Search results for "050203 business & management"
showing 10 items of 2222 documents
Narratives of Spousal Support for the Careers of Men in Managerial Posts
2016
This article analyses the narratives of men managers to see how they perceive their wives' support in relation to their careers. Our aim is to focus on different forms of spousal support and explore how the support can evolve in the course of the men's careers. We are also interested in what kind of gender relations men produce when narrating their experiences of spousal support for their career. The research material comprises interviews with 29 managers who are fathers. In contrast to many previous studies, the results here suggest that spousal support is not a fixed or uncomplicated phenomenon but is constructed as various and flexible by men: negotiated , enriching and declining. The na…
Building sustainable contextual ambidexterity through routines: a case study from information technology firms
2020
The purpose of this paper is to explain the role that routines play in achieving sustainable organisational ambidexterity in information technology (IT) firms. Our exploratory analysis of four case studies reveals the key importance of routines in setting the context for sustainable ambidexterity. Companies build up contextual ambidexterity through routines derived from normalization of processes, normalization of skills, and normalization of results. The findings of the study show that routines support IT professionals to decide whether to exploit or explore in each particular case. Firstly, the enabling character of explicit routines as a result of the normalisation of work processes and …
Towards Sustaining Levels of Reflective Learning: How Do Transformational Leadership, Task Interdependence, and Self-Efficacy Shape Teacher Learning …
2015
Whereas cross-sectional research has shown that transformational leadership, task interdependence, and self-efficacy are positively related to teachers’ engagement in reflective learning activities, the causal direction of these relations needs further inquiry. At the same time, individual teacher learning might play a mutual role in strengthening school-level capacity for sustained improvement. Building on previous research, this longitudinal study therefore examines how transformational leadership, task interdependence, self-efficacy, and teachers’ engagement in self-reflection mutually affect each other over time. Questionnaire data gathered on three measurement occasions from 655 Dutch …
Company values guiding the recruitment of employees with a foreign background
2019
Purpose In this paper, the following research question is addressed: Why do business organisations recruit employees with a foreign background? This was examined in terms of the values that guide organisations and their management. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach The study focused on two businesses in Finland that are pioneers in the recruitment of immigrants. A case study approach was adopted. The research data consist of interviews and documentary data. The data were analysed using content analysis in accordance with grounded theory. Findings Companies can act as an enabling force in the integration of immigrants into the local labour market, especially …
Management and academic profession : comparing the Finnish professors with and without management positions
2017
ABSTRACTManagement is one of the most studied phenomena in higher education. Most of these studies are conducted in the framework of higher education policy, academic work and quality of education and research. The management is often seen as an independent variable explaining the changes in higher education in the context of New Public Management and managerialism. In many studies, it is often forgotten that, the managers of academic organisations are academicians, not actors working for the government and funding bodies for implementing their agendas. Typically, management positions are employed by the professors. In our paper, we are interested in (1) who the managing professors are and …
Double Objective in Mind: Translating American Management Ideas in the Context of Cold War Finland
2021
The transfer of American management ideas was a central part of the Cold War struggle over ideologies. A key mediator was the European Recovery Program, which conveyed American influences to European management specialists. However, a direct influence was not always possible, as in Finland, which officially blocked assistance because of foreign policy considerations. Still, it was among the first countries to follow Harvard University’s lead in launching advanced management training. We examine how and why the focal actors adopted the American model of executive education, and how they managed to translate foreign ideas persuasively to the local business elite. The translation of executive …
Antenarratives in Ongoing Strategic Change : Using the Story Index to Capture Daunting and Optimistic Futures
2018
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…
An assessment of COVID-19’s impact on Finnish University Leadership
2021
This article maps the management actions that Finnish universities have taken during the COVID-19 pandemic and studies how managers in Finnish higher education coped during the crisis and how they feel about it. The article uses action mapping and a survey that was administered to top- and mid-level managers at Finnish universities, and the findings highlight the importance of collegial coordination and maintenance work abilities among managers. publishedVersion Peer reviewed
High-involvement management practices and the productivity of firms: Detecting industry heterogeneity
2020
The aim of this article is to clarify the links between high-involvement management (HIM) practices, productivity and branches of industry. The data combine a representative survey (N = 787) of private-sector firms in Finland and register-based firm-level data on sales per employee in the year following the survey. The authors analysed the data using mixture regression and identified two clusters in the association between HIM and productivity. In one cluster, high-involvement management and productivity were positively associated, while in the other cluster, the association was negative. The association between the intensity of HIM utilisation and productivity is not always additive; the b…
Three orientations for understanding educational autonomy: school principals’ voices from Australia, Finland, and Jamaica
2021
This paper reports on the findings from a multi-site case study conducted in Australia, Finland and Jamaica which explored the conditions that enabled and constrained the autonomy of school principals. Systematic data collection was carried out in the form of interviews of school principals and the data was analysed using a qualitative approach. The analysis indicates that: (1) school principals’ practices are prefigured by the peculiarities of historical trajectories and ideological traditions enmeshed in schooling sites; (2) these prefiguring arrangements in turn influence varying realisations of autonomous decision making practices across national sites; and (3) even in the expression of…