Aaltodoc

Aaltodoc is the institutional repository of Aalto University.

Aaltodoc has a new updated appearance. Instructions for searching and more information is available here.

Otakaari 1 grandhall. Photo: Esa KapilaPhoto by Esa Kapila

Communities in Aaltodoc

Select a community to browse its collections.

Now showing 1 - 13 of 13

Recent Submissions

  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type:Item,
    Heterogeneous Labour Market Effects of the Electricity Price Crisis — Evidence from Finnish Municipalities
    (2026-04-20) Ylimäki, Lauri
    School of Business | Master's thesis
    This thesis examines whether the electricity price crisis of 2022–2023 generated heterogeneous local labour market outcomes in Finland depending on municipalities’ pre-crisis industrial electricity intensity. Using monthly municipality-level panel data, the analysis applies a difference-in-differences framework with a continuous treatment variable. Local exposure is measured by two alternative pre-crisis electricity intensity indices constructed from industry-level electricity use, value added, and municipal industrial composition. The suggestive evidence indicate that municipalities with higher electricity intensity experienced more adverse labour market developments during the crisis period, especially in the form of higher unemployment and a sharper decline in new vacancies. Evidence for increased furloughing is weaker, and no robust effects are found for reduced working time. Because the empirical design faces several limitations, the estimates should not be interpreted as causal effects. Most importantly, the strongest statistically significant results are only found with the crisis-specified time span. Besides, due to the lack of firm- or industry-level cost structure data, I have to use electricity intensity indices derived from averaged industry-level electricity usage data, which introduces the risk of a measurement error. In addition, the conducted robustness checks highlight that based on this thesis causal claims cannot be made. Instead, this thesis provides suggestive evidence that local industrial composition may have shaped the labour market consequences of the crisis. This thesis provides new suggestive evidence on the regional labour market effects of electricity price crisis in Finland and on the relevance of local exposure heterogeneity. I also provide suggestive evidence on the heterogeneous effects between four alternative labour market adjustment mechanisms. The results of this thesis provide motivation for further research to establish causal effects.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type:Item,
    Do Parental Backgrounds Shape the Returns to Education in Finland?
    (2026-04-27) Kärkkäinen, Pietari
    School of Business | Master's thesis
    This thesis studies whether parental background shapes the returns to education in the Finnish labor market. Although the Finnish education system has low direct financial barriers to entry, this study examines whether parental influence and socioeconomic origin influence the realised labor market value of a degree. The thesis combines a review of international literature and a descriptive empirical analysis. In the literature review, the thesis sets the scene by discussing the Finnish institutional context, including the education system, the student aid system and the labor market. The paper also discusses varying theoretical mechanisms behind heterogeneous returns found in previous studies, such as dynamic complementarity and negative selection. The empirical analysis utilises cross-sectional data from the European Social Survey (ESS) between 2010-2018, focusing on a sample of Finnish 30-65-year-olds. The study uses cross-tabulation and regression to descriptively estimate educational wage premiums, with highest parental education as a proxy for socioeconomic background. The results reveal notable intergenerational sorting in who obtains a higher education degree, but indicate that a degree functions as an equalising mechanism for earnings in the labor market. The study finds that more educated parental backgrounds tend to correlate with a higher monetary floor at lower educational levels, but also that disadvantaged parental backgrounds are associated with the most substantial educational wage premiums. The reduction in the intergenerational earnings gap observed at the highest academic levels provides descriptive evidence consistent with the negative selection hypothesis.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type:Item,
    Greenfield Foreign Direct Investment and employment outcomes in conflict-affected African countries
    (2026-04-26) Takala, Hilja-Maria
    School of Business | Master's thesis
    This thesis investigates whether exposure to greenfield foreign direct investment (FDI) increases employment probability and stability in conflict-affected African countries, and whether local conflict exposure affects these relationships. I combine individual-level employment data from 1,202,929 household survey respondents with 7,511 georeferenced FDI projects and 225,385 conflict events over 2003-2019 across 20 African countries. Through using OLS with district and year fixed effects, I find that moving from zero to mean FDI exposure is associated with a 0.43 percentage point increase in the probability of current employment and a 2 percentage point increase in the probability of year-round employment among those working. Sectoral analysis reveals that these effects may operate primarily through indirect demand channels, shifting workers out of agricultural work and into sales and services. Interacting FDI exposure with conflict intensity shows that the employment return to FDI is lower in district-years with higher conflict exposure, zeroing out at approximately 26 cumulative fatalities over three years. The attenuation operates asymmetrically, as conflict dampens the employment probability return to FDI while leaving employment stability intact, consistent with sunk costs insulating existing employment relationships from conflict pressure. A leave-one-country-out sensitivity analysis confirms that the positive employment effect is stable across all twenty country subsamples. To my knowledge, these findings provide the first individual-level, geocoded evidence on the employment effects of greenfield FDI in conflict-affected African countries.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type:Item,
