Container logistic innovations in forest-energy sector: Markets, future service concepts and technical improvements

The report presents the results of the commercialization project called the Container logistic services for forest bioenergy. The project promotes new business that is emerging around overall container logistic services in the bioenergy sector. The results assess the European markets of the container logistics for biomass, enablers for new business creation and required service bundles for the concept. We also demonstrate the customer value of the container logistic services for different market segments. The concept analysis is based on concept mapping, quality function deployment process (QFD) and business network analysis. The business network analysis assesses key shareholders and their mutual connections. The performance of the roadside chipping chain is analysed by the logistic cost simulation, RFID system demonstration and freezing tests. The EU has set the renewable energy target to 20 % in 2020 of which Biomass could account for two-thirds. In the Europe, the production of wood fuels was 132.9 million solid-m3 in 2012 and production of wood chips and particles was 69.0 million solidm3. The wood-based chips and particle flows are suitable for container transportation providing market of 180.6 million loose- m3 which mean 4.5 million container loads per year. The intermodal logistics of trucks and trains are promising for the composite containers because the biomass does not freeze onto the inner surfaces in the unloading situations. The overall service concept includes several packages: container rental, container maintenance, terminal services, RFID-tracking service, and simulation and ERP-integration service. The container rental and maintenance would provide transportation entrepreneurs a way to increase the capacity without high investment costs. The RFID-concept would lead to better work planning improving profitability throughout the logistic chain and simulation supports fuel supply optimization.

Pojkar kan visst skriva! : skrivkompetenser på nationellt prov i svenska i årskurs tre i Sverige

10-year old boys are writing texts in a National Test in the spring of 2009. The aim of this study is to increase knowledge in and understanding of boys’ writing skills through description, analysis and interpretation of the texts produced by the boys in the National Test in Swedish for junior level year three, taken in Sweden in 2009. The material consists of texts produced by boys and is focused on their ability to write. Through avoiding relating to texts produced by girls, it is possible to search, review, interpret and observe without simultaneously comparing the two genders. The aim of the test is to measure writing proficiency from a normative perspective, while I am investigating content, reception, awareness, and other aspects relevant when producing text. Genres are described through the instruction given in the test, which defines the work that takes place in the classroom and thereby my approach to the analysis. The latter is focused on finding patterns in the competence of the students rather than looking for flaws and limitations. When competence is searched for beyond the relationship to syllabi or the demands of the test in itself, the boys’ texts from the test provide a general foundation for investigating writing proficiency. Person, place and social group have been removed from the texts thereby avoiding aspects of social positioning. The texts are seen from the perspective of 10-year old boys who write texts in a National Test. The theoretical basis as provided by Ivaničs (2004; 2012) offers models for theory on writing. A socio-cultural viewpoint (Smidt, 2009; Säljö, 2000) including literacy and a holistic view on writing is found throughout. By the use of abdicative logic (see 4.4) material and theory work in mutual cooperation. The primary method hermeneutics (Gadamer 1997) and analytical closereading (Gustavsson, 1999) are used dependent on the requirements of the texts. The thesis builds its foundation through the analysis from theoretically diverse areas of science. Central to the thesis is the result that boys who write texts in the National Test, are able to write in two separate genres without conversion or the creating hybrids between the two. Furthermore, the boys inhibit extensive knowledge about other types of texts, gained from TV, film, computers, books, games, and magazines even in such a culturally bound context as a test. Texts the boy has knowledge of through other situations can implicitly be inserted in his own text, or be explicitly written with a name of the main character, title, as well as other signifiers. These texts are written to express and describe what is required in the topic heading of the test. In addition other visible results of the boys’ ability to write well occur though the multitude of methods for analysis throughout the thesis which both search, and find writing competence in the texts written by the boys.

