Improve the production capacity: A case study of Eurofins Viljavuuspalvelu Oy

In any manufacturing system, there are many factors that are affecting and limiting the capacity of the entire system. This thesis addressed a study on how to improve the production capacity in a Finnish company (Viljavuuspalvelu Oy) through different methods like bottleneck analysis, Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), and Just in Time production. Four analyzing methods have been studied in order to detect the bottleneck machine in Viljavuuspalvelu Oy. The results shows that the bottleneck machine in the industrial area that constraint the production is the grinding machine while the bottleneck machine in the laboratory section is the photometry machine. In addition, the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) of the entire system of the studied case was calculated and it has been found that the OEE of the Viljavuuspalvelu Oy is 35.75%. Moreover, two methods on how to increase the OEE were studied and it was shown that either the total output of the company should be 1254 samples/shift in order to have an OEE around 85% which is considered as a world class or the Ideal run rate should be 1.45 pieces/minute. In addition, some realistic methods are applied based on the finding in this thesis to increase the OEE factor in the company and in one realistic method the % OEE has increase to 62.59%. Finally, an explanation on how to implement the Just in Time production in Viljavuuspalvelu Oy has been studied.

Critical elements underpinning the emergence of the medical game ecosystem: gamifying traumatic brain injury rehabilitation in Finland

The healthcare sector is currently in the verge of a reform and thus, the medical game research provide an interesting area of research. The aim of this study is to explore the critical elements underpinning the emergence of the medical game ecosystem with three sub-objectives: (1) to seek who are the key actors involved in the medical game ecosystem and identify their needs, (2) to scrutinise what types of resources are required in medical game development and what types of relationships are needed to secure those resources, and (3) to identify the existing institutions (‘the rules of the game’) affecting the emergence of the medical game ecosystem. The theoretical background consists of service ecosystems literature. The empirical study conducted is based on the semi-structured theme interviews of 25 experts in three relevant fields: games and technology, health and funding. The data was analysed through a theoretical framework that was designed based upon service ecosystems literature. The study proposes that the key actors are divided into five groups: medical game companies, customers, funders, regulatory parties and complementors. Their needs are linked to improving patient motivation and enhancing the healthcare processes resulting in lower costs. Several types of resources, especially skills and knowledge, are required to create a medical game. To gain access to those resources, medical game companies need to build complex networks of relationships. Proficiency in managing those value networks is crucial. In addition, the company should take into account the underlying institutions in the healthcare sector affecting the medical game ecosystem. Three crucial institutions were identified: validation, lack of innovation supporting structures in healthcare and the rising consumerisation. Based on the findings, medical games cannot be made in isolation. A developmental trajectory model of the emerging medical game ecosystem was created based on the empirical data. The relevancy of relationships and resources is dependent on the trajectory that the medical game company at that time resides. Furthermore, creating an official and documented database for clinically valdated medical games was proposed to establish the medical game market and ensure an adequate status for the effective medical games. Finally, ecosystems approach provides interesting future opportunities for research on medical game ecosystems.

Successful new venturing process implemented by the founding entrepreneur: A case of Finnish sawmill industry

The fundamental purpose of this research is to emphasise a founding entrepreneur’s own role in the construction of a successful business story, with the focus being on the analysis of the entrepreneur’s activities. The theoretical section sheds light on the heterogeneous nature of existing performance research and, thereby, opens the way for the behavioural approach research of entrepreneurs in the field of new venture performance research. This research can be seen to be in line with the latest trends in entrepreneurship research, which question the applicability of different organisational theories in entrepreneurship research. For this reason, the founding entrepreneur has been chosen, instead of the company, to be the unit of analysis in this research in order to lighten the link in question while developing and refining new knowledge in the field of entrepreneurship. The empirical section of this research focuses on the entrepreneur’s own actions or behaviours that can be seen to be associated with the company’s success. Although some of these actions may resemble the strategic actions of a company as defined in strategic management literature, these actions taken by the entrepreneur themselves must be distinguished from the different organisational actions. Usually, an entrepreneur makes decisions rather independently, mainly on basis of their own intuition and prevailing market conditions, whereas organisational actions are very systematic, and each decision involves many different people. For this reason, an entrepreneur’s actions must be distinguished from organisational actions. In additional to different action paths, the empirical data collected for this research also offers almost unambiguous proof that the actions taken by an entrepreneur at the different stages of a company’s development do play a crucial role in the success of the companies studied in this research. In this way, it is possible to identify a significant link between the behavioural approach research of entrepreneurs and new venture performance research. Due to a lack of behavioural research into founding entrepreneurs, this research has utilised a qualitative (hermeneutic) research approach. The researcher strove to establish a particularly close connection with the entrepreneurs that were studied here and, thus, understand the actions taken at the different stages of their companies’ development as well as the motives and fundamental purposes of these actions. It would not have been possible to manage such profound data that focuses on causalities by using quantitative methods. In addition to interviews, this research used corporate histories of the companies for collecting some of the research data. These corporate histories can be considered excellent tools for the researcher to obtain a preliminary understanding and can, thereby, be seen to have laid the ground for more in-depth and diverse analyses.

