R&D Performance Analysis: Case Studies on the Challenges and Promotion of the Evaluation and Measurement of R&D

Due to the intense international competition, demanding, and sophisticated customers, and diverse transforming technological change, organizations need to renew their products and services by allocating resources on research and development (R&D). Managing R&D is complex, but vital for many organizations to survive in the dynamic, turbulent environment. Thus, the increased interest among decision-makers towards finding the right performance measures for R&D is understandable. The measures or evaluation methods of R&D performance can be utilized for multiple purposes; for strategic control, for justifying the existence of R&D, for providing information and improving activities, as well as for the purposes of motivating and benchmarking. The earlier research in the field of R&D performance analysis has generally focused on either the activities and considerable factors and dimensions - e.g. strategic perspectives, purposes of measurement, levels of analysis, types of R&D or phases of R&D process - prior to the selection of R&Dperformance measures, or on proposed principles or actual implementation of theselection or design processes of R&D performance measures or measurement systems. This study aims at integrating the consideration of essential factors anddimensions of R&D performance analysis to developed selection processes of R&D measures, which have been applied in real-world organizations. The earlier models for corporate performance measurement that can be found in the literature, are to some extent adaptable also to the development of measurement systemsand selecting the measures in R&D activities. However, it is necessary to emphasize the special aspects related to the measurement of R&D performance in a way that make the development of new approaches for especially R&D performance measure selection necessary: First, the special characteristics of R&D - such as the long time lag between the inputs and outcomes, as well as the overall complexity and difficult coordination of activities - influence the R&D performance analysis problems, such as the need for more systematic, objective, balanced and multi-dimensional approaches for R&D measure selection, as well as the incompatibility of R&D measurement systems to other corporate measurement systems and vice versa. Secondly, the above-mentioned characteristics and challenges bring forth the significance of the influencing factors and dimensions that need to be recognized in order to derive the selection criteria for measures and choose the right R&D metrics, which is the most crucial step in the measurement system development process. The main purpose of this study is to support the management and control of the research and development activities of organizations by increasing the understanding of R&D performance analysis, clarifying the main factors related to the selection of R&D measures and by providing novel types of approaches and methods for systematizing the whole strategy- and business-based selection and development process of R&D indicators.The final aim of the research is to support the management in their decision making of R&D with suitable, systematically chosen measures or evaluation methods of R&D performance. Thus, the emphasis in most sub-areas of the present research has been on the promotion of the selection and development process of R&D indicators with the help of the different tools and decision support systems, i.e. the research has normative features through providing guidelines by novel types of approaches. The gathering of data and conducting case studies in metal and electronic industry companies, in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, and in non-profit organizations helped us to formulate a comprehensive picture of the main challenges of R&D performance analysis in different organizations, which is essential, as recognition of the most importantproblem areas is a very crucial element in the constructive research approach utilized in this study. Multiple practical benefits regarding the defined problemareas could be found in the various constructed approaches presented in this dissertation: 1) the selection of R&D measures became more systematic when compared to the empirical analysis, as it was common that there were no systematic approaches utilized in the studied organizations earlier; 2) the evaluation methods or measures of R&D chosen with the help of the developed approaches can be more directly utilized in the decision-making, because of the thorough consideration of the purpose of measurement, as well as other dimensions of measurement; 3) more balance to the set of R&D measures was desired and gained throughthe holistic approaches to the selection processes; and 4) more objectivity wasgained through organizing the selection processes, as the earlier systems were considered subjective in many organizations. Scientifically, this dissertation aims to make a contribution to the present body of knowledge of R&D performance analysis by facilitating dealing with the versatility and challenges of R&D performance analysis, as well as the factors and dimensions influencing the selection of R&D performance measures, and by integrating these aspects to the developed novel types of approaches, methods and tools in the selection processes of R&D measures, applied in real-world organizations. In the whole research, facilitation of dealing with the versatility and challenges in R&D performance analysis, as well as the factors and dimensions influencing the R&D performance measure selection are strongly integrated with the constructed approaches. Thus, the research meets the above-mentioned purposes and objectives of the dissertation from the scientific as well as from the practical point of view.

