Avainhenkilöihin keskittyneen tietopääoman katoamisen riski ja sen hallinta pk-yrityksissä

Tutkielmassa selvitetään pienten ja keskisuurten yritysten avainhenkilöihin keskittyneen tietopääoman katoamisen riskiä ja pyritään löytämään keinoja riskin hallintaan. Pk-yrityksissä yrityksen kannalta kriittinen tieto on usein harvoihin henkilöihin keskittynyttä. Tällaisten avainhenkilöiden työpanoksen ja osaamisen menettäminen kokonaan saattaa olla yrityksen toiminnalle kohtalokasta. Väliaikainen osaamisen menettäminen voi myös vaikeuttaa toimintoja. Tietopääoman katoamisen riskin pienentäminen onnistuu joko avainhenkilön tiedon siirtämisellä toisiin henkilöihin tai huolehtimalla avainhenkilön työsuhteen mahdollisimman pitkästä jatkumisesta. Tiedon siirtämisen menetelmät riippuvat tiedon laadusta: onko se hiljaista vai eksplisiittistä. Avainhenkilön pysyvyyteen vaikuttaa yrityksen henkilöstöpolitiikka, jonka mukaisesti työntekijät saavat korvauksen työstään ja sitoutuvat yritykseen. Myös työntekijän työkyvystä huolehtiminen vaikuttaa tiedon pysymiseen yrityksen käytössä. Esimerkkiyrityksen haastatteluissa voidaan todeta yhtymäkohtia tutkimuksen muissa osissa käsiteltyihin tietojohtamisen ongelmiin.

Pienyrityksen arvonmäärityksen erityispiirteitä

Tutkielmassa tarkastellaan listaamattoman pienyrityksen arvonmääritystä ja sen sisältöä. Tutkielman tavoitteena oli selvittää pk-yrityksen arvonmäärityksen erityispiirteitä ja eroja suuriin julkisiin yrityksiin sekä tutkia näiden erojen vaikutusta arvonmääritysprosessiin. Tutkielman lähestymistapa on teoreettinen ja tutkielma toteutettiin kirjallisuustutkimuksena. Tutkimusote on käsiteanalyyttinen. Tutkimuksessa havaittiin, että listaamattoman pienyrityksen erityispiirteitä ovat saatavissa olevan taloudellisen informaation laatu ja määrä, tulevaisuuteen liittyvä suurempi epävarmuus sekä omistuksen heikko likvidisyys. Pienyrityksiin liittyvät riskit ovat myös suuremmat ja niiden arviointi on vaikeampaa. Lisäksi pienyrityksen rahoitus eroaa suurista yrityksistä. Näiden tekijöiden vaikutus eri menetelmillä laskettuun yrityksen arvoon on negatiivinen. Osaamisella ja aineettomalla pääomalla on suuri vaikutus pienyrityksien arvoon ja tämä johtaa usein arvostuksen subjektiivisuuteen. Lähtökohtaisesti, pienen ja keskisuuren, kuten suurenkin yrityksen arvo perustuu tulevaisuuden tuottoihin omistajille. Toimintahistorian ja taloudellisen informaation vähäisyydestä johtuen arvostuksessa käytetään varsin usein hyvin yksinkertaisia tapoja ja menetelmiä. Perinteiset arvonmääritysmenetelmät ovat käyttökelpoisia myös pienyritysten kohdalla, kunhan niiden pohjana olevat parametrit, arvonmäärityksen tarkoitus ja tilanne sekä kohteen ominaispiirteet ymmärretään oikein. Pienyritysten arvomääritys on haastavaa ja asettaa suuria vaatimuksia suorittajan ammattitaidolle.

