The Finnish Leadership Style in Transition - A Study of Leadership Criteria in the Insurance Business, 1997-2004 (summary section only)

The aim of the study was to explore the importance of evaluating leadership criteria in Finland at leader/subordinate levels of the insurance industry. The overall purpose of the thesis is tackled and analyzed from two different perspectives: - by examining the importance of the leadership criteria and style of Finnish insurance business leaders and their subordinates - by examining the opinions of insurance business leaders regarding leadership criteria in two culturally different countries: the US and Finland. This thesis consists of three published articles that scrutinise the focal phenomena both theoretically and empirically. The main results of the study do not lend support to the existence of a universal model of leadership criteria in the insurance business. As a matter of fact, the possible model seems to be based more on the special organizational and cultural circumstances of the country in question. The leadership criteria seem to be quite stable irrespective of the comparatively short research time period (3–5 years) and hierarchical level (subordinate/leader). Leaders have major difficulties in changing their leadership style. In fact, in order to bring about an efficient organizational change in the company you have to alternate the leader. The cultural dimensions (cooperation and monitoring) identified by Finnish subordinates were mostly in line with those of their managers, whilst emphasizing more the aspect of monitoring employees, which could be seen from their point of view as another element of managers’ optimizing/efficiency requirements. In Finnish surveys the strong emphasis on cooperation and mutual trust become apparent by both subordinates and managers. The basic problem is still how to emphasize and balance them in real life in such a way that both parties are happy to work together on a common basis. The American surveys suggests hypothetically that in a soft market period (buyer’s market) managers employ a more relationship-oriented leadership style and correspondingly adapt their leadership style to a more task-oriented approach in a hard market phase (seller’s market). In making business better Finnish insurance managers could probably concentrate more on task-oriented items such as reviewing, budgeting, monitoring and goal-orientation. The study also suggests that the social safety net of the European welfare state ideology has so far shielded the culture-specific sense of social responsibility of Finnish managers from the hazards of free competition and globalization.

Leadership through the Gender Lens: Women and Men in Organisations

Leadership and management remain highly gendered. Recent decades have seen a major international growth of studies on gender relations in leadership, organisations and management, in both empirical research and theoretical analysis. The differential relations of women and men to leadership and management are a key question for both theory and practice. Recent research and discussion on the gendering of leadership have been influenced by and have addressed: feminism; recognition of women and women’s situations, experiences and voices in leadership; organisational culture; communication; divisions of labour, hierarchy, power and authority; imagery and symbolism; information technology; sexuality, harassment, bullying and violence in organisations; home-work relations; men and masculinities in leadership; globalisation, transnationalism, intersectionality and post¬¬colonialism – amongst other issues. Having said that, the vast majority of mainstream work on leadership retains little or no gender analysis. In most business schools and other universities the position of gender-explicit work on leadership is still not well established. Leadership through the Gender Lens brings together critical analyses and debates on gender, leadership and management with contributions from 13 countries and five continents. How leadership and management are gendered can mean more gender equal or more gender unequal conditions for women and men. This includes how education and training can contribute to gendered leadership and management. The volume is organised in three main sections, on: careers and leadership; management, hierarchy and leadership: and interventions in leadership.

Passive immunization with an antibody to the beta-subunit of ovine luteinizing hormone as a method of early abortion--a feasibility study in monkeys (Macaca radiata)

Antiserum to the beta-subunit of ovine luteinizing hormone (oLH-beta) raised in monkeys (Macaca radiata) has been tested by a variety of criteria both in vivo and in vitro to establish its ability to neutralize oLH, hLH, and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). Passive administration of this antiserum caused inhibition of ovulation and termination of pregnancy in recipient monkeys as indicated by premature vaginal bleeding and a significant reduction in serum progesterone and estrogen levels. The results suggest that antiserum raised in monkeys against oLH-beta can neutralize monkey LH as well as monkey CG.

