Eurasian large mammal dynamics in response to changing environments during the Late Neogene

Nisäkkäiden levinneisyyteen, niiden morfologisiin ja ekologisiin piirteisiin vaikuttavat ympäristön sekä lyhyet että pitkäkestoiset muutokset, etenkin ilmaston ja kasvillisuuden vaihtelut. Työssä tutkittiin nisäkkäiden sopeutumista ilmastonmuutoksiin Euraasiassa viimeisen 24 miljoonan vuoden aikana. Tutkimuksessa keskityttiin varsinkin viimeiseen kahteen miljoonaan vuoteen, jonka aikana ilmasto muuttui voimakkaasti ja ihmisen toiminta alkoi tulla merkittäväksi. Tämän takia on usein vaikea erottaa, kummasta em. seikasta jonkin nisäkäslajin sukupuutto tai häviäminen alueelta johtui. Aineistona käytettiin laajaa venäjänkielistä kirjallisuutta, josta löytyvät tiedot ovat kääntämättöminä jääneet aiemmin länsimaisen tutkimuksen ulkopuolelle. Työssä käytettiin myös NOW-tietokantaa, jossa on fossiilisten nisäkkäiden löytöpaikat sekä niiden iät.

Key Account Management and Quality in Business-to-Business Relationships

What are the main elements of successful Key Account Management (KAM)? What is the nature of quality for the company and for the individual in business-to-business relationships? What kind of managerial practices are required at the company and individual level in Key Account Management? This paper focuses on these central aspects of KAM. It describes the main elements of KAM, which is a systematic marketing management approach in the business-to-business context with the objective to build profitable and long-lasting relationships with major accounts. Although paying customers in the business-to-business market are organizations, they are always represented by individuals. Thus, successful KAM requires appropriate handling of both the organizational and the individual levels. This paper describes the nature of quality for the company and for the individual in business-to-business relationships. As a synthesis, this paper suggests a framework for KAM practices deploying the main elements of KAM and the company and individual levels of business-to-business relationships. The weakness of the traditional quality management approach is that it pays little, if any, attention to customer importance. By providing similar quality to each customer, more important customers are penalized and less important customers are rewarded. This paper broadens the traditional quality management approach by introducing the concept of targeted quality based on customer importance.

An Examination of How Entrepreneurs Can Improve Their Position in Relation to Investors

Previous research has been inconclusive regarding the impact of those who invest in entrepreneurs. Consider for a moment how potentially important they are to entrepreneurs. They for example decide who deserves funding, how much time they contribute to their portfolio firms, how they grant entrepreneurs access to their networks, and help entrepreneurs acquire additional funding. In sum, investors potentially have a great impact on the success of entrepreneurs. It is therefore important that we better understand the environment, relationships and context in which parties operate. This thesis contains five articles that explore investors’ and entrepreneurs’ relationships from various viewpoints, in theoretical frameworks, and use a variety of data and research methods. The first article is a literature review that summarises what we know of venture capital, business angel and corporate venture capital funding. The second article studies the entrepreneurs’ investor selection process, its consequences, and identifies key factors that influence the process. Earlier, the common approach has been to concentrate research on the investors’ selection policy, not the entrepreneurs’. The data and conclusions are based on multiple case studies. The article analyses how entrepreneurs can ensure that they get the best possible investor, when it is possible for an entrepreneur to select an investor, and what are the consequences of investor selection. The third article employs power constructs (dependency, power balance/imbalance, power sources) and analyses their applicability in the investor-entrepreneur relationship. Power constructs are extensively studied and utilised in the management and organisation literature. In entrepreneur investor relationships, power aspects are rarely analysed. However, having the ability to “get others to do things they would not otherwise do” is a very common factor in the investor-entrepreneur relationship. Therefore, employing and analysing the applicability of power constructs in this setting is well founded. The article is based on a single case study but suggests that power constructs could be applicable and consequently provide additional insights into the investor-entrepreneur relationship. The fourth article studies the role of advisors in the venture capital investment process and analyses implications for research and practice, particularly from the entrepreneurs’ perspective. The common entrepreneurial finance literature describes the entrepreneur-investor relationship as linear and bilateral. However, it was discovered that advisors may influence the relationship. In this article, the role of advisors, operating procedures and advisors’ impact on different parties is analysed. The fifth article concentrates on investors’ certification effect. The article measures and demonstrates that venture capital investment is likely to increase the credibility (in terms of media attention) of early stage firms, those that most often need additional credibility. Understanding investor certification can affect how entrepreneurs evaluate investment offers and how investors can make their offers appear more lucrative.