Co-operative acquisitions – the contextual factors and challenges for co-operatives when acquiring an investorowned firm

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have been seen as an important strategy in helping organizations to grow, gain access to new markets and resources, increase efficiency, and enable competitiveness in order to fulfil the purpose of the organization. These aspects have made M&As of central interest to academic literature. In co-operative studies mergers especially have been widely studied. The common focus of these studies is that M&As have taken place between organizations of the same form. It is noteworthy that there is a scarcity of literature concerning acquisitions between different organizational types. Moreover, M&As have not been evaluated concerning the organization’s ownership and purpose, which may be significant integration factors. The overall objective of this study is to describe and understand why co-operative organizations use acquisition as a strategic alternative. In more detail – and in order to develop understanding of the background ideals affecting the acquisition decision and the differences of organization ideals in the integration process – this study is based on a qualitative case study approach. By combining interview data gathered from the OPPohjola Group and associating the observations from various streams of research on acquisitions and management with the purpose of co-operation, and examining these issues further, the thesis contributes to the elaboration of theory in the field of the strategic management of co-operatives. The dissertation consists of two parts. The first part introduces the research topic, methods and publications, as well as discussing the overall outcomes. The second part consists of four publications that address the research questions from different viewpoints. The analyses of this dissertation indicate that, from the strategic point of view, the acquisition of an investor-owned firm by a co-operative organization may create competitive advantage for the co-operative. On the other hand, there are differences in and following from the purpose of acquirer and the acquiree that may, in such case, pose several challenges to the integration process.

Macroanálise, regulação e o método uma alternativa ao holismo e ao individualismo metodológicos para uma macroeconomia histórica e institucionalista

Macro-analysis, regulation and the method: an alternative to the methodological holism and individualism to a historical and institutionalist macro-economy. The paper examines the epistemological conditions that make the "regulationist" macro-analysis a possible alternative to the traditional equilibrium approaches. It shows how these analyses allow to overcome the structure-agent dilemma as from the concept of contextual rationality and of a hol-individualist methodology that, combined with the notion of strong historicity, find wide theoretical basis in Bourdieu's sociology, in Braudel's works on economical history and in Lukács's ontology on the social being. The paper also explains its historical origins and concludes with a synthesis of the method and the necessary steps to accomplish this type of macroeconomics approach.

Produtividade do trabalho e mudança estrutural nas indústrias brasileiras extrativa e de transformação, 1970-2001

Using an indicator of labor productivity, this paper aims to assess the contribution of structural changes in the Brazilian manufacturing and mining industries to productivity growth, during the 1970-2001 period. The conclusion is that: (i) there is no evidence to sustain that the Brazilian industry has definitely reversed the productivity growth rates slowdown trend; (ii) there is no clear evidence of a positive influence of the structural bonus; and (iii) job creation seems to be concentrated in low productivity growth sectors.

O que é que o reeleito tem? O retorno: o esboço de uma teoria da reeleição no Brasil

This article compares the determinants of electoral success in two consecutive Brazilian legislative elections, 1998 and 2002. There is a clear difference between both periods that renders the comparison especially interesting. In 1998 the incumbent president was running for reelection whereas in 2002 it was an open seat contest. We hypothesize that in 1998 the proximity of the Federal Deputy with the president and the allocation of federal monies controlled by the Executive Branch played a more significant role in affecting reelection success than in 2002. Hence, if the President is himself running for reelection is an important intervening contextual variable in understanding reelection success of Federal Deputies.

University students’ regulation of learning and text processing – examples from medical and teacher education

