Sosiaalinen pääoma ja innovaatiot - organisaatioiden kulttuurisissa rakenteissa?

Tehokkuuden subjektiivinen konstruointi julkishallinnon työntekijöiden puheessa – organisaatioestetiikka viitekehyksenä

This study examines the employees’ everyday experiences at work. The goal is to encourage the emancipation from the limitations of rationality cultivating an aesthetic understanding of organizations. It seeks to answer how organization members construct their experiences of efficiency based on the dualism between aesthetic and rationality and how are these constructions related. This study also seeks to ansewer what kind of dynamics discourses on effectiviness deliver and maintain. The empirical data is obtained by interviews with public sector employees and interpreted using deconstructive analysis presented by David Boje. Based on the research interviews the strong reliance on rationality…

PORTRAITS OF RUSSIAN WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS: IDENTIFICATION AND WAYS OF LEADERSHIP

Entrepreneurship has developed in Russia during the past two decades, which is a short time to develop a firm business culture. Women are still a minority among entrepreneurs globally, also in Russia [Verhovskaya, O. and Dorokhina, M. (2008) GEM. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, Executive Summary, Russia 2007, www.gemconsortium.org, 30.9.2008]. Our study focuses on Russian women entrepreneurship by means of an interview and photographs of 10 women entrepreneurs in the St. Petersburg area. We ask, how do they identify themselves in the current economic situation. Further, we ask if there is a specifically Russian type of women entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial identification. Finally, in …

Constructing leadership by storytelling – the meaning of trust and narratives

PurposeThis paper approaches manager's storytelling as a means for promoting organizational aims and for constructing leadership, and examines the intentions of managers in this process. We focus on the context of storytelling and the content of the stories told by managers in order to identify areas of influence on subordinates. Storytelling in relation to building a narrative identity for the manager is also studied.Design/methodology/approachThis is an exploratory empirical study that draws on 13 thematic interviews with Finnish managers working in different fields. A qualitative thematic analysis is used in order to analyze the data.FindingsAs a result of the study we found that manager…

Aging as a topic in a business magazine : an opportunity or threat for management?

Purpose Recently, research on aging in the work-life context from the perspective of how to manage, support and retain an aging workforce has increased among management scholars, and therefore is contributing to the current societal need to extend work careers. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the articles discussing aging in the work-life context in the Finnish business magazine Talouselämä (Economic Life) during the years 2002–2017. Design/methodology/approach A total of 81 articles were included in the analysis. They were classified into seven themes as a result of a content analysis. Three levels of discussions on aging were identified: societal, organizational and individual. T…

Entrepreneurship Education as Learning to Form Identities — Cross-Cultural Perspective

[Introduction] In this study we focus on entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurs’ professional identity and related cross-cultural issues [1]. Today’s global business requires professional identities that are flexible and broad-mind, and this is why teaching should recognize these challenges. There is a need for new skills such as generalist skills, social skills and abilities for creating and sustaining new, complex trust-based business networks. We believe entrepreneurship education can promote such abilities. The entrepreneurs-to-be also need ethical rules and codes as they build values and ethical understanding, all rooted in identity. Recently, researchers such as Rae [4] have stress…

Cooperation and teamwork in technology start-ups : reflected in some Italian, British, Dutch and German findings

Cooperation and teamwork is often a challenge for technology start-ups. Cooperation is usually needed in order to combine the variety of expertise and it requires trust between partners. The idea of national locality is changing in European enterprises because of the new shared markets and possibilities for cooperation. In this article we explore technology start-ups taking an Italian sample (N = 20) from the Torino-Milano area as a benchmark. Survey findings as well as case-study interviews are used as data. Italians are reputed to be communitarian and family minded as part of their national culture. Such start-ups would prefer to cooperate locally. A questionnaire and in-depth interviews …