Johdon laskentatoimen ohjaus- ja hallintajärjestelmien hyödyntäminen yritysverkostoissa

Tutkimuksen aiheena on johdon laskentatoimen ohjaus- ja hallintajärjestelmien hyödyntäminen yritysverkostoissa. Yritysten välisten suhteiden hallinnassa käytettävät menetelmät koostuvat pääasiassa johdon laskentatoimen ja suorituskyvyn mittaamisen menetelmistä. Verkostojen ohjaus ja hallinta on tärkeää, koska se on verkostojen tehokkaan toiminnan kriittinen menestystekijä ja kilpailuedun lähde. Suorituskyvyn mittaamisella, johdon laskentatoimella ja johdon kontrollitehtävällä on keskenään riippuvuussuhteet, joiden pitäisi toimia sopusoinnussa. Suorituskyvyn mittaamisen ja johdon laskentatoimen tutkimus yritysten verkostoympäristöissä on kohtalaisen tuore ilmiö, jonka vuoksi aihealueen tutkimus on vielä varsin pirstaleista ja hajanaista. Tämän vuoksi tutkimuksen tavoite on muodostaa selkeä kokonaiskuva siitä kuinka johdon laskentatoimen ohjaus- ja hallintajärjestelmiä voidaan hyödyntää yritysverkostojen ohjauksessa ja hallinnassa. Tutkimuksessa myös selvitetään mitä haasteita näiden menetelmien hyödyntämiseen yritysverkostoissa sisältyy. Tutkimusaineistona on käytetty aikaisempia tutkimuksia sekä tutkimusta varten tehtyjä haastatteluita. Tutkimukseen haastateltiin neljästä yritysverkostosta henkilöitä, jotka vastasivat verkoston toiminnasta. Haastatteluiden avulla pyritään täydentämään kirjallisuuskatsauksen pohjalta luotua teoriaa ja selvittämään kuinka verkoston ohjaus- ja hallinta hoidetaan haastateltavissa verkostoissa, millä menetelmin ja mitä haasteita siihen liittyy. Verkostotoimintaan soveltuvien menetelmien ja suorituskykymittareiden kehittäminen on hankalaa, koska jokaisen verkoston tarpeet ja haasteet ovat erilaiset. Uusien menetelmien kehittämiselle ei nähdä tarvetta, vaan kyse on olemassa olevien menetelmien soveltamisesta verkostonäkökulmasta. Menetelmät on rakennettu yksittäisen yrityksen mittaamiseen, joten ne eivät sovellu sellaisenaan käytettäväksi verkostoihin, vaan niitä täytyy kehittää verkoston yksilöllisten tarpeiden mukaan. Tämä vaatii kuitenkin verkostolta osaamista ja halua kehittyä. Verkostojen haasteet liittyvät sekä yritystasolle että verkostotasolle. Yritysten tuottaman informaation, laskentajärjestelmien, tietotaidon, resurssien ja kehityshalun tulee olla hyvällä tasolla, jotta koko verkoston mittaaminen onnistuu luotettavasti. Lisäksi verkostotoiminta pitää sisällään laskentateknisiä, menetelmiin ja informaation vaihtamiseen liittyviä haasteita. Verkostoympäristön laskentatoimen tutkimuksessa ei ole yhtenäistä, laajasti hyväksyttyä teoriaa, koska tutkimussuuntaukset ja –tulokset ovat moniulotteisia ja vaihtelevia.

Stiffness based trajectory planning and feedforward based vibration suppression control of parallel robot machines

