Building a creative city brand through an international mega-event : Case: Helsinki World Design Capital 2012

In order to grow, cities are increasingly competing for attention, jobs, investments, visitors, residents and significant events. Cities need to come up with creative solutions to keep up with the competition; they ought to become creative cities. Attracting talented and diverse inhabitants is a key factor in developing a creative city, which on is characterized by openness, tolerance, vibrancy and diversity. Along the need for renewed city images city brand building has become popular. Helsinki is the World Design Capital 2012 (WDC 2012) and this mega-event presents a meaningful opportunity for the city to broadcast itself globally. The purpose of this study is to evaluate how Helsinki brands itself as a creative city through an international mega-event. The sub-aims are to: 1) Map the factors behind the creative city and their relation to the city of Helsinki, 2) Describe the city branding process, 3) Evaluate the role of the Helsinki World Design Capital 2012 mega-event in Helsinki’s creative city brand building. First, the theory discusses the concept of the creative city that has gained growing attention during the past decade. Then, the city branding process is described and the benefits of hosting a mega-event are presented. Finally, co-branding a city and a mega-event in order to generate maximum benefit from the mega-event, is reviewed. This is a qualitative research for which data was collected through three face-to-face interviews, the World Design Capital 2012 bid, Helsinki’s economic development strategy, a consulting firm’s research report on the case city and web-pages. The research reveals that Helsinki has shown interest in the creative city discussion. The terminology around the concept is however approached carefully. Helsinki fits many of the creative city characteristics and recognizes its flaws for which improvement strategies have been planned. Bottlenecks keeping the city from promoting a more open mind were mainly revealed in its organizational structures. Helsinki has no official brand strategy; nonetheless pressure to develop one is present. The World Design Capital 2012 mega-event is seen as a meaningful stepping board to strengthen Helsinki’s identity and image, and start thinking about a city brand. The brand strategies of the mega-event support the values and virtues of the city itself, which enables benefits of co-branding introduces in the theory part. Helsinki has no official brand and doesn’t call itself a creative city, however this study shows signs of the city taking steps towards building a creative city brand with the help of the Helsinki World Design Capital 2012 mega-event.

Social capital, coping and information behaviour of long-term unemployed people in Finland

Avhandlingen studerar hur långtidsarbetslösa klarar av sin situation, hurdant socialt kapital och informationsbeteende de har, samt granskar hur de ovannämnda faktorerna är relaterade till varandra. Därtill undersöks om det finns skillnader mellan finsk- och svenskspråkiga långtidsarbetslösa på de här tre livsområdena. I undersökningen består socialt kapital av sociala relationer, deltagande i organisatoriska aktiviteter samt känslan av tillhörighet med olika grupper och samfund. Gällande informationsbeteende är fokus på vardaglig informationssökning, vilka källor som används, och hurdana problem man stöter på när man söker information. Som mest påfrestande upplevdes arbetslösheten av män, som var i början eller mitten av sin arbetskarriär. De äldre (över 55 år) verkade på många sätt klara av arbetslöshetssituationen bättre än de yngre, som drabbades hårdare av ekonomiska problem och stress. Kvinnor kunde bättre än män bibehålla en positiv inställning, de hade t.ex. starkare sociala nätverk som stöd, medan mäns sociala relationer i högre grad verkade vila på en arbetsgemenskap, som blev allt svagare i och med utdragen arbetslöshet. Yngre män upplevde också ofta att deras hälsa hade försämrats, när den för kvinnor och äldre arbetslösa i genomsnitt blev bättre. När arbetslösas bemästring av arbetslöshetssituationen, sociala relationer och informationssökning granskades, framgick att människor som var aktiva på ett livsområde också var aktiva på andra livsområden. I de flesta fall framkom inte några större skillnader mellan finsk- och svenskspråkiga arbetslösa. Beträffande informationssökning var de upplevda problemen ändå av diametralt motsatt karaktär – för svenskspråkiga åsamkade för lite tillgänglig information ofta problem, medan problemet för de finskspråkiga var att hitta det väsentliga i informationsflödet. Finskspråkiga kände sig också mera fast anknutna till sin boendemiljö och det finska samhället i stort, svenskspråkiga hade däremot i genomsnitt bredare och tätare sociala nätverk.

Working capital management in the small and medium-sized enterprises Case: Project-based business environment in Flowrox Oy

This Master´s thesis illustrates how growing a business ties up the company´s working capital and what the cost of committed capital. In order to manage a company´s working capital in rapid business growth phase, the thesis suggests that by monitoring and managing the operating and cash conversion cycles of customers´ projects, a company can find ways to secure the required amount of capital. The research method of this thesis was based on literature reviews and case study research. The theoretical review presents the concepts of working capital and provides the background for understanding how to improve working capital management. The company in subject is a global small and medium-sized enterprise that manufactures pumps and valves for demanding process conditions. The company is expanding, which creates lots of challenges. This thesis concentrates to the company´s working capital management and its efficiency through the supply chain and value chain perspective. The main elements of working capital management are inventory management, accounts receivable management and accounts payable management. Prepayments also play a significant role, particularly in project-based businesses. Developing companies´ working capital management requires knowledge from different kind of key operations´ in the company, like purchasing, production, sales, logistics and financing. The perspective to develop and describe working capital management is an operational. After literature reviews the thesis present pilot projects that formed the basis of a model to monitor working capital in the case company. Based on analysis and pilot projects, the thesis introduces a rough model for monitoring capital commitments in short time period. With the model the company can more efficiently monitor and manage their customer projects.

The role of advance payments in working capital management and profitability

The objective of this thesis is to study the role of received advance payments in working capital management by creating a new measurement and to study the relationship between advance payments and profitability. The study has been conducted using narrative literature review and quantitative research methods. The research was made analyzing 108 companies listed in Helsinki Stock Exchange. The results indicate that 68 % of the studied companies are receiving advance payments and the average cycle time for received advance payments is 13 days. A new key figure is created to include received advance payments into the calculation of working capital. Received advance payments shorten the working capital cycle, by 13 days, when they are used in the calculation. The role of advance payments is not as significant as the role of receivables and inventories but advance payments may have a larger role than payables if the company is receiving noticeable amounts of advance payments. There are three branches where companies are receiving more advance payments than average companies. The branches are project business and ICT and publishing sectors. There is a negative correlation between profitability and advance payments based on the results of this study.

Turku Åbo the former Capital of Finland

kuv., 10 x 22 cm

Käyttöpääoman hallinta kolmessa kaupanalan case-yrityksessä 2008-2012

Käyttöpääoman tehokkuuden tarve on ajanut yritykset suunnittelemaan hankintojaan entistä tarkemmin, sillä käyttöpääomaan suuruuteen vaikuttavat ratkaisut tehdään yrityksen osto- ja myyntitoiminnoissa. Tässä kandidaatintutkielmassa tarkastellaan hankintatoimen merkitystä ja vaikutusta yrityksen käyttöpääomaan kolmen kaupanalan case-yrityksen avulla. Hankintatoimen hallintaa yrityksissä tarkastellaan käyttöpääoman sitoutumisella vaihto-omaisuuden varastoihin, osto- ja myyntisaamisiin sekä näiden kiertoaikoja. Tutkimus on toteutettu kirjallisuustutkimuksena hyödyntäen samalla valikoitujen pörssinoteerattujen case-yritysten tilinpäätöksiä ja vuosikertomuksia. Tutkimuksen empiirinen osa suoritetaan tilinpäätösanalyysinä, analysoiden valittujen caseyritysten tilinpäätöslukuja.