The general aim of the thesis was to study university students’ learning from the perspective of regulation of learning and text processing. The data were collected from the two academic disciplines of medical and teacher education, which share the features of highly scheduled study, a multidisciplinary character, a complex relationship between theory and practice and a professional nature. Contemporary information society poses new challenges for learning, as it is not possible to learn all the information needed in a profession during a study programme. Therefore, it is increasingly important to learn how to think and learn independently, how to recognise gaps in and update one’s knowledge and how to deal with the huge amount of constantly changing information. In other words, it is critical to regulate one’s learning and to process text effectively. The thesis comprises five sub-studies that employed cross-sectional, longitudinal and experimental designs and multiple methods, from surveys to eye tracking. Study I examined the connections between students’ study orientations and the ways they regulate their learning. In total, 410 second-, fourth- and sixth-year medical students from two Finnish medical schools participated in the study by completing a questionnaire measuring both general study orientations and regulation strategies. The students were generally deeply oriented towards their studies. However, they regulated their studying externally. Several interesting and theoretically reasonable connections between the variables were found. For instance, self-regulation was positively correlated with deep orientation and achievement orientation and was negatively correlated with non-commitment. However, external regulation was likewise positively correlated with deep orientation and achievement orientation but also with surface orientation and systematic orientation. It is argued that external regulation might function as an effective coping strategy in the cognitively loaded medical curriculum. Study II focused on medical students’ regulation of learning and their conceptions of the learning environment in an innovative medical course where traditional lectures were combined wth problem-based learning (PBL) group work. First-year medical and dental students (N = 153) completed a questionnaire assessing their regulation strategies of learning and views about the PBL group work. The results indicated that external regulation and self-regulation of the learning content were the most typical regulation strategies among the participants. In line with previous studies, self-regulation wasconnected with study success. Strictly organised PBL sessions were not considered as useful as lectures, although the students’ views of the teacher/tutor and the group were mainly positive. Therefore, developers of teaching methods are challenged to think of new solutions that facilitate reflection of one’s learning and that improve the development of self-regulation. In Study III, a person-centred approach to studying regulation strategies was employed, in contrast to the traditional variable-centred approach used in Study I and Study II. The aim of Study III was to identify different regulation strategy profiles among medical students (N = 162) across time and to examine to what extent these profiles predict study success in preclinical studies. Four regulation strategy profiles were identified, and connections with study success were found. Students with the lowest self-regulation and with an increasing lack of regulation performed worse than the other groups. As the person-centred approach enables us to individualise students with diverse regulation patterns, it could be used in supporting student learning and in facilitating the early diagnosis of learning difficulties. In Study IV, 91 student teachers participated in a pre-test/post-test design where they answered open-ended questions about a complex science concept both before and after reading either a traditional, expository science text or a refutational text that prompted the reader to change his/her beliefs according to scientific beliefs about the phenomenon. The student teachers completed a questionnaire concerning their regulation and processing strategies. The results showed that the students’ understanding improved after text reading intervention and that refutational text promoted understanding better than the traditional text. Additionally, regulation and processing strategies were found to be connected with understanding the science phenomenon. A weak trend showed that weaker learners would benefit more from the refutational text. It seems that learners with effective learning strategies are able to pick out the relevant content regardless of the text type, whereas weaker learners might benefit from refutational parts that contrast the most typical misconceptions with scientific views. The purpose of Study V was to use eye tracking to determine how third-year medical studets (n = 39) and internal medicine residents (n = 13) read and solve patient case texts. The results revealed differences between medical students and residents in processing patient case texts; compared to the students, the residents were more accurate in their diagnoses and processed the texts significantly faster and with a lower number of fixations. Different reading patterns were also found. The observed differences between medical students and residents in processing patient case texts could be used in medical education to model expert reasoning and to teach how a good medical text should be constructed. The main findings of the thesis indicate that even among very selected student populations, such as high-achieving medical students or student teachers, there seems to be a lot of variation in regulation strategies of learning and text processing. As these learning strategies are related to successful studying, students enter educational programmes with rather different chances of managing and achieving success. Further, the ways of engaging in learning seldom centre on a single strategy or approach; rather, students seem to combine several strategies to a certain degree. Sometimes, it can be a matter of perspective of which way of learning can be considered best; therefore, the reality of studying in higher education is often more complicated than the simplistic view of self-regulation as a good quality and external regulation as a harmful quality. The beginning of university studies may be stressful for many, as the gap between high school and university studies is huge and those strategies that were adequate during high school might not work as well in higher education. Therefore, it is important to map students’ learning strategies and to encourage them to engage in using high-quality learning strategies from the beginning. Instead of separate courses on learning skills, the integration of these skills into course contents should be considered. Furthermore, learning complex scientific phenomena could be facilitated by paying attention to high-quality learning materials and texts and other support from the learning environment also in the university. Eye tracking seems to have great potential in evaluating performance and growing diagnostic expertise in text processing, although more research using texts as stimulus is needed. Both medical and teacher education programmes and the professions themselves are challenging in terms of their multidisciplinary nature and increasing amounts of information and therefore require good lifelong learning skills during the study period and later in work life.

