Kalleuksia isänmaalle : Eliel Aspelin-Haapkylä taiteen keräilijänä ja taidehistorioitsijana

Treasures of a Patriot Eliel Aspelin-Haapkylä as an art collector and art historian Treasures of a Patriot is a study of Eliel Aspelin-Haapkylä (1847 - 1917), professor of aesthetics and modern literature, as an art collector and art historian. The study combines the biographical perspective, art history as a discipline in the 19th-century Finland, and Aspelin-Haapkylä s art historical scholarship. My intention was to answer to questions such as what kind of an art collector an academic art historian was, why he collected art and cultural-historical objects and what the purpose of his collecting was. Aspelin-Haapkylä was an ideal choice for the main character because the ideologies of the era, culture, art and European ideas, especially German ideas about museums, are intertwined in his life. In addition, the ideas of the Fennomen can be found in his ideological background. Together with his wife, Ida Aspelin-Haapkylä, he bequeathed a rich donation to the National Museum of Finland, and a wideranging archive concerning the collection, his writings, and letters to the Finnish Literature Society. I have highlighted the materials from the archives related both to the collection and art history, especially the letters between Aspelin-Haapkylä and artists, fellow members of academia, his spouse and relatives. The content and the structure of the research are divided into seven main chapters. First, I discuss Susan M. Pearce s theory of collecting and the history of collecting. I also introduce some other art historians who were private collectors. The late 19th-century Fennomen and other nationalists who were active in cultural life and the arts, are introduced in the second chapter. In the third I deal with Aspelin-Haapkylä s collection of European art combined with his writings, his early published works, studies and many trips to Europe. The fourth and the fifth chapters are dedicated to those Finnish artists who he wrote biographies of, and the artists of his own era whom he supported. The sixth chapter discusses institutions and channels of influence and power through which the initiative to found the National Museum of Finland, his action in the Antell Delegation and co-operation with the art merchant Henryk Bukowski, rise up to the fore. Finally, I process the last will and the fate of the collection from 1917 until 1932. As an appendix, I have included a report and reconstruction of the art collection. The catalogue is based on the words in Aspelin-Haapkylä s the so-called blue notebooks, which I have completed with additions from other sources.

Social Media as a Form of Organizational Knowledge Sharing

This study investigates the role of social media as a form of organizational knowledge sharing. Social media is investigated in terms of the Web 2.0 technologies that organizations provide their employees as tools of internal communication. This study is anchored in the theoretical understanding of social media as technologies which enable both knowledge collection and knowledge donation. This study investigates the factors influencing employees’ use of social media in their working environment. The study presents the multidisciplinary research tradition concerning knowledge sharing. Social media is analyzed especially in relation to internal communication and knowledge sharing. Based on previous studies, it is assumed that personal, organizational, and technological factors influence employees’ use of social media in their working environment. The research represents a case study focusing on the employees of the Finnish company Wärtsilä. Wärtsilä represents an eligible case organization for this study given that it puts in use several Web 2.0 tools in its intranet. The research is based on quantitative methods. In total 343 answers were obtained with the aid of an online survey which was available in Wärtsilä’s intranet. The associations between the variables are analyzed with the aid of correlations. Finally, with the aid of multiple linear regression analysis the causality between the assumed factors and the use of social media is tested. The analysis demonstrates that personal, organizational and technological factors influence the respondents’ use of social media. As strong predictive variables emerge the benefits that respondents expect to receive from using social media and respondents’ experience in using Web 2.0 in their private lives. Also organizational factors such as managers’ and colleagues’ activeness and organizational guidelines for using social media form a causal relationship with the use of social media. In addition, respondents’ understanding of their responsibilities affects their use of social media. The more social media is considered as a part of individual responsibilities, the more frequently social media is used. Finally, technological factors must be recognized. The more user-friendly social media tools are considered and the better technical skills respondents have, the more frequently social media is used in the working environment. The central references in relation to knowledge sharing include Chun Wei Choo’s (2006) work Knowing Organization, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi’s (1995) work The Knowledge Creating Company and Linda Argote’s (1999) work Organizational Learning.

The Feminist Transformation of Bioethics : An Analysis of Theoretical Perspectives and Practical Applications in Feminist Bioethics

The purpose of this study is to examine how transformation is defining feminist bioethics and to determine the nature of this transformation. Behind the quest for transformation is core feminism and its political implications, namely, that women and other marginalized groups have been given unequal consideration in society and the sciences and that this situation is unacceptable and should be remedied. The goal of the dissertation is to determine how feminist bioethicists integrate the transformation into their respective fields and how they apply the potential of feminism to bioethical theories and practice. On a theoretical level, feminist bioethicists wish to reveal how current ways of knowing are based on inequality. Feminists pay special attention especially to communal and political contexts and to the power relations endorsed by each community. In addition, feminist bioethicists endorse relational ethics, a relational account of the self in which the interconnectedness of persons is important. On the conceptual level, feminist bioethicists work with beliefs, concepts, and practices that give us our world. As an example, I examine how feminist bioethicists have criticized and redefined the concept of autonomy. Feminist bioethicists emphasize relational autonomy, which is based on the conviction that social relationships shape moral identities and values. On the practical level, I discuss stem cell research as a test case for feminist bioethics and its ability to employ its methodologies. Analyzing these perspectives allowed me first, to compare non-feminist and feminist accounts of stem cell ethics and, second, to analyze feminist perspectives on the novel biotechnology. Along with offering a critical evaluation of the stem cell debate, the study shows that sustainable stem cell policies should be grounded on empirical knowledge about how donors perceive stem cell research and the donation process. The study indicates that feminist bioethics should develop the use of empirical bioethics, which takes the nature of ethics seriously: ethical decisions are provisional and open for further consideration. In addition, the study shows that there is another area of development in feminist bioethics: the understanding of (moral) agency. I argue that agency should be understood to mean that actions create desires.