Formation of the Employer Brand Image

The purpose of this study was to explore the employer brand image and its formation of a Finnish (yet international) service company in B2B sector. In the research qualitative case study method was used to explore the most preferred attributes in employer attraction, the employer brand perceptions towards the case company, and the effectors behind these brand perceptions among the prospective group of employees. The research was conducted through in-depth semistructured interviews among 23-30 undergraduate or graduate business students in Finnish universities close to their graduation. After deriving the attributes of an attractive employer, and exploring their relation to the case company, the employer brand image of the case company was determined and its attractiveness level evaluated. Moreover, the formation of the employer brand image was investigated and its sources detected. The most important factors for the target group in employer attractiveness were found to be company reputation and company culture/work atmosphere. Also career opportunities and international opportunities were seen important. The case company was found to hold a positive, attractive image on company culture and international opportunities, but failing to hold a good reputation as a fair employer. The main and most impactful source of employer brand image was former and current employees - directly or indirectly. Company’s own actions played only small part in employer brand formation as credibility is a critical factor in brand image formation and corporate communication found not to be perceived genuine. Based on the findings, suggestions for further employer branding were made.

Catching up with competitiveness in emerging markets – An analysis of the role of the firm’s technology management strategies

Emerging markets have experienced rapid economic growth, and manufacturing firms have had to face the effects of globalisation. Some of the major emerging economies have been able to create a supportive business environment that fosters innovation, and China is a good example of a country that has been able to increase value-added investments. Conversely, when we look at Russia, another big emerging market, we witness a situation in which domestic firms struggle more with global competitiveness. Innovation has proven to be one of the most essential ingredients for firms aiming to grow and become more competitive. In emerging markets, the business environment sets many constraints for innovation. However, open strategic choices in new product development enable companies in emerging markets to expand their resource base and capability building. Networking and close inter-firm cooperation are essential in this regard. In this dissertation, I argue that technology transfer is one of the key tools for these companies to become internationally networked and to improve their competitiveness. It forces companies to reach outside the company and national borders, which in many cases, is a major challenge for firms in emerging markets. This dissertation focuses on how companies can catch up with competitiveness in emerging markets. The empirical studies included in the dissertation are based on analyses of survey data mainly of firms and their strategies in the Russian manufacturing industry. The dissertation contributes to the current strategic management literature by further investigating technology management strategies in manufacturing firms in emerging markets and the benefits of more open approaches to new product development and innovation.

In search of the interrelatedness of innovation and internationalisation processes in entrepreneurial life science companies