The developmental state in Brazil: comparative and historical perspectives

The record of successful developmental states in East Asia and the partial successes of developmental states in Latin America suggest several common preconditions for effective state intervention including a Weberian bureaucracy, monitoring of implementation, reciprocity (subsidies in exchange for performance), and collaborative relations between government and business. Although Brazil failed to develop the high technology manufacturing industry and exports that have fueled sustained growth in East Asia, its developmental state had a number of important, and often neglected, successes, especially in steel, automobiles, mining, ethanol, and aircraft manufacturing. Where Brazil's developmental state was less successful was in promoting sectors like information technology and nuclear energy, as well as overall social and regional equality. In addition, some isolated initiatives by state governments were also effective in promoting particular local segments of industry and agriculture. Comparisons with East Asia, highlight the central role of state enterprises in Brazil that in effect internalized monitoring and reciprocity and bypassed collaboration between business and government (that was overall rarer in Brazil).

Utstillingens retorikk : et bidrag til en retorisk didaktikk for kunst og håndverk

The topic of this dissertation is the didactic exhibition in the Arts and Crafts subject. Exhibiting student work and art and form culture is part of a long professional tradition in the field. Yet, exhibition as form and as a way of learning are inadequately explored and debated. The didactic problem area of the thesis, where studies of formative practices are central, place it within the research field of Educational Slojd. The didactic standpoint and main theoretical perspective relate the project to the Arts didactics research field at the University College of Bergen where the aim is to develop an alternative didactics thinking for the arts; a rhetoric arts didactics. Didactic focus is shifted from the relationship between teacher – pupil – teaching materials, to studies of how knowledge is formulated in specific practices. The thesis has a premise that every exhibition has its own rhetoric and that didactics is inscribed in this rhetoric in the broadest and cultural sense. Through impulses from classical rhetoric and recent text theory, the thesis challenges the Arts and Crafts’s own idiom, its theoretical foundation and didactic grasp such as shown in the discourse established by the discipline and its specific exhibitive practices, as well as studying the relationship between verbal language and the discipline’s own register. The overall objective is to develop knowledge about exhibition rhetoric and its potential as a knowledge and learning arena in this field, and thereby contribute to developing a rhetoric didactics for the Arts and Crafts subject. This raises questions such as: How is an exhibition considered to be used and understood in the subject’s didactics texts and texts about didactics? How do different exhibition spaces inscribe conditions for exhibition work? How can a rhetoric perspective of didactics make aspects of an exhibition’s form register visible and contribute to knowledge of the creative processes in an exhibition? How do some selected exhibitions inscribe creativity and learning? What can a rhetoric perspective bring to the Arts and Crafts? A rhetoric didactics perspective includes knowledge of the tradition. A historical-ideological overview traces how exhibition, of both pupil/student work and of art and form culture, are used and considered as used in the discipline over time. This part can be read separately, but in this thesis, is primarily conceived as a backdrop for the development of the dissertation’s main rhetoric perspective. The empirical data are collected from my teacher training institution and consist of specific exhibition spaces and practices, of which my own production of two exhibitions can link the research to artistic development work. A rhetoric didactics is concrete, specific and contextual. The rhetoric readings are descriptive and show how culture and nature, temporality, materiality and technology are inscribed in the exhibition’s form. Didactic reflection develops from, and close to, the rhetoric readings of the exhibition’s form and content to finally arrive at a rhetorical concept for creativity and learning.

