Exploration of the social dimension of corporate responsibility in a welfare state

This study focuses on corporate social responsibility (or CSR)as the latest dimension to emerge in the corporate responsibility and sustainability agenda, which in the recent past has rapidly risen to the top of the list of concerns for civil societies worldwide. Despite the continuing debates and discussions about the scope, benefits, and impacts of CSR to business and community in various sectors, levels, and types of society, many companies have moved forward to confront the opportunities and challenges of CSR. Thus, this study is about those proactive companies with a focus on the importance of CSR and its management inside and outside the company. It is an exploration and learning from the experience of Finnish companies, as well as other actors interested or involved in shaping the course of CSR, locally and globally. It also looks closely at how national culture affects the views, thinking, and management of CSR in a welfare state. This dissertation primarily draws on the analyses of information collected from a series of qualitative interviews and the existing literature in the area. This is complemented by an analysis of written and published documents on CSR from various sources. The results of the study give insightful information and detailed descriptions of a roadmap useful in learning and understanding CSR in Finnish companies. Despite the varying conceptual connotations, essential roadmap indicators point to the importance of framing CSR within the corporate responsibility concept, Finnish development and the welfare state system, globalization, stakeholders, and the pursuit of sustainable development as the main drivers of CSR, the remarkable progress of CSR in companies, and identification of key management areas and practices relevant to CSR. Similarly,the study reveals the importance of culture as essential in understanding and learning CSR. Finnish culture has a positive influence on the views, thinking, and management practices of CSR issues. Such a positive influence of culture, therefore, makes it easy for business people to discuss and understand CSR, because those CSR issues are already considered common and taken-for-granted by Finns and are implicit in the welfare state provisions. The experience of Finnish companies in implementing CSR policies in the supply chain is a concrete proactive step in advancing the message of CSR, that is, to bring companies and suppliers together to work on improving and strengthening relationships towards socially responsible practices worldwide. Such a forward step to deal with CSR issues in the supply chain reflects the companies' commitments and belief that CSR can be managed with the suppliers and gain positive benefits. Despite the problems and complexities, particularly in the global supply chain, managing CSR for Finnish companies presents new opportunities and challenges that are expected to intensify in the near future. The focus on CSR policy implementation inthe supply chain points to the importance of companies taking initiatives and forging cooperation with suppliers with the aim of addressing and improving CSR questions in the supply chains. The proactive stance of Finnish companies toward CSR is complemented by the active supporting role of important societalactors such as the government and NGOs. These actors carry out various promotional efforts and campaigns, thus bringing CSR into the mainstream of Finnish companies and strengthening the synergistic learning about CSR within the Finnish business and civil circles. The efforts of the government and NGOs to promote CSR are indicative of the importance of multipartite involvement and the emergence of better civil regulations. Likewise, their drive to learn from each other, exchange experiences, and contribute in CSR debates facilitated the evolution of CSRnetworks in the country. The results of this study add to the mounting evidence that CSR, in general, has created a new dimension in managing corporate sustainability. This study provides compelling empirical evidence and some direct quotations about CSR in the Finnish context. This information can be used to learn and gain new useful insights, approaches, and concepts for managing CSR.

Effects of group size and early handling on some behavioural and physiological welfare parameters in farmed blue foxes

Selostus: Ryhmäkoon ja varhaisen käsittelyn vaikutus tarhattujen sinikettujen hyvinvointiin

Effects of group size and space allocation on physiological, behavioural and production-related welfare parameters in farmed silver fox cubs

Selostus: Ryhmäkoon ja käytössä olevan tilan vaikutus tarhattujen hopeakettupentujen hyvinvointiin

KPI definition for measuring customer extranet benefits for a forest company

Tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli määrittää hyötyjä, joita Stora Enso on saavuttanut ottamalla käyttöön extranet-järjestelmän, jonka avulla asiakkaat voivat seurata toimitusketjuaan. Tässä tutkimuksessa keskityttiin taloudellisten hyötyjen määrittämiseen ja aineettomien hyötyjen tutkiminen rajattiintyön ulkopuolelle. Samalla tuli kehittää mittarit itsepalveluasteiden laskemiseksi tietyille toiminnoille, joita asiakkaat voivat hyödyntää järjestelmässä. Myös toiminnot, joita järjestelmässä pääasiassa käytetään, tuli määrittää kvantitatiivisen tutkimuksen avulla. Myyntihenkilöstön haastattelut toimivat apuna laskettaessa taloudellisia hyötyjä. Teoriaosuudessa käsitellään yleisesti sähköisiä palveluita erityisesti yritysten välistä kaupankäyntiä koskevalla alueella. Myös toimitusketjua ja tunnusluku mittareiden rakentamista on esitelty yleisellä tasolla teoriaosassa. Työn keskeisimmät tulokset ovat itsepalveluasteiden mittarit, niiden avulla lasketut itsepalveluasteet sekä taloudelliset hyödyt, joita yrityson saavuttanut järjestelmän käyttöönoton jälkeen.

