The genetics of behaviour and other adaptive traits in nine-spined sticklebacks (Pungitius pungitius)

One of the main goals in current evolutionary biology research is to identify genes behind adaptive phenotypic variations. The advances in genomic technologies have made it possible to identify genetic loci behind these variations, also concerning non-model species. This thesis investigates the genetics of the behaviour and other adaptive traits of the nine-spined stickleback (Pungitius pungitius) through the application of different genetic approaches. Fennoscandian nine-spined stickleback populations express large phenotypical differences especially in behaviour, life –history traits and morphology. However the underlying genetic bases for these phenotypical differences have not been studied in detail. The results of the project will lay the foundation for further genetics studies and provide valuable information for our understanding of the genetics of the adaptive divergence of the nine-spined stickleback. A candidate gene approach was used to develop microsatellite markers situating close to candidate genes for behaviour in the nine-spined stickleback. Altogether 13 markers were developed and these markers were used in the subsequent studies with the anonymous random markers and physiologically important gene markers which are already currently available for nine-spined sticklebacks. It was shown that heterozygosity correlated with behaviour in one of the marine nine-spined stickleback populations but with contrasting effects: correlations with behaviour were negative when using physiological gene markers and positive with random markers. No correlation was found between behavioural markers and behaviour. From the physiological gene markers, a strong correlation was found between osmoregulation-related gene markers and behaviour. These results indicate that both local (physiological) and general (random) effects are important in the shaping of behaviour and that heterozygosity– behaviour correlations are population dependent. In this thesis a second linkage map for nine-spined sticklebacks was constructed. Compared to the earlier nine-spined stickleback linkage map, genomic rearrangements were observed between autosomal (LG7) and sex-determing (LG12) linkage groups. This newly constructed map was used in QTL mapping studies in order to locate genomic regions associated with pelvic structures, behaviour and body size/growth. One major QTL was found for pelvic structures and Pitx1 gene was related to these traits as was predicted from three-spined stickleback studies, but this was in contrast to earlier nine-spined stickleback study. The QTL studies also revealed that behaviour and body size/growth were genetically more complex by having more QTL than pelvic traits. However, in many cases, pelvic structure, body size/growth and behaviour were linked to similar map locations indicating possible pleiotropic effects of genes locating in these QTL regions. Many of the gene related markers resided in the QTL area. In the future, studying these possible candidate genes in depth might reveal the underlying mechanism behind the measured traits.

Chaotic Behaviour of Active Magnetic Bearing System by Time Series Analysis

Chaotic behaviour is one of the hardest problems that can happen in nonlinear dynamical systems with severe nonlinearities. It makes the system's responses unpredictable. It makes the system's responses to behave similar to noise. In some applications it should be avoided. One of the approaches to detect the chaotic behaviour is nding the Lyapunov exponent through examining the dynamical equation of the system. It needs a model of the system. The goal of this study is the diagnosis of chaotic behaviour by just exploring the data (signal) without using any dynamical model of the system. In this work two methods are tested on the time series data collected from AMB (Active Magnetic Bearing) system sensors. The rst method is used to nd the largest Lyapunov exponent by Rosenstein method. The second method is a 0-1 test for identifying chaotic behaviour. These two methods are used to detect if the data is chaotic. By using Rosenstein method it is needed to nd the minimum embedding dimension. To nd the minimum embedding dimension Cao method is used. Cao method does not give just the minimum embedding dimension, it also gives the order of the nonlinear dynamical equation of the system and also it shows how the system's signals are corrupted with noise. At the end of this research a test called runs test is introduced to show that the data is not excessively noisy.

