Osuustoiminnallisen organisaation kehityksen kytkeytyminen suomalaisen hyvinvointiyhteiskunnan kehitykseen vastuullisuusnäkökulmasta : tapaus OP Ryhmä

Yritysten ja yhteiskunnan välinen suhde on monitahoinen ilmiö, jota voidaan lähestyä lukuisista näkökulmista. Yritykset ovat erottamaton osa yhteiskuntaa, eivät siitä erillisiä. Tässä artikkelissa tarkastelemme suomalaisittain merkittävän osuustoiminnallisen organisaation kehityksen kytkeytymistä hyvinvointiyhteiskunnan kehitykseen vastuullisuuden näkökulmasta. Vastuullisuus sateenvarjokäsitteenä kattaa usein synonyymisesti käytetyt yhteiskuntavastuun ja yritysvastuun käsitteet. Tarkastelumme kohteena on suomalainen osuuskuntamuotoinen finanssialan pankkiorganisaatio, OP Ryhmä. Osuuskuntamuotoisen organisaation on arvopohjansa perusteella lunastettava useita vastuullisuuteen liittyviä odotu…

Mistä on lääkärijohtajat tehty?

Leadership and leadership development have been valuated to be the most important part in reaching the strategic goals of the health care. At this moment when Finland is preparing for an unprecedented reform of the health and social services, the impact of a physician leadership to the health care is probably more important than ever. The aim of this study is also to increase understanding of the physician leadership, the work of physician leader and how Finnish doctors value leadership work nowdays. A qualitative interview study (n = 23) was performed for the chief physicians and the heads of departments in The Central Finland Central Hospital. The study showed that a physician leader is d…

Johtamisen merkitys luovuudelle informaatioteknologian organisaatioissa

[Lukijalle] Ammatillinen toimijuus, luovuus ja johtaminen – onko näillä asioilla tekemistä toistensa kanssa? Kyllä on ja pitää olla. Elämme yhteiskunnallisesti ja taloudellisesti mielenkiintoista aikaa, joka on lukuisten uhkien, jännitteiden ja epävarmuuden sävyttämä. Nyt ratkotaan työelämän haasteita tehokkuusvaateineen ja neuvotellaan työelämän pelisäännöistä. Julkisessa keskustelussa on parjattu huonoa johtamista sekä työpaikkojen huonoa ilmapiiriä. Ratkaisuksi on usein tarjottu innovaatioita ja luovuuden lisäämistä, työhyvinvointia unohtamatta. Ratkaisuehdotuksissa on varmasti perää. Ongelmallista tuntuu kuitenkin olevan se, että yhtä yleispätevää ratkaisua etsitään ja pyritään tarjoama…

Professional Agency and Creativity in Information Technology Work

The meaning of professional agency in the context of professional learning, as well as in the development of working practices and work organisations, is pivotal. The role of creativity is also crucial for long-term economic growth in the current global environment, which is characterised by rapid changes in both technology and economy. Hence, it is important to study the relationship between professional agency and creativity. In this chapter, we explore professional agency and creativity within two Finnish information technology organisations. This study’s data include interviews with staff members and open-ended questionnaire responses to the question ‘What is creativity in your work?’. …

Kuntaorganisaation viranhaltijoiden ja poliitikkojen valmistelutyö fantasiointina

Both the management and decisionmaking in municipal organizations may be characterized as tensional. Previous scholarly work has tried to identify (cf. Haveri, 2010; Luomala, 2003) and solve (Pynnönen, 2015) some of the sources of tensions. In this empirical study we focus on the orientations of political decision-makers and office-holders towards preparation in municipal decision-making in a relatively large municipal organization. According to our findings, both politicians and office-holders resort to the principles of new public management (NPM) including management accounting ratiocentered functional planning, but also to more subjective, value and attitude-based metaphorical symbolic …

Work, power and learning in a risk filled occupation

In this article we describe various ways in which power is exercised between personnel in a hospital operating theatre. We aim to investigate how the forms of discursive power and workplace learning are intertwined with each other by utilizing an ethnographic approach in the fieldwork. Our data were collected mainly through observations and interviews with surgical residents, physicians and nurses. In the article we describe the delicate ways in which power is exercised and resisted in everyday practices. We argue that there is a close relationship between learning and manifestations of power, together with the various forms of these manifestations and the restrictions that may be placed o…

Narratiivinen johtajuus : tutkielmia johtajuuden tarinankerronnan tutkimuksesta ja käytännöstä

Evolution of strategy narration and leadership work in the digital era

This paper examines the evolution of strategy narration, contributing to ongoing discussions in this field. Our empirical data, gathered from a large Finnish co-operative bank, cover three decades. According to our findings, digitalisation has brought about an epoch change in strategy narration, as top management has strongly adopted digital media in their leadership work, which has replaced ‘traditional’ face-to-face strategy meetings and public presentations by gatherings on digital platforms, including webcasting, intranet and Skype. This has brought about a leadership vacuum, and left organisational members long for their superiors to ‘exercise’ some traditional leadership practices, su…

