Käsityksistä ajatuksen poluille : Ammattikorkeakoulun tutkimus- ja kehitystoiminnan kehittäminen

This study deals with the formation of the idea of research and development (r&d) activity at one particular university of applied sciences in Finland. In this study I proceed from examining the conceptions of management regarding r&d-activities to exploring the development of the complex concept that guides these r&d-activities. The aim of this study is, first, to describe conceptions of r&d-activities, and then, second, to describe the formation of a new concept for r&d-activities in one field of study at the university of applied sciences. I used phenomenographic analysis to elucidate the conceptions and collected the data in interviews of personnel (22) who belong to the management of the university of applied sciences. The data for analysing the obstacles faced and the ways of overcoming them during the formation process of the new concept consist of the video-recorded material from ten change laboratory sessions held for the specific field of study at the university of applied sciences. In researching the formation of the concept of the activity, such research and analysis methods are used in which the concept is understood as a material construction, and with the help of which one can work out the formation of the concept during the development process. When the systematic development of the r&d-work was underway, the management of the university of applied sciences held differing views regarding the content, target, factors and organisation of the r&d-activities, as well as regarding the position of dissertations as a part of r&d-activity. Obstacles for developing rd concerned the unclear object and outcomes of the new activity, not having the tools (such as adequate know-how) for the new activity and not having found the necessary solutions for the distribution of work. In addition the rules that quide the activities of the university of applied sciences did not support working according to the new way. To improve r&d-activity, the school’s management defined three development strategies to encourage adequate rd-activity to support working life, regional development and learning. The strategies were based on the expansion of existing methods, such as service activities, dissertation work and the research activities of the teachers. Of the three possible routes, the concept of dissertation in this study was expanded to integrate the services of organisation development and the occupational growth of the students. A group of teachers in the field of social and health studies participated in the development work. The change laboratory method was used as a tool for this work. Analysis of the cognitive trails indicated that, in addition to the cycle of expansive learning activities, microcycles with different purposes can exist. According to Cussins (1992), something already in existence in each microcycle is destabilised, and something else is stabilised to replace it. In this study three microcycles were identified, during which the teachers first destabilised the existing concepts of dissertation work that guided their thinking, and then began to use new concepts to structure their thinking. Secondly, they undermined the existing concepts with material structure that defined their practical work, and developed new practical models to replace them. Thirdly, the problems accumulating in researching and testing the new activities caused the developers to destabilise the r&d-strategies of the university of applied sciences and to define a new conceptual model for r&d-work in the field. During this third cycle, the teachers developed a research arena model, which was a significant expansive innovation. In the cognitive trails developing the new concept for the r&d-activity, the teachers indeed faced the obstacles the management had described as their conceptions. These obstacles manifested themselves as contradictions. During the development process, the nature of the obstacles (i.e. contradictions) changed as the development proceeded. Solving the first and second degree contradictions highlighted the third and fourth degree contradictions. To overcome the obstacles, the teachers had to to articulate the value and motive of the development work throughout the development process. Developing the new concept for r&d-activity required many reconfigurations of practical solutions to overcome the obstacles. Developing the new concept for r&d-activity, both at the level of representations and of new practices, requires universities of applied sciences to adopt new methods in which the actors are partake in construction of new concepts of activity through adequate discussion, analysis and debate. R&d -activity can progress, if instead of implementing partial solutions, the totality of the activities (i.e. the group of partial solutions acting together) will be constructed. The development of the activity system requires many simultaneous changes as well as wide-ranging know-how and discussion related to these changes. What is perhaps most important, however, is that the group of developers mature into a determined collective actor which can engage in many agentive actions. The development of the agency is fundamental to progress.

