Toimintajärjestelmien harmonisointi kansainvälisessä rakennustuotealan yrityksessä

Tämän diplomityön tavoitteena on määritellä ja antaa suuntaviivat yhtenäisen, harmonisoidun toimintajärjestelmän luomiseksi kansainvälisessä rakennustuotealan yrityksessä. Toimintajärjestelmä tarkoittaa tässä työssä laatujärjestelmän ISO 9001 sekä ympäristöjärjestelmän ISO 14001 muodostamaa kokonaisuutta. Lähtökohtaisesti yrityksessä on useita hajautettuja toimintajärjestelmiä. Tarkoituksena on antaa kehitysehdotus yhtenäisen kokonaisratkaisun toteuttamisesta järkevässä mittakaavassa. Työssä tutkitaan, millainen toimintajärjestelmä soveltuisi parhaiten yrityksen toimintaan tällä hetkellä ja lähitulevaisuudessa. Tutkimus on tehty sisäisen ja ulkoisen esikuva-analyysin sekä yrityksen sisällä luotujen toimintajärjestelmävaihtoehtojen avulla. Sisäinen esikuva-analyysi toteutettiin yhteistyössä kahden sisäisen yksikön kanssa. Ulkoisessa esikuva-analyysissä oli mukana neljä ulkoista yhteistyökumppania. Yrityksen sisällä luodut toimintajärjestelmävaihtoehdot käsittelevät erilaisia sertifiointiratkaisuja ja vaihtoehtoja arvioidaan SWOT-analyysillä yhdessä ulkoisesta esikuva-analyysistä saatujen tuloksien avulla. Työssä otetaan lisäksi kantaa toimintajärjestelmän dokumenttien hallintaan ja toimintajärjestelmän kehittämiseen. Työn tulosten perusteella voidaan nähdä, että toimintajärjestelmän sertifiointi tulevaisuudessa tapahtuisi parhaiten liiketoimintaryhmittäin. Toimintajärjestelmän sähköistä dokumenttien hallintaa tulisi tehostaa ja toimintajärjestelmästä tulisi olla liityntäpinta yrityksen toiminnanohjausjärjestelmään. Toimintajärjestelmän dokumenttien siirrettävyys eri organisaatiotasoille tehostuu yhtenäisen sähköisen järjestelmän myötä ja yrityksen virallisen kielen käyttämistä voitaisiin laajentaa toimintajärjestelmädokumentaatiossa. Järjestelmän rakenteellinen kehittäminen toteutettaisiin kehittämistoimenpiteinä organisaatiossa alhaalta ylöspäin, konsernitason ohjeistus huomioiden.

Historiallinen näkökulma maailmanperintökohteiden määrittelyyn

Kirjallisuusarvostelu

The Dark Side of International Business? Stakeholder Approach to Human Trafficking in Finnish Construction and Service Sectors

Human trafficking is not a new phenomenon. It has existed in various forms for ages around the world. Some researchers have even compared it to slavery, calling it the modern form of slavery in the 21st century. This study is particularly interested in the role of work-related human trafficking in Finnish business. In order for something to be called work-related human trafficking, the concepts of forced labour and human trafficking have to overlap. From the economic point of view, human trafficking is governed by the laws of supply and demand. In many countries the global pressure on cutting costs has created two trends: the increased supply of migrant workers and the deregulation of labour markets. These competitive pressures can have an adverse impact on the conditions of employment and, in the worst cases, can lead to forced labour and trafficking. In fact, trafficking has become one of the most profitable illicit industries worldwide, generating tremendous profits due to its low costs and huge profits. Therefore, it is important to investigate the phenomenon from the business point of view. This study is a qualitative research conducted by using theme interviews as a research approach. Altogether 13 interviews have been conducted and some secondary data has been used in order to find out what the role of human trafficking is in Finnish business. The special sectors investigated are the Finnish construction and service sectors. The theory framework used in this study follows the stakeholder approach. The relevant stakeholder groups for this study are: ‘institutions and authorities’, ‘law enforcement’, ‘management’ and ‘employees – potential victims’ of trafficking. With the help of these stakeholder groups, a holistic picture of the phenomenon is formed. It can be concluded that the role of human trafficking is complicated but it does exist in Finnish business. It appears in low-cost business sectors where the demand for cheap labour is high. Thus, often the victims are foreigners who do not know the culture or the Finnish conditions of employment. Especially smaller Finnish companies are at risk of getting involved in human trafficking or related exploitation cases since monitoring is much more scarce in these firms than in larger companies. The risk of human trafficking and exploitation is also higher at the bottom of the complicated subcontracting chains or when using foreign recruitment agencies. Thus, the study believes that active and intensive collaboration between the company’s different stakeholder groups is needed in order to prevent work-related human trafficking from flourishing in Finland.

