Browsing by Author "Biniari, Marina"

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  • Applying Lean Startup Approach in an Established Corporation: Study on Frictions
    (2016-06-07) Snirvi, Niko
     Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
    Entrepreneurship is one source of innovation in societies. Corporations tend to lose their original entrepreneurial spirit when they mature and establish supporting structures and systems. However, newly increasing competition requires them to re-enact entrepreneurship. Established firms create new ventures, seek renewal and innovation to answer the increased competition. These three acts are the different forms of corporate entrepreneurship. In this thesis, I study a team with entrepreneurial mandate in an established Finnish ICT company. The team operates with utilizing new entrepreneurial scripts Lean Startup and Growth Hacking. These two approaches are scripts of corporate entrepreneurship. In my study, I focus on the frictions between the focal team and other units. Studying frictions helps the firm to understand how to structure and potentially expand lean startup script. My evidence shows that the team with entrepreneurial mandate has two reasons for existence: experimenting and launching new products and services as well as experimenting lean startup in corporate environment. The frictions differ between these two layers. The degree of lean expertise, cultural dissonance and top-down enforcement of lean methods are frictions at experimenting lean layer. Daily operations are slowed down due environmental munificence and interfunctional collaboration. In addition, the design of the team with entrepreneurial mandate induces frictions to both these layers with insufficient systems, practices, and structures. This study suggests that entrepreneurial scripts could be expanded to other units of organization as well. The scripts have had a positive cultural impact on the firm and initial success with daily operations has increased employees´ interest towards entrepreneurial way of work. My results confirm the views of current literature around frictions and expansion of corporate entrepreneurship from "pockets" to wider groups. In addition, my study contributes to literature on lean startup approach, which is currently very limited especially in case of established corporations.
  • Change management professionals’ competences in eliciting change recipients’ commitment
    (2021-10-20) Haikonen, Iida
     Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
    The capability to effectively execute planned organizational change (POC) initiatives is a vital condition for companies. Yet, most change initiatives fail, significantly impacted by change recipients’ reactions to change. As a remedy, growing evidence indicates that personal change management (CM) competences of organizational professionals responsible for CM play a role in eliciting change recipients’ commitment and managing their resistance to change initiatives. A multitude of research streams has examined organizational change management and the related, required competences. However, academic understanding remains incomplete and incomprehensive regarding the concrete competences that organizational professionals responsible for change management need to enact their role, the contribution of these competences to certain outcomes, and the ways in which to apply them in practice. Therefore, the objective of this study is to provide a more exhaustive understanding of the CM competences required to manage change recipients’ reactions and to form a preliminary model of the relationship between these competences and their outcomes. The study aims to answer the following research question: How do change management professionals’ competences contribute to change recipients’ reactions to planned organizational change? The objective is pursued from the perspective of organizational professionals responsible for change management by employing three aims: 1) outlining the role of a CM professional, 2) identifying competences adopted to overcome the key CM challenges, and 3) describing the application and the outcomes of these competences in practice. This mixed-method inductive study is conducted iteratively in three phases: literature review, surveys, and semi-structured interviews. Overall, the central observation of the study emphasizes the significance of personal, interactive CM abilities in managing change reactions and achieving commitment to change. The key finding is that eliciting trust, establishing relationships, and building alignment mediate the achievement of commitment and that these mediators have a specific set of competences as prerequisites. The research offers several contributions. Theoretically, it deepens understanding of CM competences and yields novel theoretical knowledge exhaustively compiling previous theories and incorporating them with the empirical results. The practical contributions of the study promote organizational competence development and enhance CM on the grassroots-level.
