The Finnish Leadership Style in Transition - A Study of Leadership Criteria in the Insurance Business, 1997-2004 (summary section only)

The aim of the study was to explore the importance of evaluating leadership criteria in Finland at leader/subordinate levels of the insurance industry. The overall purpose of the thesis is tackled and analyzed from two different perspectives: - by examining the importance of the leadership criteria and style of Finnish insurance business leaders and their subordinates - by examining the opinions of insurance business leaders regarding leadership criteria in two culturally different countries: the US and Finland. This thesis consists of three published articles that scrutinise the focal phenomena both theoretically and empirically. The main results of the study do not lend support to the existence of a universal model of leadership criteria in the insurance business. As a matter of fact, the possible model seems to be based more on the special organizational and cultural circumstances of the country in question. The leadership criteria seem to be quite stable irrespective of the comparatively short research time period (3–5 years) and hierarchical level (subordinate/leader). Leaders have major difficulties in changing their leadership style. In fact, in order to bring about an efficient organizational change in the company you have to alternate the leader. The cultural dimensions (cooperation and monitoring) identified by Finnish subordinates were mostly in line with those of their managers, whilst emphasizing more the aspect of monitoring employees, which could be seen from their point of view as another element of managers’ optimizing/efficiency requirements. In Finnish surveys the strong emphasis on cooperation and mutual trust become apparent by both subordinates and managers. The basic problem is still how to emphasize and balance them in real life in such a way that both parties are happy to work together on a common basis. The American surveys suggests hypothetically that in a soft market period (buyer’s market) managers employ a more relationship-oriented leadership style and correspondingly adapt their leadership style to a more task-oriented approach in a hard market phase (seller’s market). In making business better Finnish insurance managers could probably concentrate more on task-oriented items such as reviewing, budgeting, monitoring and goal-orientation. The study also suggests that the social safety net of the European welfare state ideology has so far shielded the culture-specific sense of social responsibility of Finnish managers from the hazards of free competition and globalization.

Nationalism Circumscribed : Transnational Governance of Minority Rights in Post-Cold War Europe

For the past two centuries, nationalism has been among the most influential legitimizing principles of political organization. According to its simple definition, nationalism is a principle or a way of thinking and acting which holds that the world is divided into nations, and that national and political units should be congruent. Nationalism can thus be divided into two aspects: internal and external. Internally, the political units, i.e., states, should be made up of only one nation. Externally each nation-state should be sovereign. Transnational national governance of rights of national minorities violates both these principles. This study explores the formation, operation, and effectiveness of the European post-Cold War minorities system. The study identifies two basic approaches to minority rights: security and justice. These approaches have been used to legitimize international minority politics and they also inform the practice of transnational governance. The security approach is based on the recognition that the norm of national self-determination cannot be fulfilled in all relevant cases, and so minority rights are offered as a compensation to the dissatisfied national groups, reducing their aspiration to challenge the status quo. From the justice perspective, minority rights are justified as a compensatory strategy against discrimination caused by majority nation-building. The research concludes that the post-Cold War minorities system was justified on the basis of a particular version of the security approach, according to which only Eastern European minority situations are threatening because of the ethnic variant of nationalism that exists in that region. This security frame was essential in internationalising minority issues and justifying the swift development of norms and institutions to deal with these issues. However, from the justice perspective this approach is problematic, since it justified double standards in European minority politics. Even though majority nation-building is often detrimental to minorities also in Western Europe, Western countries can treat their minorities more or less however they choose. One of the main contributions of this thesis is the detailed investigation of the operation of the post-Cold War minorities system. For the first decade since its creation in the early 1990s, the system operated mainly through its security track, which is based on the field activities of the OSCE that are supported by the EU. The study shows how the effectiveness of this track was based on inter-organizational cooperation in which various transnational actors compensate for each other s weaknesses. After the enlargement of the EU and dissolution of the membership conditionality this track, which was limited to Eastern Europe from the start, has become increasingly ineffective. Since the EU enlargement, the focus minorities system has shifted more and more towards its legal track, which is based on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (Council of Europe). The study presents in detail how a network of like-minded representatives of governments, international organizations, and independent experts was able strengthen the framework convention s (originally weak) monitoring system considerably. The development of the legal track allows for a more universal and consistent, justice-based approach to minority rights in contemporary Europe, but the nationalist principle of organization still severely hinders the materialization of this possibility.