The dissertation proposes two control strategies, which include the trajectory planning and vibration suppression, for a kinematic redundant serial-parallel robot machine, with the aim of attaining the satisfactory machining performance. For a given prescribed trajectory of the robot's end-effector in the Cartesian space, a set of trajectories in the robot's joint space are generated based on the best stiffness performance of the robot along the prescribed trajectory. To construct the required system-wide analytical stiffness model for the serial-parallel robot machine, a variant of the virtual joint method (VJM) is proposed in the dissertation. The modified method is an evolution of Gosselin's lumped model that can account for the deformations of a flexible link in more directions. The effectiveness of this VJM variant is validated by comparing the computed stiffness results of a flexible link with the those of a matrix structural analysis (MSA) method. The comparison shows that the numerical results from both methods on an individual flexible beam are almost identical, which, in some sense, provides mutual validation. The most prominent advantage of the presented VJM variant compared with the MSA method is that it can be applied in a flexible structure system with complicated kinematics formed in terms of flexible serial links and joints. Moreover, by combining the VJM variant and the virtual work principle, a systemwide analytical stiffness model can be easily obtained for mechanisms with both serial kinematics and parallel kinematics. In the dissertation, a system-wide stiffness model of a kinematic redundant serial-parallel robot machine is constructed based on integration of the VJM variant and the virtual work principle. Numerical results of its stiffness performance are reported. For a kinematic redundant robot, to generate a set of feasible joints' trajectories for a prescribed trajectory of its end-effector, its system-wide stiffness performance is taken as the constraint in the joints trajectory planning in the dissertation. For a prescribed location of the end-effector, the robot permits an infinite number of inverse solutions, which consequently yields infinite kinds of stiffness performance. Therefore, a differential evolution (DE) algorithm in which the positions of redundant joints in the kinematics are taken as input variables was employed to search for the best stiffness performance of the robot. Numerical results of the generated joint trajectories are given for a kinematic redundant serial-parallel robot machine, IWR (Intersector Welding/Cutting Robot), when a particular trajectory of its end-effector has been prescribed. The numerical results show that the joint trajectories generated based on the stiffness optimization are feasible for realization in the control system since they are acceptably smooth. The results imply that the stiffness performance of the robot machine deviates smoothly with respect to the kinematic configuration in the adjacent domain of its best stiffness performance. To suppress the vibration of the robot machine due to varying cutting force during the machining process, this dissertation proposed a feedforward control strategy, which is constructed based on the derived inverse dynamics model of target system. The effectiveness of applying such a feedforward control in the vibration suppression has been validated in a parallel manipulator in the software environment. The experimental study of such a feedforward control has also been included in the dissertation. The difficulties of modelling the actual system due to the unknown components in its dynamics is noticed. As a solution, a back propagation (BP) neural network is proposed for identification of the unknown components of the dynamics model of the target system. To train such a BP neural network, a modified Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm that can utilize an experimental input-output data set of the entire dynamic system is introduced in the dissertation. Validation of the BP neural network and the modified Levenberg- Marquardt algorithm is done, respectively, by a sinusoidal output approximation, a second order system parameters estimation, and a friction model estimation of a parallel manipulator, which represent three different application aspects of this method.

Asiakaslähtöisen palveluliiketoiminnan johtaminen yritysverkostossa

Tässä pro gradu -tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan asiakkuuksien johtamista johtamisoppina ja erilaisten asiakassuhteen ulottuuvuksien merkitystä asiakkaan arvonluomiselle. Teoriaosuudessa tunnistettuja elementtejä peilataan empiria osuuden havaintoihin. Yhteenvedossa on tunnistettu keskeisimmät kehityskohteet, jotka asiakkuuksien johtamisen teoriamalleista sekä käytännöistä ulkopuolisten kumppaneiden kanssa, olisi sovellettavissa asiakkuuksien johtamiseen yritysverkoston sisällä. Tutkimuksen empiirinen osuus toteutettiin kvalitatiivisena tutkimuksena ja aineisto kerättiin puolistuktruoitujen teemahaastattelujen avulla. Haastatteluaineisto analysoitiin luokittelemalla havainnot kirjallisuustutkimuksessa tunnistettuihin teemoihin sekä teemarungon ulkopuolelta merkittävästi esiin nousseisiin seikkoihin. Tutkimustulokset tukivat kirjallisuudessa esitettyä näkemystä siitä, että keskeisiä asiakassuhteen arvoa lisääviä tekijöitä ovat säännöllinen vuorovaikutus, molemminpuolinen luottamus, vastavuoroisuus, proaktiivisuus ja asiakkaan tarpeita ja odotuksia vastaava palvelutarjooma. Aidosti asiakaslähtöinen toimintatapa vaatii, että koko yrityksen organisaatio ja sen osaamisalueet, prosessit, tarjoomat sekä ansaintalogiikka on viritetty tukemaan asiakkaan tapaa tuottaa arvoa itselleen.

