Oppineesti luonnosta, kestävyydestä ja kasvatuksesta

Kirjallisuusarvostelu

Exploring the strategic impact of technological change - Studies on the role of Internet in magazine publishing

Over the past few decades, turbulent change has characterized the situation in the media industry. It has been noted that digitalization and new media are strongly influencing the industry: it is changing the existing market dynamics and requires new strategies. Prior research on the impact of digitalization and the Internet has emphasized news-focused media such as newspaper publishing and broadcasting, yet magazine publishing is very seldom the focus of the research. This study examines how the Internetimpacts magazine publishing. The work presents a multi-level analysis on the role and impact of the Internet on magazine products, companies and industry. The study is founded on strategic management, technology management and media economics literature. This study consists of two parts. The first part introduces the research topic and discusses the overall results of the study. The second part comprises five research publications. Qualitative research methods are used throughout. The results of the study indicate that the Internet has not had a disruptive effect on magazine publishing, and that its strategic implications could rather be considered complementary to the print magazine and the business as a whole. It seems that the co-specialized assets, together with market-related competencies and unchanged core competence have protected established firms from the disruptive effect of the new technology in magazine publishing. In addition, it seems that the Internet offers a valuable possibility to build and nourish customer relationships. The study contributes tomedia management and economics research by moving from product- or industry-level investigations towards a strategic-management perspective.

Dissertatio academic [sic] quantitates quasdam

Arkit: 1 arkintunnukseton lehti, A4 B1.

The relationship between first-order capabilities and online innovations. A comparative case study on the publishing sector.

The objective of this thesis was to study the relationship between firstorder capabilities and online innovations. First-order capabilities can be divided into market and technology capabilities, and they play an important role in the production of innovations. The study was carried out in publishing industry, where many changes have taken place in the online environment during the last few years. In the empirical research, four companies were studied, two magazine publishers and two newspaper publishers. The analysis was done in two phases; first every case was analyzed alone and then the cases were compared in cross-case analysis. The most important finding was the positive impact of market capability to the production of online innovations. The study also increased understanding about the relationship between market and technology capabilities and online innovations in general.

International research partnerships: establishing partner selection criteria in the university-university context

The main objective of the study was to identify and evaluate criteria for international partner selection in university-university context. This study attempted at promoting better understanding of how universities should proceed in selecting partners for producing joint research publications. Thus, the aim of the study was to gain an understanding of how research collaborations can be developed and how partners can be selected. The choice of a right partner has been identified as a precondition for partnership success. In international research collaborations partnering scientists with different skills and backgrounds bring together complementary knowledge into research projects, which in most cases results in a higher quality output. Therefore, prior to selecting a partner, the set of criteria should be established. This research examined twelve Russian universities with the status of national research university as potential partners for Lappeenranta University of Technology, and selected the most appropriate universities based on established set of criteria. Potential partners’ evaluation was done using secondary sources by tracking partners’ academic success during the period 2005 – 2010. Based on established criteria, the study calculated the partnership index for each university. The results of the research reveal that among twelve examined universities there are four potential partners who have been rather active in publishing scientific articles during 2005 – 2010.

Perspectives interculturelles et interlinguistiques sur le discours académique – Crosscultural and Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Academic Discourse. Volume 1

The Department of French Studies of the University of Turku (Finland) organized an International Bilingual Conference on Crosscultural and Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Academic Discourse from 2022 May 2005. The event hosted specialists on Academic Discourse from Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, and the USA. This book is the first volume in our series of publications on Academic Discourse (AD hereafter). The following pages are composed of selected papers from the conference and focus on different aspects and analytical frameworks of Academic Discourse. One of the motivations behind organizing the conference was to examine and expand research on AD in different languages. Another one was to question to what extent academic genres are culturebound and language specific or primarily field or domain specific. The research carried out on AD has been mainly concerned with the use of English in different academic settings for a long time now – mainly written contexts – and at the expense of other languages. Alternatively the academic genre conventions of English and English speaking world have served as a basis for comparison with other languages and cultures. We consider this first volume to be a strong contribution to the spreading out of researches based on other languages than English in AD, namely Finnish, French, Italian, Norwegian and Romanian in this book. All the following articles have a strong link with the French language: either French is constitutive of the AD corpora under examination or the article was written in French. The structure of the book suggests and provides evidence that the concept of AD is understood and tackled to varying degrees by different scholars. Our first volume opens up the discussion on what AD is and backs dissemination, overlapping and expansion of current research questions and methodologies. The book is divided into three parts and contains four articles in English and six articles in French. The papers in part one and part two cover what we call the prototypical genre of written AD, i.e. the research article. Part one follows up on issues linked to the 13 Research Article (RA hereafter). Kjersti Fløttum asks wether a typical RA exists and concentrates on authors’ voices in RA (self and other dimensions), whereas Didriksen and Gjesdal’s article focuses on individual variation of the author’s voice in RA. The last article in this section is by Nadine Rentel and deals with evaluation in the writing of RA. Part two concentrates on the teaching and learning of AD within foreign language learning, another more or less canonical genre of AD. Two aspects of writing are covered in the first two articles: foreign students’ representations on rhetorical traditions (Hidden) and a contrastive assessment of written exercices in French and Finnish in Higher Education (Suzanne). The last contribution in this section on AD moves away from traditional written forms and looks at how argumentation is constructed in students’ oral presentations (Dervin and Fauveau). The last part of the book continues the extension by featuring four articles written in French exploring institutional and scientific discourses. Institutional discourses under scrutiny include the European Bologna Process (Galatanu) and Romanian reform texts (Moilanen). As for scientific discourses, the next paper in this section deconstructs an ideological discourse on the didactics of French as a foreign language (Pescheux). Finally, the last paper in part three reflects on varied forms of AD at university (Defays). We hope that this book will add some fuel to continue discussing diverse forms of and approches to AD – in different languages and voices! No need to say that with the current upsurge in academic mobility, reflecting on crosscultural and crosslinguistic AD has just but started.

