Governance theory as a framework for empirical research : a case study on local environmental policy-making in Helsinki, Finland

Governance has been one of the most popular buzzwords in recent political science. As with any term shared by numerous fields of research, as well as everyday language, governance is encumbered by a jungle of definitions and applications. This work elaborates on the concept of network governance. Network governance refers to complex policy-making situations, where a variety of public and private actors collaborate in order to produce and define policy. Governance is processes of autonomous, self-organizing networks of organizations exchanging information and deliberating. Network governance is a theoretical concept that corresponds to an empirical phenomenon. Often, this phenomenon is used to descirbe a historical development: governance is often used to describe changes in political processes of Western societies since the 1980s. In this work, empirical governance networks are used as an organizing framework, and the concepts of autonomy, self-organization and network structure are developed as tools for empirical analysis of any complex decision-making process. This work develops this framework and explores the governance networks in the case of environmental policy-making in the City of Helsinki, Finland. The crafting of a local ecological sustainability programme required support and knowledge from all sectors of administration, a number of entrepreneurs and companies and the inhabitants of Helsinki. The policy process relied explicitly on networking, with public and private actors collaborating to design policy instruments. Communication between individual organizations led to the development of network structures and patterns. This research analyses these patterns and their effects on policy choice, by applying the methods of social network analysis. A variety of social network analysis methods are used to uncover different features of the networked process. Links between individual network positions, network subgroup structures and macro-level network patterns are compared to the types of organizations involved and final policy instruments chosen. By using governance concepts to depict a policy process, the work aims to assess whether they contribute to models of policy-making. The conclusion is that the governance literature sheds light on events that would otherwise go unnoticed, or whose conceptualization would remain atheoretical. The framework of network governance should be in the toolkit of the policy analyst.

A Cointegration Approach to Topics in Empirical Macroeconomics (summary section only)

Mikael Juselius’ doctoral dissertation covers a range of significant issues in modern macroeconomics by empirically testing a number of important theoretical hypotheses. The first essay presents indirect evidence within the framework of the cointegrated VAR model on the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor by using Finnish manufacturing data. Instead of estimating the elasticity of substitution by using the first order conditions, he develops a new approach that utilizes a CES production function in a model with a 3-stage decision process: investment in the long run, wage bargaining in the medium run and price and employment decisions in the short run. He estimates the elasticity of substitution to be below one. The second essay tests the restrictions implied by the core equations of the New Keynesian Model (NKM) in a vector autoregressive model (VAR) by using both Euro area and U.S. data. Both the new Keynesian Phillips curve and the aggregate demand curve are estimated and tested. The restrictions implied by the core equations of the NKM are rejected on both U.S. and Euro area data. These results are important for further research. The third essay is methodologically similar to essay 2, but it concentrates on Finnish macro data by adopting a theoretical framework of an open economy. Juselius’ results suggests that the open economy NKM framework is too stylized to provide an adequate explanation for Finnish inflation. The final essay provides a macroeconometric model of Finnish inflation and associated explanatory variables and it estimates the relative importance of different inflation theories. His main finding is that Finnish inflation is primarily determined by excess demand in the product market and by changes in the long-term interest rate. This study is part of the research agenda carried out by the Research Unit of Economic Structure and Growth (RUESG). The aim of RUESG it to conduct theoretical and empirical research with respect to important issues in industrial economics, real option theory, game theory, organization theory, theory of financial systems as well as to study problems in labor markets, macroeconomics, natural resources, taxation and time series econometrics. RUESG was established at the beginning of 1995 and is one of the National Centers of Excellence in research selected by the Academy of Finland. It is financed jointly by the Academy of Finland, the University of Helsinki, the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation, Bank of Finland and the Nokia Group. This support is gratefully acknowledged.

Kohti ulkorajoja : Lukion toimintakulttuurikuvaus ohjauksen ja johtamisen näkökulmasta

