The Tourism-Development Nexus in Namibia : A Study on National Tourism Policy and Local Tourism Enterprises' Policy Knowledge

The tourism development nexus in southern Africa involves highly topical issues related to tourism planning, power relations, community participation, and natural resources. Namibia offers a particularly interesting context for the study of these issues due to its colonial legacy, vast tourism potential, recently adopted tourism policy and community-based approaches to tourism and natural resource management. This study is an interdisciplinary endeavour to analyse the role of tourism in Namibia s post-apartheid transformation process by focusing on Namibian tourism policy and local tourism enterprises' policy knowledge. Major attention is paid to how the tourism policy's national development objectives are understood and conceptualised by the representatives of different tourism enterprises and the ways in which they relate to the practical needs of the enterprises. Through such local policy knowledge the study explores various opportunities, challenges and constraints related to the promotion of tourism as a development strategy. The study utilises a political economy approach to tourism and development through three current and interrelated discourses which are relevant in the Namibian context. These are tourism, power and inequality, tourism and sustainable development, and tourism and poverty reduction. The qualitative research material was gathered in Namibia in 2006-2007 and 2008. This material consists of 34 semi-structured interviews in 16 tourism enterprises, including private trophy hunting farms and private lodges, small tour operators and community-based tourism enterprises. In addition, the research material consists of observations in the enterprises, and 37 informal and 23 expert interviews. The findings indicate that in the light of local tourism enterprises the tourism policy objectives appear more complex and ambiguous. Furthermore, they involve multiple meanings and interpretations which reflect the socio-economic stratification of the informants and Namibian society, together with the professional stratification of the tourism enterprises and restrictions on the capacity of tourism to address the development objectives. In the light of such findings it is obvious that aspects of power and inequality affect the tourism development nexus in Namibia. The study concludes that, as in the case of other southern African countries, in order to promote sustainable development and reduce poverty, Namibia should not only target tourism growth but pay attention to who benefits from that growth and how. From a political economy point of view, it is important that prevailing structural challenges are addressed equally in the planning of tourism, development and natural resource management. Such approach would help the Namibian majority to enjoy the benefits of increasing tourism in the country.

Governance Matters : China's Developing Western Region with a Focus on Qinghai Province

This study is about governance in contemporary China. The focus is on Qinghai Province, one of the twelve provincial-level units included in the western region development strategy launched in 2000 by the government of China. Qinghai, the subject of the case study, is not a very well-known province. Hence, this study is significant, because it provides new knowledge about the province of Qinghai, its governance and diverse challenges, and deepens one s overall knowledge regarding China. Qinghai province is one of the slowest developing regions of China. My research problem is to analyze to what extent provincial development correlates with the quality of governance. The central concept of this research is good governance. This dissertation employs a grounded theory approach while the theoretical framework of this study is built on the Three World s approach of analyzing the three main themes, namely, the environment, economic development, and cultural diversity, and to support the empirical work. Philosophical issues in the humanities and contemporary theories of governance are brought in to provide deeper understanding of governance, and to understand to what extent and how characteristics of good governance (derived from the Western canon) are combined with Chinese tradition. A qualitative research method is chosen to provide a deeper understanding of the contemporary challenges of Qinghai (and China) and to provide some insight into the role and impact of governance on provincial development. It also focuses on the Tibetan ethnic group in order to develop as full an understanding as possible about the province. The challenges faced by Qinghai concern in particular its environment, economic development, and cultural diversity, all of which are closely interrelated. The findings demonstrate that Qinghai Province is not a powerful actor, because it has weak communications with the central government and weak collaboration with its stakeholders and civil society. How Qinghai s provincial government conducts provincial development remains a key question in terms of shaping the province s future. The question is how is Qinghai s government best able to govern in a way that is beneficial for the people. This study demonstrates that this is a significant question that challenges governance everywhere, and particularly in China given the absence of democracy. This study provides the ingredients for reflection as to how provincial government can be motivated to choose to govern in a sustainable way, instead of leaning on growth factors with too little consideration about the impact on the environment and the people.