Laatutyöhön sitoutumisen edellytykset ammattikorkeakoulussa

The goal of this research was to establish the necessary conditions under which individuals are prepared to commit themselves to quality assurance work in the organisation of a Polytechnic. The conditions were studied using four main concepts: awareness of quality, commitment to the organisation, leadership and work welfare. First, individuals were asked to describe these four concepts. Then, relationships between the concepts were analysed in order to establish the conditions for the commitment of an individual towards quality assurance work (QA). The study group comprised the entire personnel of Helsinki Polytechnic, of which 341 (44.5%) individuals participated. Mixed methods were used as the methodological base. A questionnaire and interviews were used as the research methods. The data from the interviews were used for the validation of the results, as well as for completing the analysis. The results of these interviews and analyses were integrated using the concurrent nested design method. In addition, the questionnaire was used to separately analyse the impressions and meanings of the awareness of quality and leadership, because, according to the pre-understanding, impressions of phenomena expressed in terms of reality have an influence on the commitment to QA. In addition to statistical figures, principal component analysis was used as a description method. For comparisons between groups, one way variance analysis and effect size analysis were used. For explaining the analysis methods, forward regression analysis and structural modelling were applied. As a result of the research it was found that 51% of the conditions necessary for a commitment to QA were explained by an individual’s experience/belief that QA was a method of development, that QA was possible to participate in and that the meaning of quality included both product and process qualities. If analysed separately, other main concepts (commitment to the organisation, leadership and work welfare) played only a small part in explaining an individual’s commitment. In the context of this research, a structural path model of the main concepts was built. In the model, the concepts were interconnected by paths created as a result of a literature search covering the main concepts, as well as a result of an analysis of the empirical material of this thesis work. The path model explained 46% of the necessary conditions under which individuals are prepared to commit themselves to QA. The most important path for achieving a commitment stemmed from product and system quality emanating from the new goals of the Polytechnic, moved through the individual’s experience that QA is a method of the total development of quality and ended in a commitment to QA. The second most important path stemmed from the individual’s experience of belonging to a supportive work community, moved through the supportive value of the job and through affective commitment to the organisation and ended in a commitment to QA. The third path stemmed from an individual’s experiences in participating in QA, moved through collective system quality and through these to the supportive value of the job to affective commitment to the organisation and ended in a commitment to QA. The final path in the path model stemmed from leadership by empowerment, moved through collective system quality, the supportive value of the job and an affective commitment to the organisation, and again, ended in a commitment to QA. As a result of the research, it was found that the individual’s functional department was an important factor in explaining the differences between groups. Therefore, it was found that understanding the processing of part cultures in the organisation is important when developing QA. Likewise, learning-teaching paradigms proved to be a differentiating factor. Individuals thinking according to the humanistic-constructivistic paradigm showed more commitment to QA than technological-rational thinkers. Also, it was proved that the QA training program did not increase commitment, as the path model demonstrated that those who participated in training showed 34% commitment, whereas those who did not showed 55% commitment. As a summary of the results it can be said that the necessary conditions under which individuals are prepared to commit themselves to QA cannot be treated in a reductionistic way. Instead, the conditions must be treated as one totality, with all the main concepts interacting simultaneously. Also, the theoretical framework of quality must include its dynamic aspect, which means the development of the work of the individual and learning through auditing. In addition, this dynamism includes the reflection of the paradigm of the functions of the individual as well as that of all parts of the organisation. It is important to understand and manage the various ways of thinking and the cultural differences produced by the fragmentation of the organisation. Finally, it seems possible that the path model can be generalised for use in any organisation development project where the personnel should be committed.