The aim of this qualitative study is to chart the operational context of the upper-secondary school principals and the historical, cultural and structural factors that steer their day-to-day work. The concepts regarding the study environment and operational culture are defined and analysed in terms of how they are interrelated. Furthermore it is explained why the upper-secondary schools must describe their operational culture within the curriculum. The study also aims to connect the description of the operational culture with the operational system of the upper-secondary school and to analyse the descriptions of the five upper-secondary schools in relation to the commitment to developing a study environment conducive to learning and participation, as well as conducive to supporting interaction. Interview data is used to provide the background for the description of the operational culture and to particularise the results of the analysis. According to the theory used in this study, the steering sources of the day-to-day work of the upper-secondary school are the rules system of the state, the municipality, the curriculum, and on the level of the upper-secondary school administration. The research data consist of the literature concerning the steering, steering forms and the principals professional picture in general terms, from 1950 to the present, and the steering texts concerning the educational environment and operational culture. Furthermore the research data include five descriptions of the operational culture concerning the upper-secondary school, the action reports and student guides. The methods of analysis include the level model and content analysis. The first is a part of the theory used in this study. For the purpose of content analysis, moreover, classifying grounds are established on the basis of theoretical and empirical research data. A result of this study is that, from the perspective of steering, the function of describing the operational culture is clearly linked to the evaluation supporting the goals and the vision of a learning organization. From an administrative point of view, a description is a problem-solving strategy and an instrument of evaluation. The study environment is a structural context in and through which the actors of the school create, change and renew the elements of the structure rooted in the context; this structure is their historically and culturally mediated way of thinking and acting. The initial situation and orientation of the students affect the emphasis of the operational culture descriptions; principals also have their own personal style of leadership. Key words: source of steering, educational environment, operational culture, self-evaluation, learning organisation

Kestävä kehitys globaalin ajan hyvinvointiyhteiskunnan haasteena

The objective of the dissertation was to determine the concept of sustainable development according to current understanding and to analyze the structuration of sustainable daily life and how it varies between different groups. The present dissertation is both a literature-based theoretical study and data-based empirical research. The theoretical framework of the study was a greated model of the Structuration of Sustainability in Everyday Life. The model is based on a synthesis of Giddens Theory of Structuration (1984), Spaargaren JA van Vliet's Theory of Consumption as Social Practices (2000) and principles of sustainable development. According to the model created, sustainable everyday life is generated in a context of internal and external factors compromising the interests of ecosystems, society and business. The literature used in the thesis included international and national statements on sustainable development and research into sustainability and the transition to sustainable societies. The data were collected at Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. The discretionary sample consisted of students of social services (n = 210) and were collected using the semantic differential technique. The data were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative methods. The results showed that the value placed on ecological, economic and social sustainability increased with age. Activity in non governmental organizations was associated with the acceptance of sustainable development as a whole and especially with global responsibility. Women's everyday life promoted sustainability more than men´s. People living in Helsinki had more sustainable ways of living than those living in the surrounding municipalities because of greater recycling and the low importance given to ownership. Prefering vegetarian food turned out to be a real opportunity for a more sustainable way of living because there were few barriers identified. Contradictory human behavior occurred when advanced sustainable consumer were ready to risk their health. The importance of communality was high and it was considered an aspect of health. The most significant obstacles to sustainable development in daily life were high costs, lack of knowledge and busyness. Similar attitudes towards sustainable development translate into different people´s behavior, which indicates complexities of the behaviour change in the context of sustainable development. The role of non governmental organizations is significant in increasing global responsibility. Education presents an opportunity to increase sustainability, but there are challenges to face from system thinking and in understanding entities in a state of transition towards sustainable everyday life. The responsibility of policy makers is paramount because high costs create a barrier to a sustainable way of living. The implementation of the concept of sustainable development should be focused on the planetary ethics which cover humans, animals, plants and ecosystems. Keywords: Sustainable development, sustainable thinking, behaviour change  

Suomalaisten yritysten vapaaehtoinen sosiaalinen vastuu : Sidosryhmäviitekehys yritysten ja ulkoisten sidosryhmien edustajien näkemyksissä