KAUPPAKESKUS OSANA KESTÄVÄÄ KAUPUNKIRAKENNETTA - Kauppakeskustoimijoiden näkemyksiä kauppakeskusten sijoittumisen kestävyydestä

The location and location guidance of shopping centers has been under much public discussion in Finland in the recent years. The Ministry of the Environment has expressed concern over the sustainability of ‘out-of-town’ shopping centers. Shopping centers outside the urban form are seen to cause more traffic, thus contributing to climate change by increasing carbon dioxide emissions. The sustainability of urban form has been researched in several studies and factors like urban density, public transport and a comfortable living environment were found to be the most important. This study presents the views of Finnish shopping center stakeholders on the sustainability of shopping center locations. These views were gathered using focus groups. Stakeholders included managers, consultants, investors, developers, architects and tenants of shopping centers and public sector actors dealing with shopping industry. As one theme in the discussions, participants were asked to present their views on the sustainability of shopping centers’ current locations. The study is part of the Aalto University of Technology KOKKKA project, which has its main focus upon shopping centers and sustainability. Shopping centers were seen to affect sustainability mainly through their location. A sustainable location was thought of as one that involved locating in an economically successful place, inside the urban form. A sustainable location was also easily accessible, with good access via public transport and the shopping center also had to create comfortable living environment in its surroundings. The views of the focus groups participants are similar to the views in sustainable urban structure theories and, inter alia, Finland’s national sustainable development strategy.

A Relationship Mediated Theory of Internal Marketing (summary section only)

This report presents a new theory of internal marketing. The thesis has developed as a case study in retrospective action research. This began with the personal involvement of the author in an action research project for customer service improvement at a large Australian retail bank. In other words, much of the theory generating ‘research’ took place after the original project ‘action’ had wound down. The key theoretical proposition is that internal marketing is a relationship development strategy for the purpose of knowledge renewal. In the banking case, exchanges of value between employee participants emerged as the basis for relationship development, with synergistic benefits for customers, employees and the bank. Relationship development turned out to be the mediating variable between the learning activity of employee participants at the project level and success in knowledge renewal at the organisational level. Relationship development was also a pivotal factor in the motivation and customer consciousness of employees. The conclusion reached is that the strength of relationship-mediated internal marketing is in combining a market focused commitment and employee freedom in project work to achieve knowledge renewal. The forgotten truth is that organisational knowledge can be renewed through dialogue and learning, through being trustworthy, and by gaining the trust of employees in return.

New Governance and the EU Courts : The Experimentalist Architecture of Judicial Decision-Making

The dissertation examines the role of the EU courts in new governance. New governance has raised unprecedented interest in the EU in recent years. This is manifested in a plethora of instruments and actors at various levels that challenge more traditional forms of command-and-control regulation. New governance and political experimentation more generally is thought to sap the ability of the EU judiciary to monitor and review these experiments. The exclusion of the courts is then seen to add to the legitimacy problem of new governance. The starting point of this dissertation is the observation that the marginalised role of the courts is based on theoretical and empirical assumptions which invite scrutiny. The theoretical framework of the dissertation is deliberative democracy and democratic experimentalism. The analysis of deliberative democracy is sustained by an attempt to apply theoretical concepts to three distinctive examples of governance in the EU. These are the EU Sustainable Development Strategy, the European Chemicals Agency, and the Common Implementation Strategy for the Water Framework Directive. The case studies show numerous disincentives and barriers to judicial review. Among these are questions of the role of courts in shaping governance frameworks, the reviewability of science-based measures, the standing of individuals before the courts, and the justiciability of soft law. The dissertation analyses the conditions of judicial review in each governance environment and proposes improvements. From a more theoretical standpoint it could be said that each case study presents a governance regime which builds on legislation that lays out major (guide)lines but leaves details to be filled out at a later stage. Specification of detailed standards takes place through collaborative networks comprising members from national administrations, NGOs, and the Commission. Viewed this way, deliberative problem-solving is needed to bring people together to clarify, elaborate, and revise largely abstract and general norms in order to resolve concrete and specific problems and to make law applicable and enforceable. The dissertation draws attention to the potential of peer review included there and its profound consequences for judicial accountability structures. It is argued that without this kind of ongoing and dynamic peer review of accountability in governance frameworks, judicial review of new governance is difficult and in some cases impossible. This claim has implications for how we understand the concept of soft law, the role of the courts, participation rights, and the legitimacy of governance measures more generally. The experimentalist architecture of judicial decision-making relies upon a wide variety of actors to provide conditions for legitimate and efficient review.

