, this work demonstrates the applicability of using NSS to teach Strategic Empathy and its effectiveness for enhancing women’s self-efficacy in salary negotiations. By doing so, it contributes towards a solution to decrease the gender difference in negotiation performance. Moreover, it provides directions for future research as studies can build further on enhancing the system and experimental design, and deepening the understanding of the relationships between Strategic Empathy, confidence, and persistence.

Modern society is highly dependent on the reliable supply of affordable electricity. To ensure a sustainable future, this energy should be derived from renewable generation systems. The intermittent output of such systems makes it hard to maintain the so-called grid balance, which can lead to the malfunctioning of the current power grid. Adding electrical storage applications to the electrical energy infrastructure is increasingly mentioned as a viable and even instrumental solution, but no stakeholder seems willing to act. This research combines PESTLE analysis with Q-methodology to investigate and describe the variables that influence this situation. In doing so, it lists the institutional factors that are presently deemed by various stakeholders to be either opportunities or barriers to implementing a system to maintain grid balance in the Dutch electrical infrastructure. A tentative conceptual modal is proposed to illustrate the mutual influence of the perceived external forces that could induce change in the Dutch electricity sector.

Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) is a new mobility concept that allows users to plan, book and pay for a multimodal and seamless trip in a single application. Real-life examples of MaaS propositions are still scarce and most have not left a trial or pilot phase. The MaaS-team of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (IenW) wants to steer the development of the nascent MaaS market in the Netherlands and make MaaS have a sustainable impact. To this end, the MaaS-team has set up a framework agreement and seven national pilots. Within this context potential business models for MaaS proposition and their sustainability have been investigated. Through academic literature, a conceptual model is created to guide data gathering and analysis. Thirteen anonymous MaaS Service Providers (MSPs) are interviewed in semi-structured interviews from which the qualitative data is analysed through open coding. This yielded a range of target customers, value propositions and revenue and pricing models as well as results on how MSPs interact with transport operators and how they implement key functionalities. Analysis shows there is no strong business model for consumers yet. Business models aimed at the government, employers, other MSPs and other businesses seem much stronger. Additionally, business models for MaaS seem overly reliant on kickback fees. To judge whether business models for MaaS that are currently being developed are sustainable, these business models were investigated for their ability to both create and capture sustainable value. The business models are less ecologically sustainable than MSPs think they are, with little over half being ecologically sustainable. Reversely, the business models were more socially sustainable than the MSPs thought they were, with about three-quarters being socially sustainable. There thus seems to be a disconnect between perceived and actual sustainability among MSPs. Nonetheless, all MaaS propositions offer the tools to make a sustainable impact if an outside actor is willing to pay for that, allowing the MSP to capture the created sustainable value. Based on these findings the conceptual model was revised, policy and managerial recommendations are made and implications for the literature is discussed. Finally, the limitations to this research are discussed and future avenues for research are presented.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize many industries across the world. However, artificial intelligence systems raise a series of ethical challenges that hamper their sustainable development. These challenges have often been discussed from a philosophical or theoretical perspective, but rarely from the more practical perspective of businesses. The lack of such a perspective for the ICT-sector in the Netherlands has formed a barrier to develop adequate ethical governance mechanisms. Specifically, the scarcity of practical data of ethical challenges and governance of business in the industry has made it difficult to establish the quality of the current code of ethics for the industry and the need for additional ethical governance measures. This research provides a descriptive study of ethical challenges and ethical governance of AI for ICT-businesses in the Netherlands. A form of mixed methodology (i.e., the exploratory sequential method) combines literature, interviews, and a questionnaire to acquire the relevant data. The results of these three methods are triangulated to identify room for improvement in the current code of ethics and identify the need for additional governance measures. Explainability, fairness, safety, and privacy were identified as the most pressing ethical challenges for businesses in the industry. This research also found that the first three of these challenges are currently insufficiently addressed in the code of ethics for the ICT-industry. Moreover, this study found a significantly low level of ethical governance of AI among small and medium-sized enterprises as compared to large companies. Future research should focus on further normative argumentation on principles for explainability, fairness, and safety to improve the code of ethics. Furthermore, this work lays the basis for researching and developing different concrete ethical governance measures of AI for the industry, especially for SMEs.

