Browsing by Author "Outila, Virpi"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    A communicative perspective on the trust-control link in Russia
    (Elsevier Inc., 2020-10) Outila, Virpi; Mihailova, Irina; Reiche, B. Sebastian; Piekkari, Rebecca; Department of Management Studies; University of Navarra
    The question of whether trust complements or substitutes control continues to be debated in the literature. We contribute to this debate by adopting a communicative perspective on the trust-control link in Russia. Our qualitative study reveals dialectics in the trust-control link. Russian managers used various communicative activities to simultaneously nurture trust and exercise control towards their subordinates, indicating complementarity. By contrast, from an intercultural communicative perspective the Finnish expatriates failed to see this complementarity and regarded trust and control as substitutes. The dialectical perspective reveals the interplay between content and context of a message and their complementarity in communication.
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    A Discursive Void in a Cross-Language Study on Russia: Strategies for Negotiating Shared Meaning
    (Cambridge University Press, 2019-06) Outila, Virpi; Piekkari, Rebecca; Mihailova, Irina; Department of Management Studies
    Discursive voids in emerging markets present opportunities and challenges to debate meanings and taken-for granted assumptions. This article uncovers various strategies used by the researcher and the research participants to address the discursive void and to negotiate shared meaning about employee empowerment in Russia. In the absence of a concept for empowerment in the languages of the study, the researcher and the research participants engaged in joint sensemaking to bridge discursive voids. We contribute to the discussion of qualitative cross-language research in emerging markets by identifying the strategies used not only by the researcher, whose view has dominated previous research, but also those of the research participants. The researcher in our study addressed the discursive void by taking on the dual role of researcher-translator, engaging in contextual approach to translation, consulting external interpreters, and using iteration and flexibility in the course of the research process. Our research participants resorted to proverbs to address the discursive void, make sense of empowerment, and render it locally meaningful. Proverbs are a valuable methodological tool for sensemaking and theorising about context-specific phenomena in IB research.
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    Perceptions on Competence and Competence Development in Japanese Cultural Context
    (2019) Engström, Anna; Outila, Virpi; Johtamisen laitos; Kauppakorkeakoulu; School of Business
    Understanding and developing employee competences are a current and important part of the actions and competitive advantage of multinational corporations in the fast-changing global markets. The relevance of culture for competences and competence development has received little attention in academic research due to the common perception that competences are universal regardless of context. Multinational corporations operate in varied and often quite unfamiliar environments and thus it is important to understand the impact of culture in growing the competences of local personnel. This thesis is an exploration on how culture affects perceptions on competences and competence development in a Japanese cultural context. The theoretical framework of this study is based on the assumption that competences and their development are context dependent. Factors affecting the context are organizational, work as well as social environment. Individuals' ways of thinking and behavior are largely based the values they have adopted from their culture. Thus, national and organizational culture are central influencers on people's perceptions on essential competences and competence development methods. The study was conducted as a qualitative case study on a Japanese subsidiary of a German multinational corporation. The qualitative data comprises of interviews with twelve Japanese managers, employees and German expatriates. In addition, one interviewee was a Chinese employee who has lived in Japan for several years. The interviews were conducted either in person or by email. Thematic content analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. Finally, the results were cross-compared between the respondent groups and discussed in relation to the values and characteristics of Japanese culture. The research results demonstrate that the respondents perceived technical knowledge, teamwork, supporting colleagues and communicational skills as essential competences. In the Japanese context, special focus was placed on the ability to understand customer needs and on so called soft skills to survive in a multicultural environment. The opportunity to train on the job, share tacit knowledge and apply learned skills are crucial for competence development. The results indicate that in Japanese work environment, cultural values, such as collectivism, power distance and possibly uncertainty avoidance, seem to have some effect on perceptions on competences and competence development. Nevertheless, there were more similarities than differences in the cross-case comparison. This implicates individuals identifying with their organizational culture and the strong influence of organizational context to personnel behavior and views.
