Kulttuurierot ja kielimuuri valtanäkökulmasta suomalais-puolalaisessa työyhteisössä

The thesis deals with cultural differences and language barrier in a Finnish-Polish working environment. The object is to find out what kind of language and cultural practices prevail and what are their consequences. This qualitative research focuses on problem solving strategies used to manage language barrier and cultural differences and their effect on power relations within the working environment and in relation to e.g. parent company, business partners or customers. The research data was collected by half-structured individual interviews of 24 Finns and Poles in seven companies in Poland. The research indicates that language practices as well as Polish employees' language skills significantly affect information flows: those Poles, who have good language skills, are less dependent on their Finnish superior and thanks to their contacts with Finnish parent company they gain adequate information. Different time perceptions next to the perceived slowness of Finns are one of the most important factors causing cultural conflicts in the researched working environments. Most often mentioned by Finns were issues of trust. However, the problematic issues brought up most were often things that the respondents could not influence since they did not concern the closest working environment but others. It seems that the contrast that used to be strong between superiors and subordinates in Poland has - partly due to the Finns' informal management style - in these mixed working environments transformed into a contrast between own working environment and the outsiders.

Oppimisen kohteen ja oppijan vastavuoroinen kehitys : Teleyrityksen asiakaspalvelun työyhteisöjen oppimiskäytäntöjen uudistaminen osana teknologis-taloudellista kumousta

Reciprocal development of the object and subject of learning. The renewal of the learning practices of front-line communities in a telecommunications company as part of the techno-economical paradigm change. Current changes in production have been seen as an indication of a shift from the techno-economical paradigm of a mass-production era to a new paradigm of the information and communication technological era. The rise of knowledge management in the late 1990s can be seen as one aspect of this paradigm shift, as knowledge creation and customer responsiveness were recognized as the prime factors in business competition. However, paradoxical conceptions concerning learning and agency have been presented in the discussion of knowledge management. One prevalent notion in the literature is that learning is based on individuals’ voluntary actions and this has now become incompatible with the growing interest in knowledge-management systems. Furthermore, commonly held view of learning as a general process that is independent of the object of learning contradicts the observation that the current need for new knowledge and new competences are caused by ongoing techno-economic changes. Even though the current view acknowledges that individuals and communities have key roles in knowledge creation, this conception defies the idea of the individuals’ and communities’ agency in developing the practices through which they learn. This research therefore presents a new theoretical interpretation of learning and agency based on Cultural-Historical Activity Theory. This approach overcomes the paradoxes in knowledge-management theory and offers means for understanding and analyzing changes in the ways of learning within work communities. This research is also an evaluation of the Competence-Laboratory method which was developed as part of the study as a special application of Developmental Work Research methodology. The research data comprises the videotaped competence-laboratory processes of four front-line work communities in a telecommunications company. The findings reported in the five articles included in this thesis are based on the analyses of this data. The new theoretical interpretation offered here is based on the assessment that the findings reported in the articles represent one of the front lines of the ongoing historical transformation of work-related learning since the research site represents one of the key industries of the new “knowledge society”. The research can be characterized as elaboration of a hypothesis concerning the development of work related learning. According to the new theoretical interpretation, the object of activity is also the object of distributed learning in work communities. The historical socialization of production has increased the number of actors involved in an activity, which has also increased the number of mutual interdependencies as well as the need for communication. Learning practices and organizational systems of learning are historically developed forms of distributed learning mediated by specific forms of division of labor, specific tools, and specific rules. However, the learning practices of the mass production era become increasingly inadequate to accommodate the conditions in the new economy. This was manifested in the front-line work communities in the research site as an aggravating contradiction between the new objects of learning and the prevailing learning practices. The constituent element of this new theoretical interpretation is the idea of a work community’s learning as part of its collaborative mastery of the developing business activity. The development of the business activity is at the same time a practical and an epistemic object for the community. This kind of changing object cannot be mastered by using learning practices designed for the stable conditions of mass production, because learning has to change along the changes in business. According to the model introduced in this thesis, the transformation of learning proceeds through specific stages: predefined learning tasks are first transformed into learning through re-conceptualizing the object of the activity and of the joint learning and then, as the new object becomes stabilized, into the creation of new kinds of learning practices to master the re-defined object of the activity. This transformation of the form of learning is realized through a stepwise expansion of the work community’s agency. To summarize, the conceptual model developed in this study sets the tool-mediated co-development of the subject and the object of learning as the theoretical starting point for developing new, second-generation knowledge management methods. Key words: knowledge management, learning practice, organizational system of learning, agency

Liikennepolttoaineeksi tarkoitettu ohraetanoli, Suomen ohramarkkinat ja ilmastonmuutos

The aim of the thesis was to analyze the use of barley as an input for bioethanol production and the impacts the use has on the Finnish barley markets. Two main research questions were formulated. First, privately and socially optimal bioethanol production levels were examined. In the social optimum, the climate benefits of bioethanol production were considered. It was calculated that the production and use of bioethanol created smaller CO2 -emissions when compared with the production and use of gasoline. Second, the impacts of bioethanol production on farmland allocation and agricultural production were analyzed. In more detail, the second aim was to analyze the farmland allocation between wheat and barley cultivation and green set aside in the private and social optimum. An analytical model was produced to analyze the barley markets in Finland. To provide an empirical counterpart to this model, existing research data on bioethanol production and barley cultivation was used. The aim of the model was to analyze the supply and the demand as well as market equilibrium of barley. Furthermore, the model provided a framework for analyzing the differences between the private optimum and social optimum of bioethanol production in Finland. The demand for barley consists of animal feed demand and bioethanol demand. On the supply side, a heterogeneous model of farmland quality was used. With this framework, it is possible to analyze farmland allocation between barley and wheat cultivation and green set aside and how the climate benefits of bioethanol production affects the allocation. Moreover, the relative changes in barley price between the private and social optimum were analyzed. Based on the empirical analysis, the private optimum for barley based bioethanol production is 58 691 metric tons. However, the social optimum for barley based bioethanol production is 72 736 metric tons. The portion of farmland that is allocated to barley cultivation is increased if the climate benefits of bioethanol production are considered. In the private optimum, 1/19 of the total farmland is allocated to barley cultivation whereas in social optimum the share increases to 7/19. Furthermore, the increase in barley price between private and social optimum is rather modest. Total increase in price is only about 1,8 percent.