A multimethod examination of contributors to successful on-the-job learning for vocational students

Rapid changes in working life and competence requirements of different professions have increased interest in workplace learning. It is considered an effective way to learn and update professional skills by performing daily tasks in an authentic environment. Especially, ensuring a supply of skilled future workers is a crucial issue for firms facing tight competition and a shortage of competent employees due to the retirement of current professionals. In order to develop and make the most of workplace learning, it is important to focus on workplace learning environments and the individual characteristics of those participating in workplace learning. The literature has suggested various factors that influence adults' and professionals’ workplace learning of profession-related skills, but lacks empirical studies on contextual and individual-related factors that positively affect students' workplace learning. Workers with vocational education form a large group in modern firms. Therefore, elements of vocational students’ successful workplace learning during their studies, before starting their career paths, need to be examined. To fill this gap in the literature, this dissertation examines contributors to vocational students’ workplace learning in Finland, where students’ workplace learning is included in the vocational education and training system. The study is divided into two parts: the introduction, comprised of the overview of the relevant literature and the conclusion of the entire study, and five separate articles. Three of the articles utilize quantitative methods and two use qualitative methods to examine factors that contribute to vocational students’ workplace learning. The results show that, from the students’ perspective, attitudinal, motivational, and organizationrelated factors enhance the student’s development of professionalism during the on-the-job learning period. Specifically, the organization-related factors such as innovative climate, guidance, and interactions with seniors have a strong positive impact on the students’ perceived development of professional skills because, for example, the seniors’ guidance and provision of new viewpoints for the tasks helps the vocational students to gain autonomy at work performance. A multilevel analysis shows that of those factors enhancing workplace learning from the student perspective, innovative climate, knowledge transfer accuracy, and the students’ performance orientation were significantly related to the workplace instructors’ assessment regarding the students’ professional performance. Furthermore, support from senior colleagues and the students’ self-efficacy were both significantly associated with the formal grades measuring how well the students managed to learn necessary professional skills. In addition, the results suggest that the students’ on-the-job learning can be divided into three main phases, of which two require efforts from both the student and the on-the-job learning organization. The first phase includes the student’s application of basic professional skills, demonstration of potential in performing daily tasks, and orientation provided by the organization at the beginning of the on-the-job learning period. In the second phase, the student actively develops profession-related skills by performing daily tasks, thus learning a fluent working style while observing the seniors’ performance. The organization offers relevant tasks and follows the student’s development. The third level indicates a student who has reached the professional level described as a full occupation. The results suggest that constructing the vocational students’ successful on-the-job learning period requires feedback from seniors, opportunities to learn to manage entire work processes, self-efficacy on the part of the students, proactive behavior, and initiative in learning. The study contributes to research on workplace learning in three ways: firstly, it identifies the key individual- and organization-based factors that influence the vocational students’ successful on-the-job learning from their perspective and examines mutual relationships between these factors. Second, the study provides knowledge of how the factors related to the students’ view of successful workplace learning are associated with the workplace instructors’ perspective and the formal grades. Third, the present study finds elements needed to construct a successful on-the-job learning for the students.

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.