Independent and mediating organizational commitment effects of trust in leadership on employees' job satisfaction and : a study within social and health care sector

The purpose of this study was to examine whether trust in supervisor and trust in senior management enhance employees' job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and whether trust mediates the relationship between perceived justice and these outcomes. Trust in supervisor was expected to mediate the effects of distributive justice and interactional justice, and trust in senior management was expected to mediate the effects of procedural justice. Theoretical background of the study is based on the framework for trust in leadership developed by Dirks and Ferrin (2002). According to the framework, perceived fairness of leaders' actions helps employees to draw inferences about the basis of the relationship and about leaders' characters. This allows trust formation. Reciprocation of care and concern in the relationship and confidence in leaders' characters are likely to enhance employees' job satisfaction and organizational commitment. This study was conducted with cross-sectional data (A/ = 960) of employees from social and health care sector. Hypotheses were studied using correlation analysis and several hierarchical regression analyses. Significances of the mediations were assessed using the Sobel test. Results partially supported the hypotheses. Trust in leadership was positively related to job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Trust in senior management mediated the relationship between procedural justice and the outcomes. Some support was also found for the mediating effect of trust in supervisor in the relationship between distributive justice and organizational commitment. Due to high correlation between trust in supervisor anil interactional justice, it wasn't possible to study the mediating e fleet of trust in supervisor in the relationship between interactional justice and the outcomes. Against expectations, results indicated that trust in senior management had a mediating effect in the relationship between distributive justice and organizational commitment, and in the relationship between interactional justice and organizational commitment. Results also indicated that trust in supervisor had a mediating effect in the relationship between procedural justice and organizational commitment.

Women, Management and Leadership - Naiset ja johtajuus : NASTA Women's Leadership Project Final Report

Leadership without the full participation of women not only excludes women individually and collectively, but is also a huge waste of talent, knowledge and expertise. And crucially, given the current state of society and the world, this aspect of gender inequality is likely to become even more important in the future. NASTA - Women’s Leadership: A Research and Education Development Project was established in 2005 as a national multi-university project mainly and generously funded by Finnish Ministry of Education. The project aims at producing new knowledge and increasing understanding about women’s leadership, as well as promoting women’s leadership through research, development of teaching, and public outreach. NASTA is a joint effort of three Finnish universities – Hanken School of Economics, University of Jyväskylä School of Business and Economics, and the Helsinki School of Economics (now part of Aalto University) – and has been coordinated by Hanken. This report presents research and activities conducted within and around the project. NASTA activities have been many and various. They have examined the position and experiences of women in relation to leadership, management, organisation and work more generally. They have sought new knowledge about gender and leadership, on women leaders’ values, attitudes and behaviour, as well as about values, attitudes and behaviour in relation to women’s leadership. NASTA activities have included teaching, student supervision, research theses, research projects, publishing, networking, seminars, meetings, an international conference, and knowledge transfer into other sectors of society. The first section of the book introduces NASTA joint projects, including web-based teaching material, a survey of gender staffing and teaching on gender in business schools, critical review of previous research literature, and new empirical research. The next section includes research articles on different aspects of gender, leadership and manage¬¬ment from more individual projects conducted by participating researchers and research groups linked to NASTA across the three universities. The final section includes short presentations of other research in progress. The appendix lists publications by NASTA members – journal articles, research reports, books, chapters, journal special issues, popular journal articles, magazine articles - and masters, licentiate and doctoral theses that have been produced. These matters of women, leadership and management are not simply academic concerns but urgent matters for practice, organisations, management, policy, and society more generally.

Model Based Target Tracking in a Wireless Network of Passive Infrared Sensor Nodes

We consider the problem of tracking an intruder in a plane region by using a wireless sensor network comprising motes equipped with passive infrared (PIR) sensors deployed over the region. An input-output model for the PIR sensor and a method to estimate the angular speed of the target from the sensor output are proposed. With the measurement model so obtained, we study the centralized and decentralized tracking performance using the extended Kalman filter.

Passive pressure coefficients, critical failure surface and its kinematic admissibility

Using a combination of a logarithmic spiral and a straight line as a failure surface, comprehensive charts have been developed to determine the passive earth pressure coefficients and the positions of the critical failure surface for positive as well as negative wall friction angles. Translational movement of the wall has been examined in detail, considering the soil as either an associated flow dilatant material or a non-dilatant material, to determine the kinematic admissibility of the limit equilibrium solutions.

