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The purpose of this paper is to explore the trust development in the dyadic relationship of CEO and chair of the board.

A narrative approach is adopted to examine the meanings that CEOs and chairpersons give to trust in their relationship, and to explore trust as an evolving phenomenon that can increase or decline over the course of the relationship. The data include 16 CEO-chair dyads from Finnish limited companies.

The results suggest that trust may exist on different levels and evolve in various ways during the course of the relationship. Integrity and agreement on company strategy are proposed to form the foundation for trust in the CEO-chair relationship, whereas ability and benevolence are necessary for trust to develop to a higher level.

Studying trust development based on the data generated at one point of time and in only one country are the major limitations of the study.

It is proposed that the level of trust influences value creation in the relationship.

The study adds to the limited number of previous studies on the CEO-chair relationship and contributes to the literature on trust development by making visible the viewpoint of both partners, and the meaning of the different components of trust.

This paper focuses on how gendered processes of working life are (re)constructed and are also challenged discursively in paid and volunteer care and work in reception centers. The purpose of this paper is to show how caring work with asylum seekers can both enhance the traditional gender order and challenge it through enabling men to have opportunities to care.

The data were produced through qualitative interviews among paid workers and volunteers in reception centers, and analyzed through a discourse analysis approach.

Three discourses of care and work were identified: a discourse on solidarity and care; a discourse on control and order; and a discourse on caring men. The findings show that traditional attitudes toward gender are easily discerned in other cultures, but not as easily recognized in the everyday processes near at hand. Gender order is retained through traditional roles, which also reflects conventional attitudes in a society often seen as a model country for equality. However, change is possible, and one core issue is the need to involve men in care work and caring in general.

The findings can be applicable to the deconstruction of traditional gender order in working life; to the disclosure of gendered xenophobia in work with asylum seekers, in particular through dialogue with “Others”; and to the enabling of care by men.

Little previous research has been done on care in reception centers and care as a gendered activity with value. In the future many countries are likely to encounter increases in asylum seekers, and therefore, intersections of gender and ethnicity are of importance in societies as regards migration, work and care.

Company stakeholder responsibility considers stakeholder engagement and management as key to long-term firm success. The purpose of this paper is to examine how top managers’ stakeholder responsibility attitudes change and how they balance stakeholder responsibilities and economic interests.

The authors conducted empirical research using the company stakeholder responsibility framework by conducting a repeated cross-sectional survey in Finland in 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014.

The study shows how development in the business context influences managers’ attitudes towards stakeholder responsibility. Simultaneously with the expansion of free competition in 1990s Finland, managerial commitment to company stakeholder responsibility strengthened in Finnish industry.

The target group consisting of industrial managers both in a single-country context and the social desirability bias present in survey research may limit the generalisability of the results.

The study contributes to the discussion of the role of situational factors in the development of corporate responsibility by showing that while economic changes have some influence on managerial attitudes, the expansion of free markets, together with increased regulation in certain areas, appears to influence managers’ stakeholder responsibility attitudes to an even greater degree.

The purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding of paternalistic leadership behaviour in the Finnish organisational context by investigating its relationship with Chinese immigrant employees’ occupational well-being.

This research was based on a survey of 117 Chinese immigrants working in Finland. The snowball sampling method was adopted in the present research.

The findings show that the dimensions of paternalistic leadership, specifically benevolent leadership behaviour, can be influential in Chinese immigrant knowledge workers’ occupational well-being in the Finnish organisational context.

Paternalistic leadership style can also make sense in a Western organisational context, especially when dealing with well-being among immigrant employees from China or other Asian countries.

Some misunderstanding of paternalistic leadership behaviour in Western societies may impede the theory’s further development. The study enhanced the understanding of paternalism in the Finnish organisational context by illuminating the effect of paternalistic leadership on Chinese immigrant employees’ occupational well-being.

The purpose of this paper is to explore if an expatriate’s career situation at the level of the couple (single career couple (SCC)/dual career couple (DCC)) is related to the expatriate’s work-to-personal-life conflict (WLC) and if the expatriate’s gender is related to WLC. The authors also investigate if the level of WLC is different for men and women in a DCC or SCC (interaction).

The study was conducted among 393 Finnish expatriates who were in a relationship and were working. A moderated hierarchical regression was utilized in the data analysis.

Gender or DCC/SCC status was not separately related to WLC but an interaction effect between gender and a couple’s career status on WLC was significant. In DCC couples, women experienced more WLC than men. In SCC couples, women experienced less WLC than men.

