Browsing by Author "Lilja, Kari, professor"

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Choice of Technology in a Natural Resource-Based Industry: Business Ethics in the Pulp and Paper Industry
(1997) Poesche, Jürgen
School of Business | Doctoral dissertation (article-based)
Evolution of Firm Communities in New Industries. The Case of the Finnish Electronics Industry
(1993) Lovio, Raimo
School of Business | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
Geneeriset ympäristöstrategiat ja Suomen paperiteollisuuden ympäristökilpailukyvyn edellytykset
(2000) Lahti-Nuuttila, Kimmo
School of Business | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
Liiketoiminnan transformaation tuottaneet toimijaryhmät : Kemira GrowHow'n synty
(2012) Virkki, Matti
School of Business | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
The subject of my research is the transformation of the dominant business unit of the Kemira Corporation, a Finnish chemical company. As a result of the transformation, the fertilizer business was ultimately separated from the corporation under the name Kemira GrowHow and listed on the stock exchange. At the core of the transformation was the creation of a networkbased business offering out of a traditional functional organization. Dozens of partners joined in the development of the services and tens of thousands of farmers became the users. A collaborative network that expanded and deepened relationships among the actors was developed between the service developers and service users. To build up this network-based business, the middle management of the business unit founded new companies and initiated co-development with the support of a shared internet-based data and communication system. The establishment of GrowHow was clearly a radical and historically significant example of a transformation of the dominant business of a corporation. The case of GrowHow shows that middle management can transform a business with solution models that it has itself developed, without a support person in corporate management. In devising a mechanism to explain the emergence of Kemira GrowHow, I have approached the phenomenon from the perspective of critical realism by elaborating the situational context at three levels. On the first level, I have identified four actor groups and their arenas of action and four solution models. On the second level, I have elaborated the praxis of the three actor groups that created their distinctive solution models and the chains of events related to the efforts of the fourth group to sell the business concept and mode of operation to corporate management. On the third level, I have further analyzed the process of selling the new business concept to corporate management and identified the means developed by middle management for handling confrontations with corporate management and owners. Hence, the mechanism for explaining the emergence of GrowHow goes back to development of the praxis of the actor groups mobilized by middle management and the competencies used in selling the issue to corporate-level decision-makers. Researchers have seldom discovered what kind of collective learning was required to create solution models for a new business concept. The case of GrowHow provided an opportunity for this. I took part in the development work conducted by management at the corporate, division, and business unit levels for 15 years, during which time I collected material on the history of the event. The principal material for this research consists of the knowledge and experience of 12 key individuals who took part in the development of the network. The case of GrowHow shows that an explanation for a business transformation can be attributed to the level of the unique collaborative learning process of the actor groups that created the solution models
Luonto liiketoiminnassa ja ekologia elämäntavassa : kertomuksia muutoksen mahdollisuuksista ja mahdottomuuksista
(2006) Pesonen, Sinikka
School of Business | Doctoral dissertation (article-based)
Ympäristöjohtamisen ja vihreän kulutuksen tutkimuksessa on todettu muutoksien tarpeellisuus luonnon käsitteellistämisessä. Aikaisempi tutkimus on osoittanut että organisaatio- ja johtamistutkimus ei ole kyennyt ottamaan huomioon ympäristökysymysten asettamia haasteita ja todennut uusien käsitteellistyksien tarpeellisuuden organisaatioteoriassa. Tutkimus on todettu tiedonintresseiltään tekniseksi ja kontrolliin tähtääväksi, eikä pelkästään ympäristökysymysten sisällyttämisen johtamisen ja vihreän kulutuksen tutkimuksen perinteiseen agendaan ole nähty olevan riittävää. Yrityksissä käyttöönotettujen ympäristöjohtamisen käytäntöjen on todettu pääosin tukevan toiminnan jatkumista ’business as usual’ –periaatteella ilman olennaisia luonnonympäristöä hyödyttäviä muutoksia. Tämä tutkimus paikantuu ympäristöjohtamisen tutkimuskenttään siten, että se pyrkii osaltaan vastaamaan aikaisemman tutkimuksen peräänkuuluttamaan radikaalien käsitteellisten muutosten tarpeeseen. Tutkimus tarkastelee muutoksen mahdollisuuksia ja sitä, miksi muutoksia näyttää olevan niin vaikea saada aikaan. Tutkimus käsittelee muutoksen tematiikkaa sekä luonnon käsitteellistämisessä että elämäntapaan liittyvänä identiteetin muutosprosessina. Tutkimus tuo esiin, miten ympäristökysymysten tuomat muutoshaasteet on kohdattu organisaatio-, johtamis- sekä kulutustutkimuksissa ja pohtii luonnon käsitteellistyksiä koskevan diskurssiivisen muutoksen mahdollisuuksia tässä kontekstissa. Toinen temaattinen kokonaisuus muodostuu muutoksen mahdollisuuksien analysoinnista yksilö-, yhteisö- ja kultuurisen