Järjestelmätoimittajan sopimusriskien hallinta: Case Oy Teräs-Astra Ab

Järjestelmätoimittaja toimii yritysten muodostamassa yhteistyöverkostossa. Sillä on alihankkijansa ja osatoimittajansa samalla, kun se toimittaa tuotantoaan päähankkijalle. Yhteistyöhön pohjautuvissa toimitussopimuksissa jatkuvat muutokset ovat normaalia toimintaa. Tutkimusmenetelmänä käytetään empiiristä ja normatiivista tutkimusta. Empiiria koostuu järjestelmätoimittajana toimivan caseyrityksen sopimusten tarkastelusta ja sopimuksia laativien henkilöiden haastatteluista. Normatiivinen osuus muodostuu kirjallisuuskatsauksen pohjalta syntyvästä eri teorioita yhdistävästä synteesistä. Työssä kartoitetaan toimitussopimusten riskejä ja ne minimoiva sopimustekniikka. Tavoitteena on laatia caseyritykselle tarkistuslista sopimusten laadintaan. Parhaimmat keinot sopimusriskien hallintaan ovat luotettavien kumppanien valinta, toimintojen onnistunut integrointi, yhteistyötaidot ja kyky joustaa yhteisten päämäärien saavuttamiseksi. Tämän lisäksi sopimuksissa erityishuomiota tulisi kiinnittää muutosten hallintaan.

Nature experiences to the enterprises-Case Etela-Savo

This thesis examines the experience travelling and incentive travelling in the area of Etela-Savo. The incentive travels have become more popular in the recent years. The enterprises and companies have started to reward their staff for efficiency by giving them experience travels instead of money rewards. The staff needs refreshing because of the development of work technology and because of physical and mental demands of the work. Short experience travels with activities give motivation and refresh the staff. There were two target groups in this thesis: entrepreneurs which produce the experiences and the staffs which have proved them. With the help of these target groups experience products, activities and travelling possibilities were studied and also how the experiences had been felt and where they had been acquired from. There are theoretical and empirical parts in this thesis. The research methodology was mainly idiographical and also qualitative and quantitative research methods were used. The empirical information was collected with the help of a questionnaire and a theme interview. The result of the study was that the area's travelling attractions, which are the nature, hundreds of lakes, large forests and the beautiful landscape give good possibilities to experience travelling and incentive travelling. The experience must contain a physical, social and mental element. A good experience activity must also contain some actions in the nature, light physical exercise and a possibility to the customer to take part in action. The experience feeling was felt as an unique happening and enjoyment, which will help the customers managing in their work, removing stress and developing team working skills. The experience was caused by the contrast between work/everyday life and the happening, and by succeeding in the activity in addition they felt a very strong community spirit in the experience feeling. Women received the experience feeling much more strongly than men. There were also differences in feelings between ages.

Conservation banking and the economization of nature : an institutional analysis

During the last decade, conservation banking mechanisms have emerged in the environmental discourse as new market instruments to promote biodiversity conservation. Compensation was already provided for in environmental law in many countries, as the last step of the mitigation hierarchy. The institutional arrangements developed in this context have been redefined and reshaped as market-based instruments (MBIs). As such, they are discursively disentangled from the complex legal-economic nexus they are part of. Monetary transactions are given prominence and tend to be presented as stand alone agreements, whereas they take place in the context of prescriptive regulations. The pro-market narrative featuring conservation banking systems as market-like arrangements as well as their denunciation as instances of nature commodification tend to obscure their actual characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to describe the latter, adopting an explicitly analytical stance on these complex institutional arrangements and their performative dimensions. Beyond the discourse supporting them and notwithstanding the diversity of national policies and regulatory frameworks for compensation, the constitutive force of these mechanisms probably lies in their ability to redefine control, power and the distribution of costs and in their impacts in terms of land use rather than in their efficiency.

Physician behavioral adaptability: A model to outstrip a "one size fits all" approach

Objective: Based on a literature review, we propose a model of physician behavioral adaptability (PBA) with the goal of inspiring new research. PBA means that the physician adapts his or her behavior according to patients' different preferences. The PBA model shows how physicians infer patients' preferences and adapt their interaction behavior from one patient to the other. We claim that patients will benefit from better outcomes if their physicians show behavioral adaptability rather than a "one size fits all" approach. Method: This literature review is based on a literature search of the PsycINFO1 and MEDLINE1 databases. Results: The literature review and first results stemming from the authors' research support the validity and viability of parts of the PBA model. There is evidence suggesting that physicians are able to show behavioral flexibility when interacting with their different patients, that a match between patients' preferences and physician behavior is related to better consultation outcomes, and that physician behavioral adaptability is related to better consultation outcomes. Practice implications: Training of physicians' behavioral flexibility and their ability to infer patients' preferences can facilitate physician behavioral adaptability and positive patient outcomes.