Post-industrial Intervention : An Activity-Theoretical Expedition Tracing the Proximal Development of Forms of Conducting Interventions

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Boundaries in Action : An Activity-theoretical Study of Development, Learning, and Change in Health Care Organization for Patients with Multiple and Chronic Illnesses

This study examines boundaries in health care organizations. Boundaries are sometimes considered things to be avoided in everyday living. This study suggests that boundaries can be important temporally and spatially emerging locations of development, learning, and change in inter-organizational activity. Boundaries can act as mediators of cultural and social formations and practices. The data of the study was gathered in an intervention project during the years 2000-2002 in Helsinki in which the care of 26 patients with multiple and chronic illnesses was improved. The project used the Change Laboratory method that represents a research assisted method for developing work. The research questions of the study are: (1) What are the boundary dynamics of development, learning, and change in health care for patients with multiple and chronic illnesses? (2) How do individual patients experience boundaries in their health care? (3) How are the boundaries of health care constructed and reconstructed in social interaction? (4) What are the dynamics of boundary crossing in the experimentation with the new tools and new practice? The methodology of the study, the ethnography of the multi-organizational field of activity, draws on cultural-historical activity theory and anthropological methods. The ethnographic fieldwork involves multiple research techniques and a collaborative strategy for raising research data. The data of this study consists of observations, interviews, transcribed intervention sessions, and patients' health documents. According to the findings, the care of patients with multiple and chronic illnesses emerges as fragmented by divisions of a patient and professionals, specialties of medicine and levels of health care organization. These boundaries have a historical origin in the Finnish health care system. As an implication of these boundaries, patients frequently experience uncertainty and neglect in their care. However, the boundaries of a single patient were transformed in the Change Laboratory discussions among patients, professionals and researchers. In these discussions, the questioning of the prevailing boundaries was triggered by the observation of gaps in inter-organizational care. Transformation of the prevailing boundaries was achieved in implementation of the collaborative care agreement tool and the practice of negotiated care. However, the new tool and practice did not expand into general use during the project. The study identifies two complementary models for the development of health care organization in Finland. The 'care package model', which is based on productivity and process models adopted from engineering and the 'model of negotiated care', which is based on co-configuration and the public good.

Struggling over subjectivity: A discursive analysis of strategic development in a group

We have seen growing interest in discursive perspectives on strategy. This perspective holds great promise for development of an understanding on how strategy discourse and subjectivity are intertwined. We wish to add to this existing research by outlining a discursive struggle approach to subjectivity. To understand the complex subjectification and empowering/disempowering effects of organizational strategy discourse, this approach focuses on organization-specific discourse mobilizations an various ways of resistance. Drawing on an analysis of the discourses and practices of ‘strategic development’ in an engineering and consulting group we provide an empirical illustration of such struggles over subjectivity. In particular, we report three examples of competing ways of making sense of and giving sense to strategic development, with specific subjectification tendencies. First, we show how corporate management can mobilize and appropriate a specific kind of discourse to attempt to gain control of the organization, which tends to reproduce managerial hegemony, but also trigger discursive and other forms of resistance. Second, we will illustrate how middle managers resist this hegemony by initiating a strategy discourse of their own to create room for manoeuvre in controversial situations. Third, we show how project engineers can distance themselves from managerial-initiated strategy discourses to maintain a viable identity despite all kinds of pressures. Although our examples are case-specific, we believe that similar discursive dynamics also characterize strategizing in other organizations.