Is Training Effective? Evaluating Training Effectiveness in Call Centers

Due to complex, competitive and crucial nature of call center jobs, organizations in services industry are spending more resources than ever on staff training and development. This is the case also in Call Center Representative Training. However, although organizations invest billions of dollars every year in training, no concrete evaluation framework exists to adequately quantify the impact of Call Center Representative (Henceforth CCR) training on actual job performance. Filling this gap, current study attempts to develop a framework to evaluate training programs in the context of call center industry using Kirkpatrick’s learning and training evaluation model. Developed framework is then …

Johtamisen juurilla – oppeja ja opettajia

Kirja-arvostelu: Hannele Seeck: Johtamisopit Suomessa. Taylorismista innovaatioteorioihin. Helsinki, Gaudeamus 2008. nonPeerReviewed

Social Interaction Technologies

This chapter explores a relationship between social interaction technologies (SIT) and guanxi, a major Chinese informal style of networking, in the context of the careers of women managers in the information technology (IT) field in China. Addressing women’s under-representation in non-traditional occupations (such as IT), prior research has established that networking, especially informal, is an important career management tool for women. Recent advances in social capital theory and social network analysis provide a framework for understanding the role of social processes in achieving career success. Today, the growing web-based social and professional networking in China weighs against th…

Yrittäjyyden laajat sfäärit ja idea toimivasta subjektista

Kirja-arvostelu teoksesta Yrittäjyyskasvatus : kansalaisen taloudellista autonomiaa etsimässä / Risto Ikonen. Jyväskylä, 2006. nonPeerReviewed

Making sense of women entrepreneurship research : a qualitative meta-analytical review

In this study, we explore how extant literature contributes to the development in women entrepreneurship research in terms of both theoretical and practical perspectives. Accordingly, an ostensible tendency can be seen as women entrepreneurship shifting from a marginalized discipline to a mainstream concept concerning more multi-dimensional attributes. Gender has been used as a lens into studies and it is understood as a socially-constructed process – to simply conduct comparative analysis between sexes cannot lead to more fruitful research results – women entrepreneurs needs a medium to undergo their significant contributions and important roles. Literature materials are chosen with the ke…

Editorial

Introduction: Why to Study Ageing in Organisations?

Questions related to ageing are shared widely in and between organizations. People are living longer and working longer than they used to earlier (Levinson 1978). The percentage of people over 60 years of age is growing rapidly worldwide, with one report estimating that by mid-century the number of people over 60 will triple to nearly two billion people. This tendency is evident especially in Europe and North America, which countries face the retiring of the baby-boom generation (Aaltio et al., International Journal of Work Innovation, 1(4), 323–329, 2016). The growing phenomenon of ageing has had and will have a major impact on the economy, and on social and work life (Davoudi et al., Futu…

Study of the Contribution of Research into Women Entrepreneurship : A Meta-analysis of Discourses in the Literature using ATLAS.ti

Abstract: In this paper, we have analyzed how existing literature contributes to women entrepreneurship research in terms of theoretical, methodological and practical ways of understanding. Based on relevant contents and discourses, a main line within the trend of development can be seen as women entrepreneurship shifting from a marginalized discipline to a more multi-dimensional research concept. Certain representative issues evoke development or are even being left as “atheoretical” at some point; the “alternative” angle is accordingly significant for an in-depth exploration through the relevant materials. The literature resources are chosen with close attention to the keywords “women ent…

Social Entrepreneurship Discourses and Contributions : A Literature Analysis

Differing from traditional type of entrepreneurship (i.e. business/ commercial entrepreneurship), social entrepreneurship embeds social value creation as its main objective. Recently, social entrepreneurship research is gaining popularity; meanwhile, ethics within social enterprises have not been comprehensively analyzed and debated. How to teach and train social entrepreneurs has also become a point of pedagogical significance. With a critical review of extant literature related to social entrepreneurship, a series of concepts emanate. We categorized our findings into three conceptual groups – ethics, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and sustainability. Based on a qualitative meta-an…