tason ilmiöinä. Tämä tarkastelu nojaa sellaisista organisaatioista kerättyyn empiiriseen aineistoon, joissa luonnon käsitteellistyksiä koskevia muutoksia on aktiivisesti pyritty aikaansaamaan. Tällaisissa organisaatioissa mahdollistuvien muutosprosessien analysointi lisää ymmärrystämme myös yritysorganisaatioissa tapahtuvista muutosprosesseista. Tutkimus on luonteeltaan konstruktionistinen ja metodologisesti se hyödyntää sekä diskurssiivisia että narratiivisia tulkintakehyksiä. Tutkimuksen keskeinen teoreettinen kontribuutio on tarinoiden merkityksen tuominen myös näille tutkimuksen aloille. Tutkimuksen keskeisenä tuloksena voidaan pitää havaintoa, että uudet käsitteellistykset vaativat muutoksia kertomusten tasolla. Kun luontoa pyritään ’tietämään’ ja ymmärtämään tarinallisesti, tulevat tietämisen piiriin mukaan ’objektiivisen tiedon’ lisäksi tunteet, moraali, konteksti sekä toimijat ja tietämisestä tulee kokonaisvaltaisempaa. Luontosuhde käsitteellistyy vähemmän rationaaliseksi ja enemmän sosiaalisiin ja kulttuurisiin käytäntöihin liittyväksi toiminnaksi. ’Ekoelämä’ -marginaalin tarkastelu tuo esiin yhtäältä ilon ja ahdistuksen tarinoiden (Rappaport 2000) samanaikaisuuden ja limittäytyneisyyden. Toisaalta, suhteessa ’kulutuselämä’ –keskukseen, marginaalin tarkastelu nostaa esiin yhteisöllisten ilon tarinoiden merkityksen muutoksien mahdollistajina. Yritys- ja julkisyhteisöllisissä organisaatioissa luontoon liittyvät ilon tarinat ovat harvinaisia luonnon ja ympäristön näyttäytyessä enemmänkin ongelmien yhteydessä
Moraalijärjestyksen rajaama tila: maanviljelijä-yrittäjäperheiden selviytymisstrategiat
(2000) Katila, Saija
School of Business | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
Nanotechnology and nanolabeling : essays on the emergence of new technological fields
(2007) Granqvist, Nina
School of Business | Doctoral dissertation (article-based)
The aim of this doctoral research is to explore the individual and organizational level activities that lead to the emergence of new technological fields mainly from the institutional entrepreneurship perspective. These issues are addressed from four differing viewpoints in the essays that form the main body of the research output. Essay I investigates the initial shaping of the boundaries of a field through framing of meaning and mobilization of resources by institutional entrepreneurs, bringing together the institutional entrepreneurship and social movements literatures. Essay II develops the institutional entrepreneurship approach by investigating empirically how actors, drawing from their formal status and relational embeddedness, bridge cognitive, organizational and spatial gaps present in embryonic fields. Essay III addresses the role of institutional entrepreneurs as the translators of globally disseminating discourses into a suitable form to a local institutional context, and deepens the micro level understandings of the cross-scalar processes in field emergence. Essay IV draws on the literatures of organizational forms and image and identity to study the strategies of business managers to become associated with novel fields and to gain access to the resources offered by them, as well as the outcomes of such activity for the emergence of new organizational forms. The principal technological field which is the focus of the research is that of nanotechnology. Essays I and IV focus solely on the context of nanotechnology, whereas Essays II and III draw on a comparative case study of nanotechnology and functional foods, where the processes of emergence are contrasted across the two fields in different stages of emergence. Previously, a multitude of studies in the new institutional theory have investigated agency in the emergence of novel fields from different perspectives. However, this research identifies three important gaps in this literature, and contributes to creating new knowledge in these areas. Firstly, incorporating agency in the new institutional tradition also generates novel connections to other literatures, a link which remains largely unexplored. The current research complements the institutional entrepreneurship literature by drawing on social movements, relational approaches, socio-economic approaches to technology, institutionalization of discourses, and literature on identity and image. These provide important contributions to extend the understandings of agency in the institutionalist approaches. Secondly, the theory on skills, roles, activities and positions of institutional entrepreneurs as enablers and mediators of various processes of institutional emergence is still under development. The multidisciplinary approach, comparative case studies and extensive empirical data reported in the essays contribute to further strengthen the theory on institutional agency in the emergence of new fields. Drawing from this, the research develops a model of the capacity to act of an institutional entrepreneur. Finally, the entire literature on the institutionalization of discourses is still inconclusive, especially in terms of the empirical evidence on how various discursive processes contribute to field emergence. The empirical case of nanotechnology provides a unique research context, and is especially powerful in casting light on various processes through which discourses, and opportunistic agents tapping on them, sediment the emerging fields
Projektijohtaminen suomalaisessa tv- ja elokuvatuotannossa : näkökulmia projektijohtamiskäytäntöjen rakentumiseen tv- ja elokuvatuottajien haastatteluissa
(2013) Oksman, Riku
School of Business | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