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is no longer only an issue of companies but a concern shared by e.g. the European Union, the International Labour Organization, labour market organizations and many others. This thesis examines what kind of voluntary corporate social responsibility exceeding the minimum level set in the legislation can be expected from the Finnish companies. The research was based on the interviews of some representatives of Finnish companies and of external stakeholders. Earlier Finnish empirical research on the topic has solely analysed the stakeholder thinking and the ethics of the views of the company representatives. The views of the external stakeholders brought ht up a much more versatile perspective on the voluntary corporate social responsibility of the companies. That is the particular surplus value of this research. This research, founded on stakeholder thinking, evaluated what kind of starting points and ideas on responsibility the views of the representatives of the companies and the external stakeholders were based on the voluntary social responsibility. Furthermore, the research also investigated how their views about the corporate social responsibility indicated the benefits achieved on the cooperative actions with different partners - for example companies, communities and public administration. To fulfil the aims of the research, the following questions were used as part tasks in mapping the basic foundations and starting points expressed by the representatives of the companies and the external stakeholders: 1) How do laws, directions concerning social responsibility of companies, and opinions and demands of the stakeholders guide and affect the voluntary corporate social responsibility? 2) How can companies assume voluntary corporate social responsibility in addition to their core functions and without compromising their profitability, and how does, for example, the tightening competition affect the possibility of taking responsibility? 3) What kind of ethic and moral foundations is the corporate social responsibility based on? 4) What kind of roles can companies have in securing and promoting the well-being of citizens in Finland and on the global market as one subsystem of the society? The views on the voluntary corporate social responsibility of nine big companies, one medium-sized company and one small company, all considered responsible pioneer companies, were studied with surveys and half-structured theme interviews between 2003 and 2004. The research proceeded as a theory-bounded study. The empirical material and the previous stakeholder thinking theories (Takala 2000b, Vehkaperä 2003) guided the thesis and worked abductively in interplay with each other during the research process. (Tuomi, Sarajärvi 2002.) The aims and the methods of the research and the themes of the interviews were defined on the basis of that information. The aims of the research were surveyed qualitatively with the strategy of a multiple case study. Representatives from nine big peer companies and nine external stakeholders were interviewed with half-structured themes between 2004 and 2005. The external stakeholders and the peer companies were chosen with the "thinking" of theoretical replication by Yin, according to which the views of the representatives of those groups would differ from those of the pioneer companies and also from those of each others. The multiple case study supports analysing the internal cohesion of the views of different groups and comparing their differences, and it supports theoretical evaluation and theory-building as well. (Yin 2003.) Another reason for choosing the external stakeholders was their known cooperation with companies. The spoken argumentations of the company and stakeholder representatives on the voluntary social responsibility of the companies were analysed and interpreted in the first place with an analytic discourse analysis, and the argumentations were classified allusively into the stakeholder discourses in three of the part tasks. In the discourse analysis, argumentations of the speech is seen to be intervowen with cultural meanings. (Jokinen, Juhila 1999.) The views of the representatives of the pioneer companies and the external stakeholders were more stakeholder-orientated than the views of the representatives of the peer companies. For the most part, the voluntary corporate social responsibility was seemingly targeted on single, small cooperation projects of the companies and external stakeholders. The pioneer companies had more of those projects, and they were participating in the projects more actively than the peer companies were. The significant result in this research was the notion that, in particular, the representatives of the pioneer companies and external stakeholders did not consider employing and paying taxes to be enough of reciprocal corporate social responsibility. However, they still wanted to preserve the Finnish welfare model, and the interviewees did not wish major changes in the present legislation or the social agreements. According to this study, the voluntary corporate social responsibility is motivated by ethical utilitarianism which varied from very narrow to very wide in relation to benefits achieved by companies and stakeholders (Velasquez 2002, Lagerspetz 2004). Compared with the peer companies, more of the representatives of the pioneer companies and of external stakeholders estimated that companies in their decision-making and operations considered not only the advantages and the benefits of the owners and other internal stakeholders, but also those of the external stakeholders and of the whole society. However, all interviewees expressed more or less strongly that the economic responsibility guides the voluntary responsible actions of the companies in the first place. This kind of utilitarian foundation of behaviour appeared from this research was named as business-orientated company moral. This thesis also presents a new voluntary corporate social responsibility model with four variables on the stakeholder discourses and their distinctive characteristics. The utilitarian motivation of a company s behaviour on their operations has been criticized on the grounds that the end justifies the means. It has also been stated that it is impossible to evaluate the benefits of the utilitarian type of actions to the individuals and the society. It is expected however that companies for their part promote the material and immaterial well-being of the individuals on the global, national and local markets. The expectations are so strong that if companies do not take into account the ethical and moral values, they can possibly suffer significant financial losses. All stakeholders, especially consumers, can with their own choices promote the responsible behaviour of the companies. Key words: voluntary corporate social responsibility, external stakeholders, corporate citizenship, ethics and morality, utilitarianism, stakeholder discourses, welfare society, globalisation

Rethinking Service Companies’ Business Logic: Do We Need a Customer-Dominant Logic as a Guideline?

