Browsing by Author "Parkkali, Milla"
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- The interplay of competition and cooperation of Finnish architectural firms
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Master's thesis(2022) Parkkali, MillaDuring the past decades, the operational environment of Finnish architectural firms has met with remarkable changes which has made the client to play a key role in dominating competition as well cooperation in the field. The changes have resulted in a transition between competition- and cooperation-dominated relationships in market creation processes of Finnish architectural firms. Currently a new turn has taken place when organizations are increasingly creating joint ventures as well as making corporate mergers, and acquisition to get power in markets. This is a growing trend and unfamiliar phenomenon in architectural field in Finland where the firms are traditionally small and self-governing firms. The professional field is in a turning point of what is happening next. This thesis topic addresses a complex, paradoxical phenomenon of coopetition as well as the interplay of competition and cooperation of which there exist only limited research in the context of architectural firms. I explore the topic from activity system perspective which brings a cultural- historical view to my research as well. In this transdisciplinary research, I will combine two relative methodologies from business and design: constructive research and constructive design research. I collected the qualitative research data for this thesis through semi-structured interviews with 15 partners from 15 different, private architectural firms in Finland. To analyze the data, I used a method called the Framework Analysis. After mapping and interpreting the data, I built a construction, as a preliminary research outcome of which I presented for the interviewees to validate it. Thereafter, I adjusted the construction based on the feedback. Based on research findings, my construction identifies two activity systems currently present in the field. The first one I call the community-based model and the other client-based model of which the latter one is dominant in the field. In between both models, I have identified contradictions and tensions which impact on actors´ value creation and capture. To sustain the interplay of competition and cooperation in the Finnish architectural firms in long-term, the systems as well as value creation as an outcome should be balanced between the actors. To make them more balanced, I present the three future concepts which are Cooperation Arena, Rebuilding, and Identity Work. The research outcome is thus two-folded. I developed a framework of the interplay of competition and cooperation in the Finnish architectural field condensing the current state as well as three future concepts that I propose can sustain the interplay better.