  • Creation of temporal space in the phase of strategic change
    (2020-12-16) Oikari, Eemil
     Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
  • A critical review of motivational theories in context of corporate entrepreneurship
    (2017-09-15) Kokkola, Robert
     Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Bachelor's thesis
  • Dynamic capabilities for corporate sustainability in the digital services sector
    (2022-12-14) Nousiainen, Juho
     Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
  • Effective Intra-Organizational Collaboration: A Performance Management Perspective
    (2020-12-16) Poudrier Tremblay, Audrey
     Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
    Understanding factors that influence intrafirm coordination and collaboration is crucial for today’s complex organizations to succeed. This thesis explores the factors influencing intra-organizational collaboration as a mean to achieve coordination and its relationship with performance management, within a large multidivisional company. Building on the literature on coordination, collaboration, information sharing, trust and performance management, as well as on the specific literature on supply chains, the thesis provides a grounded theory model to understand the factors influencing intra-organizational collaboration in organizations and their relation to coordination. Further, the thesis examines the performance management measures that have an influence on intra-organizational collaboration. To study these phenomena empirically, a qualitative single-case study was conveyed using grounded theory principles. The case study aimed to understand the collaboration between two core functions of the case company’s supply chain, the sales companies and the supply operations. The collection of primary and secondary data included 20 interviews with 20 informants in identified roles, at different management levels. The Gioia methodology was applied in analyzing the data. The findings of the study indicate that the following factors influence intra-organizational collaboration: accurate expectations associated with roles, familiarity, having visibility of updated project information, achieving consensus and synchronization, goals and incentives alignment, transparency within a project, and trust development. The relationship between performance management and collaboration resides in goals and incentives alignment. The thesis provides four main practical recommendations for the case company: a) create a better understanding of the interdependences in the project as a key to bridging organizational boundaries, b) ensure that the optimization of full-chain costs is incentivized to contribute to collaboration between sales companies and supply units, c) enable the development of trust through the development of internal networks and interpersonal relationships, and d) design common performance measurements that are shared between different units or functions as a mean to align incentives and goals. This thesis brings two main theoretical contributions: a) the formalization of the relationship between performance management and intra-organizational collaboration through goals and incentives alignment, and b) the generalization of frameworks about inter-organizational collaboration to intra-organizational collaboration in the context the supply chain of a multidivisional company.
  • Everyday strategy making in action: Emergence of strategic options in asset management service development of an engineering company
    (2020-01-22) Mäki, Lasse
     Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
    Strategic options, defined as the alternative courses of action available for the strategic decision-making of the company, are a key component in corporate strategy making. This thesis explores the cognitive dynamics that influence the collective generation, development and validation of strategic options within a large, multidivisional company. The emergence process is analysed from social and cognitive perspectives to identify how strategic options are built in teams, how managers contribute to this process through their individual capabilities and how the diversity of managerial capabilities within the strategy team influences the process. Building on the literature on strategy making, strategic options, dynamic managerial capabilities, strategy-as-practice and strategy tools, the thesis provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the evolutionary process of how strategic options emerge in the corporate strategy system. To study the phenomenon empirically, a qualitative exploratory single-case study in a business development program of an engineering company is carried out. The collection of primary and secondary data also includes 14 interviews with 10 informants of various management levels participating in the emergence of strategic options, observation of practices and analysis of the company case material. In analysing the data, the Gioia methodology is applied. The findings of the study indicate that the generation, development and validation of strategic options is an iterative process between several organizational levels and employees acting in different change agency roles. Cognitive capabilities and organizational practices interact in building strategic options in a specific, temporal context that involves interpretations of the past, present and future of the company. When individuals make sense of the environment through their cognitive frames and build strategic options, they create learning effects that influence the further strategy making work. In terms of the theoretical significance, the thesis gives insight on understanding the context and evolutionary perspective of strategic options, linking cognitive capabilities to strategy making in a large, multidivisional company. Additionally, the thesis contributes to further analysis on temporal work relating to strategy making and analysing organizational learning in collective emergence of strategic options.
  • How can a Software as a Service (SaaS) company develop customer success processes to be a source of sustained performance?
    (2019-01-29) Hyysalo, Juho
     Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
    The Software as a Service (SaaS) business model has become one of the leading ways for operating in the software business sector in today’s world. Building a SaaS business that succeeds in the long term can be particularly challenging as most of the SaaS companies operate in high-velocity software industries where reaching sustained performance requires constant and rapid innovation. A core characteristic of the SaaS business model is its interdependence on customers both on the demand side in ensuring sales, but also on the supply side as a source of critical information for sustaining the fit of the business model to the external environment. Thus, business functions such as customer success that aims at giving customers their desired outcomes by adequately interacting with them can be vital for sustaining company performance. Traditionally, service providers tended to invest to support the demand side of their business model. However, it appears that it is equally vital for companies to utilise their customer success function’s customer interactions to support the company’s supply side to renew their routines and build new capabilities. Due to this, building a customer success function in a way that serves such a strategic purpose can be challenging for companies. In this thesis, I explore the challenges companies operating within the SaaS business model may encounter in designing their customer success function to foster their capability of reconfiguring their operational routines and organisational resources and thus sustain the company’s performance. I ground this inquiry within the theoretical framework of dynamic capabilities and its intersection with knowledge management. I contextualise the study in the case of a Finnish SaaS company that sought to develop a customer success function with the intention to sustain its long-term performance. I adopted the inductive research approach and used qualitative research methodology in a single case study of a Finnish SaaS company. The results of the study suggest that customer success business function can be developed to be a source of sustained performance in SaaS companies. The customer success function should act as an interface between the company and customers and allow the company to capture knowledge from the interactions with customers and integrate the customer knowledge into the company’s capabilities and learning processes. The study suggests that in this way the company can keep reconfiguring its routines, resources, and capabilities over time, and so remain innovative and ahead of its competitors. As a theoretical implication, the thesis further expands the Easterby-Smith and Prieto’s (2008) model of linking dynamic capabilities and knowledge management. In addition, concrete recommendations for developing customer success function in the case company are drawn from the empirical data.
