Browsing by Author "Kent, Derin"
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Item Business is Business, Moses is Moses? - Balancing for-profit and nonprofit sides in a hybrid organization(2020) Eronen, Anna; Kent, Derin; Johtamisen laitos; Kauppakorkeakoulu; School of BusinessItem Giving Meaning to Everyday Work After Terrorism(2019-07-01) Kent, Derin; Department of Management StudiesGlobal terrorism in the early 21st century appears to be an inevitable part of organizational life. Even among people not personally injured in an attack, the immediate aftermath can be a period of hardship, stress and sensemaking. This paper develops theory about how people give meaning to their work after terrorism. In contrast to views of everyday work as something that loses significance in times of such tragedy, I outline the conditions under which individuals are also likely to find positive meaning in it. Doing so, I integrate varied findings about workplace responses to terrorism and provide a basis for empirical testing rooted in theories of work meaning, sensemaking and the cultural response to disaster. The paper concludes with implications for research and practice.Item Isomorphism of Finnish NGOs’ Fundraising Methods in the 2010s(2020) Päivänen, Onni; Kent, Derin; Johtamisen laitos; Kauppakorkeakoulu; School of BusinessNGOs’ position has become globally emphasized in the 21st century. They have an essential role in providing welfare services, implementing foreign aid, and empowering people of developing countries. At the same time, NGOs have grown significantly both in terms of revenue and personnel size. They have also adapted business-like practices and modes of thinking. In Finland, where NGOs have traditionally relied heavily on public funding, this professionalisation has been especially visible during the last decades. An important part of this trend is the development of private fundraising. This thesis empirically investigates the argued isomorphism of NGOs in Finland. The focus is on the change of fundraising methods of large NGOs in 2010 – 2018. First, the literature review presents earlier development of charity and the most important current trends. Next, different discussions of charity and business are presented in a comparative manner. The literature review concludes with the theory of institutional isomorphism and why it is relevant in the context of NGO fundraising. The empirical part consists of a sample part and a case study part. The sample of 10 NGOs with biggest fundraising revenues is analysed to detect the quantitative trends that are proposed in the hypotheses. The case study consists of three various case organizations, in order to find local explanations for those trends. The main sources of evidence are manager interviews and NGO documents. The cases are compared with each other using cross-case synthesis. The trends discovered in this study include strong growth in fundraising revenue, monthly donations and staff, increased popularity of unallocated funds, and decline of memberships. Furthermore, the fundraising mixes of NGOs have become increasingly similar. Some of the suggested explanations for this isomorphic development are professionalisation of the sector, modernization of fundraising methods, emergence of business mindset, changed forms of activism and increased turnover of employees within the third sector. Furthermore, potential impacts of isomorphism on NGOs mission are discussed, with the help of theories of business and charity. Because this work is an exploratory case study, the findings are not directly generalizable. Another limitation is caused by gaps in the documents used as source material. The main academic contribution of this thesis is the empirical examination of NGOs’ fundraising with the framework of institutional isomorphism. For NGO managers and employees, this thesis offers a big picture of the sector’s development, and an opportunity to compare their organization’s fundraising strategy to those of others. Finally, this thesis is also meant to take part in the ethical discussions of NGOs’ transparency and potential mission drift.Item The meaning of networking for start-up entrepreneurs - A way of life(2020) Lasaroff, Iida; Kent, Derin; Johtamisen laitos; Kauppakorkeakoulu; School of BusinessNetworking has become a term that is strongly associated with doing business in today’s society. Kuwabara, Hildebrand and Zou refer to Casciaro, Gino and Kouchaki (2014) in their 2018 article defining professional-instrumental networking (or simply “networking”) as “proactive and purposeful efforts to build, manage, or leverage relationships toward professional goals” (p. 51). Throughout my years in university, I have learned how networking can play a significant role during the early stages of starting a business, but also how opinions about networking vary a lot among entrepreneurs. However, a lot of the early networking theory has focused on business leaders of established firms. It has also mostly covered topics like the networking process (Larson, 1991) and how it is consciously done in practice. The prior approach to networking has been very focused on seeing networking as an intentional activity, a part of the job, which can lead to financial benefits. There is not only a lack of understanding of what networking truly means for business leaders, both in business and on a personal level, but also questions if start-up entrepreneurs’ networking is something that could be unique among business people in general. The aim of this study is to contribute to the understanding of what networking means from the perspective of a start-up entrepreneur. I searched for answers to three questions: what does networking mean for start-up entrepreneurs, why do they do it, and how do they think they can benefit from it. I conducted a qualitative study using a phenomenological design, limiting the scope to early stage start-up entrepreneurs operating in the Canadian market. In order to understand the meaning of networking for start-up entrepreneurs, my study also seeks to understand how they construct meaning. My study contributes to sensemaking theory, especially to narratives and identity, as a secondary literature by comparing these theories on how my interviewees made meaning around networking. I was able to form a model that visualizes how networking can be seen as a way of life that is more than part of the job for entrepreneurs. It is a way of life contributing to two different life journeys: personal journey and business survival. Start-up entrepreneurs execute these journeys through two kinds of actions: intentional activities and random interactions. The underlying component called the “snowball effect”, fuels all the networking activities tying them together to benefit the two life journeys.Item The only constant in life is change - and here’s how to deal with it: employee self-determination in continuous organizational change(2020) Nylén, Rosa; Kent, Derin; Johtamisen laitos; Kauppakorkeakoulu; School of BusinessToday’s organizations try to navigate in a changing environment by changing themselves. Literature shows that continuous change—rather than episodic change—is a better way of changing when it comes to transformational change and that the employees’ attitude and involvement are crucial for the success of the change. However, continuous change might create stress and cynicism that affect the change experience negatively. There are some findings that show that improving the employees’ autonomy, for example, can help. Could supporting employees’ motivation through self-determination’s three basic psychological needs help advance a positive experience? This thesis focused on how a continuous change affects employees’ perception