Essays on pricing of risk and international linkage of Russian stock market

Last two decades have seen a rapid change in the global economic and financial situation; the economic conditions in many small and large underdeveloped countries started to improve and they became recognized as emerging markets. This led to growth in the amounts of global investments in these countries, partly spurred by expectations of higher returns, favorable risk-return opportunities, and better diversification alternatives to global investors. This process, however, has not been without problems and it has emphasized the need for more information on these markets. In particular, the liberalization of financial markets around the world, globalization of trade and companies, recent formation of economic and regional blocks, and the rapid development of underdeveloped countries during the last two decades have brought a major challenge to the financial world and researchers alike. This doctoral dissertation studies one of the largest emerging markets, namely Russia. The motivation why the Russian equity market is worth investigating includes, among other factors, its sheer size, rapid and robust economic growth since the turn of the millennium, future prospect for international investors, and a number of important major financial reforms implemented since the early 1990s. Another interesting feature of the Russian economy, which gives motivation to study Russian market, is Russia’s 1998 financial crisis, considered as one of the worst crisis in recent times, affecting both developed and developing economies. Therefore, special attention has been paid to Russia’s 1998 financial crisis throughout this dissertation. This thesis covers the period from the birth of the modern Russian financial markets to the present day, Special attention is given to the international linkage and the 1998 financial crisis. This study first identifies the risks associated with Russian market and then deals with their pricing issues. Finally some insights about portfolio construction within Russian market are presented. The first research paper of this dissertation considers the linkage of the Russian equity market to the world equity market by examining the international transmission of the Russia’s 1998 financial crisis utilizing the GARCH-BEKK model proposed by Engle and Kroner. Empirical results shows evidence of direct linkage between the Russian equity market and the world market both in regards of returns and volatility. However, the weakness of the linkage suggests that the Russian equity market was only partially integrated into the world market, even though the contagion can be clearly seen during the time of the crisis period. The second and the third paper, co-authored with Mika Vaihekoski, investigate whether global, local and currency risks are priced in the Russian stock market from a US investors’ point of view. Furthermore, the dynamics of these sources of risk are studied, i.e., whether the prices of the global and local risk factors are constant or time-varying over time. We utilize the multivariate GARCH-M framework of De Santis and Gérard (1998). Similar to them we find price of global market risk to be time-varying. Currency risk also found to be priced and highly time varying in the Russian market. Moreover, our results suggest that the Russian market is partially segmented and local risk is also priced in the market. The model also implies that the biggest impact on the US market risk premium is coming from the world risk component whereas the Russian risk premium is on average caused mostly by the local and currency components. The purpose of the fourth paper is to look at the relationship between the stock and the bond market of Russia. The objective is to examine whether the correlations between two classes of assets are time varying by using multivariate conditional volatility models. The Constant Conditional Correlation model by Bollerslev (1990), the Dynamic Conditional Correlation model by Engle (2002), and an asymmetric version of the Dynamic Conditional Correlation model by Cappiello et al. (2006) are used in the analysis. The empirical results do not support the assumption of constant conditional correlation and there was clear evidence of time varying correlations between the Russian stocks and bond market and both asset markets exhibit positive asymmetries. The implications of the results in this dissertation are useful for both companies and international investors who are interested in investing in Russia. Our results give useful insights to those involved in minimising or managing financial risk exposures, such as, portfolio managers, international investors, risk analysts and financial researchers. When portfolio managers aim to optimize the risk-return relationship, the results indicate that at least in the case of Russia, one should account for the local market as well as currency risk when calculating the key inputs for the optimization. In addition, the pricing of exchange rate risk implies that exchange rate exposure is partly non-diversifiable and investors are compensated for bearing the risk. Likewise, international transmission of stock market volatility can profoundly influence corporate capital budgeting decisions, investors’ investment decisions, and other business cycle variables. Finally, the weak integration of the Russian market and low correlations between Russian stock and bond market offers good opportunities to the international investors to diversify their portfolios.

