Family ownership – a source of sustainable success in listed companies

Extant research on exchange-listed firms has acknowledged that the concentration of ownership and the identity of owners make a difference. In addition, studies indicate that firms with a dominant owner outperform firms with dispersed ownership. During the last few years, scholars have identified one group of owners, in particular, whose ownership stake in publicly listed firm is positively related to performance: the business family. While acknowledging that family firms represent a unique organizational form, scholars have identified various concepts and theories in order to understand how the family influences organizational processes and firm performance. Despite multitude of research, scholars have not been able to present clear results on how firm performance is actually impacted by the family. In other words, studies comparing the performance of listed family and other types of firms have remained descriptive in nature since they lack empirical data and confirmation from the family business representatives. What seems to be missing is a convincing theory that links the involvement and behavioral consequences. Accordingly, scholars have not yet come to a mutual understanding of what precisely constitutes a family business. The variety of different definitions and theories has made comparability of different results difficult for instance. These two issues have hampered the development of a rigorous theory of family business. The overall objective of this study is to describe and understand how the family as a dominant owner can enhance firm performance, and can act a source of sustainable success in listed companies. In more detail, in order to develop understanding of the unique factors that can act as competitive advantages for listed family firms, this study is based on a qualitative approach and aims at theory development, not theory verification. The data in this study consist of 16 thematic interviews with CEOs, members of the board, supervisory board chairs, and founders of Finnish listed-family firms. The study consists of two parts. The first part introduces the research topic, research paradigm, methods, and publications, and also discusses the overall outcomes and contributions of the publications. The second part consists of four publications that address the research questions from different viewpoints. The analyses of this study indicate that family ownership in listed companies represents a structure that differs from the traditional views of agency and stewardship, as well as from resource-based and stakeholder views. As opposed to these theories and shareholder capitalism which consider humans as individualistic, opportunistic, and self-serving, and assume that the behaviors of an investor are based on the incentives and motivations to maximize private profits, the family owners form a collective social unit that is motivated to act together toward their mutual purpose or benefit. In addition, socio-emotional and psychological elements of ownership define the family members as owners, rather than the legal and financial dimensions of ownership. That is, collective psychological ownership of family over the business (F-CPO) can be seen as a construct that comprehensively captures the fusion between the family and the business. Moreover, it captures the realized, rather than merely potential, family influence on and interaction with the business, and thereby brings more theoretical clarity of the nature of the fusion between the family and the business, and offers a solution to the problem of family business definition. This doctoral dissertation provides academics, policy-makers, family business practitioners, and the society at large with many implications considering family and business relationships.

Benefits of gas driven ground source heat pump systems

This thesis studies energy efficiencies and technical properties of gas driven ground source heat pumps and pump systems. The research focuses on two technologies: gas engine driven compressor heat pump and thermally driven gas absorption heat pump. System consist of a gas driven compressor or absorption ground source heat pump and a gas condensing boiler, which covers peak load. The reference system is a standard electrically powered compressor heat pump with electric heating elements for peak load. The systems are compared through primary energy ratios. Coefficient of performances of different heat pump technologies are also compared. At heat pump level, gas driven heat pumps are having lower coefficient of performances as compared with corresponding electric driven heat pump. However, gas heat pumps are competitive when primary energy ratios, where electricity production losses are counted in, are compared. Technically, gas heat pumps can potentially achieve a slightly higher temperatures with greater total energy efficiency as compared to the electric driven heat pump. The primary energy ratios of gas heat pump systems in relation to EHP-system improves when the share of peak load increases. Electric heat pump system's overall energy efficiency is heavily dependent on the electricity production efficiency. Economy as well as CO2-emissions were not examined in this thesis, which however, would be good topics for further study.

Open source solutions for multiplatform graphics programming

New emerging technologies in the recent decade have brought new options to cross platform computer graphics development. This master thesis took a look for cross platform 3D graphics development possibilities. All platform dependent and non real time solutions were excluded. WebGL and two different OpenGL based solutions were assessed via demo application by using most recent development tools. In the results pros and cons of the each solutions were noted.

Nanoclustering augmentation : a novel mechanism of Ras activation in cancer

Proteins of the Ras family are central regulators of crucial cellular processes, such as proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis. Their importance is emphasized in cancer, in which the isoforms H-ras, N-ras and K-ras are misregulated by mutations in approximately 20 – 30 % of cases. Thus, they represent major cancer oncogenes and one of the most important targets for cancer drug development. Ras proteins are small GTPases, which cycle between the GTP-bound active and GDP-bound inactive state. Despite the tremendous research conducted in the last three decades, many fundamental properties of Ras proteins remain poorly understood. For instance, although new concepts have recently emerged, the understanding of Ras behavior in its native environment, the membrane, is still largely missing. On the membrane Ras organizes into nanoscale clusters, also called nanoclusters. They differ between isoforms, but also between activation states of Ras. It is considered that nanoclusters represent the basic Ras signaling units. Recently, it was demonstrated that on the membrane Ras adopts distinct conformations, the so-called orientations, which are dependent on the Ras activations state. The membrane-orientation of H-ras is stabilized by the helix α4 and the C-terminal hypervariable region (hvr). The novel switch III region was proposed to be involved in mediating the change between different H-ras orientations. When the regions involved in this mechanism are mutated, H-ras activity is changed by an unknown mechanism. This thesis has explained the connection between the change of Ras orientation on the membrane and Ras activity. We demonstrated that H-ras orientation mutants exhibit altered diffusion properties on the membrane, which reflect the changes in their nanoclustering. The altered nanoclustering consequently rules the activity of the mutants. Moreover, we demonstrated that specific cancer-related mutations, affecting the switch III region of different Ras isoforms, exhibit increased nanoclustering, which consequently leads to stronger Ras signaling and tumorigenicity. Thus, we have discovered nanoclustering increase as a novel mechanism of Ras activity modulation in cancer. The molecular architecture of complexes formed on the membrane upon Ras activation is another poorly understood property of Ras. The following work has provided novel details on the regulation of Ras nanoclustering by a known H-ras-GTP nanoclustering stabilizer galectin-1 (Gal-1). Our study demonstrated that Gal-1 is not able to bind Ras directly, as it was previously proposed. Instead, its effect on H-ras-GTP nanoclustering is indirect, through binding of the effector proteins. Collectively, our findings represent valuable novel insights in the behavior of Ras, which will help the future research to eventually develop new strategies to successfully target Ras in cancer.