Finnish Organizations Research Articles

In search for the ideological roots of non-formal environment-related education in Finland: the case of Helsinki Humane Society before World War II

So far the research on historical environment-related education has focused on scientific rather than ‘humanistic’ (including Romantic and religious) educational approaches and ideologies. In the field of non-formal education implemented by associations these have, however, been common. We used content analysis to study two membership magazines of a prominent Finnish animal welfare organization, Helsinki Humane Society, before the Second World War. Our results show that the educational ideology of Helsinki Humane Society was based on romanticist and humane ideas. They emphasized especially the development of a human being’s total personality and a kindness-to-animals ethic as a solution to social problems. In the early 1900s, humane education seems to have been an effective way of advancing the animal welfare cause, but its importance declined by the 1930s. We believe that today’s environmental and sustainability educators could benefit from a better understanding of how historical animal welfare organizations were able to combine romantic and humane ideas with environmental goals.

The Journey of Finnish Forest Workers from the Woods to the Negotiating Table: the first collective labour agreement in 1962

The Finnish forest workers' trade union and employers' organizations signed their first wage agreement in 1957 and first collective labour agreement in 1962. Many other sectors had concluded such agreements years earlier. This article challenges the widely accepted idea that collective labour agreements were becoming ubiquitous in Finnish industrial relations soon after the Second World War. Forest workers were left out of this process, and up until the late 1950s their wages and working conditions were not determined by the labour market parties but by state authorities – the state legislated and regulated forestry wages. The explanation for the delayed development of labour market practices in this sector can be found in forest work itself as well as the state's active role. This work was, up until the 1960s, done mainly by small farmers who were reluctant to unionize and unable to otherwise promote their interests. The situation changed when professionalization made them more or less full-time forest workers who more often joined the union. At the same time, the state created organizations and institutions which encouraged labour market parties to cooperate. Their shared struggle against political interference pushed labour market parties towards collective bargaining.

FROM CLIMATE CHANGE TO CUSTOMER DIALOGUE-CSR IN THE SERVICE SECTOR

Strategically, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is important for the competitiveness of enterprises. CSR requires engagement with internal and external stakeholders and it can bring benefits such as cost savings, better customer relationships and human resource management, and more innovations. It can also create new markets and opportunities for growth. The main purpose of this study is to describe what the benefits of CSR are, along with the challenges and ways of cooperating in general, especially in the service sector. The qualitative research is based on two well-known Finnish organizations, Fazer and Kesko, annual reviews and corporate responsibility reports from 2011. According to the results, CSR is a part of day-to-day management and the CSR concept is very broad. It contains many different issues from climate change to customer dialogue. Companies are also ready to take courageous decisions, if these decisions support their own strategy. Results also show that not only the business size, but also the ownership structure seems to affect companies’ CSR choices.

Performance measurement in welfare services: a survey of Finnish organisations

Purpose – This paper aims to identify the focal elements of performance in Finnish welfare service organisations, how performance is measured in welfare services, and what are management needs regarding the development of performance measurement in the sector.Design/methodology/approach – First, the relevant performance management literature of welfare services is reviewed, then interviews with 15 managers of Finnish welfare service organisations in public, nonprofit and for‐profit sectors are reported.Findings – The paper identifies the key elements of performance in Finnish welfare services. The results of the research indicate that Finnish welfare service organisations are relatively active in their performance measurement. Development needs relate to acquiring more systematic performance measurement approaches and new measures for the quality and long‐term effects of services.Practical implications – Research elaborates the concept of performance in welfare services, thus enabling practitioners to ana...

Temporary agency work in the Finnish health care sector: Greater flexibility and freedom in the workplace?

This article explores the views of temporary agency workers on their positions and roles in Finnish health care organisations. It aims to answer the question of how agency doctors and nurses perceive the content and social dimensions of agency work as well as their exercise of self-determination in agency work. The article is based on a questionnaire survey carried out in 2006, which found that agency employment in the health care sector is regarded as a flexible way of working that allows for considerable freedom. Doctors, in particular, have made the conscious choice to take up agency work, which fits in well with their personal life situations. However, there are definite limits to agency work that do not always favour the young worker or the patient. Agency employment does not provide adequate opportunities for guidance and support. Furthermore, young doctors and nurses do not have enough influence over the design of patient care. Even though flexible agency work is a voluntary choice for many health care professionals, it is necessary to ask whether it severs the connections with previous experiences and circumstances on which practical health care provision is based.