Intraorganizational Benefits of Customer Orientation in International Businesses - Empirical Evidence fromFinnish Service Exporters

This research concentrates to find out whether service employees' customer orientation has positive consequences relating to job attitudes in international context. A literature review is conducted in order to define the essential concepts and to see what kind of results researchers have found between customer orientation and job attitudes. The job attitudes researched in this research arejob satisfaction, role ambiguity, role conflict and commitment. This research differs from the previous customer orientation and job attitudes researchers with its international context. International services are thus discussed. Upon the previous literature and findings, four hypotheses are formed. They are tested with data from Finnish service exporters. Three hypotheses are supported, indicating that customer orientation has positiveeffect on job attitudes also in international context. Upon this research and literature review, future research recommendations are presented as well as managerial implications.

Maximizing Benefits in Information Technology Outsourcing

Information Technology (IT) outsourcing has traditionally been seen as a means to acquire newresources and competencies to perform standard tasks at lowered cost. This dissertationchallenges the thought that outsourcing should be limited to non-strategic systems andcomponents, and presents ways to maximize outsourcing enabled benefits while minimizingassociated risks. In this dissertation IT outsourcing is approached as an efficiency improvement and valuecreationprocess rather than a sourcing decision. The study focuses on when and how tooutsource information technology, and presents a new set of critical success factors foroutsourcing project management. In a case study it re-validates the theory-based propositionthat in certain cases and situations it is beneficial to partly outsource also strategic IT systems. The main contribution of this dissertation is the validation of proposal that in companies wherethe level of IT competency is high, managerial support established and planning processes welldefined,it is possible to safely outsource also business critical IT systems. A model describing the critical success factors in such cases is presented based on existing knowledge on the fieldand the results of empirical study. This model further highlights the essence of aligning IT andbusiness strategies, assuming long-term focus on partnering, and the overall target ofoutsourcing to add to the strengths of the company rather than eliminating weaknesses.

Osuuskunta hyvinvointipalvelujen vaihtoehtoisena tuottajana

The purpose of this thesis is to describe the meaning of cooperation for the entrepreneurs who have planned to establish a co-operative. The objective is to understand what kind of benefits, expectations and challenges entrepreneurs see in the co-operative business and its establishment. The context of the study is welfare sector. As the population ages, increases the need for welfare services and the role of private service providers emphasizes. The study is based on qualitative theme interview. The empirical material was collected by interviewing eleven entrepreneurs in home care and home nursing sectors. The interviews were executed during the summer and autumn 2006. As an additional material there have been used five interviews of entrepreneurs who are members of co-operatives in different sectors. These interviews were executed during the spring 2007. The results show that the entrepreneurs experience that cooperation brings noticeable added value to their business activity. Cooperation is believed to be a channel to develop business activities. Besides development, co-operative business is expected to reply to the collective needs of entrepreneurs. The biggest challenges of functional cooperation are opportunistic behavior and finding a trustworthy group of entrepreneurs to establish the co-operative. Successful cooperation with the public sector would be the mutual benefit of government, companies and clients.