Offering Development in the Restaurant Sector. A Comparison Between Customer Perceptions and Management Beliefs

The present study concentrates on a small – but important – area of marketing: offering development within the service sector, more exactly the restaurant sector. The empirical part of the study has been carried out in the Helsinki metropolitan area using six successful restaurants. First, a conceptual offering development model is developed based on how the management perceives the offering development processes. Second, customer perceptions of offerings and management beliefs about how the customers perceive the offerings are analysed. Finally, an extended offering development model is created based on the management perceptions (the first model) as well as on observed gaps between customer perceptions of offerings and management beliefs about the customer perceptions. The study reveals that customer perceptions and management beliefs are rather similar but also that some differences exist. These differences are taken into account in the extended offering development model (the second model). The empirical data was collected through interviews and surveys. All together 393 customers and 14 managers participated in the study. The study suggests that successful offering development has to be closely connected with the general strategy of the company. A shared vision within the company in combination with a systematic strategic offering development process create a sound basis for the practical development work. The main contribution of the study is the extended offering development model forming a framework for further studies within the area.

Trends in Pharmaceutical Product Development 2000-2010

Merkittävä osa alkuperäislääkevalmistajien tutkimus- ja tuotekehityskuluista näyttää olevan suunnattu olemassa olevien lääkkeiden kehittämiseen. Tämä voi oletettavasti johtaa kiinnostaviin formulaatiokehitysstrategioihin. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli selvittää, voidaanko farmaseuttisen tuotekehityksen trendejä havaita myönnettyjen myyntilupien perusteella. Tutkimuksen mielenkiinnon kohteena olivat myös suurimpien lääkeyritysten käyttämät elinkaaren hallinnan keinot, joilla suojataan myyvimpiä tuotteita geneeriseltä kilpailulta ja varmistetaan markkinaosuus. Tutkimuksen painopiste oli kiinteissä oraalisissa lääkevalmisteissa. Laadullisten ja määrällisten menetelmien yhdistelmää käytettiin laajan näkökulman saamiseksi tutkittavaan aiheeseen. Suomalaisten myyntilupaviranomaisten haastatteluja käytettiin keräämään taustatietoa tutkimuksen määrällistä osaa varten. Määrällinen osa koostui myyntilupatietokannoista, jotka käsittivät kaikkien menettelyjen kautta Suomessa myönnetyt myyntiluvat, keskitetyn menettelyn kautta EU:ssa myönnetyt myyntiluvat ja maailman kymmenen suurinta lääkeyritystä USA:ssa. Tutkimustulosten perusteella rinnakkaislääkkeiden määrässä tapahtui merkittävä nousu Suomessa kaikkien menettelyjen kautta myönnetyissä myyntiluvissa ja EU:ssa keskitetyn menettelyn kautta myönnetyissä myyntiluvissa vuosina 2000-2010. Tämä muutos saattaa ainakin osaksi johtua lainsäädännöllisistä muutoksista, joilla luotiin kannustimia rinnakkaislääkkeiden käyttöön ja valmistukseen, kuten lääkevaihto ja viitehintajärjestelmä. USA:n tiedot osoittivat suurten lääkevalmistajien kiinnostuksen elinkaaren hallintaan: suurin osa maailman kymmenelle suurimmalle lääkeyritykselle myönnetyistä myyntiluvista vuosina 2005-2010 oli tähän tarkoitukseen. Elinkaaren hallinnan suhde uusiin lääkeaineisiin oli lähes 4:1. Kiinteä oraalinen lääkemuoto on kiistatta kaikista suosituin tapa annostella lääke, minkä vahvistivat sekä arvioijien haastattelut että myyntilupatiedot. Kiinteiden oraalisten rooli oli entistäkin korostuneempi rinnakkaislääkkeiden kohdalla. Kun innovatiivisuutta mitattiin epätyypillisten annosmuotojen määrällä, USA:n tiedot kiinteistä oraalisista lääkemuodoista osoittivat vahvaa innovatiivisuutta Suomen ja EU:n tietoihin verrattuna. Tämä saattaa heijastaa suurten lääkeyritysten innovatiivista tuotevalikoimaa. Epätyypillisten kiinteiden oraalisten annosmuotojen osuus oli huomattavasti pienempi rinnakkaislääkkeissä kuin alkuperäislääkkeissä kaikilla alueilla. Elinkaaren hallinnassa käytetyimmät strategiat olivat uusi formulaatio, uusi vahvuus ja uusi yhdistelmä olemassa olevasta valmisteesta. Kiinteiden oraalisten lääkemuotojen osalta kaksi kolmasosaa uusista elinkaaren hallinnan formulaatioista oli säädellysti vapauttavia valmisteita. Elinkaaren hallinta on olennainen osa suurten lääkeyritysten liiketoimintastrategiaa, ja sen tärkeyttä havainnollistettiin Coreg-tablettien tapausesimerkillä.