Yliopisto-opetuksen yhteistoiminnallinen kehittäminen

The main aim of this work is to study the possibility of applying the cooperative learning approach to develop academic learning and teaching culture. In this work cooperative learning refers to a pedagogical approach that applies social psychological knowledge of group dynamics and small group teaching. Furthermore, theories of collaborative learning and organization development have been applied. Based on these theories a model of developing learning and teaching culture was developed. The model was tested in the development project that was carried out in the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry of Helsinki University. The research questions were: How were the theories of cooperative and collaborative learning and organization development applied in the project? What kind of effects did the development project have on the learning and teaching culture? Through which kind of mechanisms did the project influence this culture? How should the development model be revised after the empirical test? The project lasted five years and the major part of the project consisted of a one-year pedagogical training course. Altogether 145 people (teachers, researchers, library staff, and students) participated in the training, two to three departments at a time. In the pedagogical training cooperative learning methods were widely used. A questionnaire was used to study effects of the development project. The questionnaire was sent to 87 people and 65.5 % answered it. Both the answers to the questionnaire and a sample of learning diaries (n=61) were used to study the mechanism of the project. A sample of the learning diaries consisted of two pedagogical training group members diaries. The frequency distributions were calculated as extrapolations from the answers to the structured questions. Furthermore the answers were classified by the main background variables. The analysis of the open answers to the questionnaire and the learning diaries were data-based. According to the answers to the questionnaire, the effects of the pedagogical training were as follows: The participants consider learning more as an active process of constructing knowledge. Furthermore they considered the individual learning styles and strategies, cooperation and motivation as more important part of the learning process than before the pedagogical training. The role of the teacher was viewed more challenging than before. Additionally the cooperation between teachers, other staff members and students had projected to increase. After the project had ended the teaching methods in the whole faculty were viewed to become varied and the teaching was considered to be more valued than before. According to the answers to the questionnaire, the project influenced through the following ways: the project stimulated the change process, provided new methods for learning and teaching, had an effect on conceptions of learning and teaching and facilitated meaningful communication with others (staff and students). The analysis of the learning diaries supported these findings. In addition, the analysis of the learning diaries deepened the understanding of how the cooperative learning methods supported positive learning atmosphere and reduced the negative effect of the status differences between the members of the group. The critical comments in the learning diaries could be interpreted as collision between cooperative and traditional teaching culture. Cooperative learning gives theory-based methods to develop academic learning and teaching culture. The approach helps the developer to create positive collaborative learning environment and gives ways to support learning in small groups, which can promote cultural change. On the other hand, to understand the whole process of organization development and promote change the theories of organizations and more sosioconstructivist theory of learning are needed. Cooperative learning, collaborative learning, higher education, group dynamics, social constructionism, organisational culture, organisation development

Expert Identity in Development of Core-Task-Oriented Working Practices for Mastering Demanding Situations

The point of departure in this dissertation was the practical safety problem of unanticipated, unfamiliar events and unexpected changes in the environment, the demanding situations which the operators should take care of in the complex socio-technical systems. The aim of this thesis was to increase the understanding of demanding situations and of the resources for coping with these situations by presenting a new construct, a conceptual model called Expert Identity (ExId) as a way to open up new solutions to the problem of demanding situations and by testing the model in empirical studies on operator work. The premises of the Core-Task Analysis (CTA) framework were adopted as a starting point: core-task oriented working practices promote the system efficiency (incl. safety, productivity and well-being targets) and that should be supported. The negative effects of stress were summarised and the possible countermeasures related to the operators' personal resources such as experience, expertise, sense of control, conceptions of work and self etc. were considered. ExId was proposed as a way to bring emotional-energetic depth into the work analysis and to supplement CTA-based practical methods to discover development challenges and to contribute to the development of complex socio-technical systems. The potential of ExId to promote understanding of operator work was demonstrated in the context of the six empirical studies on operator work. Each of these studies had its own practical objectives within the corresponding quite broad focuses of the studies. The concluding research questions were: 1) Are the assumptions made in ExId on the basis of the different theories and previous studies supported by the empirical findings? 2) Does the ExId construct promote understanding of the operator work in empirical studies? 3) What are the strengths and weaknesses of the ExId construct? The layers and the assumptions of the development of expert identity appeared to gain evidence. The new conceptual model worked as a part of an analysis of different kinds of data, as a part of different methods used for different purposes, in different work contexts. The results showed that the operators had problems in taking care of the core task resulting from the discrepancy between the demands and resources (either personal or external). The changes of work, the difficulties in reaching the real content of work in the organisation and the limits of the practical means of support had complicated the problem and limited the possibilities of the development actions within the case organisations. Personal resources seemed to be sensitive to the changes, adaptation is taking place, but not deeply or quickly enough. Furthermore, the results showed several characteristics of the studied contexts that complicated the operators' possibilities to grow into or with the demands and to develop practices, expertise and expert identity matching the core task. They were: discontinuation of the work demands, discrepancy between conceptions of work held in the other parts of organisation, visions and the reality faced by the operators, emphasis on the individual efforts and situational solutions. The potential of ExId to open up new paths to solving the problem of the demanding situations and its ability to enable studies on practices in the field was considered in the discussion. The results were interpreted as promising enough to encourage the conduction of further studies on ExId. This dissertation proposes especially contribution to supporting the workers in recognising the changing demands and their possibilities for growing with them when aiming to support human performance in complex socio-technical systems, both in designing the systems and solving the existing problems.

