Stakeholder priorities in a sustainable HQ building - WithSecure in Wood City Helsinki

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Journal ISSN

Volume Title

School of Business | Master's thesis

Date

2024

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

mib

Language

en

Pages

100 + 6

Series

Abstract

This thesis examines stakeholder relations related to a company headquarters (HQ) building. The specific questions to be answered are about who the different stakeholders are, what priorities do they each have, and how do they relate to each other with their priorities? In the field of literature, research is quite new, and the gap seems to be filled only recently. A lot has been written about the functions and locations of HQ’s but less about the buildings and even less about the stakeholders of the building. We established the basis by discussing the role and functions of an HQ and their role in a business ecosystem. We noted the changes that have been happening for a long time and were accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Finally, we discussed the stakeholder theory and how it presents itself among the stakeholders of an HQ building and how sustainability seems to be among the strongest common interests between the actors. This study was conducted as a case study regarding the role and functions of an HQ building of cybersecurity company WithSecure. Their HQ building is in Helsinki, Finland, and is built mostly out of wood as a part of a wooden city block in mixed use. Furthermore, the study used semi-structured interviews to get information regarding the different thoughts and priorities of the stakeholders regarding the case, as well as general information about the case. We found out that each one of the main researched stakeholders has a set of priorities for themselves. While there are conflicts in priorities between some criteria, this study identifies some common interests as well. These include sustainability, which is becoming to be expected, rather than bonus, as well as good quality building, since it seems that a good product is good business. In the future, we can expect more sustainable buildings designed to be flexible and as future-proof as possible. The company HQ buildings will be in mixed neighbourhoods, wood buildings will become more common, and the majority will be owned by separate investor companies instead of the firms themselves.

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Thesis advisor

Ritvala, Tiina

Keywords

pääkonttorirakennus, Kestävä rakennus, sidosryhmä, yritysekosysteemi, headquarters building, sustainable building, stakeholders, business ecosystem

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