Kallet til livets embete : mødre i helse og lidelse

Mothers represent the natural caring. Natural caring is the object of caring science and of research interest because it establishes the central core of professional caring. In this study, we encounter patients who are mothers in need of care in a psychiatric context. Motherhood involves taking responsibility that extends beyond one's own life, because the child represents possibilities in a yet unknown future. Understanding and knowledge about the mothers' struggle in health and suffering are of crucial importance to enable clinical practice to make provisions for and adapt to the individual patient. The overall purpose of this dissertation is to illuminate how the innermost essence of caring emerges in health and suffering in patients who are mothers in psychiatric care. The purpose of the study in a clinical sense is to seek to understand and illuminate the patient's inner world in health and suffering in terms of contextual, existential, ontological and ethical dimensions. The dissertation is exploratory and descriptive in nature and encompasses induction, deduction and abduction as logics tools of reasoning. A theoretical model of natural caring and a universal theoretical model of the innermost essence of caring is developed as seen from the patient's world in a psychiatric context. The dissertation is anchored in human science's view of the human being and the world and in caring science's perspective. Caring science's view of the human being as a unity comprising body, soul and spirit is central in the study's concept of the patient. This multi-dimensional conception of the human being encompasses the dissertation's basic values and is decisive for choice of methodology. Hermeneutic epistemology guided the interpretation of the empirical data, the paradigmatic theses and assumptions. The dialectical movement in interpretation moves back and forth between empirical data, caring science theory and philosophical theory and reveals deeper insight into meaningful content in the clinical context. The interpretation process comprises four levels of abstraction: rational, contextual, existential and ontological. Hermeneutic philosophy guides the inductive and deductive approach to interpretation, as well as the movement between the clinical context and the caring science paradigm. In this encounter between the visible and invisible reality, the image of natural caring – motherliness emerged. The dissertation consists of four studies. The first study is a systematic review of nineteen research articles. The three other studies are hermeneutical interpretations based on text materials from open interviews. Fifteen participants were interviewed, all of whom are mothers of children between 0 and 18 years of age. All were outpatients in the psychiatric specialist health service. In the interpretation process, the mothers' struggle in health and suffering emerges as a struggle between the inner and outer world. Being a mother and patient in health and suffering in a psychiatric context means to struggle to be oneself, to create oneself, to live and realize one's good deeds as a mother and human being. To be oneself, to possess oneself as a mother is not only a question of tending, playing and learning in order to master a practical situation or to survive. It involves constituting a deep, inner desire to courageously create oneself so that the child is able to realize his or her potential in health and suffering. Motherliness manifests itself in caring as a call to ministering humanity and life. The voice of motherliness is understood as the voice of life—the eternal, inner call of love and freedom. The inner call craves fulfilment. Motherliness in natural caring does not retreat. Motherliness defines the Other as freedom and proceeds without regard for all other exterior requirements to realizing wellbeing. The inner essence of caring is attentive, aware and heeds the call of the heart. The innermost essence of caring is to be and to make oneself responsible for the Other. Responsibility cannot be relinquished; free choice consists in whether or not to follow the call. To renounce the inner call to responsibility is to deny oneself and one's dignity as a human being. The theoretical models provide clinical and systematic caring science with knowledge and understanding based on the natural caring spirit inherent in the human being. The study elucidates and strengthens the ontological basic assumptions about the human being as a unity of body, soul and spirit, the sanctity of the human being and the core of caring, ethos. The results of the dissertation will provide clinical practice with knowledge about the inner movements of the mothers' souls in relation to their responsibility as mothers and human beings. Being able to understand the basic conditions for responsibility is crucial for developing care that encompasses mother and child and the mutual relationship between them. This is basic knowledge for developing attitudes and actions that meet and provide for the needs of the patient as mother and as a whole, suffering human being.