Purpose –This paper explores and expands the roles of customers and companies in creating value by introducing a new a customer-based approach to service. The customer’s logic is examined as being the foundation of a customer-based marketing and business logic. Design/methodology/approach – The authors argue that both goods-dominant logics and service-dominant logics are provider-dominant. Contrasting the customer-dominant logic with provider-dominant logics, the paper examines the creation of service value from the perspectives of value-in-use, the customer’s own context, and the customer’s experience of service. Findings –Moving from a provider-dominant logic to a customer-dominant logic uncovered five major challenges to service marketers: Company involvement, company control in co-creation, visibility of value creation, locus of customer experience, and character of customer experience. Research limitations/implications – The paper is exploratory. It presents and discusses a conceptual model and suggests implications for research and practice. Practical implications –Awareness of the mechanisms of customer logic will provide businesses with new perspectives on the role of the company in their customer’s lives. We propose that understanding the customer’s logic should represent the starting-point for the marketer’s business logic. Originality/value – The paper increases the understanding of how the customer’s logic underpins the customer-dominant business logic. By exploring consequences of applying a customer-dominant logic, we suggest further directions for theoretical and empirical research.

Inventory Routing - A Strategic Management Accounting Perspective

This dissertation develops a strategic management accounting perspective of inventory routing. The thesis studies the drivers of cost efficiency gains by identifying the role of the underlying cost structure, demand, information sharing, forecasting accuracy, service levels, vehicle fleet, planning horizon and other strategic factors as well as the interaction effects among these factors with respect to performance outcomes. The task is to enhance the knowledge of the strategic situations that favor the implementation of inventory routing systems, understanding cause-and-effect relationships, linkages and gaining a holistic view of the value proposition of inventory routing. The thesis applies an exploratory case study design, which is based on normative quantitative empirical research using optimization, simulation and factor analysis. Data and results are drawn from a real world application to cash supply chains. The first research paper shows that performance gains require a common cost component and cannot be explained by simple linear or affine cost structures. Inventory management and distribution decisions become separable in the absence of a set-dependent cost structure, and neither economies of scope nor coordination problems are present in this case. The second research paper analyzes whether information sharing improves the overall forecasting accuracy. Analysis suggests that the potential for information sharing is limited to coordination of replenishments and that central information do not yield more accurate forecasts based on joint forecasting. The third research paper develops a novel formulation of the stochastic inventory routing model that accounts for minimal service levels and forecasting accuracy. The developed model allows studying the interaction of minimal service levels and forecasting accuracy with the underlying cost structure in inventory routing. Interestingly, results show that the factors minimal service level and forecasting accuracy are not statistically significant, and subsequently not relevant for the strategic decision problem to introduce inventory routing, or in other words, to effectively internalize inventory management and distribution decisions at the supplier. Consequently the main contribution of this thesis is the result that cost benefits of inventory routing are derived from the joint decision model that accounts for the underlying set-dependent cost structure rather than the level of information sharing. This result suggests that the value of information sharing of demand and inventory data is likely to be overstated in prior literature. In other words, cost benefits of inventory routing are primarily determined by the cost structure (i.e. level of fixed costs and transportation costs) rather than the level of information sharing, joint forecasting, forecasting accuracy or service levels.

Language universals and linguistic complexity : Three case studies in core argument marking

In this dissertation I study language complexity from a typological perspective. Since the structuralist era, it has been assumed that local complexity differences in languages are balanced out in cross-linguistic comparisons and that complexity is not affected by the geopolitical or sociocultural aspects of the speech community. However, these assumptions have seldom been studied systematically from a typological point of view. My objective is to define complexity so that it is possible to compare it across languages and to approach its variation with the methods of quantitative typology. My main empirical research questions are: i) does language complexity vary in any systematic way in local domains, and ii) can language complexity be affected by the geographical or social environment? These questions are studied in three articles, whose findings are summarized in the introduction to the dissertation. In order to enable cross-language comparison, I measure complexity as the description length of the regularities in an entity; I separate it from difficulty, focus on local instead of global complexity, and break it up into different types. This approach helps avoid the problems that plagued earlier metrics of language complexity. My approach to grammar is functional-typological in nature, and the theoretical framework is basic linguistic theory. I delimit the empirical research functionally to the marking of core arguments (the basic participants in the sentence). I assess the distributions of complexity in this domain with multifactorial statistical methods and use different sampling strategies, implementing, for instance, the Greenbergian view of universals as diachronic laws of type preference. My data come from large and balanced samples (up to approximately 850 languages), drawn mainly from reference grammars. The results suggest that various significant trends occur in the marking of core arguments in regard to complexity and that complexity in this domain correlates with population size. These results provide evidence that linguistic patterns interact among themselves in terms of complexity, that language structure adapts to the social environment, and that there may be cognitive mechanisms that limit complexity locally. My approach to complexity and language universals can therefore be successfully applied to empirical data and may serve as a model for further research in these areas.