Persistent passive hopping and juggling is possible even with plastic collisions

We describe simple one-dimensional models of passive (no energy input, no control), generally dissipative, vertical hopping and one-ball juggling. The central observation is that internal passive system motions can conspire to eliminate collisions in these systems. For hopping, two point masses are connected by a spring and the lower mass has inelastic collisions with the ground. For juggling, a lower point-mass hand is connected by a spring to the ground and an upper point-mass ball is caught with an inelastic collision and then re-thrown into gravitational free flight. The two systems have identical dynamics. Despite inelastic collisions between non-zero masses, these systems have special symmetric energy-conserving periodic motions where the collision is at zero relative velocity. Additionally, these special periodic motions have a non-zero sized, one-sided region of attraction on the higher-energy side. For either very large or very small mass ratios, the one-sided region of attraction is large. These results persist for mildly non-linear springs and non-constant gravity. Although non-collisional damping destroys the periodic motions, small energy injection makes the periodic motions stable, with a two-sided region of attraction. The existence of such special energy conserving solutions for hopping and juggling points to possibly useful strategies for both animals and robots. The lossless motions are demonstrated with a table-top experiment.

Seismic passive earth pressure coefficients using the method of characteristics

The method of characteristics was used to generate passive earth pressure coefficients for an inclined wall retaining cohesionless backfill material in the presence of pseudostatic horizontal earthquake body forces. The variation of the passive earth pressure coefficients K-pq and K-pgamma with changes in horizontal earthquake acceleration coefficient due to the components of soil unit weight and surcharge pressure, respectively, has been obtained; a closed-form solution for K-pq is also provided. The passive earth resistance has been found to decrease sharply with an increase in the magnitude of horizontal earthquake acceleration. The computed passive earth pressure coefficients were found to be the lowest when compared to all of the previous solutions available in the literature.

Seismic passive resistance in soils for negative wall friction

: In the presence of pseudo-static seismic forces, passive earth pressure coefficients behind retaining walls were generated using the limit equilibrium method of analysis for the negative wall friction angle case (i.e., the wall moves upwards relative to the backfill) with logarithmic spirals as rupture surfaces. Individual density, surcharge, and cohesion components were computed to obtain the total minimum seismic passive resistance in soils by adding together the individual minimum components. The effect of variation in wall batter angle, ground slope, wall friction angle, soil friction angle, and horizontal and vertical seismic accelerations on seismic passive earth pressures are considered in the analysis. The seismic passive earth pressure coefficients are found to be highly sensitive to the seismic acceleration coefficients both in the horizontal and the vertical directions. The results are presented in graphical and tabular formats.

A Passive Hopper With Lossless Collisions

A passive vertical hopping robot is here highly idealised as two vertically arranged masses acted on by gravity and coupled by a linear spring. The lower mass makes dead (e = 0) collisions with the rigid ground. The equations of motion can be reduced to a one dimensional map. Fixed points of the map are found in which case the robot hops incessantly. For these conservative solutions the lower mass collides with the ground with zero impact velocity. The interval of attraction for these conservative fixed points depends on system parameters.

Passive vibration isolation of reaction wheel disturbances using a low frequency flexible space platform

Reaction wheel assemblies (RWAs) are momentum exchange devices used in fine pointing control of spacecrafts. Even though the spinning rotor of the reaction wheel is precisely balanced to minimize emitted vibration due to static and dynamic imbalances, precision instrument payloads placed in the neighborhood can always be severely impacted by residual vibration forces emitted by reaction wheel assemblies. The reduction of the vibration level at sensitive payloads can be achieved by placing the RWA on appropriate mountings. A low frequency flexible space platform consisting of folded continuous beams has been designed to serve as a mount for isolating a disturbance source in precision payloads equipped spacecrafts. Analytical and experimental investigations have been carried out to test the usefulness of the low frequency flexible platform as a vibration isolator for RWAs. Measurements and tests have been conducted at varying wheel speeds, to quantify and characterize the amount of isolation obtained from the reaction wheel generated vibration. These tests are further extended to other variants of similar design in order to bring out the best isolation for given disturbance loads. Both time and frequency domain analysis of test data show that the flexible beam platform as a mount for reaction wheels is quite effective and can be used in spacecrafts for passive vibration control. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.