  • How Can Top Management Best Support Corporate Entrepreneurship - A Cross-case Study on Finnish Medium-sized Companies
    (2018-03-14) Yli-Villamo, Jyri
     Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
    As the contemporary global business environment poses an ever-growing number of competitors, companies must build and sustain their competitive edge. Corporate entrepreneurship, as exemplified through employees’ entrepreneurial behavior within established companies, can offer a solution to this direction. However, companies often face separation of opinions with regards to the nature and anticipated outcomes of employees’ entrepreneurial behavior. This may complicate the development of appropriate mechanisms within the company to support corporate entrepreneurship. The importance of designing and implementing appropriate mechanisms to support corporate entrepreneurship has been long-studied by academics and puzzled managers. Building on this stream of literature, this thesis examines how separation of opinions regarding the perceived definition and anticipated outcomes of employees’ entrepreneurial behavior may inhibit the development of appropriate support mechanisms. Further, the thesis takes the first steps in examining what top management perceive as appropriate mechanisms to support employees’ entrepreneurial behavior, and what prevents them from implementing such mechanisms. The thesis addresses these research questions in the context of Finnish mid-sized companies. The selection of the empirical context is appropriate, as Finland ranks relatively high on the Employee Entrepreneurial Activity in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, while mid-sized companies provide a unique setting where resources are scarce, forcing choices to be made regarding the support mechanisms, as to what to support, and what not. Thus, a qualitative explorative cross-case study was performed, including five case companies from different industries. Altogether 21 interviews with top managers from case companies were conducted and a case study methodology was used to analyze the results. The theoretical contribution of this thesis focuses on revealing that separation of opinions regarding the definition of entrepreneurial behavior and its anticipated outcomes inhibits the appropriate configurations of support mechanisms for corporate entrepreneurship to be employed in companies. In detail, this study revealed that not all support mechanisms for corporate entrepreneurship, as suggested by the academic literature, are utilized in companies. This is because of how companies’ top management: a) perceives the nature of employees’ entrepreneurial behavior, and b) configures a set of appropriate support mechanisms to enact on that perception. For example, whereas time availability has been a well-established support mechanism of corporate entrepreneurship in contemporary literature, the sample companies’ management did not perceive it as an important factor contributing to entrepreneurial behavior in companies, because they perceived that for employees to be involved in such behavior no extra time was needed. In addition, the study revealed a series of support mechanisms that the companies’ top management acknowledged as important but could not employ due to risk aversion or resource constraints. Based on the findings of this thesis, a four-phased configurational model for top management to best support corporate entrepreneurship is suggested: 1) specify outcomes wanted from entrepreneurial behavior, 2) align top management vision around these outcomes, 3) decide specific support mechanisms and their importance, and 4) ensure the employees are aware and aligned with the vision. All these actions should be taken in relation to the company at hand, as individual company traits affect the value of support mechanisms in that specific company.
  • How does a Company’s Strategy-Making Process Adapt to High Uncertainty?
    (2021-05-19) Hellström, Niklas
     Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
  • How to create sources of sustained competitive advantage? A dynamic capabilities view to the case of an IT Professional Services company.