Organisaatiomuutoksen jalkautuminen konepajayritykseen

Tutkimuksessa tarkasteltiin suomalaisen konepajayrityksen muutosprosessia, jossa se siirtyy yksilökeskeisestä tiimimäiseen toimintatapaan. Tavoitteena oli selvittää, missä asioissa organisaatio on onnistunut ja missä epäonnistunut muutosprosessissa. Tulosten pohjalta analysoitiin yrityksen muutosjohtamista ja muutosvastarinnan tekijöitä ja ideoitiin keinoja miten pysyvä muutos voitaisiin aikaansaada. Tutkimus on luokiteltavissa laadulliseksi tapaustutkimukseksi, jonka aineistona hyödynnettiin yrityksessä toteutettuja kyselytutkimuksia sekä niiden tulosten pohjalta muodostettujen puolistrukturoitujen yksilöhaastatteluiden lausumia. Tutkimus tarkasteli organisaatiota muutoksen alkutilanteessa ja noin vuosi muutoksen aloittamisen jälkeen, joten kyseessä oli toimintatutkimus. Vuoden aikana yrityksessä koettu muutos oli hyvin tiimikohtaista: toiset tiimit toimivat jo hyvinkin tiimimäisesti, mutta toiset tiimit olivat toteuttaneet tiimiytymistä lähinnä pakonomaisesti. Merkittävä syy vähäiseen muutokseen oli se, ettei johto ollut selkeästi viestinyt muutoksen välttämättömyydestä eikä kertonut mistä toiminnassa on kyse ja mitä sillä haetaan. Johtamisen olisi pitänyt myös olla selkeämmin ihmisten johtamista huomioiden yksilöiden motivointitekijöitä ja ryhmäkäyttäytymistä. Olennaista olisi myös kiinnittää enemmän huomiota työhyvinvointitekijöihin, jotta henkilöstö saadaan motivoituneeksi toimimaan yhteiseksi hyväksi.

Maalaa omasi - Kuvataide psykologisen omistajuuden tarpeiden ilmentajänä

Tässä pro gradu – tutkielmassa tutkin kuvataiteen ja kuvataiteellisten menetelmien käyttöä organisaatioissa psykologisen omistajuuden tarpeiden ilmentäjänä. Tarkoituksenani on kuroa umpeen aukkoa tutkimuksen ja käytännön välillä mitä tulee kuvataiteen käyttöön organisaatioissa. Tavoitteena on selvittää, mitä lisäarvoa kuvataiteen käyttö tuo organisaatioille ja miten se ilmentää psykologista omistajuutta. Tutkimus on laadullista ja aineistona ovat strukturoimattomat haastattelut, jotka on analysoitu diskurssinanalyysillä. Haastatteluaineisosta löysin eritasoisia diskursseja. Päädiskurssi näkymättömästä näkyväksi ilmentää psykologiseen omistajuuteen motivoivista tarpeista stimuluksen tarvetta, tilan diskurssi ilmentää kodin tarvetta ja identiteetin diskurssi ilmentää identiteetin tarvetta. Tilan ja identiteetin diskurssit menevät osittain päällekkäin. Kuvataideteokset ilmentävät psykologisen omistajuuden motivaatiotarpeista erityisesti stimulusta. Ne toimivat stimuluksena tuomalla psykologista läheisyyttä organisaatioihin. Kuvataiteen käytöllä organisaatioissa saadaan näkymättömästä näkyväksi psykologiseen omistajuuteen motivoivia tarpeita. Kuvataideteokset tuovat psykologista läheisyyttä ja stimuloivat näihin liittyviä merkityksellisiä asioita. Kuvataide on esteettinen käytännön työkalu organisaatiokäyttäytymisen kehittämiseksi, tunnejohtamiseen fuusioissa ja henkilöstön sitouttamisee

The accumulation of financial and social capital as a means to achieve a sustained competitive advantage for consumer co-operatives

By so far, scholars have discussed how the characteristics of consumer co-operatives (cooperative principles, values and the dual role of members as the users and owners) can potentially give them a competitive advantage over investor-owned firms (IOFs). In addition, concern for the community (as partly derived from locality and regionality) has been seen as a potential source of success for consumer co-operatives. On the other hand, the geographicbound purpose of consumer co-operation causes that consumer co-operative can be regarded as a challenging company form to manage. This is because, according to the purpose of consumer co-operation, co-operatives are obligated to 1) provide the owners with services and goods that are needed and do so at more affordable prices than their competitors do and/or 2) to operate in areas in which competitors do not want to operate (for example, because of the low profitability in certain area of business or region). Thus, consumer co-operatives have to operate very efficiently in order to execute this geographic-bound corporate purpose (e.g. they cannot withdraw from the competition during the declining stages of business). However, this efficiency cannot be achieved by any means; as the acceptance from the important regional stakeholders is the basic operational precondition and lifeline in the long run. Thereby, the central question for the survival and success of consumer co-operatives is; how should the consumer co-operatives execute its corporate purpose so it can be the best alternative to its members in the long run? This question has remained unanswered and lack empirical evidence in the previous studies on the strategic management of consumer cooperation. In more detail, scholars have not yet empirically investigated the question: How can consumer co-operatives use financial and social capital to achieve a sustained competitive advantage? It is this research gap that this doctoral dissertation aims to fulfil. This doctoral dissertation aims to answer the above questions by combining and utilizing interview data from S Group co-operatives and the central organizations in S Group´s network (overall, 33 interviews were gathered), archival material and 56 published media articles/reports. The study is based on a qualitative case study approach that is aimed at theory development, not theory verification (as the theory is considered as nascent in this field of study). Firstly, the findings of this study indicate that consumer co-operatives accumulate financial capital; 1) by making profit (to invest and grow) and 2) by utilizing a network-based organizational structure (local supply chain economies). As a result of financial capital accumulation, consumer co-operatives are able to achieve efficiency gains but also remain local. In addition, a strong financial capital base increases consumer co-operatives´ independence, competitiveness and their ability to participate in regional development (which is in accordance with their geographically bound corporate purpose). Secondly, consumer cooperatives accumulate social capital through informal networking (with important regional stakeholders), corporate social responsibility (CSR) behaviour and CSR reporting, pursuing common good, and interacting and identity sharing. As a result of social capital accumulation, consumer co-operatives are able to obtain the resources for managing; 1) institutional dependencies and 2) customer relations. By accumulating both social and financial capital through the above presented actions, consumer co-operatives are able to achieve sustained competitive advantage. Finally, this thesis provides useful ideas and new knowledge for cooperative managers concerning why and how consumer co-operatives should accumulate financial and social capital (to achieve sustained competitive advantage), while aligning with their corporate purpose.

Building organizational creativity – a multitheory and multilevel approach for understanding and stimulating organizational creativity

Organizational creativity is increasingly important for organizations aiming to survive and thrive in complex and unexpectedly changing environments. It is precondition of innovation and a driver of an organization’s performance success. Whereas innovation research increasingly promotes high-involvement and participatory innovation, the models of organizational creativity are still mainly based on an individual-creativity view. Likewise, the definitions of organizational creativity and innovation are somewhat equal, and they are used as interchangeable constructs, while on the other hand they are seen as different constructs. Creativity is seen as generation of novel and useful ideas, whereas innovation is seen as the implementation of these ideas. The research streams of innovation and organizational creativity seem to be advancing somewhat separately, although together they could provide many synergy advantages. Thereby, this study addresses three main research gaps. First, as the knowledge and knowing is being increasingly expertized and distributed in organizations, the conceptualization of organizational creativity needs to face that perspective, rather than relying on the individual-creativity view. Thus, the conceptualization of organizational creativity needs clarification, especially as an organizational-level phenomenon (i.e., creativity by an organization). Second, approaches to consciously build organizational creativity to increase the capacity of an organization to demonstrate novelty in its knowledgeable actions are rare. The current creativity techniques are mainly based on individual-creativity views, and they mainly focus on the occasional problem-solving cases among a limited number of individuals, whereas, the development of collective creativity and creativity by the organization lacks approaches. Third, in terms of organizational creativity as a collective phenomenon, the engagement, contributions, and participation of organizational members into activities of common meaning creation are more important than the individualcreativity skills. Therefore, the development approaches to foster creativity as social, emerging, embodied, and collective creativity are needed to complement the current creativity techniques. To address these gaps, the study takes a multiparadigm perspective to face the following three objectives. The first objective of this study is to clarify and extend the conceptualization of organizational creativity. The second is to study the development of organizational creativity. The third is to explore how an improvisational theater based approach fosters organizational creativity. The study consists of two parts comprising the introductory part (part I) and six publications (part II). Each publication addresses the research questions of the thesis through detailed subquestions. The study makes three main contributions to the research of organizational creativity. First, it contributes toward the conceptualization of organizational creativity by extending the current view of organizational creativity. This study views organizational creativity as a multilevel construct constituting both of individual and collective (group and organizational) creativity. In contrast to current views of organizational creativity, this study bases on organizational (collective) knowledge that is based on and demonstrated through the knowledgeable actions of an organization as a whole. The study defines organizational creativity as an overall ability of an organization to demonstrate novelty in its knowledgeable actions (through what it does and how it does what it does).Second, this study contributes toward the development of organizational creativity as multi-level phenomena, introducing developmental approaches that face two or more of these levels simultaneously. More specifically, the study presents the cross-level approaches to building organizational creativity, by using an approach based in improvisational theater and considering assessment of organizational renewal capability. Third, the study contributes on development of organizational creativity using an improvisational theater based approach as twofold meaning. First, it fosters individual and collective creativity simultaneously and builds space for creativity to occur. Second, it models collective and distributed creativity processes, thereby, contributing to the conceptualization of organizational creativity.

