An Activity Theory Perspective on Creating a New Digital Government Service in Finland

Digitalization of government services is a central goal in many countries. At policy-making level, digital government services are often expected to simultaneously reduce cost and provide citizens with better and more versatile services. Development of new digital government services, however, often involves companies, which typically have differences in their approach to the development and implementation of new digital services compared to the public sector. This study applies activity theory as a lens to identify the similarities and differences between the private and public sector in the development and implementation of a new government digital service. The aim is to identify the cont…

Visualising maritime vessel open data for better situational awareness in ice conditions

Situational awareness of maritime vessels in ice conditions is important for the operation of supply chains. In the artic sea areas, the ice conditions pose a major challenge for maritime vessels getting stuck in the ice and being significantly delayed in arrival to harbor. Data science and open data provide new opportunities to overcome these challenges. This paper introduces available open data sources and data visualizations that can be used to develop applications, for example, for detecting maritime vessel collision, predicting estimated time of arrival to harbor, as well as maritime vessel route optimization in ice conditions. The paper begins by introducing available open data source…

The use of social media for knowledge acquisition and dissemination in B2B companies: an empirical study of Finnish technology industries

Scholars and practitioners of knowledge management have paid increasing attention to the adoption of social media in business-to-business (B2B) setting for knowledge sharing; however, both the theoretical and empirical research in this domain are quite fragmented. The aim of this research is to deepen the understanding about the B2B companies’ awareness of the potentials of social media in improving their absorptive capacity and, consequently, if and how such companies deploy knowledge strategies based on social media adoption. We carried out an empirical survey of Finnish technology companies operating purely in B2B markets. Results highlight that social media adoption is still in a prelim…

A Business-Driven Process Model for Knowledge Security Risk Management

This chapter introduces a model to manage knowledge security risks in organizations. Knowledge security risk management is a process that should always be done in connection with the business benefits assessment and realization. The process model presented helps to identify knowledge security risks and provides a comprehensive approach to evaluating and balancing the costs and benefits of knowledge sharing and knowledge risk management and is discussed in light of the benefits realization process. The process model can be a valuable tool for practitioners aiming to develop knowledge sharing practices in companies, and at the same time need to consider the security of knowledge. It is also a…

Clustering the IMP thought : searching roots and diversities in IMP research

Educational Hackathon : Innovation Contest for Innovation Pedagogy

This paper addresses the educational hackthon as innovation pedagogy method for teaching fuzzy front end of innovation (FFEI) in higher education institutions (HEIs). Specifically it focuses on the process design and execution. This study is based on the idea that educational hackathons are a specific type of innovation contest aimed at teaching and learning, thus incorporating a set of design variables. Therefore, the paper reports a case study according to those variables in HEI teaching in university-industrycollaboration. This paper presents both the process description along with students’ learning and feedback, i.e. the development suggestions for the method. Presenting conclusions fo…

The Reform of Vocational Education and Training in Finland: Insights from Twitter

This paper aims to analyse and describe relationships and communication in Twitter in relation to vocational education and training reform in Finland. Data were collected during the early implementation phase of the reform from January 2018 to early June 2018. The data included 2400 tweets containing the hashtag #amisreformi (VET reform). Social network analysis was utilised to study the network and communities. The main themes of the tweets were analysed using thematic analysis, and automated sentiment analysis was used to examine the tones of the tweets and public opinion. The study showed that the official actors were central influencers in the network that lacked connectivity. Overall, …

Replacement of the Project Manager Reflected Through Activity Theory and Work–System Theory

Replacement of the project manager (RPM) is a known phenomenon in information systems (IS) projects, but scant attention is given to it in the project management or IS literature. Given its critical effects on the project business, the organization, the project team, and the project manager, it should be studied in more depth. We identified factors which make RPM occurrences inherently different and we show that work-system theory and activity theory give comprehensive lenses to advance research on RPM. For the future research on RPM we identified three objectives: experiences on RPM, process model for RPM, and organizational culture’s influence on RPM occurrences.

The Effects of Positive and Negative Emotions During Online Shopping Episodes on Consumer Satisfaction, Repurchase Intention, and Recommendation Intention

The aim of this study is to examine the emotions that consumers experience during their online shopping episodes as well as their effects on consumer satisfaction and two types of post-purchase behavioural intentions: repurchase and recommendation intentions. By hypothesising a research model and testing it with the data from 1,786 Finnish online shoppers, which was collected in co-operation with 18 Finnish online stores between September 2018 and December 2018 and is analysed by using structural equation modelling (SEM), the study makes several interesting findings. First, we find positive emotions to have stronger effects in comparison to negative emotions. Second, we also find that where…