Yrityksen ja oppilaitoksen yhteistyö työssäoppimisessa

Työssäoppimisen vakiinnuttaminen ammatilliseen toisen asteen peruskoulutukseen asettaa haasteita koulutuksen järjestäjille luoda toimivia yhteistyökumppanuuksia työelämään, laajentaa opettajien ammattitaitovaatimuksia ja siirtää koulutusvastuuta työssäoppimispaikkoina toimiville yrityksille ja työpaikoille. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on antaa vastauksia siihen, mitkä ovat yrityksen ja oppilaitoksen välisen työssäoppimisyhteistyön kes-keiset elementit yritysten näkökulmasta. Tutkimukseen on valittu yksi oppilaitos, Lahden ammatti-instituutti ja sen teknologiateollisuuden yritysyhteistyöverkoston jäsenyrityksiä. Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan oppilaitoksen ja yrityksen kahdenvälistä yhteistyösuhdetta vertaamalla sen elementtejä yritysten kahdenvälisen kumppanuussuhteen elementteihin. Tutkimustehtävän ratkaisemiseksi on valittu konstruktivistinen tutkimusote, tiedon hankintatapa on empiirinen, kokemusten kerääminen ja analysoiminen on keskeinen osa tutkimusta. Tiedon käyttötarkoitus on normatiivinen, tavoitellaan tuloksia, joita voitaisiin hyödyntää yhteistyösuhdetta kehitettäessä. Pyritään selvittämään, mitä yrityksen ja oppilaitoksen välisen suhteen elementtejä vahvistamalla oppilaitos voi varmistaa työssäoppi-misprosessin vaikuttavuuden ja tuloksekkaan toiminnan.

De fundamento telluris; ex occasione Job. XXVI. v. 7

Invocatio: Divina favente gratia.

In Job. II:9

Dedicatio: Bartholomaeus Rönnbäck.

Improving internal performance of a company - Introducing employee empowerment via job redesign in Finnish small and medium sized enterprises

This bachelor's thesis is about to find out to what extent Finnish managers and small and medium sized organizations are willing and able to put employee empowerment into practice and what experiences they have got from employee empowerment as an approach towards job redesign. Some of the top enterprises in the world are known for their empowered employees as a single most important factor for their success and this thesis focuses on introducing the subject to Finnish managers and organizations to find out what benefits, barriers and other thoughts they have about the whole idea of empowered employees in Finnish organization culture. Most notable findings in this thesis are that Finnish managers do think that their organization's employees are capable to work efficiently if their job is extended and the organizations would perform better when right person's job is enriched and he/she is given more power to solve problems.

Työn fyysinen ja psyykkinen kuormittavuus vanhustenhoidossa - seurantatutkimus ergonomisen kehittämistyön tuloksista

Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli analysoida vanhusten ympärivuorokautisen hoidon yksiköissä työskentelevien työntekijöiden työn fyysistä ja psyykkistä kuormittavuutta ja työhön liittyviä fyysisiä riskejä. Lisäksi haluttiin selvittää, millaisia vaikutuksia fyysisen kuormittavuuden vähentämistä tavoitelleella ergonomisella kehittämisinterventiolla saadaan aikaan. Tutkimuksessa hyödynnettiin Turun kaupungin vanhuspalveluissa vuosina 2010–2012 toteutuneessa ergonomisessa kehittämisinterventiossa (47 työyksikköä) kertynyttä ja vuosien 2010 ja 2012 Kunta10-kyselyn (120 työyksikköä) tuottamaa tietoa. Intervention ydin oli Työterveyslaitoksen Fyysisten riskien hallintamalli hoitoalalla -mallin käyttööotto. Käytetyt mittarit olivat seuraavat: Työn kuormitus- ja työtyytyväisyyskysely työntekijöille, asiakkaiden toimintakykyä mittaava RAVATM -indeksi, fyysistä kuormitusta ja työn riskejä mittava Care ThermometerTM-menetelmä, potilassiirtojen turvallisuusjohtamisen (PHOQS) arviointi sekä esimies- ja ergonomiavastaavien kysely. Lisäksi käytössä olivat Kunta10-kyselyn tulokset valittujen muuttujien osalta kaikista tutkimukseen osallistuvista kaupungeista sekä ympärivuorokautisen hoidon asiakkaita ja hoitohenkilöstöä kuvaavia tilastoja. Työ vanhusten ympärivuorokautisessa hoidossa on fyysisesti ja psyykkisesti kuormittavaa. Interventiotoimenpiteistä huolimatta koettu fyysinen ja psyykkinen kuormittavuus kasvoivat, tosin fyysinen psyykkistä vähemmän. Kuormittavuus vaihteli toimintamuodoittain ja ammattiryhmittäin. Fyysisesti kuormittavimmaksi työ koettiin pitkäaikaissairaanhoidossa, psyykkinen kuormitus kasvoi eniten tehostetussa palveluasumisessa. Vanhainkodit sijoittuivat näiden väliin. Lähihoitajat kokivat työnsä fyysisesti kuormittavimmaksi, kun taas sairaanhoitajien työ oli psyykkisesti lähihoitajien työtä kuormittavampaa. Ergonomiakoulutus vähensi eniten koettua fyysistä kuormittavuutta. Kehityskeskustelut ja aiempaa paremmaksi arvioitu työkyky vähensivät mutta tyytymättömyys työhön lisäsi koettua fyysistä ja psyykkistä kuormittavuutta. Työntekijöiden ikä, RAVATM -indeksi, Care ThermometerTM -mittaukset ja PHOQS-pisteet eivät olleet tilastollisesti merkitsevästi yhteydessä kuormittavuuden muutoksiin. Työn kuormittavuuden vähentäminen ja turvallisen työskentelyn edistäminen vaativat pitkäkestoista toimintaa ja hyvää johtamista erityisesti lähiesimiehiltä. Fyysisten riskien hallintamallin käyttöönotto ja ergonomiavastaavien toiminnan vakiinnuttaminen tukevat tavoitteiden saavuttamista.

Employees’ continuous learning and job satisfaction - effects on productivity

In today’s knowledge intense economy the human capital is a source for competitive advantage for organizations. Continuous learning and sharing the knowledge within the organization are important to enhance and utilize this human capital in order to maximize the productivity. The new generation with different views and expectations of work is coming to work life giving its own characteristics on learning and sharing. Work should offer satisfaction so that the new generation employees would commit to organizations. At the same time organizations have to be able to focus on productivity to survive in the competitive market. The objective of this thesis is to construct a theory based framework of productivity, continuous learning and job satisfaction and further examine this framework and its applications in a global organization operating in process industry. Suggestions for future actions are presented for this case organization. The research is a qualitative case study and the empiric material was gathered by personal interviews concluding 15 employee and one supervisor interview. Results showed that more face to face interaction is needed between employees for learning because much of the knowledge of the process is tacit and so difficult to share in other ways. Offering these sharing possibilities can also impact positively to job satisfaction because they will increase the sense of community among employees which was found to be lacking. New employees demand more feedback to improve their learning and confidence. According to the literature continuous learning and job satisfaction have a relative strong relationship on productivity. The employee’s job description in the case organization has moved towards knowledge work due to continuous automation and expansion of the production process. This emphasizes the importance of continuous learning and means that productivity can be seen also from quality perspective. The normal productivity output in the case organization is stable and by focusing on the quality of work by improving continuous learning and job satisfaction the upsets in production can be handled and prevented more effectively. Continuous learning increases also the free human capital input and utilization of it and this can breed output increasing innovations that can increase productivity in long term. Also job satisfaction can increase productivity output in the end because employees will work more efficiently, not doing only the minimum tasks required. Satisfied employees are also found participating more in learning activities.

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.