From actin monomers to bundles: The roles of twinfilin and α-actinin in Drosophila melanogaster development

The actin cytoskeleton is essential for a large variety of cell biological processes. Actin exists in either a monomeric or a filamentous form, and it is very important for many cellular functions that the local balance between these two actin populations is properly regulated. A large number of proteins participate in the regulation of actin dynamics in the cell, and twinfilin, one of the proteins examined in this thesis, belongs to this category. The second level of regulation involves proteins that crosslink or bundle actin filaments, thereby providing the cell with a certain shape. α-Actinin, the second protein studied, mainly acts as an actin crosslinking protein. Both proteins are conserved in organisms ranging from yeast to mammals. In this thesis, the roles of twinfilin and α-actinin in development were examined using Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism. Twinfilin is an actin monomer binding protein that is structurally related to cofilin. In vitro, twinfilin reduces actin polymerisation by sequestering actin monomers. The Drosophila twinfilin (twf) gene was identified and found to encode a protein functionally similar to yeast and mammalian twinfilins. A strong hypomorphic twf mutation was identified, and flies homozygous for this allele were viable and fertile. The adult twf mutant flies displayed reduced viability, a rough eye phenotype and severely malformed bristles. The shape of the adult bristle is determined by the actin bundles that are regularly spaced around the perimeter of the developing pupal bristles. Examination of the twf pupal bristles revealed an increased level of filamentous actin, which in turn resulted in splitting and displacement of the actin bundles. The bristle defect was rescued by twf overexpression in developing bristles. The Twinfilin protein was localised at sites of actin filament assembly, where it was required to limit actin polymerisation. A genetic interaction between twinfilin and twinstar (the gene encoding Cofilin) was detected, consistent with the model predicting that both proteins act to limit the amount of filamentous actin. α-Actinin has been implicated in several diverse cell biological processes. In Drosophila, the only function for α-actinin yet known is in the organisation of the muscle sarcomere. Muscle and non-muscle cells utilise different α-actinin isoforms, which in Drosophila are produced by alternative splicing of a single gene. In this work, novel α-actinin deletion alleles, including ActnΔ233, were generated, which specifically disrupted the transcript encoding the non-muscle α-actinin isoform. Nevertheless, ActnΔ233 homozygous mutant flies were viable and fertile with no obvious defects. By comparing α-actinin protein distribution in wild type and ActnΔ233 mutant animals, it could be concluded that non-muscle α-actinin is the only isoform expressed in young embryos, in the embryonic central nervous system and in various actin-rich structures of the ovarian germline cells. In the ActnΔ233 mutant, α-actinin was detected not only in muscle tissue, but also in embryonic epidermal cells and in certain follicle cell populations in the ovaries. The population of α-actinin protein present in non-muscle cells of the ActnΔ233 mutant is referred to as FC-α-actinin (Follicle Cell). The follicular epithelium in the Drosophila ovary is a well characterised model system for studies on patterning and morphogenesis. Therefore, α-actinin expression, regulation and function in this tissue were further analysed. Examination of the α-actinin localisation pattern revealed that the basal actin fibres of the main body follicle cells underwent an organised remodelling during the final stages of oogenesis. This involved the assembly of a transient adhesion site in the posterior of the cell, in which α-actinin and Enabled (Ena) accumulated. Follicle cells genetically manipulated to lack all α-actinin isoforms failed to remodel their cytoskeleton and translocate Ena to the posterior of the cell, while the actin fibres as such were not affected. Neither was epithelial morphogenesis disrupted. The reorganisation of the basal actin cytoskeleton was also disturbed following ectopic expression of Decapentaplegic (Dpp) or as a result of a heat shock. At late oogenesis, the main body follicle cells express both non-muscle α-actinin and FC-α-actinin, while the dorsal anterior follicle cells express only non-muscle α-actinin. The dorsal anterior cells are patterned by the Dpp and Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signalling pathways, and they will ultimately secrete the dorsal appendages of the egg. Experiments involving ectopic activation of EGFR and Dpp signalling showed that FC-α-actinin is negatively regulated by combined EGFR and Dpp signalling. Ubiquitous overexpression of the adult muscle-specific α-actinin isoform induced the formation of aberrant actin bundles in migrating follicle cells that did not normally express FC-α-actinin, provided that the EGFR signalling pathway was activated in the cells. Taken together, this work contributes new data to our knowledge of α-actinin function and regulation in Drosophila. The cytoskeletal remodelling shown to depend on α-actinin function provides the first evidence that α-actinin has a role in the organisation of the cytoskeleton in a non-muscle tissue. Furthermore, the cytoskeletal remodelling constitutes a previously undescribed morphogenetic event, which may provide us with a model system for in vivo studies on adhesion dynamics in Drosophila.