Emotions and moral values have gained attention in recent researches in philosophy and ethics of engineering. This is due to its usefulness in assessing the technological risks imposed towards its user or society. Furthermore, moral emotions assist in reflection of moral values and research stress upon involving emotions in design practices. Moreover, researchers argue that engineers are the people who spend the most time with the development of technology. Thus, they must consider their emotions to influence moral values to mitigate risks that are associated with the technology. However, to what extent this prevails among engineers was not clear. Thus, through the use of semi-structured interviews with software engineers, this exploratory research shows the underwhelming role of moral emotions among engineers. The findings also showcase the perception of software engineers towards the involvement of moral values as something insignificant in the design practices. Lastly, this research recommends acknowledging the emotional responses of engineers by the management, training engineers as virtue ethicists and encouraging imaginative capacities and drawing attention to values for engineers during engineering design phases.

This study was initiated with a view to understand factors that either aids or presents a barrier towards the adoption of a radically new public transport mode, Hyperloop. The initial promises of Hyperloop include a faster, cheaper, sustainable and efficient mode of transport compared to the existing public transport mode alternatives. However, the technology is largely conceptual and hasn’t been realized yet for commercial operations. Thus, it was found through literature review, that it was important to first study the perceptions on the development of Hyperloop. Also, since Hyperloop development would be of a multi-stakeholder nature, due to the extensive urban landscape and infrastructure changes, it is important to incorporate and/or address the concerns and incentives of every stakeholder involved. Furthermore, large scale infrastructural projects similar to Hyperloop, such as high Speed Rail have faced opposition from the public due to lack of general awareness. This research thus aimed to explore the existing perceptions on the development of Hyperloop, with a view to recommend an inclusive nature of development as well as policy design.
To identify these perspectives the ‘Political Economy Model for Transport Innovations’ was used as a framework. Since existing literature of Product Development relevance of Hyperloop was limited at the time of the initiation of this study, the model was used to interview experts and stakeholders involved in the industrial development of Hyperloop to generate additional content and statements on Hyperloop. A limited set of 25 statements were then presented to a limited set of respondents to identify the patterns of perspectives on Hyperloop.
The study was conducted in the Netherlands with a sample respondent size of 32 participants. To identify perceptions among these respondents, Q-methodology was used. Q-methodology helps in statistical derivation of subjectivity. It also helps the research identify broad patterns of subjective biases compared to the traditional qualitative analysis or R-factor analysis. Through this study 4 distinct perceptions were interpreted. The first perspective is that the public would support research and development on Hyperloop, with a view to either fully realise or help in positive knowledge spill over for adjacent technologies. The second perception interpreted was that the public would rather spend the resources on the development of current existing transport modes to achieve the objectives of Hyperloop. The third perception interpreted was that the public would fully support the implementation of Hyperloop. The fourth perception identifies the skepticism in the full commercial realization of Hyperloop.
Through this study it was found that there is a healthy balance between positive and negative perceptions on the development of Hyperloop. Thus it is required to include the public as a primary stakeholder in its development. This could be enabled by a transparent flow of communication between all the stakeholders via a platform. The study also advocates the use of marketing the technology via subtle measures such as ‘nudging’.