Tietensä tai törkeästä huolimattomuudesta? Veronkorotuksen määrääminen verotusmenettelystä annetun lain 32.3 §:n perusteella oikeuskäytännön valossa

Tutkielmassa tarkastellaan veronkorotuksen määräämistä verotusmenettelystä annetun lain (VML) 32.3 §:n perusteella oikeuskäytännön valossa. Kyseisen pykälän perusteella määrätään ankarimmat veronkorotukset ja veronkorotus voi olla 0-30 prosenttia tuloon lisätystä määrästä. Tutkielman perusteella oikeuskäytännön valossa veronkorotus voidaan määrätä VML 32.3 §:n perusteella mikäli on osoitettavissa, että verovelvollinen on ollut tietoinen tekemästään virheestä esimerkiksi aiemman ohjauksen perusteella tai, mikäli verovelvollisen olisi pitänyt olla tietoinen tekemästään virheestä esimerkiksi asian verotuksellisen selvyyden vuoksi ja hänen voidaan tästä syystä katsoa toimineen törkeästä huolimattomuudesta. Mikäli asia kuitenkin on tulkinnanvarainen tai verovelvollinen on todistettavasti pyrkinyt selvittämään asiaa, veronkorotus ei tule määrättäväksi VML 32.3 §:n perusteella. Veronkorotus voidaan määrätä, mikäli tehdyllä virheellä on vaikutusta verovelvollisen verotettavaan tuloon ja korotuksen tulisi olla korkeintaan noin 5 prosenttia lisätystä tulosta. Oikeuskäytännön valossa verotusmenettelyn yhteydessä määrättävät veronkorotukset ovat yleisesti ottaen liian korkeita ja verohallinnon ohjeistusta tulisi tältä osin muuttaa paremmin lainsäädäntöä ja oikeuskäytäntöä vastaavaksi.

Reporting of Green Supply Chain Management and Industrial Symbiosis

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the reporting of operations related to green supply chain management and industrial symbiosis has evolved in UPM, Fortum and Kemira within the last ten years. The focus is on the improved operations, which are studied based on annual reports of these companies. The study provides a deeper understanding of the nature of green supply chain management and industrial symbiosis as well as the possibilites that their combination offers. The research is part of the DemaNET research project The study indicates that the environmental regulations and reporting standards have forced the studied companies to report their operations related to green supply chain management and industrial symbiosis more in detail during the last ten years. The operations related to green supply chain management in the studied companies are more common compared to operations related to industrial symbiosis. Often these two operations were also partially integrated, indicating a hybrid model. Even though firms often used hybrid models they still focused mainly on greening the internal operations rather than finding alternative ways for symbiosis outside the organization. The integration of green supply chain management and industrial symbiosis is most likely to occur when mutually beneficial relationships align the interests of all parties, thus resulting in the co-creation of value. The findings suggest that identifying mutual benefits and the flow of by-products are the ones that companies should give more attention to.

Dental fear in adolescents' transition to early adulthood

The aims of the study were to assess the validity of a clinical dental fear question (Short Dental Fear Question, SDFQ) and an instrument measuring interaction between adolescents and dental staff (Patient Dental Staff Interaction Questionnaire, PDSIQ). Also, adolescents’ subjective perception of interaction with dental staff, the association with adolescents’ dental fear and sense of coherence as well as a multi-professional small-group intervention model for decreasing high dental fear were assessed. The study sample comprised Finnish adolescents in transition to early adulthood, aged 18–26 years (n = 777, n = 773, n = 5), except for a sample of 15-year-old adolescents (n = 27). Dental fear, sense of coherence (SOC) and the adolescents’ perceived interaction with dental staff were assessed with questionnaires. The principles of fear treatment such as gradual exposure, relaxation, encouragement and cornerstones of the reteaming method based on a solution-focused framework to maintain motivation and peer support were used to decrease fear in the intervention study. The SDFQ was found to be a valid dental fear instrument and the PDSIQ a valid interaction instrument with five factors of interaction retrieved: ‘kind atmosphere and mutual communication’, ‘roughness’, ‘insecurity’, ‘trust and safety’, and ‘shame and guilt’. Highly fearful young adults more often perceived their interaction with dental staff as negative, more often felt insecure and had a weaker sense of coherence compared to their peers with no to moderate dental fear. The results of the intervention study showed that young adults’ high dental fear decreased and their commitment to dental treatment increased. The SDFQ is clinically feasible and informative instrument in measuring dental fear. Knowledge of the level of fear enables dental staff to better consider an adolescent’s fear. Dental staff should be aware that a supportive interaction style, creating trust and safety, is especially beneficial for highly dentally fearful young adults. A weak SOC may affect young adults’ high dental fear in that they would not have enough tools to manage their fear. A multi-professional small therapeutic group seems to increase fearful young adults’ resources for confronting dental treatment.