Finnair’s “New Silk Road” in the New Millennium: An Analysis of the Construction of Asia and of the Company

During the past century, an increasingly diverse world provided us with opportunities for intercultural communication; especially the growth of commerce at all levels from domestic to international has made the combination of the theories of intercultural communication and international business necessary. As one of the main beneficiaries in international business in recent years, companies in airline industries have developed their international market. For instance, Finnair has developed its Asian strategy which responds to the increasing market demand for flights from Europe to Asia in the new millennium. Therefore, the company manages marketing communication in a global environment and becomes a suitable case for studying the theories of intercultural communication in the context of international marketing. Finnair implemented a large number of international advertisements to promote its Asian routes, where Asia has been constructed as a number of exotic destinations. Meanwhile, the company itself as a provider of these destinations has also been constructed contrastively. Thus, this thesis aims at research how Finnair constructs Asia and the company itself in the new millennium, and how these constructions compare with the theories of intercultural communication. This research applied the theories of international marketing, intercultural communication and culture. In order to analyze the collected corpora as Finnair’s international advertisements and its annual reports in the new millennium, the methods of content analysis and discourse analysis have been used in this research. As a result, Finnair has purposefully applied the essentialist approach to intercultural communication and constructed Asia as an exotic “Other” due to the company’s market orientation. Meanwhile, Finnair has also constructed the company itself two identities based on the same approach: as an international airline provider between Europe and Asia, as well as a part of Finnish society. The combination of intercultural communication and international marketing theories, together with the combination of the methods of content analysis and discourse analysis ensure the originality of this paper.

Future trends of Finnish cement based construction

The construction material sector, as a capital intensive industry, is highly vulnerable to rapid fluctuations in the economic cycles. In Finland this was witnessed especially during the late 2000s, as in 2007 and 2008 the demand for several construction materials exceeded their supply and right after this, in 2009 the demand collapsed fast as a result of an international recession. These factors brought about the need to study the future trends of the market place of the commissioning company, Finnsementti Oy. As reliable short term market forecasts for the sector are difficult to compose, the study concentrates primarily in examining and identifying the trends that are likely to affect the Finnish cement industry, and as an extension, the concrete industry in a frame of 10 to 15 years. The study’s scope comprehends also the examination of the domestic construction sector, as it represents the end user industry of both cement and concrete. These motives for the study produce the research problem, which is to conduct a trend analysis for cement based building in the Finnish market area in the 2020s. The theoretical frame for composing a trend analysis in the case of this study is twofold. This is due to the fact that both, the macro and micro environments of the examined industries are studied. The main methods used are the PESTE-model (macro) and Porter’s five forces model (micro). The study applies a qualitative approach and the data is gathered by interviewing a group of experts from the cement, concrete and construction industries. The result of the paper is an overall trend analysis for the Finnish cement based building sector, which is based on ‘sub trend analyses’ concerning four identified sub-sectors of the Finnish construction industry. The results are a combination of findings from these sub-sectors and the analyzed data that deals with the studied sector’s macro and micro environment. The conclusions provide an overall picture of the examined sectors’ potential future as a whole and by defined sub-sectors of the construction industry. The recognition of future trends in different areas of the construction industry can be applied as a means for an industry actor’s decision making and in estimating the types of construction that are likely to grow or decline. Finally, based on the analyzed data and conclusions, the commissioning company is provided with a brief SWOT analysis, that provides additional tools for decision making and planning processes regarding the future.

Privity of Contract and Third Party Rights in European Construction Projects

Privity of contract has lately been criticized in several European jurisdictions, particu-larly due to the onerous consequences it gives rise to in arrangements typical for the modern exchange such as chains of contracts. Privity of contract is a classical premise of contract law, which prohibits a third party to acquire or enforce rights under a contract to which he is not a party. Such a premise is usually seen to be manifested in the doctrine of privity of contract developed under common law, however, the jurisdictions of continental Europe do recognize a corresponding starting point in contract law. One of the traditional industry sectors affected by this premise is the construction industry. A typical large construction project includes a contractual chain comprised of an employer, a main contractor and a subcontractor. The employer is usually dependent on the subcontractor's performance, however, no contractual nexus exists between the two. Accordingly, the employer might want to circumvent the privity of contract in order to reach the subcontractor and to mitigate any risks imposed by such a chain of contracts. From this starting point, the study endeavors to examine the concept of privity of con-tract in European jurisdictions and particularly the methods used to circumvent the rule in the construction industry practice. For this purpose, the study employs both a com-parative and a legal dogmatic method. The principal aim is to discover general principles not just from a theoretical perspective, but from a practical angle as well. Consequently, a considerable amount of legal praxis as well as international industry forms have been used as references. The most important include inter alia the model forms produced by FIDIC as well as Olli Norros' doctoral thesis "Vastuu sopimusketjussa". According to the conclusions of this study, the four principal ways to circumvent privity of contract in European construction projects include liability in a chain of contracts, collateral contracts, assignment of rights as well as security instruments. The contempo-rary European jurisdictions recognize these concepts and the references suggest that they are an integral part of the current market practice. Despite the fact that such means of circumventing privity of contract raise a number of legal questions and affect the risk position of particularly a subcontractor considerably, it seems that the impairment of the premise of privity of contract is an increasing trend in the construction industry.