Conociendo a Aby Warburg

Aby Warburg es la oculta figura creadora de los estudios de iconología. Personaje indiscutido, ha sido retomado en los últimos años a partir de la reedición de sus obras y de numerosos estudios que posicionan su figura intelectual y los impactos que tuvo su método de aproximación a las imágenes, específicamente aquellos que hablaban del renacimiento del paganismo. Conceptos como pathosformeln, sobrevivencias de la antigüedad, accesorios en movimiento y el análisis histórico, psicológico y contextual de la producción cultural de las imágenes, son hoy característicos de una todavía novedosa manera de entender el estudio de la iconología.

Improvement of Energy Efficiency in a Gold Mining Industry: Case Study of a Russian Gold Mining Company

The issue of energy efficiency is attracting more and more attention of academia, business and policy makers worldwide due to increasing environmental concerns, depletion of non-renewable energy resources and unstable energy prices. The significant importance of energy efficiency within gold mining industry is justified by considerable energy intensity of this industry as well as by the high share of energy costs in the total operational costs. In the context of increasing industrial energy consumption energy efficiency improvement may provide significant energy savings and reduction of CO2 emission that is highly important in order to contribute to the global goal of sustainability. The purpose of this research is to identify the ways of energy efficiency improvement relevant for a gold mining company. The study implements single holistic case study research strategy focused on a Russian gold mining company. The research involves comprehensive analysis of company’s energy performance including analysis of energy efficiency and energy management practices. This study provides following theoretical and managerial contributions. Firstly, it proposes a methodology for comparative analysis of energy performance of Russian and foreign gold mining companies. Secondly, this study provides comprehensive analysis of main energy efficiency challenges relevant for a Russian gold mining company. Finally, in order to overcome identified challenges this research conceives a guidance for a gold mining company for implementation of energy management system based on the ISO standard.

Improving grade eight students' spelling performance with a triad strategy approach

Thesis (M.Ed.)-- Brock University, 1996.

The effectiveness of explicit strategy instruction on the top level structure of a text

Thesis (M.Ed.)-- Brock University, 1995.

The generation effect and word learning: a test of the effect of the language experience approach versus the text approach in the acquisition of new reading vocabulary

A class of twenty-two grade one children was tested to determine their reading levels using the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Achievement Test. Based on these results and teacher input the students were paired according to reading ability. The students ages ranged from six years four months to seven years four months at the commencement of the study. Eleven children were assigned to the language experience group and their partners became the text group. Each member of the language experience group generated a list of eight to be learned words. The treatment consisted of exposing the student to a given word three times per session for ten sessions, over a period of five days. The dependent variables consisted of word identification speed, word identification accuracy, and word recognition accuracy. Each member of the text group followed the same procedure using his/her partner's list of words. Upon completion of this training, the entire process was repeated with members of the text group from the first part becoming members of the language experience group and vice versa. The results suggest that generally speaking language experience words are identified faster than text words but that there is no difference in the rate at which these words are learned. Language experience words may be identified faster because the auditory-semantic information is more readily available in them than in text words. The rate of learning in both types of words, however, may be dictated by the orthography of the to be learned word.

Drama in education : deconstructing the role of movement in text

The purpose of this study was to conduct a comparative textual analysis on the role of movement in 3 texts in Drama in Education in Canada. As the subject is holistic and encourages creative, active participation, movement was expected to appear, even inadvertently, in both theory and practice. It was hoped that guidelines for the use of movement within Drama in Education would emerge from the texts and that these guidelines would serve as models for others to use. A total of 26 Drama in Education experts in Canada were each asked to list the 10 most important texts in the field. Those who answered were assigned numbers and charted according to age, gender, and geography. An objective colleague helped narrow the group to 16 participants. A frequency count was used, assigning 10 points to the first text on each list, and descending to 1 point for the tenth text listed. Based on the highest number of points calculated, the 5 most frequently used texts were identified. These were compared to ascertain the widest representation ofthe authors' geographic location and gender, as well as differences in theory and practice. The final selection included 3 texts that represented differing approaches in their presentation and discussion of Drama in Education theories and practices. Analysis involved applying 5 levels of commitment to determine if,how, why, when, and with what results movement was explicitly or implicitly addressed in the 3 texts. Analysis resulted in several unexpected surprises around each of the 3 texts. The study also provided suggestions for extending and clarifying the role of movement in teaching and learning in general, as well as for Drama in Education in particular.