My study is about the construction of project management practices in Finnish television and film producers' interviews. It describes the construction of these practices in interview talk produced in the fields of Finnish television and film production from three perspectives. Moreover, in my study I interpret the structural conditions of this construction utilizing Pierre Bourdieu's practice theoretical thinking. I position my research to the project-as-practice research stream that has recently been introduced in the field of project studies. Researchers in this stream are interested in concrete activities of project actors and the relation of these activities to the practices that define them in a certain context. My study is based on analyses of 21 interviews, conducted with a total of 13 television and film producers in 2001, 2003 and 2007. In my first analysis I examine the differences between the project management practices constructed in television, feature film and commercial film producers' interviews in 2001 and 2003. In my second analysis, then, I study the construction of project management practices in relation to the production company in one film producer-executive's interviews in 2001 and 2003. Finally, in my third analysis I study the changes in the construction of project management practices in relation to Finnish television channels in television producers' interviews in 2003 and 2007. Based on these analyses I argue that from Bourdieusian perspective the construction of project management practices in the fields of Finnish television and film production is above all dealing with content-related power over the creative content produced in production projects. Over time the actors in these fields have internalized in their habituses the field-specific division of this power between different actors. All in all the results of my analyses highlight the significance of the creative content produced in production projects in the multilevel dynamics of the construction of project management practices in television and film production. Especially they bring forward the significance of content-related power in this construction. My research contributes to the project-as-practice research stream by providing deeper understanding of the construction of project management practices. At the same time it provides a clear theoretical and methodological alternative to conduct linguistically oriented project-as-practice research. Moreover, my study contributes to the ongoing discussions in project research on the dynamics between temporary projects and their permanent context. It also challenges the common understandings of the nature of project management prevalent in mainstream project literature.
Strategiatyökalujen organisaatiopoliittinen käyttö konsernin muutostilanteessa
(2012) Olava, Juha
School of Business | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
This dissertation examines the use of strategy tools in an organizational political context. The term organizational politics refers to the activities of individuals and organizational sub-groups which promote their own views and interests. Organizational politics involve actions with which individuals and sub-groups acquire, create and use power. This dissertation is a case study of a large insurance and financial services company undergoing a significant change. The empirical data was produced by participatory methods. Admission to the case organization was achieved by utilizing a consulting project ongoing in the organization. The researcher was involved in the project as a representative of the consulting company. A great majority of research exploring strategy tools has taken little notice of the organizational political aspect. However, very recently a few such studies have appeared. This dissertation participates in this emerging discussion of strategy tool usage by enlightening the phenomenon of the organizational politics of choosing and customizing strategy tools. The research results show that different activity-based managerial groups may for organizational political reasons strongly disagree about the most suitable strategy process model for their organization. The managerial groups of the case organization actively legitimized their own views of the perfect strategy process model. They promised success for the organization as a whole by using attractive managerial and economic criteria. Deeper analysis, however, reveals that each suggested model would have significantly strengthened the position of the supporting managerial group at the expense of other managerial groups. The example of the case organization shows that the executives at the highest corporate level may find means to turn this power struggle phenomenon to their benefit – even in the midst of a difficult and tense structural change. Competition for control of the strategy process can be steered from the present towards the future. This is done by launching new strategy tools designed for the calmer future already in the middle of the ongoing dramatic change, and by giving the power hungry managerial groups special privileges in developing these strategy tool solutions of tomorrow. All this has great potential to turn the organization's critical organizational political attention away from the acute strategy process. This dissertation also identifies and considers other related mechanisms of the organizational political use of strategy tools. Furthermore, it offers explanations to how the organizational political use of strategy tools is possible in the first place.