Plant-Herbivore Interaction in a Fragmented Landscape: Local Adaptation and Inbreeding

Reciprocal selection between interacting species is a major driver of biodiversity at both the genetic and the species level. This reciprocal selection, or coevolution, has led to the diversification of two highly diverse and abundant groups of organisms, flowering plants and their insect herbivores. In heterogeneous environments, the outcome of coevolved species interactions is influenced by the surrounding community and/or the abiotic environment. The process of adaptation allows species to adapt to their local conditions and to local populations of interacting species. However, adaptation can be disrupted or slowed down by an absence of genetic variation or by increased inbreeding, together with the following inbreeding depression, both of which are common in small and isolated populations that occur in fragmented environments. I studied the interaction between a long-lived plant Vincetoxicum hirundinaria and its specialist herbivore Abrostola asclepiadis in the southwestern archipelago of Finland. I focused on mutual local adaptation of plants and herbivores, which is a demonstration of reciprocal selection between species, a prerequisite for coevolution. I then proceeded to investigate the processes that could potentially hamper local adaptation, or species interaction in general, when the population size is small. I did this by examining how inbreeding of both plants and herbivores affects traits that are important for interaction, as well as among-population variation in the effects of inbreeding. In addition to bi-parental inbreeding, in plants inbreeding can arise from self-fertilization which has important implications for mating system evolution. I found that local adaptation of the plant to its herbivores varied among populations. Local adaptation of the herbivore varied among populations and years, being weaker in populations that were most connected. Inbreeding caused inbreeding depression in both plants and herbivores. In some populations inbreeding depression in herbivore biomass was stronger in herbivores feeding on inbred plants than in those feeding on outbred ones. For plants it was the other way around: inbreeding depression in anti-herbivore resistance decreased when the herbivores were inbred. Underlying some of the among-population variation in the effects of inbreeding is variation in plant phenolic compounds. However, variation in the modification of phenolic compounds in the digestive tract of the herbivore did not explain the inbreeding depression in herbivore biomass. Finally, adult herbivores had a preference for outbred host plants for egg deposition, and herbivore inbreeding had a positive effect on egg survival when the eggs were exposed to predators and parasitoids. These results suggest that plants and herbivores indeed exert reciprocal selection, as demonstrated by the significant local adaptation of V. hirundinaria and A. asclepiadis to one another. The most significant cause of disruption of the local adaptation of herbivore populations was population connectivity, and thus probably gene flow. In plants local adaptation tended to increase with increasing genetic variation. Whether or not inbreeding depression occurred varied according to the life-history stage of the herbivore and/or the plant trait in question. In addition, the effects of inbreeding strongly depended on the population. Taken together, inbreeding modified plant-herbivore interactions at several different levels, and can thus affect the strength of reciprocal selection between species. Thus inbreeding has the potential to affect the outcome of coevolution.

