Corporate identity and its efficient and effective communication

Yritysidentiteetistä on monta eri näkemystä ja yleisesti hyväksyttyä määritelmää ei ole olemassa. Monia eri näkemyksiä käsitellään tässä tutkielmassa. Vaikka yritysidentiteettiä ei olekaan helppo mitata, on tätä varten kuitenkin kehitetty useampia metodeja. Identiteetin viestintä vaati strategisia päätöksiä ennen kuin viestintää voidaan tehdä. Viestinnän integrointi on avainasemassa identiteetin viestinnässä. Hyvin hoidettu ja kommunikoitu yritysidentiteetti voi johtaa useisiin hyötyihin organisaatiolle. Kuitenkaan nämä hyödyt eivät näy kovin nopeasti, koska yritysidentiteetin viestintä on pitkän tähtäimen prosessi.

Studying the recent situation of information and communication technology industry

Globaalinen liiketoimintaympäristö on muutoksessa. Uudet teknologiat muuttavat toimintaympäristöä ja talouden säännöt muuttuvat nopeasti. Uusia liiketoimintamalleja tarvitaan. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli analysoida tieto- ja viestintäteollisuuden (ICT-teollisuus) nykytilannetta strategisesta ja kilpailuanalyyttisestä näkökulmasta, sekä luoda kuva ICT-teollisuudesta ja sen suurista pelureista Euroopassa ja USA:ssa. Tutkimus analysoi viittä suurta ICT-alan yritystä. Tutkimus oli luonteeltaan sekä kvalitatiivinen että kvantitatiivinen. Yrityksiä analysoitiin käyttäen numeerista ja laadullista materiaalia. Tutkimus perustui kirjallisuuteen, artikkeleihin, tutkimusraportteihin, yritysten internet-kotisivuihin ja vuosikertomuksiin. Tutkimuksen tuloksena voitiin löytää sekä yhtäläisyyksiä että eroavaisuuksia yritysten liiketoimintamallien ja taloudellisen menestymisen väliltä.

Security in multicast communication

Multicast is one method to transfer information in IPv4 based communication. Other methods are unicast and broadcast. Multicast is based on the group concept where data is sent from one point to a group of receivers and this remarkably saves bandwidth. Group members express an interest to receive data by using Internet Group Management Protocol and traffic is received by only those receivers who want it. The most common multicast applications are media streaming applications, surveillance applications and data collection applications. There are many data security methods to protect unicast communication that is the most common transfer method in Internet. Popular data security methods are encryption, authentication, access control and firewalls. The characteristics of multicast such as dynamic membership cause that all these data security mechanisms can not be used to protect multicast traffic. Nowadays the protection of multicast traffic is possible via traffic restrictions where traffic is allowed to propagate only to certain areas. One way to implement this is packet filters. Methods tested in this thesis are MVR, IGMP Filtering and access control lists which worked as supposed. These methods restrict the propagation of multicast but are laborious to configure in a large scale. There are also a few manufacturerspecific products that make possible to encrypt multicast traffic. These separate products are expensive and mainly intended to protect video transmissions via satellite. Investigation of multicast security has taken place for several years and the security methods that will be the results of the investigation are getting ready. An IETF working group called MSEC is standardizing these security methods. The target of this working group is to standardize data security protocols for multicast during 2004.

The Impact of Doing Business Regulations on Investments in ICT

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The Political Communication of Independent Regulatory Agencies

Since independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) became key actors in European regulatory governance in the 1990s, a significant share of policy-making has been carried out by organizations that are neither democratically elected nor directly accountable to elected politicians. In this context, public communication plays an important role. On the one hand, regulatory agencies might try to use communication to raise their accountability and thereby to mitigate their democratic deficit. On the other hand, communication may be used with the intent to steer the behavior of the regulated industry when more coercive regulatory means are unfeasible or undesirable. However, empirical research focusing directly on how regulators communicate is virtually non-existent. To fill this gap, this paper examines the public communication of IRAs in four countries (the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, and Switzerland) and three sectors (financial services, telecommunications, and broadcasting). The empirical analysis, based on qualitative interviews and a quantitative content analysis, indicates that the organization of the communication function follows a national pattern approach while a policy sector approach is helpful for understanding the use of communication as a soft tool of regulation.

Determinants of Broadband Access: Is Platform Competition always the Key Variable to Success?

Previous studies have identified the rivalry among technological platforms as one of the main driving forces of broadband services penetration. This paper draws on data from the Spanish market between 2005 and 2011 to estimate the main determinants of broadband prices. Controlling for broadband tariffs features and network variables, we examine the impact of the different modes of competition on prices. We find that inter-platform competition has no significant effects over prices, while intra-platform competition is a key driver of the prices charged in the broadband market. Our analysis suggests that the impact of different types of competition on prices is critically affected by the levels of development of the broadband market achieved by the considered country

Communication challenges in virtual teams – a case study of implementing computer-mediated communication technologies in inter-organisational virtual teams