Guanxi and social capital: Networking among women managers in China and Finland

Considering that women are still under-represented in management, researchers have claimed that networking is an important career management tool for women. This study aims to empirically explore how women managers benefit from social networks in the information technology (IT) field in China and Finland. Guanxi, an Eastern term for social networking, has seldom been studied in terms of gender and career, especially within cross-cultural research. Social capital is a Western term for social networks. Using questionnaires, in-depth interviews and interpretive analysis, we compare the composition and structure of social networks used by women managers within the information technology sector …

Ikääntymisen merkitys työelämässä – näkökulmia ikäjohtamisen tutkimukseen

Implications of ageing for work: Perspectives for research The article, which focuses on age management and its various definitions and interpretations, was prompted by the need to examine the significance of age management within an organisational framework. The research material combines conceptual research and relevant literature. The National Programme on Ageing Workers 1998–2002 serves as the background for the study. In addition to providing essential data, the Programme was the first to introduce the concept of age management. Since its introduction, age management has been given a wide variety of meanings. Therefore it proved necessary to take a closer look at the relationship betwe…

Ageing, Gender and Leadership: A Study Based on Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

Based on current research on ageing in organizations, this chapter focuses on ageing, its gendered nature, and its relations to what is valued in organizational settings in terms of careers and leadership. Stories about ageing are present in mythology, archetypes, and the societal collective unconsciousness, often followed by heroism and charismatic figures. Myths of ageing are manifold but may also represent a “Grand Story” of ageing, present for everyone as an ideal without gender or other dimensions. Using Tolkien’s mythology and Peter Jackson’s guided film trilogy The Lord of the Rings, the gendered relations between ageing, leadership, and leadership charisma are explored and interpret…

Third Sector Hybridization and Migrant Integration : Cases of Two Migrant Youth Organizations in Finland

In Europe, with its larger numbers of recent newcomer migrants, there lingers the important question of how to facilitate migrant integration into society. This article focuses particularly on migrant organizations and their role in integration processes in the cultural context of Finland, where there is a tradition of civil society corporatism, but where the role of the third sector has traditionally also been strong. In addition, the third sector in Finland has in recent years been experiencing changes, as demands of service provision increase, and at the same time individual participation in formal associations is decreasing. Keeping these tendencies in mind, in this article we study two…

The guanxi ties of managers in mainland China – a critical analysis based on gender

Purpose Inadequate social networks are often seen as an explanation of the under-representation of women in management. Networks contain culture-specific features, as in China where the term guanxi is used, defined as a shared common identification held by two or more individuals (Jacobs, 1979). In several studies, guanxi has been found to relate positively to success at work both for the individual and the organization, but little is known about it from gender and career perspectives. Referring especially to the earlier studies by Chow and Ng (2004), the purpose of this paper is to address the meaning of guanxi networks for top women IT managers in mainland China. Design/methodology/appro…

Ageing employees and human resource management – evidence of gender-sensitivity?

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to identify the different research strands concerning studies related to human resource management (HRM) and ageing employees. More specifically, the paper analyses how age and gender are understood and conceptualized in these studies. Design/methodology/approach – An integrative literature review concerning ageing employees and HRM with special reference to gender is the approach taken in this paper. Findings – Recent studies relating to HRM and ageing employees were categorized and analysed. The paper concludes that there is a need for a more holistic understanding of the concept of age in studies related to ageing employees and HRM and also argues …

From Tools to Social Construction of Organizational Reality: Studying Value Dissemination in three Case Companies

Values and value management are extremely important nowadays in the companies. As thought, each organization works better when it is constantly kept in mind what is essential. Management`s role in value processing is crucial: they have to show the example to employees by acting due values. In this study the managerial roles in value dissemination and especially the personnel’s experiences about the processes are studied. Being big projects which require a lot of investments from the firm, evaluation of these value processing projects are of importance. The aim of this paper is to study value processing in three different organizations (forest industry, banking and market). The special focus…