of their self-determination and how the experience could be supported. Furthermore, it aimed to capture a description of the process of a continuous change. From a theoretic point of view, the objective was to explore the existing gap in literature in the crossroads of self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1999) and continuous change (Orlikowski, 1996; Weick & Quinn, 1999). The research was carried out as a qualitative single-case study in the Finnish Tax Administration, which had undergone an organizational change where the analytics function was transformed into a tribe organization. The primary data was collected by interviewing change recipients (n=14). The findings show that the case was indeed a continuous change from the employees’ point of view and provided a case account of the phases of continuous change. Furthermore, the positive change experience could be explained by the experienced self-determination, as their trust in the continuous nature of the change improved their sense of autonomy and relatedness, especially. The change management supported the experience positively, as methods such as experimentation, participations and support from top management helped fulfill their psychological needs during the change. The thesis shows that self-determination theory can help explain the change experience, and that it can help understand change management methods. Also, the findings inspired a model for self-managing change, a practical application of top-down, bottom-up change. The thesis paves way for more research on the application of self-determination theory on continuous change as well as on the practice of continuous change.Item The use of mystery shopping results: From retail store managers’ perspective(2019) Tran, My Linh; Kent, Derin; Johtamisen laitos; Kauppakorkeakoulu; School of BusinessSince assessing service quality and performance in retailing has become more critical than ever, retailers are keen to use mystery shopping as a method to measure the customer service process. It is recognized that most companies adopt mystery shopping with the hope that performance measurement will encourage positive changes in managers and employees’ behaviors, and subsequently, result in customers’ satisfaction and better sales performance. However, transforming those information into accurate understanding and thus, leading to practical actions is not an easy task for many managers. Hence, this study aims to explore what store managers do with mystery shopping results and factors that influence their behaviors. The theoretical part of this study reviews mystery shopping with a focus on the perspective of organizations adopting mystery shopping. The literature on management behaviors in using mystery shopping results is also presented. Following by a brief discussion of retail store operations and the role of retail store managers since the context for this study is retail stores. The study uses a qualitative approach, and data was collected by semi-interview with seven store managers from the same retailer. The findings were analyzed using thematic content analysis and positioned within the process stages for performance management by Bourne et al. (2005), including data analysis, interpretation, communication, and taking actions. The study found that store managers acknowledge the use of mystery shopping results for a variety of purposes. However, all respondents are much concerned about the reliability of mystery shopping results. Store managers then rely on their intuition and work experiences to analyze and interpret the results. It is implied that store managers only adopt the results on criteria that they found reasonable and keep in mind that the results only reflect a partial view of the store’s operations. Besides, most respondents perceive getting a high mystery shopping score as a way to avoid the problem with their direct managers - area managers. However, store managers show no interest in getting the reward liked with mystery shopping as they see it unreachable. This study also found that store managers are sensitive about the well-being of sales staff, and thus, store managers try to avoid unnecessary stress for staff from the mystery shopping results. Despite many complaints about mystery shopping and its results, most store managers accept mystery shopping results and rarely feedback about the program to higher managers. This can be explained as store managers feel they lack support from the company, and they all aware of the service quality orientation in their organization.Item What do they want? Case study on Millennials’ career expectations in the Finnish audit field(2018) Vähäsalo, Tiina; Kent, Derin; Johtamisen laitos; Kauppakorkeakoulu; School of BusinessThe proportion of Millennials in the workforce will increase in recent years due to the change in demographics and generational shift in work-life. As this youngest generation enters work-life it becomes crucial for organizations and HRM professionals to understand the career orientation and expectations of this millennial work generation. By realizing the nature of Millennials’ career aspirations organizations are better equipped to attract and engage this generation of professionals. However until today, Finnish research on Millennials has remained scarce and studies conducted within audit field are basically non-existent. To answer this research gap, this thesis aims at identifying the expectations that Millennials working in Finnish audit field target towards their work and career. While looking into the thoughts Millennials have of their career this study also inspects the possible psychological contracts that influence in the background. This study is conducted as a commission to a major audit actor where the need for understanding the career views of Millennial employees has been noticed. By better understanding Millennials’ views and expectations the commissioning company and its HRM professionals are able to take these aspects into consideration in their personnel planning and talent attraction activities. The research problem is approached through qualitative case study by conducting eight semi-structured interviews with employees working at the commissioning company. The interviewees represent the studied generation and they all work at the commissioning company’s audit services in Helsinki at the time of this study. The empirical data is analyzed following a thematic analysis method. The findings indicate that Millennials view their career largely in accordance with the descriptions of contemporary careers. Millennials in this study viewed their career in short time horizon, recognized that their career is likely to cross several organizations and thus rarely sought lifelong employment. The strongest career driver for interviewed Millennials’ career is constant learning and development through challenging and diverse work tasks, which implies that expertise is at the core of Millennials’ career. Career development is seen as gaining more challenge and responsibility rather than proceeding in corporate hierarchy. In addition, this generation wants a job that comes with like-minded colleagues, good work-life balance, flexible and transparent corporate culture and a coaching supervisor who gives support and frequent feedback. Based on this research, it is possible to conclude that Millennials’ psychological contract builds around the themes of employability and reciprocal flexibility. The findings implicate that Millennials are seeking a contract where they can develop their knowhow and market value and that allows a good work-life balance. In return, Millennials are ready to commit to their work tasks to help the employer succeed and they are willing to flex if needed.