Information Technology Development Needs in Community Pharmacies : A Strategic Approach

In the context of health care, information technology (IT) has an important role in the operational infrastructure, ranging from business management to patient care. An essential part of the system is medication management in inpatient and outpatient care. Community pharmacists strategy has been to extend practice responsibilities beyond dispensing towards patient care services. Few studies have evaluated the strategic development of IT systems to support this vision. The objectives of this study were to assess and compare independent Finnish community pharmacy owners and staff pharmacists priorities concerning the content and structure of the next generation of community pharmacy IT systems, to explore international experts visions and strategic views on IT development needs in relation to services provided in community pharmacies, to identify IT innovations facilitating patient care services and to evaluate their development and implementation processes, and to assess community pharmacists readiness to adopt innovations. This study applied both qualitative and quantitative methods. A qualitative personal interview of 14 experts in community pharmacy services and related IT from eight countries and a national survey of Finnish community pharmacy owners (mail survey, response rate 53%, n=308), and of a representative sample of staff pharmacists (online survey, response rate 22%, n=373) were conducted. Finnish independent community pharmacy owners gave priority to logistical functions but also to those related to medication information and patient care. The managers and staff pharmacists have different views of the importance of IT features, reflecting their different professional duties in the community pharmacy. This indicates the need for involving different occupation groups in planning the new IT systems for community pharmacies. A majority of the international experts shared the vision of community pharmacy adopting a patient care orientation; supported by IT-based documentation, new technological solutions, access to information, and shared patient data. Community pharmacy IT innovations were rare, which is paradoxical because owners and staff pharmacists perception of their innovativeness was seen as being high. Community pharmacy IT systems development processes usually had not undergone systematic needs assessment research beforehand or evaluation after the implementation and were most often coordinated by national governments without subsequent commercialization. Specifically, community pharmacy IT developments lack research, organization, leadership and user involvement in the process. Those responsible for IT development in the community pharmacy sector should create long-term IT development strategies that are in line with community pharmacy service development strategies. This could provide systematic guidance for future projects to ensure that potential innovations are based on a sufficient understanding of pharmacy practice problems that they are intended to solve, and to encourage strong leadership in research, development of innovations so that community pharmacists potential innovativeness is used, and that professional needs and strategic priorities will be considered even if the development process is led by those outside the profession.

Lean Thinking in Software Development : Impacts of Kanban on Projects

The history of software development in a somewhat systematical way has been performed for half a century. Despite this time period, serious failures in software development projects still occur. The pertinent mission of software project management is to continuously achieve more and more successful projects. The application of agile software methods and more recently the integration of Lean practices contribute to this trend of continuous improvement in the software industry. One such area warranting proper empirical evidence is the operational efficiency of projects. In the field of software development, Kanban as a process management method has gained momentum recently, mostly due to its linkages to Lean thinking. However, only a few empirical studies investigate the impacts of Kanban on projects in that particular area. The aim of this doctoral thesis is to improve the understanding of how Kanban impacts on software projects. The research is carried out in the area of Lean thinking, which contains a variety of concepts including Kanban. This article-type thesis conducts a set of case studies expanded with the research strategy of quasi-controlled experiment. The data-gathering techniques of interviews, questionnaires, and different types of observations are used to study the case projects, and thereby to understand the impacts of Kanban on software development projects. The research papers of the thesis are refereed, international journal and conference publications. The results highlight new findings regarding the application of Kanban in the software context. The key findings of the thesis suggest that Kanban is applicable to software development. Despite its several benefits reported in this thesis, the empirical evidence implies that Kanban is not all-encompassing but requires additional practices to keep development projects performing appropriately. Implications for research are given, as well. In addition to these findings, the thesis contributes in the area of plan-driven software development by suggesting implications both for research and practitioners. As a conclusion, Kanban can benefit software development projects but additional practices would increase its potential for the projects.