    (2022-08-24) Aatola, Jaakko
     Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
    In today’s competitive and fast developing business environment managers must constantly find ways to maintain their organization’s competitiveness. Existing literature has proposed the development of dynamic capabilities of sensing and seizing opportunities – i.e., capabilities that enable systematic acquisition and processing of relevant information outside of the organization and conversion of this processed information into new product, process or service innovations – as the means through which organizations can develop sustained competitive advantage. However, there is limited empirical work on how organizations can develop such capabilities. This thesis builds on prior literature on dynamic capabilities, professional services and knowledge management to explore how a knowledge intensive professional services organization can create sources of sustained competitive advantages by applying dynamic capabilities framework. An inductive case study method was chosen to conduct research of a relatively new theoretical frame and to provide practical examples to support further development of the theory. An extensive literature review was conducted to support the empirical part of the research. The primary data source consisted of six interviews with the case company’s managers and other relevant internal documents of the case company. By utilizing the organization’s existing view on factors that provide competitive advantage for the company, managers can build a base for identification and implementation of microfoundations of dynamic capabilities for sensing and seizing. Moderating factors in implementation and operating phase of the capabilities were identified. These include facilitating and supporting role of managers, management’s communication style, required individual capabilities from implementation and operation teams and situation specific tailoring of the identified processes. This thesis presents insights on practical nature of the microfoundations for sensing and seizing capabilities. Examples of microfoundations in areas of monitoring market trends, collaborating with suppliers and other partners, leading productization efforts and building loyalty and commitment behind new innovations among others are presented in a form of a case study. These examples add to the existing dynamic capabilities literature by offering concrete empirical evidence and examples of the theorized framework. This contributes to the currently limited amount of research on how organizations can develop dynamic capabilities in practice. Practical examples and identified moderating factors in implementation and operation of the dynamic capabilities provide tools for managers to build sources of sustained competitive advantage in practice.
  • Implementation intentions in the entrepreneurial process: concept, empirical findings, and research agenda
    (2018-12) Gelderen, Marco Van; Kautonen, Teemu; Wincent, Joakim; Biniari, Marina
     A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
    Prior studies find sizable gaps between entrepreneurial intentions and subsequent actions. We extend models of entrepreneurial intentions by drawing on action phase theory to better understand how entrepreneurial intentions translate into actions. Our study focuses on the effects of implementation intentions on taking entrepreneurial action. The analysis uses two waves of survey data on 422 individuals, from the Swedish general population, who had an explicit interest in starting a business and who reported on their actions 6 months later. We test and find support for a moderated mediation model in which implementation intentions mediate the effects of goal intentions on taking entrepreneurial action. We further find the mediated effect to be even stronger for those confirming a strong intention to start a new business. We provide an in-depth discussion of the concept of implementation intention and an extensive research agenda.
  • Implementing a formal management system in an agile software company
    (2019-06-19) Sasaki, Eeva
     Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
  • Improving organisational structures to enhance innovation activity within a large company
    (2016-02-17) Mikkonen, Antti
     Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
    Innovation is the best way to drive long-term competitive advantage. Thus, deservedly, innovation has been a top priority on top management’s agendas as means to generate growth. The target company, over the last few years, has placed significant investments in developing its innovation activities to generate organic growth and to create a more innovative organisational culture. The objective of this study was to explore how current structures, such as incentive and integration systems, affect innovation within the target company, and to suggest changes in structures that could foster the company’s innovation efforts. The study draws on the ambidexterity literature that explores how companies can orchestrate the exploitation of existing capabilities and offerings, while exploring the development of new capabilities and offerings. This study combined qualitative and quantitative research methods. For the qualitative part of the study, thirteen employees from various positions and parts of the organization identified through interviews structural elements that advance or hinder innovation within the target company. For the quantitative part of the study, 13% of the target company’s employees responded to a survey on what influences their innovation behavior. By reflecting the findings for the survey and the interviews to the ambidexterity literature, the study provides significant conclusions for the target company’s management. The findings indicate four main areas that hinder innovation in the target company: a) absence of an “innovation portfolio management” approach, b) the current incentives system, c) lack of frequent or continuous innovation processes, and d) insufficient intra-organizational communication regarding innovation. The study provides recommendations to the target company’s management on how to resolve those issues and become more ambidextrous.
  • Internal Corporate Ventures
    (2015-12-11) Kokkila, Lauri
     Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Bachelor's thesis
  • Literature review on corporate spin-offs: How founding conditions affect their formation and development?
    (2015-05-11) Kerri, Viivi
     Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Bachelor's thesis
  • Literature study on organizational resilience: How to build strategic resilience?
    (2022-08-30) Pöyhönen, Marko
     Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Bachelor's thesis
  • Managing Breakthrough Innovation in a Large Multidivisional Company – An Ambidexterity Approach
    (2016-10-26) Tuomala, Jenni
     Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis