Towards understanding stakeholder salience transition and relational approach to ‘better’ corporate social responsibility: a case for a proposed model in practice

Management and business literature affirm the role played by stakeholders in corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices as crucial, but what constitutes a true business–society partnership remains relatively unexplored. This paper aims to improve scholarly and management understanding beyond the usual managers’ perceptions on salience attributes, to include how stakeholders can acquire missing attributes to inform a meaningful partnership. In doing this, a model is proposed which conceptualises CSR practices and outcomes within the frameworks of stakeholder salience via empowerment, sustainable corporate social performances and partnership quality. A holistic discussion leads to generation of propositions on stakeholder salience management, corporate social performance, corporate–community partnership systems and CSR practices, which have both academic and management implications.

Posted Workers and Free Movement of Services in the European Union – the Impact on National Employment and Immigration Law

This thesis examines posting of workers within the free movement of services in the European Union. The emphasis is on the case law of the European Court of Justice and in the role it has played in the liberalisation of the service sector in respect of posting of workers. The case law is examined from two different viewpoints: firstly, that of employment law and secondly, immigration law. The aim is to find out how active a role the Court has taken with regard these two fields of law and what are the implications of the Court’s judgments for the regulation on a national level. The first part of the thesis provides a general review of the Community law principles governing the freedom to provide services in the EU. The second part presents the Posted Workers’ Directive and the case law of the European Court of Justice before and after the enactment of the Directive from the viewpoint of employment law. Special attention is paid to a recent judgment in which the Court has taken a restrictive position with regard to a trade union’s right to take collective action against a service provider established in another Member State. The third part of the thesis concentrates, firstly, on the legal status of non-EU nationals lawfully resident in the EU. Secondly, it looks into the question of how the Court’s case law has affected the possibilities to use non-EU nationals as posted workers within the freedom to provide services. The final chapter includes a critical analysis of the Court’s case law on posted workers. The judgments of the European Court of Justice are the principal source of law for this thesis. In the primary legislation the focus is on Articles 49 EC and 50 EC that lay down the rules concerning the free movement of services. Within the secondary legislation, the present work principally concentrates on the Posted Workers’ Directive. It also examines proposals of the European Commission and directives that have been adopted in the field of immigration. The conclusions of the case study are twofold: while in the field of employment law, the European Court of Justice has based its judgments on a very literal interpretation of the Posted Workers’ Directive, in the field of immigration its conclusions have been much more innovative. In both fields of regulation the Court’s judgments have far-reaching implications for the rules concerning posting of workers leaving very little discretion for the Member States’ authorities.

Letter from Isaac Seixas to Hayman Levy on proposed marriage of Benjamin Seixas to Zipporah Levy

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The Soviet Union, Finland and the Cold War : The Finnish Card in Soviet Foreign Policy, 1956-1959

From the Soviet point of view the actual substance of Soviet-Finnish relations in the second half of 1950s clearly differed from the contemporary and later public image, based on friendship and confidence rhetoric. As the polarization between the right and the left became more underlined in Finland in the latter half of the 1950s, the criticism towards the Soviet Union became stronger, and the USSR feared that this development would have influence on Finnish foreign policy. From the Soviet point of view, the security commitments of FCMA-treaty needed additional guarantees through control of Finnish domestic politics and economic relations, especially during international crises. In relation to Scandinavia, Finland was, from the Soviet point of view, the model country of friendship or neutrality policy. The influence of the Second Berlin Crisis or the Soviet-Finnish Night Frost Crisis in 1958-1959 to Soviet policy towards Scandinavia needs to be observed from this point of view. The Soviet Union used Finland as a tool, in agreement with Finnish highest political leadership, for weakening of the NATO membership of Norway and Denmark, and for maintaining Swedish non-alliance. The Finnish interest to EFTA membership in the summer of 1959, at the same time with the Scandinavian countries, seems to have caused a panic reaction in the USSR, as the Soviets feared that these economic arrangements would reverse the political advantages the country had received in Finland after the Night Frost Crisis. Together with history of events, this study observes the interaction of practical interests and ideologies, both in individuals and in decision-making organizations. The necessary social and ideological reforms in the Soviet Union after 1956 had influence both on the legitimacy of the regime, and led to contradictions in the argumentation of Soviet foreign policy. This was observed both in the own camp as well as in the West. Also, in Finland a breakthrough took place in the late 1950's: as the so-called counter reaction lost to the K-line, "a special relationship" developed with the Soviet Union. As a consequence of the Night Frost Crisis the Soviet relationship became a factor decisively defining the limits of domestic politics in Finland, a part of Finnish domestic political argumentation. Understood from this basis, finlandization is not, even from the viewpoint of international relations, a special case, but a domestic political culture formed by the relationship between a dominant state, a superpower, and a subordinate state, Finland.

From the river to the open sea - a critical life phase of young Atlantic salmon migrating from the Simojoki river

Long-term monitoring data collected from wild smolts of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) in the Simojoki river, northern Finland, were used in studying the relationships between the smolt size and age, smolt and postsmolt migration, environmental conditions and postsmolt survival. The onset of the smolt run was significantly dependent on the rising water temperature and decreasing discharge of the river in the spring. The mean length of smolts migrating early in the season was commonly higher and the mean age always older than among smolts migrating later. Many of the smolts migrating early in the season and almost all smolts migrating later had started their new growth in spring in the river before their sea entry. Among postsmolts, the time required for emigration from the estuary was dependent on the sea surface temperature (SST) off the river, being significantly shorter in years with warm than cold sea temperatures. After leaving the estuary, the postsmolts migrated southwards along the eastern coast of the northern Gulf of Bothnia, the geographical distribution of the tag recoveries coinciding with the warm thermal zone in spring in the coastal area. After arriving in the southern Gulf of Bothnia in late summer the postsmolts mostly migrated near the western coast, reaching the Baltic Main Basin in late autumn. Until the early 1990s there was only a weak positive association between smolt length and postsmolt survival. However, following a subsequent decrease in the mean smolt size, a significant positive dependence was observed between smolt size and the reported recapture rate of tagged salmon. The differences in recapture rates between smolts tagged during the first and second half of the annual migration season were insignificant, indicating that the seasonal variation in smolt size and age seem to be too small to affect survival. Among the climatic factors examined, the summer SST in the Gulf of Bothnia was most clearly related to the survival of the wild postsmolts. Postsmolt survival appeared to be highest in years when the SST in June in the Bothnian Bay varied between 9 and 12 ºC. In addition, the survival of wild postsmolts showed a significant positive dependence on the SST in July in the Bothnian Sea, but not on the abundance of the prey fish (0+ herring, Clupea harengus and sprat, Sprattus sprattus) in the Bothnian Sea and in the Baltic Main Basin. The results suggest, that if the incidence of extreme weather conditions were to increase due to climatic changes, it would probably reduce the postsmolt survival of wild salmon populations. For improving the performance of hatchery-reared smolts, it could be useful to examine opportunities to produce smolts that are in their smolt traits and abilities more similar to the wild smolts described in this thesis.

Conservation of Atlantic salmon by supplementary stocking of juvenile fish

Wild salmon stocks in the northern Baltic rivers became endangered in the second half of the 20th century, mainly due to recruitment overfishing. As a result, supplementary stocking was widely practised, and supplementation of the Tornionjoki salmon stock took place over a 25 year period until 2002. The stock has been closely monitored by electrofishing, smolt trapping, mark-recapture studies, catch samples and catch surveys. Background information on hatchery-reared stocked juveniles was also collected for this study. Bayesian statistics was applied to the data as this method offers the possibility of bringing prior information into the analysis and an advanced ability for incorporating uncertainty, and also provides probabilities for a multitude of hypotheses. Substantial divergences between reared and wild Tornionjoki salmon were identified in both demographic and phenological characteristics. The divergences tended to be larger the longer the duration spent in hatchery and the more favourable the hatchery conditions were for fast growth. Differences in environment likely induced most of the divergences, but selection of brood fish might have resulted in genotypic divergence in maturation age of reared salmon. Survival of stocked 1-year old juveniles to smolt varied from about 10% to about 25%. Stocking on the lower reach of the river seemed to decrease survival, and the negative effect of stocking volume on survival raises the concern of possible similar effects on the extant wild population. Post-smolt survival of wild Tornionjoki smolts was on average two times higher than that of smolts stocked as parr and 2.5 times higher than that of stocked smolts. Smolts of different groups showed synchronous variation and similar long-term survival trends. Both groups of reared salmon were more vulnerable to offshore driftnet and coastal trapnet fishing than wild salmon. Average survival from smolt to spawners of wild salmon was 2.8 times higher than that of salmon stocked as parr and 3.3 times higher than that of salmon stocked as smolts. Wild salmon and salmon stocked as parr were found to have similar lifetime survival rates, while stocked smolts have a lifetime survival rate over 4 times higher than the two other groups. If eggs are collected from the wild brood fish, stocking parr would therefore not be a sensible option. Stocking smolts instead would create a net benefit in terms of the number of spawners, but this strategy has serious drawbacks and risks associated with the larger phenotypic and demographic divergences from wild salmon. Supplementation was shown not to be the key factor behind the recovery of the Tornionjoki and other northern Baltic salmon stocks. Instead, a combination of restrictions in the sea fishery and simultaneous occurrence of favourable natural conditions for survival were the main reasons for the revival in the 1990 s. This study questions the effectiveness of supplementation as a conservation management tool. The benefits of supplementation seem at best limited. Relatively high occurrences of reared fish in catches may generate false optimism concerning the effects of supplementation. Supplementation may lead to genetic risks due to problems in brood fish collection and artificial rearing with relaxed natural selection and domestication. Appropriate management of fisheries is the main alternative to supplementation, without which all other efforts for long-term maintenance of a healthy fish resource fail.