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.

Managing Project Business Development: an Inter-Organizational and Intra-Organizational Perspective (summary section only)

The driving force behind this study is the gap between the reality of the firms engaged in project business and the available studies covering project management and business process development. Previous studies show that project-based organizations were ‘immature’ in terms of the project-management ‘maturity model’, as few firms were found to be optimizing processes. Even within those, very little attention was paid to combine inter-organizational and intra-organizational perspectives. In this study an effort is made to elaborate some thoughts and views on project management, which interrelate firms’ external and internal activities. In line with the integration, the dissertation uses an approach to the management of project-business interdependencies in the networks of actors, activities and resources. Firstly, the study develops an understanding for inter-organizational perspectives by exploring the complementarities of process activities in the basic development of project business. It presents a framework that is elaborated on the basis of the reciprocal interactions of activities within and outside the organization—thus providing a coherent basis for continuous business-process improvement. In addition, the study presents new tools that can be used to develop project-business processes in each of its functional areas. The research demonstrates how project-business activities can be optimized using the right resources at the right time with the right actors and the right actions. The selected five articles included in this dissertation explain the basic framework for the development of project business. Each paper covers various aspects of inter-organizational and intra-organizational perspectives for project management. The study develops a valuable and procedural model for business-process improvement using the Delphi method that can be used not only in academia but also as a guide for practitioners that takes them through a series of well-defined steps when making informed, consistent and efficient changes to their business processes.

The Gendered Social Organisation of Defence: Two Ethnographic Case Studies in the Finnish Defence Forces

In Finland the organising of defence is undergoing vast restructuring. Recent legislation has redefined the central tasks of the Finnish Defence Forces. At the same time, international security cooperation, economic pressures and new administrative paradigms have steered the military towards new ways of organising. National defence is not just politics and principles; to a large extent it is also enacted in day-to-day life in organisations. The lens through which these realities of defence are analysed in this study is gender. How is the security sector – and national defence as part of it – organised in the changing security environment? What is the new division of labour between different societal actors in the face of security challenges? What happens ‘at work’ within the military and the defence sector more broadly? How does gender affect the way in which defence is organised and understood, and how do the changes in the organising of security affect gender relations? The thesis searches for answers to these questions in the context of two organisational settings in the male-dominated defence sector. The case study on a Finnish peacekeeping unit in the Balkans opens a critical view on men’s social practices and the everyday life of crisis management organisations. In the second case study, reorganising of provisioning in the Finnish Defence Forces turns out to be a complicated process where different power relations and social divisions intermingle. Tallberg’s extensive ethnographic fieldwork in the two focal organisations has produced a detailed set of data that lays the basis for critical analysis and policy development in terms of defence organising, cooperation around peace and security issues, and gender equality in organisations. Observations and results are provided for understanding social networks, militarisation, authority relations, care, public-private partnerships, personnel policies, career planning, and humour.