Planarians as a model to assess in vivo the role of matrix metalloproteinase genes during homeostasis and regeneration

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are major executors of extracellular matrix remodeling and, consequently, play key roles in the response of cells to their microenvironment. The experimentally accessible stem cell population and the robust regenerative capabilities of planarians offer an ideal model to study how modulation of the proteolytic system in the extracellular environment affects cell behavior in vivo. Genome-wide identification of Schmidtea mediterranea MMPs reveals that planarians possess four mmp-like genes. Two of them (mmp1 and mmp2) are strongly expressed in a subset of secretory cells and encode putative matrilysins. The other genes (mt-mmpA and mt-mmpB) are widely expressed in postmitotic cells and appear structurally related to membrane-type MMPs. These genes are conserved in the planarian Dugesia japonica. Here we explore the role of the planarian mmp genes by RNA interference (RNAi) during tissue homeostasis and regeneration. Our analyses identify essential functions for two of them. Following inhibition of mmp1 planarians display dramatic disruption of tissues architecture and significant decrease in cell death. These results suggest that mmp1 controls tissue turnover, modulating survival of postmitotic cells. Unexpectedly, the ability to regenerate is unaffected by mmp1(RNAi). Silencing of mt-mmpA alters tissue integrity and delays blastema growth, without affecting proliferation of stem cells. Our data support the possibility that the activity of this protease modulates cell migration and regulates anoikis, with a consequent pivotal role in tissue homeostasis and regeneration. Our data provide evidence of the involvement of specific MMPs in tissue homeostasis and regeneration and demonstrate that the behavior of planarian stem cells is critically dependent on the microenvironment surrounding these cells. Studying MMPs function in the planarian model provides evidence on how individual proteases work in vivo in adult tissues. These results have high potential to generate significant information for development of regenerative and anti cancer therapies.

PKA antagonizes CLASP-dependent microtubule stabilization to re-localize Pom1 and buffer cell size upon glucose limitation.

Cells couple growth with division and regulate size in response to nutrient availability. In rod-shaped fission yeast, cell-size control occurs at mitotic commitment. An important regulator is the DYRK-family kinase Pom1, which forms gradients from cell poles and inhibits the mitotic activator Cdr2, itself localized at the medial cortex. Where and when Pom1 modulates Cdr2 activity is unclear as Pom1 medial cortical levels remain constant during cell elongation. Here we show that Pom1 re-localizes to cell sides upon environmental glucose limitation, where it strongly delays mitosis. This re-localization is caused by severe microtubule destabilization upon glucose starvation, with microtubules undergoing catastrophe and depositing the Pom1 gradient nucleator Tea4 at cell sides. Microtubule destabilization requires PKA/Pka1 activity, which negatively regulates the microtubule rescue factor CLASP/Cls1/Peg1, reducing CLASP's ability to stabilize microtubules. Thus, PKA signalling tunes CLASP's activity to promote Pom1 cell side localization and buffer cell size upon glucose starvation.

“Of Spitzenkandidaten and European Leaders”: Is the new 2014 "politicized” Presidency of the Commission going to be a real step forward in the EU legitimization process?

Thanks to ART.17.7 of the Lisbon Treaty, the European Council now has to “take into account” the results of EP Elections when selecting a candidate for the role of Commission President. The European Parliament has grabbed the opportunity to launch the first electoral race for spitzenkandidaten to the Presidency. Is this the start of a new democratizing (and thus, politicizing) process for the European Union? This dissertation will try to give a possible answer to the dilemma by constructing a comprehensive framework around EP Elections 2014 that will involve both the Commission and the Parliament and an analysis of the debate beyond legal provisions and the possibility of a politicized presidency of the Commission.