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…

Antenarratives in Ongoing Strategic Change : Using the Story Index to Capture Daunting and Optimistic Futures

Strategic organizational change is a complex, future-oriented phenomenon that is critical for any organization. Traditional means of inquiry have struggled with the difficulty of capturing the future; thus, the methods for managing things to come remain scarce. In this chapter, we contribute to managing strategic change, and thereby the future of the organization, by developing the Story Index (SIX) method. The method facilitates a better understanding of how organizational change takes shape in the discursive reality before materializing in concrete terms. SIX is an analytical process combining antenarratives and narrative rationality to reveal the emerging meanings and rationales of chang…

HR scenario game : Learning human resource management in a virtual environment

This paper introduces a computer-based online scenario game that was developed to enhance the learning of human resource management (HRM) in an undergraduate course at a business school in Finland. What makes this game unique is that students played an important and active role in developing the game in collaboration with lecturers. Our findings show that the game enhances learning, interaction, and collaboration among students. We discuss how computer-based games and their development in collaboration with students can be used as a means for learning and improving working-life skills in higher education.

Shortcomings of New Public Management Ideology from the Power Perspective : Exploration of Power Relations in a Finnish Municipal Organization

New public management (NPM) is perceived as a method for restoring the effectiveness of municipal organizations. In Finland, it is the main motivator for the reconstruction of municipal and state-driven public sectors. Our article explores the power relations created through implementing the NPM ideology, and how those power relations are constructed and renegotiated between office-holders and politicians in a Finnish municipal organization. We contribute to the NPM literature through an empirical study by introducing forms of power, including previously neglected concealed power. Typically, the informal rules of NPM, the administrative codex, and municipal politics are considered to deline…

Storytelling and ethics

Huono johtaminen lääkärikontekstissa

Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on selvittää, millaisia ilmenemismuotoja huono johtaminen saa lääkärikontekstissa. Aineiston keruumenetelmänä käytettiin puolistrukturoitua haastattelua (n=50). Kaikki aineiston informantit ovat lääkäreitä. Tutkimusaineisto analysoitiin sisällönanalyysin avulla, jonka tuloksena syntyi huonon lääkärijohtamisen teemoittelu. Tätä teemajakoa täsmennettiin myös aiemman tutkimuskirjallisuuden avulla.Tutkimuksen tuloksilla toivotaan voitavan kehittää lääkäreiden työhyvinvointia ja lääkärijohtajan työtä terveydenhuollon muuttuvassa toimintaympäristössä siten, että lääkäreillä olisi tehtäväänsä motivoituneita ja tehtävässään viihtyviä lääkäreitä johtajinaan. This study …

Ghostbusters! On the Narrative Creation of (Absent) Leader Characters

We seek to “bust out” ghost leaders, narrated leader(ship) characters manifesting leadership influence, to discuss the inherent challenges related to leaderless management. By taking the non-corporeal aspect of leadership into account, we challenge the notion of leaderless management—which we argue has turned out to be more of an inspiring and empowering idea rather than a standing practice. We illustrate, with a Finnish high-tech organization, how organizational members narrate leader characters into existence in the non-corporeal realm during an organizational change to fill the void of a corporeal leader. While organizations may declare themselves to be leaderless, they, in fact, are not…

What's in it for me and you? : Exploring managerial perceptions of employees' work-related social media use

PurposeThis study focuses on managers' perceptions of employees' communicative role in social media, and explores the changes in the contractual nature of employment relations in mediatized workplaces in which the boundaries of professional and private life are becoming more fluid.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative approach was employed to explore this relatively new phenomenon. The data, comprising 24 interviews with managers responsible for corporate communication and human resources in knowledge-intensive organizations, was thematically analysed.FindingsThe analysis shows that employees' work-related social media use creates new types of exchanges and dependencies between an organi…

Organizational identity construction as a control mechanism

This study examines how identities become constructed and regulated during a strategic organizational change process. Planning and implementing a strategy is a social process, which consists of constructing, delivering, compelling, receiving, resisting and multiple contradicting meanings. The process includes multiple social factors influencing the strategy. The visions, notions, images, conceptions, assumptions and appreciation of members of an organization make the process dynamic and flexible. Thus, the strategy process is also always a matter of organizational change. By participating in the strategy process, the members produce meanings for the process and receive meanings produced som…

The development of mobile banking services in a large Finnish financial organization

The chapter, based on an ongoing qualitative study, provides answers to the following questions: what are the case organizations’ rationales in developing mobile banking services? how are customer perspectives considered in developing them? and what are the implications of digitalization and m-banking for the bank and the client? Based on the findings, m-banking is seen to allow ubiquitous availability and efficiency of service provision, offering a sound rationale for their development. The flipside is that digital and m-banking services dilute the human interaction, which challenges the rationale of improving the customer experience. The service development follows the software industry m…

Just a leader? Leadership work challenges and identity contradiction experienced by Finnish physician leaders.