Tax principles and tax harmonization under imperfect competition: A cautionary example

This paper shows that under imperfect competition, the welfare effects of indirect tax harmonization may depend crucially on whether taxes are levied by the destination or the origin principle. In a standard model of imperfect competition, while harmonization always makes at least one country better off, and may be Pareto-improving, when taxes are levied under the destination principle (which currently applies in the European Union), harmonization of origin-based taxes (as recently proposed by the European Commission) is certain to be Pareto-worsening when the preferences in the two countries are identical, and is likely to be so even when they differ.

Applications of gene sequence polymorphisms in evolutionary genetic studies of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and other teleost fish species

Evolutionary genetics incorporates traditional population genetics and studies of the origins of genetic variation by mutation and recombination, and the molecular evolution of genomes. Among the primary forces that have potential to affect the genetic variation within and among populations, including those that may lead to adaptation and speciation, are genetic drift, gene flow, mutations and natural selection. The main challenges in knowing the genetic basis of evolutionary changes is to distinguish the adaptive selection forces that cause existent DNA sequence variants and also to identify the nucleotide differences responsible for the observed phenotypic variation. To understand the effects of various forces, interpretation of gene sequence variation has been the principal basis of many evolutionary genetic studies. The main aim of this thesis was to assess different forms of teleost gene sequence polymorphisms in evolutionary genetic studies of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and other species. Firstly, the level of Darwinian adaptive evolution affected coding regions of the growth hormone (GH) gene during the teleost evolution was investigated based on the sequence data existing in public databases. Secondly, a target gene approach was used to identify within population variation in the growth hormone 1 (GH1) gene in salmon. Then, a new strategy for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) discovery in salmonid fishes was introduced, and, finally, the usefulness of a limited number of SNP markers as molecular tools in several applications of population genetics in Atlantic salmon was assessed. This thesis showed that the gene sequences in databases can be utilized to perform comparative studies of molecular evolution, and some putative evidence of the existence of Darwinian selection during the teleost GH evolution was presented. In addition, existent sequence data was exploited to investigate GH1 gene variation within Atlantic salmon populations throughout its range. Purifying selection is suggested to be the predominant evolutionary force controlling the genetic variation of this gene in salmon, and some support for gene flow between continents was also observed. The novel approach to SNP discovery in species with duplicated genome fragments introduced here proved to be an effective method, and this may have several applications in evolutionary genetics with different species - e.g. when developing gene-targeted markers to investigate quantitative genetic variation. The thesis also demonstrated that only a few SNPs performed highly similar signals in some of the population genetic analyses when compared with the microsatellite markers. This may have useful applications when estimating genetic diversity in genes having a potential role in ecological and conservation issues, or when using hard biological samples in genetic studies as SNPs can be applied with relatively highly degraded DNA.

The proposed gun laws are not enough

Argues that as a more effective precuationary measure, it would seem that the firearms revocation threshold should be substantially lowered, or at least further clarified in guidance. Response to public debate in light of school shootings.

European Union and the developing nations' external debt : EU-15's debt policy, 1960–2008

This Master's Thesis defines the debt policy of the current European Union Member States towards the developing nations. Since no official policy for debt exists in the EU, it is defined to include debt practices (loans and debt relief in development cooperation) and debt within the EU development policy framework. This study (1) describes how the issue of external debt appears in the development policy framework, (2) compares EU Member States' given loans and debt relief to grants for the developing nations (1960s to the 2000s), and (3) measures the current orientation in ODA of each EU Member State between grant aid and loan aid using the Grant-Loan Index (GLI). Theoretical aspects include reasons for selecting between loans (Bouchet 1987) and grants (Odedokun 2004, O'Brien and Williams 2007), policy context of the EU (Van Reisen 2007) and the meaning of external debt in the set-up between the North and the South. In terms of history, the events and impact of the colonial period (where loans have originated) are overviewed and compared in light of today's policies. Development assistance statistics are derived from the OECD DAC statistics portal and EU development policy framework documents from the EU portal. Methodologically, the structure of this study is from policy analysis (Barrien 1999, Hill 2008, Berndtson 2008), but it has been modified to fit the needs of studying a non-official policy. EU Member States are divided into three groups by Carbone (2007a), the Big-3, Northern and Southern donors, based on common development assistance characteristics. The Grant-Loan Index is used to compare Carbone's model, which measures quality of aid, to the GLI measuring the structure of aid. Results indicate that EU- 15 countries (active in debt practices) differ in terms of timing, stability and equality of debt practices in the long-term (1960s to the 2000s). In terms of current practices, (2000-2008), it is noted that there lies a disparity between the actual practices and the way in which external debt is represented in the development policy framework, although debt practices form a relevant portion of total ODA practices for many EU-15 Member States, the issue itself plays a minor role in development policy documents. Carbone’s group division applies well to the Grant – Loan Index’s results, indicating that countries with similar development policy behaviour have similarities in debt policy behaviour, with one exception: Greece. On the basis of this study, it is concluded that EU development policy framework content in terms of external debt and debt practices are not congruent. The understanding of this disparity between the policy outline and differences in long-term practices is relevant in both, reaching the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, and in the actual process of developing development aid.