'South-South' Remittance - Poverty reduction nexus. The Case of 'Hadiya' immigrants in South Africa, as Agents of 'Constituence development' in Ethiopia, and the policy implications of their 'remittance instrument'

This thesis explores the link between South-South remittance and development. It attempts to establish improved understanding about the role of immigrants as agents of constituency growth and development. By doing so, it illuminates the dark corners of the policy implications that the unconventional development agency of immigrants might have for countries in the Organization ft Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The thesis problematises the existence of state-centric international cooperation as providing the recipe for failed Aid in the face of global poverty menace. In the last half a century, the relative shi' of focus to non-state actors brought about the proliferation of NGOs. That, intrun, helped improve international access to crisis situations; however, their long-term remedial impacts on poverty and development have been contested. Major misgivings for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are, on one hand, low level goal-bound expenditures and lack of independence from influence of the state, on the other. Therefore, the thesis enterprises to empirically verify its fundamental question whether remitting immigrants constitute an alternative development agency to the traditional players: the State and NGOs. Its main arguments are: due to state's failures in bringing sustainable development in many countries of the South, the future of poverty reduction and development also rests in immigrants' remittances. Nonetheless, in the last decade, remittance security-nexus dominated its discourse. Because of that remittance was viewed as something requiring global regime and restrictions. These temptations to tightly regulate remittance flows carry the danger of overlooking its trans-boundary nature and its strong link with livelihood of the poor. Therefore, to avoid unintended consequences of interventions, there need to be clear policy that bases itself on a discursive knowledge on the issues of North-South and South-South remittances The study involved both literature based and empirical research. It employed Discourse Analysis (C as main method for the former and snow-balling as its approach for the latter. For the first part the thesis constructed three conceptual models, these are: metrological model, police model and ecological model on remittance development-nexus. Through this modeling, the thesis achieved better deconstruction on the concepts remittance, immigrants and development agency. The protagonists of each model, the values and interests they represent, and their main arguments along various lines of dichotomies have been discussed. For instance, the main treats of meteorological model include: it sees remittance as transitional economic variable which require constant speculations and global management; it acts as meteorological station for following up or predicting the level, direction, flow and movement of global remittance. It focuses on official lines and considers the state as legitimate recipient of advic and positive consequence of remittance. On the other hand, police model views remittance as beir at best, development neutral or as an illicit activity requiring global regulations and tight control. Both immigrants and remittance viewed as subversive to establishments. It gives primacy to state stable agent of development and a partner for international cooperation. The anti-thesis to the police model is supplied by ecological model, which this thesis is a part. Ecological model on remittance and immigrants argues that, tight global regulations alone cannot be a panacea for possible abuse of informal remittance system. Ecological model, not only links remittance to poverty reduction, the main trust of development, but also considers the development agency of immigrants as critical factor for 21st century north-south development intervention. It sees immigrants as development conscious and their remittance instrument as most stable flow of finance to the developing countries. Besides, it sees remittance as effective poverty solutions than Foreign Direct Investment and international AID. This thesis focuses on the significance of South-South remittance and investigates the South Africa - Ethiopia remittance corridor, as case study; and empirically verifies the role of Ethiopian (Kembata and Hadiya) immigrants in South Africa as agents of local development back home. The study involved techniques of interview, group discussions, observations and investigative study. It also looked into the determinants of their migration to South Africa, and their remittance to Ethiopia. The theoretical models in the first part of the thesis have been operationalised throughout the empirical part to verify if the Kembata and Hadiya immigrants played the crucial role in their household poverty and local development in comparison with the Ethiopian state and the NGOs involved in the system. As evidenced by the research the thesis has made three distinct contributions to the discourse of remittance development-nexus. Fist, it systematized the debate about linkages between remittance, immigrants, development agency and policy of international cooperation by creating three conceptual models (school of thoughts); second, it singled out remitting immigrants as new agents of development in the South; third, it deconstructed concept of remittance and established South¬South remittance as additional sphere of academic investigation. In addition to the above contributions, the thesis finds that Kembata and Hadiya immigrants have engaged in various developmental activities in their locality than usually anticipated. Hence, it concludes that Ethiopian immigrants constitute an alternative development agency to the state and other non-state actors in their country, and the lesson can be applied to poverty reduction strategies in most developing countries.