Patient-Centered Caries Prevention in Children may be More Cost-Effective in the Long Term than Traditional Dental Care

Cost-effectiveness of an experimental caries-control regimen in a 3.4-yr randomized clinical trial among 11-12-yr-old Finnish schoolchildren. Hietasalo P, Seppa L, Lahti S, Niinimaa A, Kallio J, Aronen P, et al. Eur J Oral Sci 2009;117:728-33. Jonathan D. Shenkin, DDS, MPH To determine if an experimental patient-centered prevention regimen was more cost-effective than standard dental care. Foundation support from a number of Finnish organizations Randomized controlled trial Level 2: Limited-quality, patient-oriented evidence Not applicable

Towards e-banking: the evolution of business models in financial services

We explore the evolution of business models over time in five Finnish organisations from the banking, insurance or retail sector. The scope of the banking services to consumers has been extended in traditional banks from basic banking services to asset management, insurance and expert services. Deregulation and new technologies have enabled internationalisation and free competition. New organisations and niche players from other industries have entered the industry. Our findings add to previous research on the actual changes and the drivers and enablers of the business model evolution over time, and help practitioners to further develop their business models.

THE IMPACT OF TRANSACTIVE MEMORY AND TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP ON TEAM INNOVATION

This study examines the influence of task orientation, transactive memory systems (TMS), and transformational leadership on team innovation. This study was conducted with a sample of 124 research teams in one Finnish technical organization. The results show that TMS has a mediating role between task orientation and team innovation and transformational leadership moderating role between TMS and team innovation. Implications for practice and research are discussed.

Using balanced scorecard in operationalising FM strategies

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to illustrate how balanced scorecard approach may be utilized in implementing organizational or facilities management strategies in workplace networks. The term workplace network refers to organizational actors involved in using and maintaining physical working environments. These actors include, among others, the tenant organizations and different service providers.Design/methodology/approachOne large Finnish organization with an existing facilities management strategy was used as a case organization. The data were gathered through interviews and a workshop.FindingsThe paper illustrates how the balanced scorecard can be used in the workplace network. An exemplary goal is derived to the level of numeric measure.Originality/valueThe balanced scorecard has been widely applied in putting the general business strategies in action. Some facilities management‐related solutions are also available. Applications including the entire workplace network are more rare and the originality of this approach comes from this perspective.

Quality of the contraceptive service structure: A pilot study in Finnish health centre organisations

Objectives To evaluate the quality of the contraceptive service structure in health centre organisations (HCOs) in western Finland and to establish whether the characteristics of the HCOs are associated with the quality measured.Methods Survey data were collected from all HCOs in a university hospital area in western Finland (N = 63). Quality was evaluated using a score of ten indicators. Associations between the score and the characteristics of the HCOs were studied using rank correlation analysis and a multivariate ordered logit model.Results Among 51 HCOs yielding complete data for the evaluation, the quality score ranged from 3 to 10, the mean being 5.8. From 25 variables studied, ‘a chief nursing officer or leading nurse engaged in the HCO’ (p = 0.001) and ‘an appointed person responsible for management of health promotion’ (p = 0.006) were found to be associated with a good score in the rank correlation analysis, and they also remained significant in multivariate analysis (Odds Ratio [OR] = 11.5, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.3–56.5 and OR = 5.9, 95% CI 1.6–21.5, respectively).Conclusions In the majority of the HCOs involved, the quality of service structure was rated average, but there was much variation between the HCOs. The results of the multivariate analysis emphasise the importance of good management of services.

Methods for evaluating office occupiers' needs and preferences

PurposeCorporate occupiers are among the important interest groups in the real estate business. The whole value network in the real estate sector, consisting of, e.g. developers, investors, and service providers depend on the occupier organizations and meeting their needs and preferences. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the methods applied by the parties in the real estate sector in identifying and evaluating office occupiers' needs and preferences regarding the physical, virtual, social as well as financial elements of the workplace.Design/methodology/approachBased on theme interviews with selected Finnish organizations, the applied methods for evaluating office occupiers' needs and preferences are analyzed and presented. The applicability of the methods is evaluated by a set of criteria based on a literature review and the interviewees' responses.FindingsThe paper presents an efficient and relevant evaluation of the applied methods in matrix form. Additionally, recommendations for the development of the methods are suggested.Practical implicationsAnalyzing the occupiers' needs and preferences related to physical, virtual, social, and financial elements of offices requires applicable methods. The methods should enable the parties in the real estate sector to analyze the direction of the real estate markets as regards the different elements.Originality/valueThe paper provides a classification and analysis of the methods applied to identify office occupier organizations' needs and preferences. Suggestions for further development of the methods are presented enabling a comprehensive analysis of needs and preferences.