Osakeyhtiölain muutokset pienen osakeyhtiön toiminnassa

Osakeyhtiölain kokonaisuudistus astui voimaan 1.9.2006. Lain tavoitteeksi asetettiin yhtiöiden toimintaedellytysten hallittu lisääminen velkojain- tai vähemmistöosakkaiden suojaa heikentämättä. Erityisesti pienten yhtiöiden asemaan kiinnitettiin huomiota selventämällä lakia ja keventämällä muotomääräyksiä. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on selvittää, miten uudistukset vaikuttivat pienen osakeyhtiön toimintaan. Tutkimuksessa käydään läpi niitä osakeyhtiölain säädöksiä, jotka vaikuttavat pienyhtiön toimintaan sekä kirjallisuuden pohjalta että case-yhtiöiden avulla. Case-yhtiöinä tutkimuksessa on kaksi pientä osakeyhtiötä. Tutkimusmenetelmä on kvalitatiivinen ja osin deskriptiivinen tutkimus. Tutkimus osoitti, että osakeyhtiölain uudistuksen kokonaisvaikutus pienissä yhtiössä näkyy muotosäännösten kevenemisenä ja tahdonvaltaisuuden lisääntymisenä. Suurin haaste pienille yhtiöille on lain maksukykyisyysvaatimus varojenjakopäätöstä tehtäessä. Se, missä määrin lain suomia mahII dollisuuksia käytäntöjen keventämiseen yhtiöissä otetaan käyttöön, riippuu täysin yhtiön johdon aktiivisuudesta ja muutosvastarinnan voittamisesta.

Evaluation of steroidomics by liquid chromatography hyphenated to mass spectrometry as a powerful analytical strategy for measuring human steroid perturbations.

This review presents the evolution of steroid analytical techniques, including gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS), immunoassay (IA) and targeted liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (LC-MS), and it evaluates the potential of extended steroid profiles by a metabolomics-based approach, namely steroidomics. Steroids regulate essential biological functions including growth and reproduction, and perturbations of the steroid homeostasis can generate serious physiological issues; therefore, specific and sensitive methods have been developed to measure steroid concentrations. GC-MS measuring several steroids simultaneously was considered the first historical standard method for analysis. Steroids were then quantified by immunoassay, allowing a higher throughput; however, major drawbacks included the measurement of a single compound instead of a panel and cross-reactivity reactions. Targeted LC-MS methods with selected reaction monitoring (SRM) were then introduced for quantifying a small steroid subset without the problems of cross-reactivity. The next step was the integration of metabolomic approaches in the context of steroid analyses. As metabolomics tends to identify and quantify all the metabolites (i.e., the metabolome) in a specific system, appropriate strategies were proposed for discovering new biomarkers. Steroidomics, defined as the untargeted analysis of the steroid content in a sample, was implemented in several fields, including doping analysis, clinical studies, in vivo or in vitro toxicology assays, and more. This review discusses the current analytical methods for assessing steroid changes and compares them to steroidomics. Steroids, their pathways, their implications in diseases and the biological matrices in which they are analysed will first be described. Then, the different analytical strategies will be presented with a focus on their ability to obtain relevant information on the steroid pattern. The future technical requirements for improving steroid analysis will also be presented.

Nanocarriers for DNA Vaccines: Co-Delivery of TLR-9 and NLR-2 Ligands Leads to Synergistic Enhancement of Proinflammatory Cytokine Release

Adjuvants enhance immunogenicity of vaccines through either targeted antigen delivery or stimulation of immune receptors. Three cationic nanoparticle formulations were evaluated for their potential as carriers for a DNA vaccine, and muramyl dipeptide (MDP) as immunostimulatory agent, to induce and increase immunogenicity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis antigen encoding plasmid DNA (pDNA). The formulations included (1) trimethyl chitosan (TMC) nanoparticles, (2) a squalene-in-water nanoemulsion, and (3) a mineral oil-in-water nanoemulsion. The adjuvant effect of the pDNA-nanocomplexes was evaluated by serum antibody analysis in immunized mice. All three carriers display a strong adjuvant effect, however, only TMC nanoparticles were capable to bias immune responses towards Th1. pDNA naturally contains immunostimulatory unmethylated CpG motifs that are recognized by Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR-9). In mechanistic in vitro studies, activation of TLR-9 and the ability to enhance immunogenicity by simultaneously targeting TLR-9 and NOD-like receptor 2 (NLR-2) was determined by proinflammatory cytokine release in RAW264.7 macrophages. pDNA in combination with MDP was shown to significantly increase proinflammatory cytokine release in a synergistic manner, dependent on NLR-2 activation. In summary, novel pDNA-Ag85A loaded nanoparticle formulations, which induce antigen specific immune responses in mice were developed, taking advantage of the synergistic combinations of TLR and NLR agonists to increase the adjuvanticity of the carriers used.