This thesis seeks to answer, if communication challenges in virtual teams can be overcome with the help of computer-mediated communication. Virtual teams are becoming more common work method in many global companies. In order for virtual teams to reach their maximum potential, effective asynchronous and synchronous methods for communication are needed. The thesis covers communication in virtual teams, as well as leadership and trust building in virtual environments with the help of CMC. First, the communication challenges in virtual teams are identified by using a framework of knowledge sharing barriers in virtual teams by Rosen et al. (2007) Secondly, the leadership and trust in virtual teams are defined in the context of CMC. The performance of virtual teams is evaluated in the case study by exploiting these three dimensions. With the help of a case study of two virtual teams, the practical issues related to selecting and implementing communication technologies as well as overcoming knowledge sharing barriers is being discussed. The case studies involve a complex inter-organisational setting, where four companies are working together in order to maintain a new IT system. The communication difficulties are related to inadequate communication technologies, lack of trust and the undefined relationships of the stakeholders and the team members. As a result, it is suggested that communication technologies are needed in order to improve the virtual team performance, but are not however solely capable of solving the communication challenges in virtual teams. In addition, suitable leadership and trust between team members are required in order to improve the knowledge sharing and communication in virtual teams.

Vanhusten hyvä kotona asuminen: tutkimusta kuntatuottavuudesta, älykodeista ja apuvälinepalveluprosesseista

The purpose of the research was to investigate operational processes related to home care of the elderly as well as use of assistive devices in smart home environments, and operational processes that are generally related to use of assistive devices – from the point of view of productivity improvement. The themes were looked into from the points of view of both the elderly and care personnel. In addition, perspectives of near relatives of the elderly, of the larger service system as well as of companies that provided assistive devices to the smart homes were taken into consideration. In the study of home care processes, 32 customer interviews and 17 employee interviews were carried out. This report contains a summary that is based on a separate report of the home care study. The study of home care was conducted in 2006. The use of technological and mechanical assistive devices and the related operational processes were investigated with the help of the smart home pilot in 2007–2008. The study is described in this report. The smart home pilot was implemented in four different housing service units for elderly people at Lahti, Nastola and Hollola. They were in use during short-term housing periods related to, for instance, end of hospitalisation, holidays of caring relatives and assessment of living and housing conditions. More than 60 different assistive devices and technologies were brought to the smart homes. During the pilot period, experiences of customers and personnel as well as processes related to the use of assistive devices were investigated. The research material consisted of 20 survey questionnaires of personnel and customers, four interviews with customers, five interviews with personnel, feedback survey responses from 14 companies, and other data that were collected, for instance, in orientation events. The research results highlighted the need for tailored services based on an elderly person’s needs and wishes, while taking advantage of innovative and technological solutions. As in the earlier home care study, also assistive device-related operational processes were looked into with the help of concepts of ‘resource focus’, ‘lost motion’ and ‘intermediate landing’. The following were identified as central operational processes in assistive device-related services (regardless of the service provider): (1) acquisition process of technologies and assistive devices as well as of rearrangement and rebuilding works in the home, (2) introduction and orientation process (of the elderly, their relatives and care personnel), (3) information and communication process, and (4) service and monitoring process. In addition, the research focused on design and desirability of assistive devices as well as their costs, such as opportunity costs. The process-based points of view gave new knowledge that may be used in the future to develop service processes and clarify their ownership so that separately managed cross-functional processes could be built with participants from different sectors to operate alongside organisations of elderly care. Development of functionality of assistive device-related services is a societally significant issue.

Yhteistoiminnan ja tiedon jakamisen kehittäminen

Tässä tutkimustyössä on tavoitteena tutkia UPM-Kymmene Wood Oy:n vaneriliiketoimintaorganisaation lähtölogistiikka- ja myyntiosaston tiedon jakamisen ja yhteistoiminnan nykytilaa ja kartoittaa osastojen tiedontarpeita yhteistoimintaan liittyen. Työn tavoitteena on tämän jälkeen antaa kohdeosastoille ehdotuksia toimenpiteistä ja teknologisista ratkaisuista toiminnan parantamiseen. Työssä esitetään aluksi tietoon ja sen jakamiseen liittyviä käsitteitä. Tämän jälkeen tekstissä luodaan katsaus liiketoimintatietoon ja sen hallintaan. Lisäksi tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan tutkimuksen kohteena olevaa organisaatiota ja kohdeosastoja. Haastatteluiden ja havainnoinnin avulla kerätyn tutkimusaineiston perusteella kohdeosastojen välillä vaihdetaan nykytilassa paljon erilaista asiakkaisiin ja markkinoihin liittyvää tietoa. Tiedon jakaminen ja vaihto perustuu kuitenkin nykytilassa hyvin vahvasti säännöllisen yhteistoiminnan sijaan erillisesti ilmaistuihin tietotarpeisiin. Haastatteluiden perusteella kohdeosastoissa on havaittavissa myös parannustarpeita nykyiseen tiedonkulkuun ja tiedon jakamiseen verrattuna. Annetut kehitysehdotukset koskevat yhteistoiminnan muuntamista säännölliseksi ja keskustelevaksi, olemassa olevien tietojen tehokkaammasta jakamisesta ja nykyisten tietohallintajärjestelmien hyödyntämisestä yhteistoiminnassa uusien järjestelmien luomisen sijaan.