Employer brand image in a health care organization

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide an overview concerning employer brand image in a Finnish hospital organization. What is done for recruitment marketing? This study offers some proposals for improving the recruitment process.Design/methodology/approachThe research is a qualitative case study and the research method used is a group interview. The research questions are approached from an organizational perspective. Background information about the current labour shortage in health care is gathered from the focus hospital organization, from the public media and from the health care trade organizations.FindingsVery few marketing actions concerning employer image have been done in the focus hospital. There also existed a lack of appropriate recruitment tools and competence. Data systems and the internet have not been fully exploited in the recruitment process. Vacancies are not announced in educational institutes. Career development possibilities are not presented in job advertisements and job‐rotation has not been used in recruitment.Originality/valueThis paper provides useful information for health care managers and researchers concerning the role of employer image in recruiting and the importance of a well‐organized recruitment process.

Patient's medication information and its special characteristics: a case study of a Finnish primary care organisation

Despite the positive effects achieved with Information Technology (IT) use in the healthcare sector, IT solutions do not always increase efficiency or prevent medical errors, and the poor quality of data available is often seen as one of the reasons. The purpose of this paper is to determine the characteristics that ensure the quality of data. More specifically, the paper focuses on the non-technical characteristics that patient-specific medication information should have, and its current situation within a Finnish primary care organisation. To ensure that the development of smooth patient service chains will proceed consensually with data users, and that all the issues related to clinical work are considered, an assessment of the current process of medication information management is required. Though the case organisation uses Electronic Health Record (EHR), often the most important source of information was found to be the patient. It was found that sources of medication data do not always meet the needs of the healthcare professionals. Furthermore, the characteristics of what constitute quality data could not always be found, which has left professionals using their knowledge to fill information gaps.

Knowledge-based value creation: grasping the intangibility of service operations in Finland

This study aims to provide insights on the mechanisms of knowledge-based value creation in the context of a modern service economy. A particular focus of this paper is the concept of intangibility and its role in service operations. Intangibility is a key characteristic of services. However, a lack of in-depth understanding of the issue persists. This paper explores the intangibility of services through the concepts and models developed by the intellectual capital research stream. The aim is to construct a framework to account for intangibility as a characteristic of service, using a literature review and case studies in ten Finnish organisations. As a result, this article provides new knowledge about the service provider's and customer's intangible resources, intangible output elements and the transformation of intangible resources into other resources and, finally, into customer value.

The Effect of Information Sources on the Success of the Organizational Buying Process

The objective of this empirical study was to investigate how the use of internal and external information sources influence the success of an organization’s buying process, and how the characteristics of the buying task influence the employment of these information sources during the buying process. Quantitative data were collected by structured interviews among Finnish business organizations early in 2008. The results suggest that the employment by an organization of information provided by a supplier during the buying process has a significant but contradictory influence on the success of the buying process. Furthermore, the complexity, newness, and importance of the buying situation were found to have a significant influence on the employment of different sources of information during the various stages of buying process. Perceived risk of the buying task was found to have no significant effect on the use of different information sources.

The dynamics and characteristics of buying centre networks

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study does the structure of buying centre networks dynamically change between buying situations and during the buying processes. Furthermore, the influence of organizational culture on participation, extensivity, lateral involvement, and vertical involvement of buying centre networks is studied.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative study with empirical data gathered by semi‐structured interviews with the help of structured questions among Finnish business organizations early in 2007. The empirical data consist of 40 interviews conducted among small and medium sized companies. For the data analyses, the data were separately classified into themes relevant for each of the topics analyzed. The structured questions were used for validating the findings of qualitative analyses.FindingsThe structure of buying centre networks was found to be highly dynamic and change significantly between buying situations and phases of the buying process. Five types of networks were identified: expert, inward‐oriented informal networks; extensive, specialist and inward‐oriented formal networks; extensive, outward and more management‐oriented co‐operative networks; specification‐oriented management and responsibility‐led co‐operative networks; and management‐led specialist‐oriented versatile networks. The results also suggest power distance, risk tolerance, and individualism/collectivism are useful measures for analysing the factors influencing the structure of buying centre networks and explaining differences between buying situations and stages of the buying process.Originality/valueChange in the surrounding business and technology environment means that buying centre networks are forced to follow suit, in order to maintain competitiveness and the efficiency of their buying operations. While cultural differences are commonly known to influence organizational behaviour, the effects of the organizational culture on buying centre network structures have not sufficiently been studied.