This study is motivated by the question how resource scarce innovative entrepreneurial companies seek and leverage global resources. This study takes a resource-seeking perspective a step forward and suggests that resources that enable the entrepreneurial internationalisation are largely accrued from the early stages of entrepreneurial life; that is from the innovation development. Consequently, this study seeks to explain how innovation and internationalisation processes are interrelated in the entrepreneurial internationalisation. This main objective is approached through three research questions, (1) What role do inter-organisational relationships in innovation have in the entrepreneurial internationalisation process? (2) What kind of inward–outward links do inter-organisational relationships create in the resource-seeking-based entrepreneurial internationalisation process? (3) What kind of capability to collaborate forms in the interaction of inter-organisational relationship deployment? The research design is a mixed methods design that consists of quantitative pilot study and qualitative multiple case study of five entrepreneurial life science companies from Finland and Austria. The findings show that innovation and internationalisation processes are tightly interwoven in pre-internationalisation state. The findings also reveal that the more experienced companies are able to take advantage of complexcross-border inter-organisational relationship structures better than the starting companies. However, very minor evidence was found on inward links translating into outward links in the entrepreneurial internationalisation process, despite the expectation to observe more of these links in the data. Combined intangible-tangible resource-seeking was the most preferred to build links between inward–outward internationalisation but also to develop competence to collaborate. By adopting a resource- instead of market-seeking approach, this study illustrated that internationalisation extends to early stages of innovative companies, and that in high-technology companies’ potentially significant cross-border relationships have started to form long before incorporation. Therefore, these observations justified the firmer inclusion of pre-company history in innovative entrepreneurship studies. The study offers a conceptualisation of entrepreneurial internationalisation that is perceived as a process. The main theoretical contributions are in the areas of international entrepreneurship and in the behavioural process studies of entrepreneurial internationalisation and resource-based internationalisation. The inclusion of the innovation-based discussion, namely the innovation process, in the internationalisation process theories has clearly contributed to the understanding of entrepreneurial internationalisation in the context of international entrepreneurship. Innovation development is a central act of entrepreneurial companies, and neglecting innovation process investigation from entrepreneurial internationalisation leaves potentially influential mechanisms unexplored.

Critical elements underpinning the emergence of the medical game ecosystem:gamifying traumatic brain injury rehabilitation in Finland

The healthcare sector is currently in the verge of a reform and thus, the medical game research provide an interesting area of research. The aim of this study is to explore the critical elements underpinning the emergence of the medical game ecosystem with three sub-objectives: (1) to seek who are the key actors involved in the medical game ecosystem and identify their needs, (2) to scrutinise what types of resources are required in medical game development and what types of relationships are needed to secure those resources, and (3) to identify the existing institutions (‘the rules of the game’) affecting the emergence of the medical game ecosystem. The theoretical background consists of service ecosystems literature. The empirical study conducted is based on the semi-structured theme interviews of 25 experts in three relevant fields: games and technology, health and funding. The data was analysed through a theoretical framework that was designed based upon service ecosystems literature. The study proposes that the key actors are divided into five groups: medical game companies, customers, funders, regulatory parties and complementors. Their needs are linked to improving patient motivation and enhancing the healthcare processes resulting in lower costs. Several types of resources, especially skills and knowledge, are required to create a medical game. To gain access to those resources, medical game companies need to build complex networks of relationships. Proficiency in managing those value networks is crucial. In addition, the company should take into account the underlying institutions in the healthcare sector affecting the medical game ecosystem. Three crucial institutions were identified: validation, lack of innovation supporting structures in healthcare and the rising consumerisation. Based on the findings, medical games cannot be made in isolation. A developmental trajectory model of the emerging medical game ecosystem was created based on the empirical data. The relevancy of relationships and resources is dependent on the trajectory that the medical game company at that time resides. Furthermore, creating an official and documented database for clinically validated medical games was proposed to establish the medical game market and ensure an adequate status for the effective medical games. Finally, ecosystems approach provides interesting future opportunities for research on medical game ecosystems

The Pricing of Customized Industrial Products

The main objective of this study was to examine the pricing of customized industrial products in international markets, and to understand what pricing decision making consists of. Another purpose of the study was to identify the main factors that affect the pricing decisions of industrial companies, as well as the different pricing strategies industrial companies may choose when pricing customized products. The research was conducted as a qualitative single case study, and a Finnish industrial company specializing in indoor environment solutions, Halton Marine Oy, was used as the case company in the study. The primary data was collected through semi-structured theme interviews with the key management personnel of the company, and the results were discussed and analyzed in the light of the existing literature. The results of this study indicate that the pricing of customized industrial products consists of several dimensions, and is influenced by a large variety of factors that are both internal and external to the firm. In addition, it was found that the choice of a pricing strategy is largely dependent on the chosen segment, the product category, and the stage in the product life cycle. The results also suggest that customizing companies should consider using the value-based pricing orientation, since customization is closely linked to customer value.