De auro e septentrione Job. XXXVII: v. 22

Invokaatio: I.N.J.

Corporate Entrepreneurship in Healthcare Organizations: An explorative study of employees’ corporate entrepreneurial behavior, job satisfaction and turnover intention

The Finnish healthcare industry is currently facing significant challenges due to economic crises, aging population and major structural reforms, which have resulted in decreased job satisfaction and increased levels of turnover. This proposes that healthcare organizations need to come up with new, creative means to tackle these issues. Several researchers have argued that corporate entrepreneurship may be the necessary means to achieve this. As previous research has mainly focused on examining this concept from organizational perspective, this study looks at how it occurs on the level of individual employees. The purpose of this study is to examine how corporate entrepreneurship is manifested in individual behavior, and how this type of behavior is associated with the individual’s job satisfaction and turnover intention. Additionally, this study will examine the differences in corporate entrepreneurial behavior between private and public sector organizations, as previous research suggests that these two may be characterized differently. Data was collected with the help of a literature review as well as a survey study, which was sent out to a number of employees of four different healthcare organizations, out of which three were public and one was a private sector organization. Six distinct behavioral characteristics were recognized in previous research, which make up the measure for corporate entrepreneurial behavior. Principal components were formed from the different areas of the survey (corporate entrepreneurial behavior, job satisfaction, turnover intention), after which the association of these components were examined with linear regression analysis, which proved that corporate entrepreneurial behavior is positively correlated with both job satisfaction and intention to leave the organization. Differences between sectors were analyzed with analysis of variance and cross tabulation analysis, but neither of these suggested that any significant differences would occur. These results suggest that employees who behave entrepreneurially tend to be more satisfied with their jobs, but also consider leaving their current organizations more often than others. This may be due to the fact that healthcare organizations are not fertile for entrepreneurial behavior, which will drive entrepreneurial individuals looking for employers who may be more supportive of this type of behavior. With growing levels of dissatisfaction as well as little room for entrepreneurial behavior, the studied organizations may actually be in the process of losing those employees who have the ability and desire to behave in such manner, and who could very well be those who will eventually come up with solutions for the major challenges that these organizations are facing.

The role of public export promotion in Finland Industry view of public export promotion in Southwest Finland

The role of the public export promotion in Finland needed more research. The part of the public sector export promotion in the overall export is significant. In an ever more global world not only the companies but also the counties compete against each other and the governments have an interest to boost their economy as much as they are able to. Every industrialized country has export promotion services in some form or another. In the 21st century the tendency has been the bundling of the services and this has also been done in Finland with Team Finland. The role and the efficiency of the services provided deserve more research. The research question of this study is: What is the role of the public export promotion services in Finland? The question is researched primary by expert interviews conducted for this study. The situation in Southwest Finland is studied from the viewpoint of the companies of the region by conducting a survey aimed to the successfully internationalized companies of the region and asking them on their views on the impact and role of public export services in their internationalization. The theory base is formed out of various export promotion studies, studies monitoring the effects of the promotion and theories of the internationalization process of companies. The primary material for the study are the three expert interviews conducted and the answers to the survey conducted. The research method in the first part is a constructive qualitative research. The research approach in the second part, where the views of the companies in Southwest Finland are studied, is quantitative. The study findings from the expert interviews: the aligning of the public export promotion done in Finland to the previous research and the addition of the role of the public sector in classical frameworks. The study findings from the survey: the utilizing of the public export promotion services is heavily delayed and the internationalizing companies start to utilize the services very late in their internationalization process, the average being 10,3 years from the beginning of the internationalization. Another central finding from the survey is that the successfully internationalized companies see the public export promotion services generally as highly beneficial but in the light of the answers the effect on their own company is not as significant. Concluding can be stated that the public export promotion is seen as beneficial, but the monitoring of the efficiency is complicated in the case of services. Getting the companies to start utilizing the services earlier in their internationalization needs attention from the service providers. By communicating the achieved results and benefits better to the potential users of the services the internationalization process of the companies could be accelerated