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    Suunnittele, tee yhteistyötä ja viesti! Sujuvan käännöstoiminnan järjestäminen kansainvälisessä yrityksessä
    (2018) Ristolainen, Jonna; Piekkari, Rebecca; Outila, Virpi; Johtamisen laitos; Kauppakorkeakoulu; School of Business
    Tämän pro gradu -tutkielman tavoitteena on lisätä tietoa käännöstoiminnasta kansainvälisissä yrityksissä. Tutkimus selvittää, miten käännöstoiminta on järjestetty kansainvälisissä yrityksissä ja millaisia haasteita kääntämiseen liittyy. Kansainvälisen liiketoiminnan tutkimuksessa kääntäminen on saanut vähän huomiota, vaikka se on yksi kansainvälisen viestinnän ydintoiminnoista. Käännöstiede puolestaan näyttää jättäneen huomiotta käännöksiä käyttävien ja niitä tilaavien yritysten näkökulman. Kansainvälisen liiketoiminnan tutkimus tunnistaa kääntämisen tarpeellisuuden ja arvon, mutta lisää selvitystä tarvitaan käännöstoiminnasta ja kääntämisestä prosessina sekä kääntämisen vaikutuksesta yritysten toimintaan. Tämä pro gradu on laadullinen tapaustutkimus suomalaisesta monikansallisesta rakennusyhtiö YIT:stä. Tutkimusaineisto koostuu temaattisista asiantuntijahaastatteluista sekä tapaustutkimusyrityksen että sen sopimuskäännöstoimiston luovuttamasta kirjallisesta materiaalista. Aineiston analyysi lähestyy tutkimuskysymyksiä kriittisen realismin näkökulmasta ja tarkastelee käännöstoiminnan taustalla olevia syy–seuraus-suhteita. Tutkimuksen teoreettinen viitekehys nojaa käännöstutkimukseen kansainvälisen liiketoiminnan alalla ja käännöstieteessä. Laaja kirjallisuuskatsaus toimii sillanrakentajana näiden kahden tieteenalan välillä. Tutkimusaineiston analyysi paljastaa, että käännöstoiminta YIT:ssä on järjestäytynyttä ja sujuvaa. Kääntämisen käytänteet ovat kehittyneet vuosien kuluessa vastaamaan yhtiön käytännön tarpeita. Käännöstyöt jakautuvat pääosin konsernin sisäisen käännösyksikön, sopimuskäännöstoimiston, tytäryhtiöiden ja ei-ammattimaisten kääntäjien kesken. Keskeisimmät haasteet YIT:n käännöstoiminnassa ovat kiire, käännöslaadun vaihtelu ja puutteellinen tiedonvaihto käännösprosessin osapuolten välillä. Ennakointi, yhteistyö ja viestintä ovat keskeisiä tekijöitä toimivassa käännösprosessissa ja käännöslaadun tavoittelussa. Tutkimus on uniikki, mutta se tarjoaa näkökulmia käännöstoiminnan ja monikielisen yritysviestinnän suunnitteluun kansainvälisissä organisaatioissa yleensä. Koska käännöstoiminnan suunnittelu osana kielistrategista ajattelua kaipaa teoreettisia lähtökohtia, tutkielma ehdottaa sen tueksi käännösprosessien mallinnusta ja tuotantoketjun analyysia. Analyysin avulla voidaan tunnistaa käännöstuotannossa esiintyviä ongelmia sekä niiden syitä ja seurauksia. Kokonaisvaltainen laatukeskeisen kääntämisen malli kannustaa pohtimaan käännöstekstin laadun ja käännösprosessin sujuvuuden osatekijöitä sekä niiden toiminnan vaikutusta lopputulokseen.
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    "Trust but verify": Translation of employee empowerment as a Western organisational practice into the Russian context
    (Aalto University, 2016) Outila, Virpi; Piekkari, Rebecca, Professor, Aalto University, Department of Management Studies, Finland; Mihailova, Irina, Dr., Aalto University, Department of Management Studies, Finland; Johtamisen laitos; Department of Management Studies; Kauppakorkeakoulu; School of Business
    The purpose of this dissertation is to provide an in-depth understanding of how employee empowerment as a foreign organisational practice is translated and made sense in the Russian context. Employee empowerment is a value-infused organisational practice that emphasises granting employees autonomy for completion of their tasks. As empowerment has been found to enhance the performance, well-being and positive attitudes of employees, many multinational companies (MNCs) consider important to transfer it across borders, also to Russia. However, the Russian values which emphasise managerial superiority and employee obedience, contradict with the underlying values of empowerment. The study is a qualitative, embedded single-case study of a Finnish MNC operating in six cities in Russia. The data set consists of personal interviews with 100 Russian managers, employees and Finnish expatriates as well as documentary material. The study draws on Scandinavian institutionalism, a form on new institutionalism, which highlights translation and sensemaking when practices travel across borders. When making sense of empowerment, the interviewees used proverbs, which focused on key themes associated with empowerment such as trust, control, showing initiative, and attitude towards mistakes. The study identifies the use of proverbs as a means to make sense of and translate the practice to render it locally meaningful as well as a means for theorising about the phenomenon. It highlights the role of actors who used proverbs in order to explain their view and to express the difference and tension between the Western and Russian understanding of empowerment. The study identifies how interviewees used proverbs in different ways and hence demonstrates the importance of proverbs in explaining Russian culture and worldview.The study provides a reconceptualization of employee empowerment in Russia and defines empowerment as an activity when employees impact their goals, demonstrate autonomy in implementing tasks and in making decisions about their work as well as show initiative under manager's control. The study shows that in Russia employee empowerment is characterised by the control of the manager in order to support the employee and prevent possible mistakes. Mistakes are punished as the learning takes place through punishments. The study uses a novel approach in international business research by using proverbs as a methodological tool to analyse the data. As proverbs express the cultural, historical and institutional characteristics of a nation, they provide an emic approach to study different cultural and institutional contexts.
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    “We have performance appraisal every day and every hour”: Transferring performance management to Russia
    (Elsevier Inc., 2022-06) Outila, Virpi; Fey, Carl F.; Department of Management Studies
    Performance management (PM) of employees is an important established practice in multinational corporations (MNC) and therefore one of the key practices to be transferred to subsidiaries. In this study, we use the concept of institutional logics to show how Russian employees experience PM practices that are based on the institutional logic of a Finnish MNC which is contradictory to the one prevailing in Russia where the subsidiaries operate. Our findings contribute to the practice transfer and PM literature by showing how the Russian subsidiaries responded to competing institutional logics by consciously selecting certain elements from each logic, demonstrating “institutional bricolage”, to address both the headquarter's (HQ) requirements and the fast pace of change and uncertainties in an emerging post-Soviet market. Our study also enhances the international business (IB) literature by using the concept of institutional logics in IB and international management (IM) research, where it has been infrequently used.