The Role of Electronic Word of Mouth in Shaping Consumer Attitudes

The purpose of this research was to investigate the role of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) in shaping consumer attitudes towards various products and services with concentration on the consumer attitude change. eWOM has long been proven to play an important role in influencing consumer attitudes and has been researched from a variety of perspectives. This study attempts to look deeper into the process of consumer attitude change by applying as the central theory of the study the Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion by Petty and Cacioppo. In the processes of examining the background academic and empirical research the Internet and Web 2.0 are closely depicted in order to understand how throughout the past centuries technology allowed the rise of various mediums where consumers can not only share their opinions online about products and services but also communicate with other consumers. Manuel Castel’s Internet Galaxy, Gildin’s, Carl and Noland’s, Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh and Gremler’s researches on eWOM are the central works that helped to shape both the theoretical and empirical parts of this study. The mixed method approach was chosen as a research method for this study. An online survey was conducted via the Surveymonkey.com platform and eight qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted. The results of the study show that central route queues as text quality and text argumentativeness are more prominent among the research subjects and the peripheral route queues: source credibility and source expertise did not show considerable significance. Also more experience and participation consumers have with user-rating websites and applications more inclined they are to elaborate on the central route cues and are more likely to search for opinions that they consider rational and credible. Also these respondents are less inclined to search for ratings that confirm their existing beliefs about products or services. Less experience/participation they have about eWOM more likely they are to search for reviews confirmatory to their own.

The Art of Sympathy : Forms of Moral and Emotional Persuasion in Fiction

"The Art of Sympathy: Forms of Moral and Emotional Persuasion" in Fiction is an interdisciplinary study that looks closely at the ways that stories evoke sympathy, and the significance of this emotion for the development of moral attitudes and awareness. By linking readers' emotional responses to fiction with the potential impact of such responses on "the moral imagination," the study builds on empirical research conducted by literary scholars and psychologists into the emotional effects of reading fiction, as well as social psychological research into the connections between empathy/sympathy and moral development. I first investigate the dynamics of readers beliefs regarding characters in fictional narratives, and the nature of the emotions that they may experience as a result of those beliefs. The analysis demonstrates that there are important similarities between real emotions and emotions generated by fiction. Recognizing these similarities, I claim, can help us to conceptualize the nature of sympathetic responses to fictional characters. Building on these assertions, I then draw on research from social psychology and philosophy to develop a comprehensive definition of sympathy and to clarify the ways in which sympathy operates, both in people s daily lives and in readers sympathetic responses to fictional characters. Having established this definition and delineated its practical implications, I then examine how particular stories, through a variety of narrative techniques, persuade readers to feel sympathy for characters who are unsympathetic in certain ways. In order to verify my claims about the impact of these stories on readers emotions, I also review the results of tests that I conducted with nearly 200 adolescent readers. Through these tests, which were constructed and scored according to methods prevalent in social psychological research, it was determined that a majority of readers felt sympathy for the protagonists in two of the stories included in the study. These results were combined with data from an additional test, a standard measure of empathy and sympathy in the field of social psychology. The cross-tabulation of these results suggests that there was not a strong connection between readers responses and their general tendencies to feel sympathy for others. This finding would appear to support my hypotheses regarding the sympathetic persuasiveness of the stories in question. In light of these results, finally, I consider the potential contribution that fiction can make to adolescent emotional and moral development and the implications of that potential for future language arts curricula in the schools. In particular, I suggest the pedagogical importance of providing adolescents with opportunities to engage with the lives of fictional characters, and especially to experience feelings of sympathy for individuals towards whom they ordinarily might feel aversion.

Paremmin tietäjän paikka ja toisin tietämisen tila : Opettajuus (ja tutkijuus) pedagogisena suhteena