Suomi toisena kielenä vai lukivaikeus? : Luokanopettajien käsityksiä oppilaiden kielellisistä vaikeuksista

Goals. Immigrant pupils are over-represented in special education. Linguistic difficulties are the most pivotal reasons for social exclusion of immigrant pupils during their school career. Addedly reading, writing, and language development disorders are the most common reasons for both part-time and extensive special education. I studied class teachers' perceptions of the typical linguistic difficulties of pupils who speak Finnish as their second language and of those who have dyslexia, because I suspect that telling the difference between linguistic competency in progress and the symptoms of dyslexia isn't easy. I look for overlappings in the perceptions of linguistic difficulties, their causes and their support measures, which would reveal the challenges in recognizing linguistic difficulties, which in turn might partly explain why immigrant pupils are over-represented in special education. Methods. This study was carried out as structured individual interviews with nine class teachers from the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. To increase reliability, complementary information was gathered about the same phenomenon with a questionnaire that each interviewee filled out at the end of the interview. It was required that the interviewees have experience of teaching both dyslexic pupils and pupils who speak Finnish as a second language. The material analysis was mainly deductive, but the material that wasn't in line with the theoretical frame of reference was analyzed inductively. Results and conclusions. There were overlappings in the class teachers' perceptions of the linguistic difficulties, support measures fitting them and, based on the questionnaire results, also of the causes of these difficulties. Additionally all the interviewees said it to be difficult to recognize dyslexia in a pupil who speaks Finnish as a second language. I came to the conclusion that distinguishing different linguistic difficulties from one another is a challenge to which class teachers don't always feel competent to rise, which is why they consider the assistance of special teachers and other professionals beneficial.

Sanomattakin selvää? : "Ja", "mutta" ja "että" puheenvuoron lopussa

This study describes the use of utterances ending in the conjunctions "ja" (‘and’), "mutta" (‘but’) or "että" (‘that’/‘so’) in Finnish conversation. It argues that in spoken interaction, these conjunctions are not only used as linking elements but also as final elements in interactional and linguistic units. In contrast to more traditional views, the study shows that final conjunctions do not always indicate incompleteness or project continuation, but that they can also form recognizable points for turn-transition. In these contexts they can be reanalyzed as final particles that leave some aspect of the turn implicit. The data for the study consist of audio-taped telephone conversations and videotaped service encounters. Situated within the framework of conversation analysis and interactional linguistics, the study discusses the interactional uses of conjunction-final turns and their recognizability as possibly complete units in talk-in-interaction. The analysis of conjunction-final utterances focuses on 1) participant orientation, and 2) their recurrent contexts of use. The results show that the recipients of conjunction-final utterances often treat them as sufficient and complete in their contexts by displaying understanding or agreement. When the same speaker continues after a pause, it is not always clear that the continuation was "planned" in advance; it can also be reactive to lack of expected uptake. In these cases, a turn can be analyzed as potentially complete even if the same speaker decides to continue after a pause. In the light of these observations, the study confirms the incremental nature of spoken language. All the final conjunctions under examination have recurrent and recognizable contexts of use. Most typically, a conjunction-final utterance is produced in the service of some earlier claim by the same speaker. The conjunction-final utterance may 1) specify the earlier claim with a detailing list ("ja"), 2) legitimize it by presenting grounds ("että") or 3) partly back down from it by making a concession ("mutta"). Together with the earlier claim, conjunction-final utterances form recognizable discourse patterns that are used for argumentative purposes. In these contexts, conjunctions are used to relinquish the floor instead of functioning as turn-holding devices. In conclusion, the study discusses the emergence of conjunctions as final particles – how their development can be explained. Conjunction-type final particles emerge from recurring situations in which the future course of the conjunction-final turn-so-far is clear enough to remain unsaid, to be left to inference. More specifically, this ability to leave something to inference often lies in the fixed discourse patterns that are conventionalized and predictable and thus reducible.