Conference Proceedings. Academic Mobility Blending Perspectives - Mobilité Académique Perspectives croisées

Les 21, 22 et 23 septembre 2006, le Département d’Études Françaises de l’Université de Turku (Finlande) a organisé une conférence internationale et bilingue (anglais et français) sur le thème de la mobilité académique ; le but de cette rencontre était de rendre possible la tenue d’un forum international et multidisciplinaire, susceptible d’être le siège de divers débats entre les différents acteurs de la mobilité académique (c’estàdire des étudiants, des chercheurs, des personnels enseignants et administratifs, etc.). Ainsi, ont été mis à contribution plus de cinquante intervenants, (tous issus de domaines aussi variés que la linguistique, les sciences de l’éducation, la didactique, l’anthropologie, la sociologie, la psychologie, l’histoire, la géographie, etc.) ainsi que cinq intervenants renommés1. La plupart des thèmes traités durant la conférence couvraient les champs suivants : l’organisation de la mobilité, les obstacles rencontrés par les candidats à la mobilité, l’intégration des étudiants en situation d’échange, le développement des programmes d’études, la mobilité virtuelle, l’apprentissage et l’enseignement des langues, la prise de cosncience interculturelle, le développement des compétences, la perception du système de mobilité académique et ses impacts sur la mobilité effective. L’intérêt du travail réalisé durant la conférence réside notamment dans le fait qu’il ne concentre pas uniquement des perspectives d’étudiants internationaux et en situation d’échange (comme c’est le cas de la plupart des travaux de recherche déjà menés sur ce sujet), mais aussi ceux d’autres corps : enseignants, chercheurs, etc. La contribution suivante contient un premier corpus de dixsept articles, répartis en trois sections : 1. Impacts de la mobilité étudiante ; 2. Formation en langues ; 3. Amélioration de la mobilité académique. À l’image de la conférence, la production qui suit est bilingue : huit des articles sont rédigés en français, et les neuf autres en anglais. Certains auteurs n’ont pas pu assister à la conférence mais ont tout de même souhaité apparaître dans cet ouvrage. Dans la première section de l’ouvrage, Sandrine Billaud tâche de mettre à jour les principaux obstacles à la mobilité étudiante en France (logement, organisation des universités, démarches administratives), et propose à ce sujet quelques pistes d’amélioration. Vient ensuite un article de Dominique Ulma, laquelle se penche sur la mobilité académique régnant au sein des Instituts Universitaires de Formation des Maîtres (IUFM) ; elle s’est tout particulièrement concentrée sur l’enthousiasme des stagiaires visàvis de la mobilité, et sur les bénéfices qu’apporte la mobilité Erasmus à ce type précis d’étudiant. Ensuite, dans un troisième article, Magali Hardoin s’interroge sur les potentialités éducationnelles de la mobilité des enseignantsstagiaires, et tâche de définir l’impact de celleci sur la construction de leur profil professionnel. Après cela arrive un groupe de trois articles, tous réalisés à bases d’observations faites dans l’enseignement supérieur espagnol, et qui traitent respectivement de la portée qu’a le programme de triple formation en langues européennes appliquées pour les étudiants en mobilité (Marián MorónMartín), des conséquences qu’occasionne la présence d’étudiants étrangers dans les classes de traductions (Dimitra Tsokaktsidu), et des réalités de l’intégration sur un campus espagnol d’étudiants américains en situation d’échange (Guadalupe Soriano Barabino). Le dernier article de la section, issu d’une étude sur la situation dans les institutions japonaises, fait état de la situation des programmes de doubles diplômes existant entre des établissements japonais et étrangers, et tente de voir quel est l’impact exact de tels programmes pour les institutions japonaises (Mihoko Teshigawara, Riichi Murakami and Yoneo Yano). La seconde section est elle consacrée à la relation entre apprentissage et enseignement des langues et mobilité académique. Dans un premier article, Martine Eisenbeis s’intéresse à des modules multimédia réalisés à base du film « L’auberge espagnole », de Cédric Klapish (2001), et destinés aux étudiants en mobilité désireux d’apprendre et/ou améliorer leur français par des méthodes moins classiques. Viennent ensuite les articles de Jeanine Gerbault et Sabine Ylönen, lesquels traitent d’un projet européen visant à supporter la mobilité étudiante par la création d’un programme multimédia de formation linguistique et culturelle pour les étudiants en situation de mobilité (le nom du projet est EUROMOBIL). Ensuite, un article de Pascal Schaller s’intéresse aux différents types d’activités que les étudiants en séjour à l’étranger expérimentent dans le cadre de leur formation en langue. Enfin, la section s’achève avec une contribution de Patricia KohlerBally, consacrée à un programme bilingue coordonné par l’Université de Fribourg (Suisse). La troisième et dernière section propose quelques pistes de réflexion destinées à améliorer la mobilité académique des étudiants et des enseignants ; dans ce cadre seront donc évoquées les questions de l’égalité face à la mobilité étudiante, de la préparation nécessitée par celleci, et de la prise de conscience interculturelle. Dans un premier chapitre, Javier Mato et Bego