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are considered an important contribution to the global task of creating a greener society as it allows for the benefits of commuting to sustain, without the consequence of pollution. Consequently, central and local governments across the globe are attempting to spark the diffusion of BEVs through various measures such as financial incentives, developing charging networks or other distinctive benefits. In this process, understanding and exploring the factors which affect consumers to transition from Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles (ICEVs) to BEVs is essential for the salient actors attempting to increase the adoption rates. In this thesis, we aim to add to this branch of BEV research by investigating the factors influencing consumers’ adoption intention of BEVs while introducing the element of consumers’ BEV knowledge and familiarity. To analyse these effects, a conceptual structural model based on an extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was developed and analysed. The conceptual model involved a total of eight variables: Consumer’s knowledge, risk perception, perceived usefulness, attitude towards BEVs, BEV incentives, incentive awareness, intention to adopt a BEV, and the side-by-side comparison to ICEVs as a vehicle alternative. The model was then empirically tested through an extensive questionnaire survey involving data from 266 consumers in the BEV pioneer Norway. To collect this data, the researcher utilized a combination of snow-ball and convenience sampling where the survey was spread through online platforms. Further, the data was analysed through Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) in the software IBM SPSS AMOS to determine the validity of the conceptual model as well as the effect among the variables. To evaluate the results, a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed. The results of this analysis indicated that the conceptual model was a good fit despite its complexity. In regard to consumer’s knowledge, the analysis indicated that there was a strong and significant total effect on the adoption intention of BEVs. More specifically, knowledge functioned as a strong predictor through mediating effects of increased perceived usefulness, improved attitude and reduced risk perception related to BEVs. In addition, Knowledge was found to have a strong and significant positive total effect on the mentioned side-by-side “comparison to ICEVs” variable. Further, through a separate regression analysis, the results also revealed the knowledge variables was found to have an explained variance of .3 in regard to the “intention to adopt” variable. This was significantly higher than any other variable in the analysis. Further, the analysis showed that perceived risks could be a considerable psychological barrier against accepting and adopting BEVs. This barrier, however, was significantly reduced in accordance with increasing levels of consumers’ BEV knowledge. Lastly among the SEM key findings, attitude towards BEVs was found to have the strongest direct effect on adoption intention in the model. A variable which again was found to be strongly positively influenced by consumer’s knowledge about the vehicles. The descriptive statistics of the analysis also found noteworthy characteristics in the sample population. For instance, the data revealed that the average knowledge and familiarity levels among the population were as high as 5.82 on the 7-point Likert scale used in the survey research. In combination with the discovered effect of knowledge (on “intention to adopt” and “comparison to ICEV”), this finding could indicate that high levels of BEV knowledge might be an important contributor to Norway’s disproportionately large adoption rates compared to that of other salient actors. One should be cautious, however, to draw this conclusion without performing a similar study in a comparable setting and location. Further, the statistics revealed an average score of 6.29/7 on the variable measuring the awareness of the government incentives in Norway. This is another strong sign that the country has succeeded in spreading information on the topic among its population. Another interesting finding in this regard was the low satisfaction levels with the Norwegian charging networks. With an average score of 3.62/7 (SD=1.57) among the sample, it is clear that a large part of the respondents are dissatisfied with the charging infrastructure. However, the low satisfaction levels do not seem to have a large impact on the intention to adopt BEVs as there was found no significant effect among these variables. A demographic regression analysis with the independent variables of gender, age and education on the dependent variable “intention to adopt” was also performed. This revealed that both gender and education had a small, yet significant effect on the dependent variable where men and high education was associated with higher adoption intentions. Age, on the other hand, had no significant effect. In sum, the main takeaway from this study is that consumers’ knowledge of BEVs should be taken into consideration when attempting to manage the adoption of the "green vehicles". Norway has succeeded in diffusing knowledge of BEVs and fiscal incentives within its population, and this might be part of the explanation for their disproportionally large adoption rates compared to other salient actors. The recommendation based on the results in this research is therefore that governments aiming to substitute ICEVs with BEVs should take measures to spread information and educate potential adopters on BEVs and its technology. Achieving this would improve the overall attitude towards BEVs, increase the perceived usefulness and limit the existing risk barriers. In turn, this would increase consumers’ willingness to adopt BEVs and contribute to the global task of creating a greener society.

Information Technology [IT] is increasingly being integrated into the modern society. Novel IT solutions are Cloud based. Cloud solutions from Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS are examples of services which offer the benefits of cloud computing. For IT providers, leveraging novel IT artefacts may require the development of a new service model. IT services enable new service delivery models and have the ability to disrupt whole industries. Spotify, Airbnb, and Uber are examples of successful businesses using IT driven service models. The academic community researches aspects of IT governance, frameworks, architecture, and business model innovation, management and organisational theories in order to develop a more successful IT service delivery model. The heterogeneous body of these academic theories addresses different parts of the service model development. However, current IT service delivery models lack sufficient support for contextualisation. In a case study at Dutch IT services provider KPN, Agent Based modelling is used to develop future scenario’s for the IT services organisation. With a strong focus on the organisation and the agents in the organisation, the Agent Based modelling approach OperA is applied. By Using semi-structured interviews to collect data throughout the services delivery chain, a future scenario with the IT broker as a new role was developed. Consequently, roles facilitating legacy platforms are expected to discontinue. From the future scenario, a roll-out plan using three phases is developed using the social structure of the organisation model. The environments of the OperA model enable the research to focus on the social structure of IT services delivery and the analysis of interactions between roles. The OperA model is a sufficient model for strategic decision making in IT services delivery. Further work could generate tools to fully automated the validation of the OperA model and connect it to real life phenomena with real time adaption to changes.