Creating an open-books implementation framework for a maintenance-related value-based life-cycle model

This study is a qualitative action research by its nature with elements of personal design in the form of a tangible model implementation framework construction. Utilized empirical data has been gathered via two questionnaires in relation to the arranged four workshop events with twelve individual participants. Five of them represented maintenance customers, three maintenance service providers and four equipment providers respectively. Further, there are two main research objectives in proportion to the two complementary focusing areas of this thesis. Firstly, the value-based life-cycle model, which first version has already been developed prior to this thesis, requires updating in order to increase its real-life applicability as an inter-firm decision-making tool in industrial maintenance. This first research objective is fulfilled by improving appearance, intelligibility and usability of the above-mentioned model. In addition, certain new features are also added. The workshop participants from the collaborating companies were reasonably pleased with made changes, although further attention will be required in future on the model’s intelligibility in particular as main results, charts and values were all reckoned as slightly hard to understand. Moreover, upgraded model’s appearance and added new features satisfied them the most. Secondly and more importantly, the premises of the model’s possible inter-firm implementation process need to be considered. This second research objective is delivered in two consecutive steps. At first, a bipartite open-books supported implementation framework is created and its different characteristics discussed in theory. Afterwards, the prerequisites and the pitfalls of increasing inter-organizational information transparency are studied in empirical context. One of the main findings was that the organizations are not yet prepared for network-wide information disclosure as dyadic collaboration was favored instead. However, they would be willing to share information bilaterally at least. Another major result was that the present state of companies’ cost accounting systems will definitely need implementation-wise enhancing in future since accurate and sufficiently detailed maintenance data is not available. Further, it will also be crucial to create supporting and mutually agreed network infrastructure. There are hardly any collaborative models, methods or tools currently in usage. Lastly, the essential questions about mutual trust and predominant purchasing strategies are cooperation-wise important. If inter-organizational activities are expanded, a more relational approach should be favored in this regard. Mutual trust was also recognized as a significant cooperation factor, but it is hard to measure in reality.

Johtamisen keinot tiimien tiedonvaihdon ja oppimisen edistämiseksi logistiikkayrityksessä

Tämän päivän nopeasti muuttuvassa toimintaympäristössä tiedon ja oppimisen merkitys korostuu. Tiimityön lisäännyttyä on tiimien oppiminen merkittävä osa organisaation oppimista. Tässä tutkimuksessa tiimien oppimista tarkastellaan työssäoppimisen kautta. Tutkimuksen case –yrityksenä on logistiikkayritys. Tutkimuksen empiirinen osuus toteutettiin teemahaastatteluin. Haastateltavia oli yhteensä kaksitoista henkilöä. Haastatteluissa olivat edustettuina tuotannon työntekijät, toimihenkilöt ja esimiehet. Tutkimuksen tuloksina havaittiin, että johdon ja esimiesten rooli on äärimmäisen tärkeä tiimien oppimisen edistämisen kannalta. Johto voi edistää tiimien oppimista osoittamalla kiinnostusta ja luottamusta tiimien työtä kohtaan, sitoutumalla oppimisen mahdollistamiseen ja kannustamalla tiimejä oppimaan myös omalla esimerkillään.

The Relationship of Organizational Culture, Employee Motivation and Innovativeness: Evidence from Finnish Technology Industries

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the effects of tangible and intangible incentives on the dimensions of motivation and organizational innovativeness in the context of different organizational cultures. Theory suggests that an antecedent of innovativeness is individual creativity of employees, which is influenced by intrinsic motivation, flexible organizational structures, and transformational leadership. Empirical evidence for this research is derived from 424 respondents representing technology-driven industries in Finland. Data is collected through an online questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS statistics software. The results imply that intangible incentives and intrinsic motivation have an important role in determining organizational innovativeness. The positive relationships of intangible incentives, intrinsic motivation and innovativeness seem to be higher in flexible organizational cultures. As practical implications, managers should foster flexible organizational cultures that highlight employee empowerment. The motivating power of non-financial intrinsic incentives and recognition of good work should not be undermined when compared to tangible monetary rewards.

Managing Change: An Organizational Outline for Reimagining the Digital Repository Infrastructure at The Ohio State University Libraries

Poster at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014