Innovation – from individual intuition to collaborative innovation. The role of individual key actor in facilitation of innovation in large organization context

The objective of this research was to study the role of key individuals in facilitation of technology enabled bottom-up innovation in large organization context. The development of innovation was followed from the point of view of individual actor (key individual) in two cases, through three levels: individual, team and organization, by using knowledge creation and innovation models. This study provides theoretical synthesis and framework through which the study is driven. The results of the study indicate, that in bottom-up initiated innovations the role of key individuals is still crucial, but innovation today is collective effort and there acts several entrepreneurial key individuals: innovator, user champion and organizational sponsor, whose collaboration and developing interaction drives innovation further. The team work is functional and fluent, but it meets great problems in interaction with organization. The large organizations should develop its practices and ability to react on emerging bottom-up initiations, in order to embed innovation to organization and gain sustainable innovation. In addition, bottom-up initiated innovations are demonstrations of peoples knowing, tacit knowledge and therefore renewing of an organization.

PERC rule to exclude the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism in emergency low-risk patients: study protocol for the PROPER randomized controlled study.

BACKGROUND: The diagnosis of Pulmonary Embolism (PE) in the emergency department (ED) is crucial. As emergency physicians fear missing this potential life-threatening condition, PE tends to be over-investigated, exposing patients to unnecessary risks and uncertain benefit in terms of outcome. The Pulmonary Embolism Rule-out Criteria (PERC) is an eight-item block of clinical criteria that can identify patients who can safely be discharged from the ED without further investigation for PE. The endorsement of this rule could markedly reduce the number of irradiative imaging studies, ED length of stay, and rate of adverse events resulting from both diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. Several retrospective and prospective studies have shown the safety and benefits of the PERC rule for PE diagnosis in low-risk patients, but the validity of this rule is still controversial. We hypothesize that in European patients with a low gestalt clinical probability and who are PERC-negative, PE can be safely ruled out and the patient discharged without further testing. METHODS/DESIGN: This is a controlled, cluster randomized trial, in 15 centers in France. Each center will be randomized for the sequence of intervention periods: a 6-month intervention period (PERC-based strategy) followed by a 6-month control period (usual care), or in reverse order, with 2 months of "wash-out" between the 2 periods. Adult patients presenting to the ED with a suspicion of PE and a low pre test probability estimated by clinical gestalt will be eligible. The primary outcome is the percentage of failure resulting from the diagnostic strategy, defined as diagnosed venous thromboembolic events at 3-month follow-up, among patients for whom PE has been initially ruled out. DISCUSSION: The PERC rule has the potential to decrease the number of irradiative imaging studies in the ED, and is reported to be safe. However, no randomized study has ever validated the safety of PERC. Furthermore, some studies have challenged the safety of a PERC-based strategy to rule-out PE, especially in Europe where the prevalence of PE diagnosed in the ED is high. The PROPER study should provide high-quality evidence to settle this issue. If it confirms the safety of the PERC rule, physicians will be able to reduce the number of investigations, associated subsequent adverse events, costs, and ED length of stay for patients with a low clinical probability of PE. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT02375919 .

Social huddling and physiological thermoregulation are related to melanism in the nocturnal barn owl.

Endothermic animals vary in their physiological ability to maintain a constant body temperature. Since melanin-based coloration is related to thermoregulation and energy homeostasis, we predict that dark and pale melanic individuals adopt different behaviours to regulate their body temperature. Young animals are particularly sensitive to a decrease in ambient temperature because their physiological system is not yet mature and growth may be traded-off against thermoregulation. To reduce energy loss, offspring huddle during periods of cold weather. We investigated in nestling barn owls (Tyto alba) whether body temperature, oxygen consumption and huddling were associated with melanin-based coloration. Isolated owlets displaying more black feather spots had a lower body temperature and consumed more oxygen than those with fewer black spots. This suggests that highly melanic individuals display a different thermoregulation strategy. This interpretation is also supported by the finding that, at relatively low ambient temperature, owlets displaying more black spots huddled more rapidly and more often than those displaying fewer spots. Assuming that spot number is associated with the ability to thermoregulate not only in Swiss barn owls but also in other Tytonidae, our results could explain geographic variation in the degree of melanism. Indeed, in the northern hemisphere, barn owls and allies are less spotted polewards than close to the equator, and in the northern American continent, barn owls are also less spotted in colder regions. If melanic spots themselves helped thermoregulation, we would have expected the opposite results. We therefore suggest that some melanogenic genes pleiotropically regulate thermoregulatory processes.