Enhancing business-to-business relationship through value co-creation in traditional business sector: A case of building services engineering

This study discusses the significance of having service as a business logic, and more specifically, how value co-creation can be seen as an enhancing phenomenon to business-to-business relationships in traditional business sector. The purpose of this study is to investigate how value cocreation can enhance a business-to-business relationship in the heating, ventilation and airconditioning (HVAC) industry of building services engineering, through three sub-objectives: to identify what is value in the industry, how value is co-created in the industry, and what is value in a business-to-business relationship in the industry. The theoretical part this study consists of academic knowledge and literature related to the concepts of value, value co-creation and business-to-business relationships. In order to research value co-creation and business-to-business relationships in HVAC industry of building services engineering both, metaphorical and conceptual thinking of service dominant (S-D) logic and more managerial approach of service logic (SL), contributed to the theoretical part of the study. The empirical research conducted for this study is based on seven semi-structured interviews, which constituted the holistic, qualitative single case study method chosen for the research. The data was collected in September 2014 from CEOs, managers and owners representing six building services engineering firms. The interviews were analysed with the help of transcriptions, role-ordered matrices and thematic networks. The findings of this study indicate that value in HVAC industry consists of client expertise and supplier expertise. The result of applying client expertise and supplier expertise to the business-to- business relationship is characterized as value-in-reputation, when continuity, interaction, learning and rapport of the business relationship are ensured. As a result, value co-creation in the industry consists of mutual and separate elements, which the client and the supplier apply in the process, in addition to proactive interaction. The findings of this study, together with the final framework, enhance the understanding of the connection existing between value co-creation and business-to-business relationship. The findings suggest that value in the HVAC industry is characterized by both value-in-use and value-inreputation. Value-in-reputation enhances the formation of value-in-use, and consequently, value cocreation enhances the business-to-business relationship. This study thus contributes to the existing knowledge on the concepts of value and value co-creation in business-to-business relationships.

The Performance of European Small Cap Equity Funds

The thesis examines the risk-adjusted performance of European small cap equity funds between 2008 and 2013. The performance is measured using several measures including Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio, Modigliani measure, Jensen alpha, 3-factor alpha and 4-factor alpha. The thesis also addresses the issue of persistence in mutual fund performance. Thirdly, the relationship between the activity of fund managers and fund performance is investigated. The managerial activity is measured using tracking error and R-squared obtained from a 4-factor asset pricing model. The issues are investigated using Spearman rank correlation test, cross-sectional regression analysis and ranked portfolio tests. Monthly return data was provided by Morningstar and consists of 88 mutual funds. Results show that small cap funds earn back a significant amount of their expenses, but on average loose to their benchmark index. The evidence of performance persistence over 12-month time period is weak. Managerial activity is shown to positively contribute to fund performance

The role of network competence and international business competence in multinational corporations: Subsidiary perspective

On-going process of globalization makes companies all over the world to go beyond the national markets and internationalize. Organizational form of multinational corporation (MNC) has capabilities for establishing the affiliate companies in several countries. Thus, the relocation of resources occurs and particularly, the cross-border transfer of knowledge which possesses the competitive advantage. However, differences in countries` business environments and cultures may constrain this capability. The research aim of this thesis is to investigate the role of subsidiary’s network competence (ability to build and manage the relationships with other local business units) and international business competence in relation to the benefits that MNC receives from a subsidiary. Additionally, subsidiary’s business adaptation, partnerships and knowledge transfer mechanism with parent company and external partners are investigated. This research, conducted in the Finnish-Russian context, consists of theoretical and empirical parts. The qualitative approach in the form of multiple case studies is employed. The empirical data incorporated primary and secondary data in the form of interviews collected in 2013 and 2015 years. Interviews were collected from four Finnish case companies in Saint-Petersburg and Kaluga region and five Russian partner companies. Results are drawn from two cases from Saint-Petersburg. The abductive research approach for the results analysis is adopted. The results indicate that both competencies lead to the subsidiary’s local embeddedness in the form of mutual business activities with local business partners and product adaptation for the local market needs. In addition to the monetary benefits in form of payments or turnover share, local embeddedness brings the knowledge of the local environment which is utilized by an MNC in the long-term planning. Another found tacit benefit is the access to the national market. This is strategically useful benefit not only for parent MNC but also for the subsidiary’s partners, i.e. international suppliers.