Transformation Beyond Skill. A Process of New Capabilities Development in a Trading Company
(1994) Inkiläinen, Raimo
School of Business | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
Working on technology : a study on collaborative R&D work in industrial chemistry
(2008) Yli-Kauhaluoma, Sari
School of Business | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
This study investigates collaborative R&D work in chemistry. The main purpose is to increase understanding on innovation work and particularly to find out how R&D professionals develop laboratory inventions into industrial technological applications in a collaborative action in the context of chemistry. The study approaches this main research question through an empirical case study from four different perspectives. First, it examines the types of social dynamics that are involved in collaborative R&D work. Second, it analyses the role and meaning of experimentation in the development of a chemical technology. Third, it studies how chemistry professionals analyze information in different physical settings and transform this information from one physical setting to another in a chemical scale-up process. And fourth, it explores how participants in R&D collaboration relate to time and deal with time. The findings of this study warn for undermining the challenges related to innovation work and show that turning chemical inventions into industrial applications is not a simple matter of automatic transfer of technology from laboratory to industry. Instead, it is a complex process, which requires collaboration, learning-in-working, and time. In this respect, the study specifies the dynamics within those communities where R&D professionals work on technological innovation. The results then invite us to challenge our typical image of communities as coherent places of work and think about the antecedents and consequences of the community dynamics instead. Beside the social dimension of work, this study also takes seriously the importance of the physical setting where the working takes place. With this regard, the results contribute to discussion on learning-in-working and elaborate seeing as a critical form of sensible knowledge that chemistry professionals use as they work in and move between different R&D environments. Finally, the results also suggest that R&D professionals play different kinds of time games as they attempt to develop technological innovations and show how they involve their collaborators in these time games.
Yhteisöllinen strateginen toimijuus : tapaustutkimus metsäteollisuusyrityksestä
(2013) Masalin, Leena
School of Business | Doctoral dissertation (monograph)
This case study shows how a communal strategic agency is constructed in the flow of actions and interactions of strategic practitioners who participate in specific strategic practices in a specific business context. In the light of longitudinal qualitative data I illustrate the communal strategic agency through emotional, social and cognitive dimensions. Communal strategic agency can be characterized as the shared willpower of a specific group of individuals, driven by emotional energy and determined to action that will contribute to the success of the organization they work for. The merger context alongside the events and the practices of an executive development program provided an integral part of the research data created through participative observations. Additional data was generated through reflective interviews with 73 program participants, members of the top management team and key executives. I proceeded in the analyses following a combination of grounded theory and narrative approach. The construct of an interaction ritual chain of micro-sociology and the concept of high quality connection of positive organizational scholarship offered elements for creating an analysis framework. Communal strategic agency was constructed within the following episodic strategy practices of the case company: total quality management, executive development programs and organization-wide process of creating corporate values. The work-practices within these strategy practices, including dialogic workshops and strategic group work, offered a wealth of opportunities for face-to-face interaction creating high quality connections between individuals. Respect and trust were transmitted through these connections, bringing forth emotional energy which is integral in the construction of communal strategic agency. Alongside verbal interaction, the rich non-verbal interaction between individuals generated emotional energy. The micro-mechanisms of interaction opened up or closed channels of communication between top management and key executives. Communal strategic agency propelled the forest industry tradition of leading top-down with investment decisions towards a more distributed mode of leadership, where initiatives also flow from bottom-up. This study illuminates the importance of emotional energy in communal strategic agency. It contributes to the research of strategic agency by showing that reciprocal work practices play a crucial role in the construction of agency and that non-verbal interaction is a necessary stimulus for emotional energy. As a managerial implication the research indicates that through the construction of communal strategic agency people internalize strategy, commit to it and act on it. Managers should pay careful attention to the creation of forums and work practices for enabling the construction of communal strategic agency so that the success of the organization can be enhanced