The position of knowing better and the space for knowing otherwise. Pedagogical mode of address in teaching (and in research) This book is a study of teaching, research, and expertise – the position of “knowing better” – as a pedagogical relationship. The focus of the study is empirical research of the classroom practices of four primary school teachers in a Finnish comprehensive school, and the interpretative discussions on those practices between the researcher and the teachers. To know, or knowing, is considered an interactive action: it is different ways of knowing and encounters between the better and the other knowledge. In these encounters, the different pedagogical modes of address construct space for interaction and relationships between the speakers in the space. In teaching and researching one is involved in practices connected to power/knowledge systems and conceptions of the hierarchies of different knowledges. Teaching is considered as a special interactive relationship interrelating knowledge and power through the discourses of the culturally and historically constructed school institution, discourses which operate in the practices and narratives of the teaching, teacher, and the pedagogical dialogue. This study uses the feminist poststructural perspective in which the discursive construction of the subject position is considered as an ambivalent process of subjectification and in which such concepts as marginality and otherness are salient. The pedagogical dialogue of these discursive practices address the learner and learning, and space is constructed for different positions, and for thinking and knowing otherwise. The ethnographic data on everyday pedagogical practices of teachers in the school institution was constructed jointly by the researchr, teachers and pupils durint the empirical study. The analysis and interpretations concentrate on the pedagogical practices in teaching and how teachers talk about them. In other words, how do the teachers enter the culturally and historically constructed, institutional space of the teacher in the classrooms of the comprehensive school, how do they take the position of the teacher and what kind of pedagogical address do they use? And, by taking those positions and using different modes of address, how do they position their pupils in the pedagogical interaction? These pedagogical practices are considered as surrounded and modified by the discourses that can be found in the cultural images of a school teacher, the historical and theoretical narratives about teaching and teachers of the school institution, and in the educational policy texts. The same discourses are also repeated, transformed and intertwined in the practices and narratives of the academic institution. These are considered in the study through the positionings of the researcher in the process of empirical research. The researcher and research are constructed in terms of the production of the power/knowledge dynamics. These dynamics are examined in the construction of the theoretical perspective and in the considerations of the methodology, epistemology and ethics of the study.

Psychological consequences of cancer from the salutogenic and dyadic perspective

Previous empirical research has shown that positive, i.e. salutogenic, psychological resources and social support, have health-promoting effects in stressful life situations. In the present study the associations between sense of coherence (SOC), dispositional optimism, partner support, psychological distress, and quality of life among cancer patients and their partners were examined. The data was collected from Helsinki University Central Hospital in 1997 2000 by self-report questionnaires approximately 2, 8, and 14 months post diagnosis. Participants in studies I-IV were 155, 123, 153, and 147 cancer patients and their partners, respectively. The sample of the present study consisted of physically relatively well-functioning patients, whose overall psychological wellbeing was generally good as compared to the healthy population. Partners in this study, however, reacted more strongly to their partners illness and treatment. The partners displayed e.g. higher levels of anxiety and depression than the patients. The results of this study indicated that cancer patients and their partners with strong SOC and who are optimistic report fewer symptoms of distress. Moreover, patients who display an optimistic attitude to life, who receive support from their partner, and who control how they express anger have a better quality of life. The findings also confirmed that the role of the partner is significant in coping with cancer. The symptoms of depression and anxiety in patients and partners were associated, and the partner s optimism seemed to protect also the patient from elevated levels of anxiety. The role of the partner was also highlighted in the couples anger-expression styles. The patients and partners tendency to inhibit anger was associated with decreased partner support and worse patient quality of life. Finally, in the present study we found substantial gender differences. For the patients, partner support was more significant for the women than for the men. Furthermore, for the female patients, the husband s tendency to openly express anger (anger-out) had a negative impact on their psychological quality of life, whereas the wives high anger-out seemed to predict good psychological quality of life in the men. Also, in this study the female partners reported higher levels of anxiety and depression as compared to the male partners. The results of the present study extend the previous literature on positive psychological resources and psychological wellbeing among cancer couples. Furthermore, these findings support the theory on SOC and optimism as health-promoting factors. However, the construct of SOC seems to include other important elements besides optimism. The findings of this study are applicable in designing new rehabilitation programmes for cancer patients and their partners.

Yliopistokoulutuksen avoimuus ja refleksiivisyys : Suomalaisen yliopistoaikuiskoulutuksen rakenteistumisen analyysia

