Arvojen markkinat : Oikeuttavat arvomaailmat suomalaisten suuryritysten yritysvastuupuheessa

The research in this thesis addresses the question of corporate legitimation and values. It studies moral speech in Finnish companies' social responsibility reports and annual reports. The managerial rhetoric has been examined as a means of building and maintaining legitimacy. The companies studyed are the ten biggest companies that repordted on social responsibility in 2004, and the analysed data consists of the companie's reporting from 1998 to 2008. The theoretical and analytical framework is provided by Luc Boltanski's and Laurent Thévenot's theory of justification. The theory is focused on systems of moral thinking and argumentation, so called "orders of worth". The study shows how these moral schemes were used in the legitimation process. Special attention is paid on the ways that compromises are made between different orders of worth, such as the market, civic and green order. The study shows that the focus of legitimation has shifted towards societal and environmental themes. The values of market and industry, profits and efficiency, however, remain the strongest basis for organizational legitimation in Finnish companies. The economic crisis of 2008 had a visible impact on the moral rhetoric, especially in the Finnish forestry sector. Large layoffs questionned the companies' traditional role and made companies adopt a more market-centered and project-based moral rhetoric. New inspirational and project-centered moral speech emerged as the companies were less able to present themselves as nation-based, traditional actors in the Finnish society.

Local systems, global impacts : Using life cycle assessment to analyse the potential and constraints of industrial symbioses

Human activities extract and displace different substances and materials from the earth s crust, thus causing various environmental problems, such as climate change, acidification and eutrophication. As problems have become more complicated, more holistic measures that consider the origins and sources of pollutants have been called for. Industrial ecology is a field of science that forms a comprehensive framework for studying the interactions between the modern technological society and the environment. Industrial ecology considers humans and their technologies to be part of the natural environment, not separate from it. Industrial operations form natural systems that must also function as such within the constraints set by the biosphere. Industrial symbiosis (IS) is a central concept of industrial ecology. Industrial symbiosis studies look at the physical flows of materials and energy in local industrial systems. In an ideal IS, waste material and energy are exchanged by the actors of the system, thereby reducing the consumption of virgin material and energy inputs and the generation of waste and emissions. Companies are seen as part of the chains of suppliers and consumers that resemble those of natural ecosystems. The aim of this study was to analyse the environmental performance of an industrial symbiosis based on pulp and paper production, taking into account life cycle impacts as well. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool for quantitatively and systematically evaluating the environmental aspects of a product, technology or service throughout its whole life cycle. Moreover, the Natural Step Sustainability Principles formed a conceptual framework for assessing the environmental performance of the case study symbiosis (Paper I). The environmental performance of the case study symbiosis was compared to four counterfactual reference scenarios in which the actors of the symbiosis operated on their own. The research methods used were process-based life cycle assessment (LCA) (Papers II and III) and hybrid LCA, which combines both process and input-output LCA (Paper IV). The results showed that the environmental impacts caused by the extraction and processing of the materials and the energy used by the symbiosis were considerable. If only the direct emissions and resource use of the symbiosis had been considered, less than half of the total environmental impacts of the system would have been taken into account. When the results were compared with the counterfactual reference scenarios, the net environmental impacts of the symbiosis were smaller than those of the reference scenarios. The reduction in environmental impacts was mainly due to changes in the way energy was produced. However, the results are sensitive to the way the reference scenarios are defined. LCA is a useful tool for assessing the overall environmental performance of industrial symbioses. It is recommended that in addition to the direct effects, the upstream impacts should be taken into account as well when assessing the environmental performance of industrial symbioses. Industrial symbiosis should be seen as part of the process of improving the environmental performance of a system. In some cases, it may be more efficient, from an environmental point of view, to focus on supply chain management instead.  

The Quest for Well-being in Growth Industries 2: The Survey

This working paper reports the ongoing research conducted in the research project, The Quest for Well-being in Growth Industries: A Collaborative Study in Finland and Scotland, under the auspices of Academy of Finland research programme, The Future of Work and Well-being. The research project examines the contradictory pressures for policies and practices towards both the inhibition and the enhancement of work-related well-being that are likely in growth industries. The overall aim is to evaluate the development, implementation and use of work-related well-being policies in four selected growth industries. These – electronics, care, finance and accounting, and tourism – have been selected on the basis of EU and national forecasts, and demographic and socio-economic trends in standard and non-standard employment. In this paper we aim to review the survey that constitutes the second main phase of this research.

Factors affecting perceptions of corporate social responsibility implementation: an emphasis on values

This dissertation is a broad study of factors affecting perceptions of CSR issues in multiple stakeholder realms, the main purpose being to determine the effects of the values of individuals on their perceptions regarding CSR. It examines perceptions of CSR both at the emic (observing individuals and stakeholders) and etic levels (conducting cross-cultural comparison) through a descriptive-empirical research strategy. The dissertation is based on quantitative interview data among Chinese, Finnish and US stakeholder groups of industry companies (with an emphasis on the forest industries) and consists of four published articles and two submitted manuscripts. Theoretically, this dissertation provides a valuable and unique philosophical and intellectual perspective on the contemporary study of CSR `The Harmony Approach to CSR'. Empirically, this dissertation does values assessment and CSR evaluation of a wide variety of business activities covering CSR reporting, business ethics, and three dimensions of CSR performance. From the multi-stakeholder perspective, this dissertation use survey methods to examine the perceptions and stakeholder salience in the context of CSR by describing, comparing the differences between demographic factors as well as hypothetical drivers behind perceptions. The results of study suggest that the CSR objective of a corporation's top management should be to manage the divergent and conflicting interests of multiple stakeholders, taking others than key stakeholders into account as well. The importance of values as a driver of ethical behaviour and decision-making has been generally recognized. This dissertation provides more empirical proof of this theory by highlighting the effects of values on CSR perceptions. It suggests that since the way to encourage responsible behaviour and develop CSR is to develop individual values and cultivate their virtues, it is time to invoke the critical role of moral (ethics) education. The specific studies of China and comparison between Finland and the US contribute to a common understanding of the emerging CSR issues, problems and opportunities for the future of sustainability. The similarities among these countries can enhance international cooperation, while the differences will open up opportunities and diversified solutions for CSR in local conditions.