Immigrant workers' induction training in Finland: case Petmo project

PurposeThe organizations' shareholder value maximization is one of the oldest beliefs in business economics. An organization is seen as a compromise between various goals and targets set by stakeholders, including the workforce. Induction training for newcomers is a part of a comprehensive selection of training and development functions in organizations. Those actions are seen as having a role in the socialization functions in organizations. In other words, it offers opportunities for the newcomers to create unofficial networks inside the work community. The purpose of this study is to investigate the induction training practices in use in organizations with an ethnic minority workforce as well as the development of induction training and methods used in diverse workplaces.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses the findings of investigations regarding ethnic minority group members' induction training practices in Finland as a part of Perehdyttämällä monimuotoiseen työyhteisöön – Petmo (initiation training of multicultural working place)‐project.FindingsThe study found that internationalisation and diversity are clearly beneficial for the company/community, but they also require resources and investments both in recruitment, induction training and work familiarization as well as in comprehensive human resource development; the great challenge seems to be the lack of resources and time during the induction process – what is needed is more evaluation, information (feedback and assessment systems), innovations and training for the induction trainers (communications); the induction training should be the same for everyone. However, in different tasks flexibility may be required, e.g. in the order the issues are presented – for one person the concrete work and the feelings associated with it, knowing the working community and developing the skills are better foundations for general integration and commitment, the other person may approach issues more naturally through a theoretical framework.Originality/valueThe paper uses the research material because it captures successfully the typical situation in Finnish organizations. These insights may act as a basis for developmental actions.

Developing culturally diverse organizations: a participative and empowerment‐based method

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the promotion of workplace multiculturalism via the use of a participative and empowerment‐based diversity training and development method.Design/methodology/approachA two‐year long qualitative, multiple case‐study amongst 15 Finnish organizations was conducted by means of the focus group method. Altogether 20 group interviews were held with so‐called “working culture bridge groups” consisting of different stakeholders and their four coordinators to explore the approaches, modes of action, achievements and explanatory factors that contributed to the development of working cultures towards multiculturalism.FindingsThe development method was directed more at individual than organizational level change processes. More specifically, the attitudes of the majority were perceived as the main problem and the goal was to influence them by enhancing their knowledge and awareness of multicultural issues. The effectiveness of the method was recognized to depend on the clarity of set goals, adequate resources, systemic development work at both the individual and organizational level as well as on the commitment of management.Research limitations/implicationsDespite being conducted in one country with low cultural diversity, an empowerment‐based method proved to be useful in directing the creation of inclusive working organizations.Practical implicationsThe method helps in planning the content and delivery of different diversity training and development approaches.Originality/valueThe paper offers a powerful tool and an innovative way for practitioners to align both organisational and diversity goals to meet individual needs, to identify inequalities and to increase the effectiveness of diversity initiatives.

Exploring work- and organization-based resources as moderators between work–family conflict, well-being, and job attitudes

In modern Western life it is difficult to avoid work–family conflict. Therefore the resources that might reduce its negative outcomes on well-being and job attitudes come into focus. Our study contributes to the work–family conflict literature by exploring the indirect (moderator) and direct role of three work- and organization-related resources, i.e., job control, family supportive climate, organization-based self-esteem (OBSE), in the work-to-family conflict and well-being/job attitude relationship. Theoretically, the study tested the recently developed Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model in the Scandinavian context. Data for the study were gathered from three differing Finnish organizations (health care district, ICT company, Cardboard mill; n=1252). In line with the predictions of the JD-R model, job demands (time- and strain-based work-to-family conflict) were more robustly associated with strain-based outcomes (physical symptoms), whereas job resources (job control, family supportive climate, OBSE) were more strongly linked to motivational-based outcomes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment). Both job control and family supportive climate moderated the relationships studied; high job control and family supportive climate buffered against the aversive effects of work-to-family conflict on well-being and job attitudes. These indirect effects also varied in relation to the independent, moderator, and dependent variables. However, OBSE did not operate as a buffering factor, although it showed significant direct effects. From a practical viewpoint, our findings suggest that job control and family supportive climate are resources that help employees to reduce the negative effects related to work–family conflict.

The role of HR managers in international mergers and acquisitions: a multiple case study

In recent years human resource (HR) managers have been encouraged to play a more strategic role in their organizations, especially in the case of extensive organizational change processes such as international mergers and acquisitions (IM&As). Today this requirement is even more acute since the past decade has been characterized by enormous growth in IM&As. In addition, it has been argued that the challenge in making M&As work is the management of people. In a case of IM&As the role of HR managers is very demanding because they needs to integrate HR practices and, moreover, perform two other roles simultaneously: a strategic role for company-wide integration and a support role for business unit transaction. Considering the importance of human resource management (HRM) in IM&As, it is surprising how little is known about the role and activities of HR managers in these processes. This study addresses the existing research gap by investigating the role of HR managers in the IM&A process. Based on semi-structured theme interviews among corporate level managers in three Finnish international industrial organizations, the roles of corporate HR managers at different stages of the IM&A process are analysed. This study applies Ulrich's (1997) theory of the four HR roles in combination with the HR issues which are present at the different stages of the IM&A process. This paper demonstrates that HRM is an essential part of M&As and that HR issues are given a lot of emphasis throughout the process. In addition, HR managers play an important role in the IM&A process, although it is not self-evident in every case.