Openness and reflexivity of university education in the analysis of structuration of Finnish university adult education This research has been organised on three levels around a specific theoretical theme of the reflexivity of schooling. The argument developed has the same layered structure. At the first level, within the theoretical disposition of structuration, I develop methodological solutions, which allow the theme of reflexivity to be taken into account in the research concerning the organisational change of schooling. The conceptual work has been carried out in the research setting “morphogenesis vs. structuration”, which was initially formulated by Margaret Archer. Following this setting, structuration is taken to be a concern of the theoretical thinking of both Anthony Giddens and Pierre Bourdieu. The essential results achieved at this research level are presented as developing a synthesis of the theoretical thinking of Giddens and Bourdieu. I am arguing in favour of meta theoretical possibility and the empirical fertility of such a synthesis. The latter is especially the case, when the aim is to grasp the cultural dynamics in the processes of organising schooling. At the second level of empirical-historical theorising about schooling I confine the treatment of the theme of reflexivity to the topic of the openness of university education. While operating through the level of substantive theorising of schooling, I am constructing a cross disciplinary point of view on the phenomenon of openness and its empirical research. This is done in such manner that demonstrates how the structuration approach, understood as synthesising the meta theory of Giddens and Bourdieu, can take into account the theme of the reflexivity of schooling. In the actual empirical part of the study, the third level, I explore the genesis of the Finnish open university. This leads to narrowing down the topic of openness and to focussing on how adult education is organised. The analysis of structuration is supported by the ideal type -like notion of university adult education, since this allows the comparative and historical research strategy required for the task. I argue the importance of such a notion at the level of substantive theorising of schooling. The results of my historical analysis are presented through three articles and a commentary chapter.

Technical efficiency of blood component preparation in blood centres of 10 European countries

Various reasons, such as ethical issues in maintaining blood resources, growing costs, and strict requirements for safe blood, have increased the pressure for efficient use of resources in blood banking. The competence of blood establishments can be characterized by their ability to predict the volume of blood collection to be able to provide cellular blood components in a timely manner as dictated by hospital demand. The stochastically varying clinical need for platelets (PLTs) sets a specific challenge for balancing supply with requests. Labour has been proven a primary cost-driver and should be managed efficiently. International comparisons of blood banking could recognize inefficiencies and allow reallocation of resources. Seventeen blood centres from 10 countries in continental Europe, Great Britain, and Scandinavia participated in this study. The centres were national institutes (5), parts of the local Red Cross organisation (5), or integrated into university hospitals (7). This study focused on the departments of blood component preparation of the centres. The data were obtained retrospectively by computerized questionnaires completed via Internet for the years 2000-2002. The data were used in four original articles (numbered I through IV) that form the basis of this thesis. Non-parametric data envelopment analysis (DEA, II-IV) was applied to evaluate and compare the relative efficiency of blood component preparation. Several models were created using different input and output combinations. The focus of comparisons was on the technical efficiency (II-III) and the labour efficiency (I, IV). An empirical cost model was tested to evaluate the cost efficiency (IV). Purchasing power parities (PPP, IV) were used to adjust the costs of the working hours and to make the costs comparable among countries. The total annual number of whole blood (WB) collections varied from 8,880 to 290,352 in the centres (I). Significant variation was also observed in the annual volume of produced red blood cells (RBCs) and PLTs. The annual number of PLTs produced by any method varied from 2,788 to 104,622 units. In 2002, 73% of all PLTs were produced by the buffy coat (BC) method, 23% by aphaeresis and 4% by the platelet-rich plasma (PRP) method. The annual discard rate of PLTs varied from 3.9% to 31%. The mean discard rate (13%) remained in the same range throughout the study period and demonstrated similar levels and variation in 2003-2004 according to a specific follow-up question (14%, range 3.8%-24%). The annual PLT discard rates were, to some extent, associated with production volumes. The mean RBC discard rate was 4.5% (range 0.2%-7.7%). Technical efficiency showed marked variation (median 60%, range 41%-100%) among the centres (II). Compared to the efficient departments, the inefficient departments used excess labour resources (and probably) production equipment to produce RBCs and PLTs. Technical efficiency tended to be higher when the (theoretical) proportion of lost WB collections (total RBC+PLT loss) from all collections was low (III). The labour efficiency varied remarkably, from 25% to 100% (median 47%) when working hours were the only input (IV). Using the estimated total costs as the input (cost efficiency) revealed an even greater variation (13%-100%) and overall lower efficiency level compared to labour only as the input. In cost efficiency only, the savings potential (observed inefficiency) was more than 50% in 10 departments, whereas labour and cost savings potentials were both more than 50% in six departments. The association between department size and efficiency (scale efficiency) could not be verified statistically in the small sample. In conclusion, international evaluation of the technical efficiency in component preparation departments revealed remarkable variation. A suboptimal combination of manpower and production output levels was the major cause of inefficiency, and the efficiency did not directly relate to production volume. Evaluation of the reasons for discarding components may offer a novel approach to study efficiency. DEA was proven applicable in analyses including various factors as inputs and outputs. This study suggests that analytical models can be developed to serve as indicators of technical efficiency and promote improvements in the management of limited resources. The work also demonstrates the importance of integrating efficiency analysis into international comparisons of blood banking.