    “The Only Certainty Here is Change” – How Employees Make Sense of and Respond to Working in a Hypergrowth Environment
    (2026-04-26) Turunen, Sanni
    School of Business | Master's thesis
    Rapid organizational growth creates continuous change, ambiguity, and evolving work structures that shape the internal dynamics of an organization. While employee sensemaking and responses to organizational change have been widely studied, research on these processes in high-growth work environments remains limited. The objective of this study is to address this gap by examining how employees make sense of and respond to working in a hypergrowth organization characterized by continuous organizational change. As hypergrowth introduces ambiguity and uncertainty through rapid expansion, evolving structures, and on-going transformation, it is likely to trigger employee sensemaking processes and influence how employees respond in practice. Therefore, the study draws on sensemaking theory and research on employee responses to organizational change. The study adopts a qualitative single case study approach, focusing on how employees interpret changes in their work, roles, and organizational environment in a multinational technology company experiencing hypergrowth. The empirical data was collected through thematic interviews with employees of the case company and analyzed with thematic analysis, using the Gioia methodology to structure observations. The findings show that employees make sense of hypergrowth primarily as a normalized and expected feature of organizational life rather than a discrete disruption. Work is understood as a combination of the flexibility of a startup and increasing corporate structures, where processes are constantly evolving and often remain unfinished. Employees cognitively accept change as inevitable and describe their roles as shifting from actively influencing organizational change toward adapting to the environment. Although this development reduces perceived autonomy, it is generally interpreted as a natural part of growth and does not result in visible resistance. At the same time, employee responses are characterized by ambivalence, as hypergrowth is experienced both as an opportunity for learning and career development and as a source of uncertainty and exhaustion. The findings indicate that even in the face of an extreme change situation, sensemaking functions as a stabilizing mechanism that helps employees develop interpretations enabling them to navigate the evolving work environment associated with rapid organizational growth. The study contributes to the existing sensemaking literature by deepening the understanding of how employees construct meaning and navigate in continuous organizational change. At the same time, it offers practical insights for managers on how to support and sustain successful hypergrowth.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type:Item,
    Item-level risk analysis in procurement practices
    (2026-04-27) Gheorghiu, Vlad
    School of Business | Master's thesis
    Procurement risk management has become increasingly critical in contemporary procurement operations due to growing complexity and vulnerability. Traditional approaches focus on supplier-level and logistical risks, while the literature often overlooks material-specific vulnerabilities that can affect operational performance, particularly in large manufacturing environments with extensive material portfolios. This thesis addresses this gap in the literature by developing a data-driven item-level framework, which identifies and assesses procurement risks by answering two research questions. The first question focuses on identifying the most important risk factors at the item level in direct procurement operations. The second question examines how to systematically integrate qualitative expert judgments and quantitative data into an item-level risk assessment framework. By shifting the focus to the item-level the thesis aims to provide visibility into risk exposure and support precise decision-making. To achieve this, the item-level risk framework combines the Delphi Method, the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), and operational data, while also facilitating a what-if analysis by modifying the final weights of the validated risk factors. As organization-specific risk profiles are unique, expert judgements through Delphi and AHP are needed to validate risk factors, their risk scores, and their corresponding weights. The framework outputs a comparable item-level risk score and a ranked list for supporting procurement prioritisation. Broadly, the thesis illustrates how combining qualitative and quantitative data enhances transparency. The results also demonstrate that procurement risks are cumulative and inherently multi-dimensional as multiple moderate risks can potentially accumulate into a higher overall risk exposure than isolated extreme risks. This supports a more effective prioritization of high-risk materials. Overall, the findings indicate that focusing on single KPIs can overlook critical materials, as cumulative exposure across several dimensions can drive high risk even when no single risk indicator is at an extreme level.