Future revenue models: Transformation from textbooks to digital solutions in the educational publishing industry, Case Sanoma Learning

This study was conducted in order to learn how companies’ revenue models will be transformed due to the digitalisation of its products and processes. Because there is still only a limited number of researches focusing solely on revenue models, and particularly on the revenue model change caused by the changes at the business environment, the topic was initially approached through the business model concept, which organises the different value creating operations and resources at a company in order to create profitable revenue streams. This was used as the base for constructing the theoretical framework for this study, used to collect and analyse the information. The empirical section is based on a qualitative study approach and multiple-case analysis of companies operating in learning materials publishing industry. Their operations are compared with companies operating in other industries, which have undergone comparable transformation, in order to recognise either similarities or contrasts between the cases. The sources of evidence are a literature review to find the essential dimensions researched earlier, and interviews 29 of managers and executives at 17 organisations representing six industries. Based onto the earlier literature and the empirical findings of this study, the change of the revenue model is linked with the change of the other dimen-sions of the business model. When one dimension will be altered, as well the other should be adjusted accordingly. At the case companies the transformation is observed as the utilisation of several revenue models simultaneously and the revenue creation processes becoming more complex.

Communicative and Anticipatory Decision-Making Supported by Bayesian Networks

The purpose of this research is to draw up a clear construction of an anticipatory communicative decision-making process and a successful implementation of a Bayesian application that can be used as an anticipatory communicative decision-making support system. This study is a decision-oriented and constructive research project, and it includes examples of simulated situations. As a basis for further methodological discussion about different approaches to management research, in this research, a decision-oriented approach is used, which is based on mathematics and logic, and it is intended to develop problem solving methods. The approach is theoretical and characteristic of normative management science research. Also, the approach of this study is constructive. An essential part of the constructive approach is to tie the problem to its solution with theoretical knowledge. Firstly, the basic definitions and behaviours of an anticipatory management and managerial communication are provided. These descriptions include discussions of the research environment and formed management processes. These issues define and explain the background to further research. Secondly, it is processed to managerial communication and anticipatory decision-making based on preparation, problem solution, and solution search, which are also related to risk management analysis. After that, a solution to the decision-making support application is formed, using four different Bayesian methods, as follows: the Bayesian network, the influence diagram, the qualitative probabilistic network, and the time critical dynamic network. The purpose of the discussion is not to discuss different theories but to explain the theories which are being implemented. Finally, an application of Bayesian networks to the research problem is presented. The usefulness of the prepared model in examining a problem and the represented results of research is shown. The theoretical contribution includes definitions and a model of anticipatory decision-making. The main theoretical contribution of this study has been to develop a process for anticipatory decision-making that includes management with communication, problem-solving, and the improvement of knowledge. The practical contribution includes a Bayesian Decision Support Model, which is based on Bayesian influenced diagrams. The main contributions of this research are two developed processes, one for anticipatory decision-making, and the other to produce a model of a Bayesian network for anticipatory decision-making. In summary, this research contributes to decision-making support by being one of the few publicly available academic descriptions of the anticipatory decision support system, by representing a Bayesian model that is grounded on firm theoretical discussion, by publishing algorithms suitable for decision-making support, and by defining the idea of anticipatory decision-making for a parallel version. Finally, according to the results of research, an analysis of anticipatory management for planned decision-making is presented, which is based on observation of environment, analysis of weak signals, and alternatives to creative problem solving and communication.

The effect of dynamic capabilities on operational-level innovation – Empirical study in magazine publishing industry

This master’s thesis aims to examine the relationship between dynamic capabilities and operational-level innovations. In addition, measures for the concept of dynamic capabilities are developed. The study was executed in the magazine publishing industry which is considered favourable for examining dynamic capabilities, since the sector is characterized by rapid change. As a basis for the study and the measure development, a literary review was conducted. Data for the empirical section was gathered by a survey targeted to chief-editors of Finnish consumer magazines. The relationship between dynamic capabilities and innovation was examined by multiple linear regression. The results indicate that dynamic capabilities have effect on the emergence of radical innovations. Environmental dynamism’s effect on radical innovations was not detected. Also, dynamic capabilities’ effect on innovation was not greater in turbulent operating environment.