The Contested Terrain of Globalization: Review and Conceptual Clarifications for Management Studies

The concept of globalization has become a shorthand for making sense of contemporary society. It reflects large-scale economic and social change, which affects people differently and evokes different viewpoints. Globalization is thus a highly contested concept and phenomenon. Contradictory and competing views, in turn, seem to be based on different interpretations of the present dominant forms of globalization, and of the material, economic, social and cultural conditions that these forms produce and give rise to. We view globalization not only as a significant set of economic, financial, social, political and cultural forces but as a powerful and contested discursive space. In this article, we present an overview of recent literature to introduce different thematic perspectives on globalization, to specify different ideological and discursive bases to approach globalization, and to place multinational corporations (MNC:s) within this context. Our account is not exhaustive, rather, it is intended as a basis for further discussion on the nature and role of multinational corporations in complex ”global” society

Current Debates on Classifying Diversity Management: Review and a Proposal

This paper discusses various theoretical approaches to diversity management, analysing their similarities and differences. I start with a review of certain previously presented classifications, and then proceed to describing the different approaches in more detail. In this paper, I propose that the various viewpoints can be categorized into three groups: 1) practitioner/consultant approach, 2) mainstream approach, and 3) critical approaches. Although there are differences within these groups, in particular regarding the critical approaches, these differences appear less significant than those between the groups. Those representing the first group are mainly interested in how to get most out of a diverse workforce, while those in the second group focus on the effects of diversity on performance or work group functioning. While some of the mainstream writers can be rather critical towards earlier research, they hardly ever discuss or even recognize the wide ranging criticism put forward by critical scholars. The critical researchers, then, remain a rather scattered group who do not always share much more than a conviction that the mainstream research keeps missing highly significant issues. Nonetheless, in order to increase our understanding of how different persons can and do work together, more dialogue is required between the varying standpoints.

Soil hydrological properties and conditions, site preparation, and the long-term performance of planted Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) on upland forest sites in Finnish Lapland

Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) forests dominate in Finnish Lapland. The need to study the effect of both soil factors and site preparation on the performance of planted Scots pine has increased due to the problems encountered in reforestation, especially on mesic and moist, formerly spruce-dominated sites. The present thesis examines soil hydrological properties and conditions, and effect of site preparation on them on 10 pine- and 10 spruce-dominated upland forest sites. Finally, the effects of both the site preparation and reforestation methods, and soil hydrology on the long-term performance of planted Scots pine are summarized. The results showed that pine and spruce sites differ significantly in their soil physical properties. Under field capacity or wetter soil moisture conditions, planted pines presumably suffer from excessive soil water and poor soil aeration on most of the originally spruce sites, but not on the pine sites. The results also suggested that site preparation affects the soil-water regime and thus prerequisites for forest growth over two decades after site preparation. High variation in the survival and mean height of planted pine was found. The study suggested that on spruce sites, pine survival is the lowest on sites that dry out slowly after rainfall events, and that height growth is the fastest on soils that reach favourable aeration conditions for root growth soon after saturation, and/or where the average air-filled porosity near field capacity is large enough for good root growth. Survival, but not mean height can be enhanced by employing intensive site preparation methods on spruce sites. On coarser-textured pine sites, site preparation methods don t affect survival, but methods affecting soil fertility, such as prescribed burning and ploughing, seem to enhance the height growth of planted Scots pines over several decades. The use of soil water content in situ as the sole criterion for sites suitable for pine reforestation was tested and found to be a relatively uncertain parameter. The thesis identified new potential soil variables, which should be tested using other data in the future.