Multiple Perspectives on Networks: Conceptual Development, Application and Integration in an Entrepreneurial Context

Multiple Perspectives on Networks: Conceptual Development, Application and Integration in an Entrepreneurial Context. The purpose of this thesis is to enhance cross-fertilization between three different approaches to network research. The business network approach may contribute in terms of how relationships are created, developed and how tie content changes within ties, not only between them. The social network approach adds to the discussion by offering concepts of structural change on a network level. The network approach in entrepreneurship contributes by emphasizing network content, governance and structure as a way of understanding and capturing networks. This is discussed in the conceptual articles, Articles 2 and 3. The ultimate purpose of this thesis is to develop a theoretical and empirical understanding of network development processes. This is fulfilled by presenting a theoretical framework, which offers multiple views on process as a developmental outcome. The framework implies that change ought to be captured both within and among relationships over time in the firm as well as in the network. Consequently, changes in structure and interaction taking place simultaneously need to be included when doing research on network development. The connection between micro and macro levels is also stressed. Therefore, the entrepreneur or firm level needs to be implemented together with the network level. The surrounding environment impacts firm and network development and vice versa and hence needs to be integrated. Further, it is necessary to view network development not only as a way forward but to include both progression and regression as inevitable parts of the process. Finally, both stability and change should be taken into account as part of network development. Empirical results in Article 1 show support for a positive impact of networks on SME internationalization. Article 4 compares networks of novice, serial and portfolio entrepreneurs but the empirical results show little support for differences in the networks by type of entrepreneur. The results demonstrate that network interaction and structure is not directly impacted by type of entrepreneur involved. It indicates instead that network structure and interaction is more impacted by the development phase of the firm. This in turn is in line with the theoretical implications, stating that the development of the network and the firm impacts each other, as they co-evolve.

Constructing Stability in Software Product Development during Organizational Restructurings

We all have fresh in our memory what happened to the IT sector only a few years ago when the IT-bubble burst. The upswing of productivity in this sector slowed down, investors lost large investments, many found themselves looking for a new job, and countless dreams fell apart. Product developers in the IT sector have experienced a large number of organizational restructurings since the IT boom, including rapid growth, downsizing processes, and structural reforms. Organizational restructurings seem to be a complex and continuous phenomenon people in this sector have to deal with. How do software product developers retrospectively construct their work in relation to organizational restructurings? How do organizational restructurings bring about specific social processes in product development? This working paper focuses on these questions. The overall aim is to develop an understanding of how software product developers construct their work during organizational restructurings. The theoretical frame of reference is based on a social constructionist approach and discourse analysis. This approach offers more or less radical and critical alternatives to mainstream organizational theory. Writings from this perspective attempt to investigate and understand sociocultural processes by which various realities are created. Therefore these studies aim at showing how people participate in constituting the social world (Gergen & Thatchenkery, 1996); knowledge of the world is seen to be constructed between people in daily interaction, in which language plays a central role. This means that interaction, especially the ways of talking and writing about product development during organizational restructurings, become the target of concern. This study consists of 25 in-depth interviews following a pilot study based on 57 semi-structured interviews. In this working paper I analyze 9 in-depth interviews. The interviews were conducted in eight IT firms. The analysis explores how discourses are constructed and function, as well as the consequences that follow from different discourses. The analysis shows that even though the product developers have experienced many organizational restructurings, some of which have been far-reaching, their accounts build strongly on a stability discourse. According to this discourse product development is, perhaps surprisingly, not influenced to a great extent by organizational restructurings. This does not mean that product development is static. According to the social constructionist approach, product development is constantly being reproduced and maintained in ongoing processes. In other words stable effects are also ongoing achievements and these are of particular interest in this study. The product developers maintain rather than change the product development through ongoing processes of construction, even when they experience continuous extensive organizational restructurings. The discourse of stability exists alongside other discourses, some which contradict each other. Together they direct product development and generate meanings. The product developers consequently take an active role in the construction of their work during organizational restructurings. When doing this they also negotiate credible positions for themselves