PurposeThis study seeks to improve the understanding of physician leaders' leadership work challenges.Design/methodology/approachThe subjects of the empirical study were physician leaders (n = 23) in the largest central hospital in Finland.FindingsA total of five largely identity-related, partially paradoxical dilemmas appeared regarding why working as “just a leader” is challenging for physician leaders. First, the dilemma of identity ambiguity between being a physician and a leader. Second, the dilemma of balancing the expected commitment to clinical patient work by various stakeholders and that of physician leadership work. Third, the dilemma of being able to compensate for leadership sk…

Leadership as an enabler of professional agency and creativity : case studies from the Finnish information technology sector

This paper summarizes and elaborates the findings of a research project on leadership as an enabler of professional agency and creativity in information technology organizations. The synthesis in this paper is based on a summary of three primary studies. Each of the studies approached leadership, creativity and/or professional agency with a specific focus. Leaning on a mixed‐methods and ethnographic approach, including various empirical data collection and analytical tools, the project investigated the relationship between professional agency and creativity; issues that frame professional agency and creativity; and the meaning of leadership practices for the enhancement of agency and creati…

E-urheilun johtaminen : lähtölaukaus empiiriselle tutkimukselle suomalaisesta näkökulmasta

Esports – as a rapidly growing field of sport, entertainment, and business – offers an interesting arena for leadership research. In this qualitative study, we focus on Finnish esports leadership, considering both the definitions as well as the leadership processes in the professional electronic gaming. Our aim is to chart the terrain and increase understanding of the theme so far little empirically studied, and to open views for further research. This study can be seen as an opening for further empirical research on Finnish esports leadership. Due to scarcity of scientific discussions, a wider selection of literature on leadership research and international esports leadership studies have …

Supporting Creativity and Learning at Work : Practices and Structures from Growth Companies

The constant change embedded in contemporary working life requires employees and organisations alike to continuously learn and, simultaneously, adapt and be creative. The potential to attract, manage and engage creative people, as well as support learning, has become increasingly important in organisational contexts. It is essential to recognise what the underlying learning theories are and how they connect with the current understanding of creativity. It is also important to study different manifestations of creativity and learning and reactively and proactively discover ways of supporting and developing both aspects in contemporary organisations. In this chapter, we first present our appr…

Strategy implementation as fantasising – becoming the leading bank

In this empirical case study we explore the fantasy nature of strategy work and propose fantasising as a framework contributing to the nascent literature dealing with the previously overlooked fantasy nature of strategy. More specifically, our interest is on examining how the meaning of official strategy gets constructed as it is being implemented, as well as and how and why the perceptions may evolve during implementation. Our data consists of official strategy documents and interviews from Finland's largest financial services group and its largest unit. The interviews cover all organisational levels, enabling us to reveal the variations of perceptions of strategy as it is being implemente…

Self-organised structures in the field of ICT : challenges for employees’ workplace learning

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify the challenges of low hierarchy and self-organised structures for employees’ learning and competency development at work. In the past decade, interest in employees’ and organisations’ self-directedness has increased. Self-organised structures are perceived as better able to answer to the quickly changing requirements of clients and business environments. Within these structures, employees are expected to take on more responsibility and maintain more control over their workplace learning, which means they must be self-directed and autonomous. An important question for this approach is how can workplace learning and employee competence developme…

Digimaterialismi : virtuaalisten hyödykkeiden kulutusmotiivit

Purchasing motives form a well-analyzed field within the academic scrutiny of marketing and economics. Consumption occurs if purchasing a product provides value for customers. Nowadays an increasing number of commodities exchanged in the market are digital and virtual in nature. Number of people playing online video games continues to grow rapidly around the globe. Fortnite is a free-to-play video game, but players can buy various virtual items, so called “skins”, inside the game. Interestingly, those skins are purely nonfunctional items, which provide no competitive advantage for players. Nevertheless, those items are very popular and game companies generate significant revenues through sa…

Henkilöstöjohtamisen opetuksen kehityspolku JSBE:ssä : salista peliin

Kontrollin käsite muutoksessa: käskytyksestä kohti asiantuntijaohjausta

Management control is a prerequisite for a coordinated and efficient organization having - as a multilayered conception – utterly ambiguous meanings. Control has no sole, coherent definition and the translation between Finnish and English brings about even more confusion. Alongside industrialization, strict control in organizations was adopted. Later, the advances in education and technology have changed the idea of worker as an organizational actor and mechanistic human conception has fractured. However, the mainstream in management literature still treats control as an essential yet excessive managerialist way: Control is a top-down activity which belongs to the management. In this articl…

Johtaminen ja tarinankerronta organisaatioissa digitaalisessa vallankumouksessa

Digitalization is the most recent and still ongoing industrial revolution, which challenges the traditional leadership theories while also organizational storytelling needs to be revised. This article summarizes the focal phases of leadership theory development while the focus is particularly on organizational storytelling. The purpose is to reflect leadership (theory and practice) in terms of digitalization by discussing such questions as how digitalization has been taken into cognizance this far and how digitalization will transform organizational storytelling and leadership in the future? Three illustrative empirical cases have been applied with a view to reveal insights on the nature an…