Business Benefits of Content Management

Hyvällä sisällönhallinnalla on mahdollista vaikuttaa myönteisesti liiketoiminnalliseen tulokseen, jos sisällönhallinnan eri vaikutusmahdollisuudet tunnistetaan. Kun organisaatiossa syntyvä tieto on vapaasti saatavilla, ja sitä voidaan tulkita ja hyödyntää erilaisiin tarpeisiin, tietojärjestelmän avulla voidaan vauhdittaa kehitystä ja uuden tiedon löytämistä. Tiedon keskeisin tehtävä on kehittää ja parantaa organisaation osaamista, jolloin pitää olla tietoa siitä, mitä, miksi ja kuinka tietoa on käytetty organisaatiossa. Kaiken liiketoimintaprosesseissa tuotetun tiedon kohdalla pitäisi miettiä kolmea tiedonhallinnan osa-aluetta: tiedon luontia, hallintaa ja hyödyntämistä. Tavoitteena on saavuttaa yrityksen määrämuotoisen tietopääoman paras mahdollinen hallinta.Työssä kuvataan sitä, mitä sisällönhallinta on, sen eri tasoja, sen käsitteellistä sijoittumista tietämyksenhallintaan, sisällönhallinnan järjestelmiä ja niiden merkitystä liiketoimintaprosesseissa. Lisäksi tarkastellaan niitä syitä, joiden vuoksi yritykset kiinnostuvat organisaatiossa olevan määrämuotoisen tiedon sisällönhallinnasta. Lopuksi analysoidaan, millaisia voivat olla liiketoiminnalliset, kilpailulliset tai rahalliset tavoitteet, joita asetetaan sisällönhallinnan tietojärjestelmäprojektille. Työn tueksi on haastateltu neljän suomalaisen suuryrityksen sisällönhallinnan tietojärjestelmäprojektin asiantuntijoita. Heidän kommenttejaan on analysoitu ja niiden perusteella on tehty johtopäätöksiä niistä syistä, joiden vuoksi yritykset yleensä sijoittavat resurssejaan sisällönhallintaan.

Time-Varying Benefits of International Diversification for Finnish Investor: Country-Specific Strategy Concentrating on Emerging Markets

The main objective of this study is to investigate whether the Finnish investors’ country-specific strategy concentrating on emerging markets provides diversification benefits. We also analyze whether the benefits of international diversification has been diminished after periods of high volatility caused by different market crisis. The objective is investigated with three methods: Correlation coefficients, rolling correlations added with OLS trend-lines and Box’s M statistic. All the empirical tests are analyzed and calculated with logarithmic returns of weekly time series data from Friday closing values between January 1995 and December 2007. The number of weekly observations is 678. The data type is total return indices of different countries. Data is collected from DataStream and provided by Datastream Financial. Countries investigated are Finland, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, India, Mexico, Poland, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Thailand and Turkey. The current data is quoted both in U.S. Dollars and local currencies. The empirical results of this thesis show that the correlation coefficients are time-varying across Finland and 12 emerging market countries. Although the correlations have risen from 1995 to 2007, there can be found sub-periods where the correlation has declined from earlier period. The results also indicate that a Finnish investor constructing a portfolio of emerging market countries cannot rely on the correlation coefficients estimated from historical data because of the instability of correlation matrices.

Benefits and Limitations of Service Oriented Architecture

In this thesis I examine Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) considering both its positive and negative qualities for business organizations and IT. In SOA, services are loosely coupled and invoked through standard interfaces to enable business process independence from the underlying technology. As an architecture, SOA brings the key benefit of service reuse that may mean anything from simple application reuse to taking advantage of entire business processes across enterprises. SOA also promises interoperability especially by the Web services standards that enable platform independency. Cost efficiency is mainly a result of the savings in IT maintenance and reduced development costs. The most severe limitations of SOA are performance implications and security issues, but the applicability of SOA is also limited. Additional disadvantages of a service oriented approach include problems in data management and complexity questions, and the lack of agreement about SOA and its twofold nature as a business as well as technology approach leads to problematic interpretation of the available information. In this thesis I find the benefits and limitations of SOA for the purpose described above and propose that companies need to consider the decision to implement SOA carefully to determine whether the benefits will outdo the costs in the individual case.

Automatic meter reading – benefits and applications

In liberalized electricity markets, which have taken place in many countries over the world, the electricity distribution companies operate in the competitive conditions. Therefore, accurate information about the customers’ energy consumption plays an essential role for the budget keeping of the distribution company and for correct planning and operation of the distribution network. This master’s thesis is focused on the description of the possible benefits for the electric utilities and residential customers from the automatic meter reading system usage. Major benefits of the AMR, illustrated in the thesis, are distribution network management, power quality monitoring, load modelling, and detection of the illegal usage of the electricity. By the example of the power system state estimation, it was illustrated that even the partial installation of the AMR in the customer side leads to more accurate data about the voltage and power levels in the whole network. The thesis also contains the description of the present situation of the AMR integration in Russia.

The Pursued Benefits of Customer Loyalty Programs

Customer loyalty programs have increased in recent decades and customers are members in several loyalty programs. Loyalty programs are seen as a tool of exploiting customer relationship management with the aim of long-term, profitable customer relationships. Companies have created such a market where customers are rewarded automatically, even if they are disloyal. In addition, companies are struggling as they try to motivate customers to purchase more and make more frequent visits.