Browsing by Author "Matala, Saara"

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    The Finlandisation of Shipbuilding - Industrialisation, the State, and the Disintegration of a Cold War Shipbuilding System
    (Aalto University, 2019) Matala, Saara; Fridlund, Mats, Dr., Max Planck Institute History of Science, Germany; Kansikas, Suvi, Dr., University of Helsinki, Finland; Konetekniikan laitos; Department of Mechanical Engineering; History of Industrialization; Insinööritieteiden korkeakoulu; School of Engineering; Kuosmanen, Petri, Prof., Aalto University, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Finland
    The Cold War shaped industrialisation through the politicisation of technology. This thesis examines the expansion and downscaling of the Finnish shipbuilding industry from 1952 to 1996, which has been claimed to be a contingent rather than merely correlated result of the Finnish-Soviet bilateral trade relationship. By exploring the agency of a small country navigating the period of international confrontation and competition, this study contributes to our understanding of the material and economic consequences of the global Cold War. The Finnish shipbuilding industry is conceived as a techno-economic system —a heterogeneous web of components that contributed to the profit-driven building of maritime technology. The conceptualisation draws from studies of Large Technological Systems (LTS), but it adds to the LTS theory an equally strong economic dimension alongside the technological one, and examines industrial transformation as dynamics between system stabilisation and change. The study addresses three specific research questions: How the shipbuilding system developed its structure and national style; how it interacted with the state; and how it disintegrated during the latter part of the Cold War. The study contributes to the LTS theory by showing how the system disintegration re-politicises elements that had established as ordinary. Consequently, the end provides a way of re-considering the politics embedded in the mature system as well. The gravity of the empirical research lies in the five case studies that approach the techno-economic system from five perspectives: technopolitics of shipbuilding, non-commercial cooperation, bilateral institutions of trade and payment, industrial reorganisation, and state aid and financing. The study shows how the Finnish shipbuilding adopted certain elements and gained momentum because Finland's position next to the Soviet Union introduced a novel set of constrains and opportunities. Critical for the industrial development was, however, the Finnish agency in adjusting and adapting to these international conditions. The Finnish Cold War shipbuilding system expressed a recognizable national style in how the companies controlled the fluctuation and insecurities of the business. The state actors often subscribed to the system goals but they also used the shipbuilding system as a technopolitical tool to address national security, national prestige, and national welfare. The disintegration of the Cold War system was triggered by external changes after the 1970s, but initially the system momentum seemingly increased.
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    Implementation of the systemic process innovation BIM in Finnish construction industry - Structural system failure approach
    (2013) Matala, Saara; Kokkonen, Anne; Perustieteiden korkeakoulu; Perustieteiden korkeakoulu; School of Science; Smeds, Riitta
    Building information modelling (BIM) is expected to be the catalyst for the radical qualitative transformation within the construction industry. The expectation is that BIM would decrease costs of collaboration and increase quality of production. In order to meet the expectations, BIM has to be implemented as a systemic process innovation: Instead of implementing BIM as a set of ICT -tools used to draw pictures in three dimensions, BIM has to be regarded as a set of IC-technologies and processes used to produce, transfer and utilize information, and manage complexity and fragmentation of construction project networks in a cost-effective way. The full implementation of BIM has been hindered by practical, technical and political problems in the prevailing work processes, business models and attitudes in the industry. This study analyses the structural system failures which hinder the beneficial and effective BIM implementation. The unit of research is the technological innovation system (TIS) in the Finnish construction industry including all the focal actors and institutions, which affect BIM implementation. The research is conducted as a constructive study applying qualitative methods. The theoretical pal1 of the study consists of literature review and the construction of a theoretical framework. Four theoretical perspectives to the research subject were reviewed and the analytical concepts of three systemic challenges that have to be answered during BIM implementation were created: Coordinated change, systemic shift and knowledge creation. The system failure -literature was reviewed separately and the four system failures were defined: infrastructure failure, institutional failure, interaction failure and capabilities' failure. A theoretical construct covering the systemic challenges and the system failures related to them was created in the end of the theoretical part based on the literature. In the empirical part, the tentative theoretical construct was used as an analytical framework for the empirical analysis. The empirical data consist of 43 semi-structured interviews. Based on the empirical findings, the theoretical framework was refined. According to the results, the system failures in the BIM implementation as a systemic process innovation in the Finnish construction industry are the following: I) Interaction and institutional failure hinder coordinated change required for the BIM implementation. 2) Institutional and capability-related failures hinder the systemic shift of the construction Industry required for the BIM implementation. 3) Interaction, capability-related and institutional failures hinder the knowledge creation necessary for BIM implementation. Theoretically the thesis contributes to the area of study of BIM implementation and to the study of systemic innovations in project-based industries. By introducing and testing a method to apply the system failure framework to the empirical analysis of the specific innovation process, this study contributes also to the system of innovation research tradition. The practical aim is to delineate the system failures in BIM implementation in order to facilitate problem solving. In the concluding part of the study the redefined construct is applied as a holistic framework to understand the interconnections between different systemic challenges and system failures.
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    Pankkikriisi, pankit ja Suomi
    (2010) Matala, Saara; Kaila, Ruth; Informaatio- ja luonnontieteiden tiedekunta; Immonen, Stina
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    Raitiovaunujen kehitys Suomessa 1934-1987
    (2015-05-05) Mäntyjärvi, Valtteri; Matala, Saara; Insinööritieteiden korkeakoulu; Pietola, Matti
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    Small nation, big ships winter navigation and technological nationalism in a peripheral country, 1878-1978
    (2017-06) Matala, Saara; Sahari, Aaro; History of Industrialization; University of Helsinki; Department of Mechanical Engineering
    Finland is the only country in the world where all ports freeze over during a typical winter. Over the century 1878-1978, Finland developed a winter-seafaring system that broke the winter isolation and eliminated seasonal variation in shipping. By using diverse archival sources, we deconstruct the dominant narrative of Finnish winter seafaring through which national as well as technological development is often presented as natural, inevitable and straightforward. We reinterpret the Finnish winter navigation system as a tangible, historical experience and show that technological solutions in this domain cannot be understood outside the context of a decades-long process of nation-building. Finally, we argue that winter navigation became a central imaginary for Finland as a western, industrial and modern nation. As such, the Finnish winter-seafaring system presents a case of technological nationalism in which a small, peripheral country sought to integrate itself into a modern international order.