Organisation Carescapes: Researching Organisations, Work and Care

This working paper develops an approach to the analysis of care as it is evident in the policies and practices of employing organisations. We identify how notions of care are incorporated in myriad and multi-faceted ways that may support, survey and control workers, as well as having implications for employers, managers, employees and workers. Aspects of care can be found in a range of statutory duties, policies and related activities, including: health and safety, equality and diversity, parental leave, religious observance, bullying and harassment, personal development, voluntary redundancy, early retirement, employer pension schemes, grievance procedures, and dismissal. The conceptual framework of organisation carescapes is offered as an aid to the analysis of employee policies and services. These policies and services are transformed by shifts in supranational and national policies such as European Union (EU) economic strategies and national legislation on disability rights legislation, age discrimination and flexible working, and changes in labour market competitiveness. In conclusion, we consider how the framework of organisation carescapes is informing research design in our and our colleagues’ ongoing programme of research.

The Quest for Well-being in Growth Industries: Contexts, Research Design and Methodological Development

This Working Paper reports the background to the first stage of the ongoing research project, The Quest for Well-being in Growth Industries: A Collaborative Study in Finland and Scotland, conducted under the auspices of the Academy of Finland research programme The Future of Work and Well-being (2008-2011). This collaborative project provides national and transnational data, analysis and outputs. The study is being conducted in the Department of Management and Organisation, Hanken School of Economics, Finland, in collaboration with Glasgow Caledonian University, University of East London, Heriot-Watt University and Reading University, UK. The project examines policies and practices towards the enhancement of work-related well-being in growth industries, and contradictory pressures and tensions posed in this situation. The overall aim is to evaluate the development, implementation and use of work-related well-being policies in four selected growth industries. These sectors – electronics, care, finance and accounting, and tourism – have been selected on the basis of European Union and national forecasts, and demographic and socio-economic trends in employment. In this working paper we outline the background to the research study, the initial research plan, and how the survey of employers has been constructed. The working paper concludes with a brief discussion of general ongoing research issues arising in the project.

'... the walls fell down but the blokes just coded ...' - Varieties of stability in software product development during organizational restructurings

Many Finnish IT companies have gone through numerous organizational changes over the past decades. This book draws attention to how stability may be central to software product development experts and IT workers more generally, who continuously have to cope with such change in their workplaces. It does so by analyzing and theorizing change and stability as intertwined and co-existent, thus throwing light on how it is possible that, for example, even if ‘the walls fall down the blokes just code’ and maintain a sense of stability in their daily work. Rather than reproducing the picture of software product development as exciting cutting edge activities and organizational change as dramatic episodes, the study takes the reader beyond the myths surrounding these phenomena to the mundane practices, routines and organizings in product development during organizational change. An analysis of these ordinary practices offers insights into how software product development experts actively engage in constructing stability during organizational change through a variety of practices, including solidarity, homosociality, close relations to products, instrumental or functional views on products, preoccupations with certain tasks and humble obedience. Consequently, the study shows that it may be more appropriate to talk about varieties of stability, characterized by a multitude of practices of stabilizing rather than states of stagnation. Looking at different practices of stability in depth shows the creation of software as an arena for micro-politics, power relations and increasing pressures for order and formalization. The thesis gives particular attention to power relations and processes of positioning following organizational change: how social actors come to understand themselves in the context of ongoing organizational change, how they comply with and/or contest dominant meanings, how they identify and dis-identify with formalization, and how power relations often are reproduced despite dis-identification. Related to processes of positioning, the reader is also given a glimpse into what being at work in a male-dominated and relatively homogeneous work environment looks like. It shows how the strong presence of men or “blokes” of a particular age and education seems to become invisible in workplace talk that appears ‘non-conscious’ of gender.