The findings indicate that organizations should develop practices to support both DCCs and SCCs, for instance, by providing mentors for expatriates and their family members, or through organizing family events for company employees. Couples should also negotiate their roles and responsibilities in both the personal life and work-life spheres before moving abroad and also during the time they live abroad, especially women involved in a DCC and men involved in an SCC.

This is the first study focusing on expatriates’ WLC that simultaneously takes account of how the gender and career situation of the couple are related to it.

Appearance-based discrimination in workplaces based on an employee's physical appearance is a legal and ethical problem. This study provide important research findings concerning such discrimination in Estonia.

A qualitative case study strategy and narrative inquiry were used. The information which was gathered for the research consists of three cases which concern appearance-based discrimination against young women. Information for two of the cases was gathered together by means of open interviews. Information for the third case is based on articles which were found in Estonian daily newspapers.

Covert and overt discrimination based on an employee's physical appearance can occur in Estonian workplaces, even though discrimination and inequality are not tolerated in public and all forms of discrimination are illegal in Estonia. The appearance norms, which frame perceptions of attractiveness and unattractiveness, may at times be rather narrow and stereotypical in Estonian workplaces. The attempts by employees to resist such discrimination in an early phase of the employees' careers are generally not successful.

Through real-life cases, this study makes empirically visible a problem at the workplace related to employees' physical appearance in Estonia. This study makes suggestions for preventing this kind of discrimination in organisations. Narrative inquiry offers a fruitful approach for how researchers can address a sensitive problem, such as the appearance-based discrimination against the employees discussed in this study.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a narrative framework for doing empirical research into business ethics and shows, through two examples, how the framework can be applied in practice in this context. The focus is on interview-based research.

A theoretical research based on literature review was conducted.

In the developed narrative framework, two main kinds of analysis are distinguished: an analysis of the narrative and a narrative analysis. An analysis of the narrative is a matter of classifying and producing taxonomies out of the data. The purpose of a narrative analysis is to construct a story or stories based on the data. Narrative analysis differs from the analysis of narratives in that the story does not exist prior to the analysis, but is created during the analysis.

The proposed narrative framework helps those doing empirical research into business ethics avoid simplistic “black and white” interpretations of their material, and helps them to show that ethical realities in the business world are often complex, various and multiple.

The paper offers a methodological framework for those doing qualitative research into business ethics which will increase the quality and rigor of their studies.

A value of the narrative approach is that the stories offer researchers an entry point to understanding the complexity of ethics and how people make sense of this complexity. The paper shows in detail how the methods presented can be used in practice in empirical research.

In this paper, the following research question is addressed: Why do business organisations recruit employees with a foreign background? This was examined in terms of the values that guide organisations and their management. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The study focused on two businesses in Finland that are pioneers in the recruitment of immigrants. A case study approach was adopted. The research data consist of interviews and documentary data. The data were analysed using content analysis in accordance with grounded theory.

Companies can act as an enabling force in the integration of immigrants into the local labour market, especially when the company’s value basis extends beyond only economic values.

The study was conducted only in two case companies in Finland.

Companies have the potential to affect local people’s attitudes towards immigrants as workers. This is important because many western societies are likely to face a labour shortage in the future due to the ageing population and low birth rate.

Prior research has mostly investigated the topic from the viewpoints of the immigrants themselves and of policy makers. The value of this study is that it makes the employers’ viewpoint visible. The dominant theories applied in the field of immigrant recruitment are inadequate to explain employers’ behaviour because of their underlying assumption of the overwhelming importance of economic values in decision making.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise how the chief executive officer (CEO) and chairperson of the board (Chair) construct their relationship through their leadership practices, and to analyse the meaning of these practices to the relationship. An empirical investigation from both partners’ viewpoint is conducted.

The data were gathered through in-depth interviews with 16 CEOs and 16 chairpersons from the same companies. Content analysis was used to analyse the data.

Four types of leadership practices in the CEO-Chair relationship were conceptualised: emergent practices on company- and person-related issues, and scheduled practices on company- and person-related issues. For the effectiveness of the relationship, emergent practices on company-related issues seem to be most important.

The basing of the analysis on interviewees’ descriptions rather than on the observation of leadership practices in action can be considered a limitation.

Knowledge of leadership practices in the CEO-Chair relationship and their meaning to the relationship can be utilised in leadership training.

This research contributes to the relational leadership literature by highlighting a specific leadership relationship, the CEO-Chair relationship, from both partners’ viewpoint. Additionally, the value of the study is that it shows that the CEO-Chair relationship is more multifaceted than traditionally assumed in prior literature.

This article aims to report the findings of a study of the effect of a women's Master of Business Administration (MBA) programme in Finland called the femaleMBA on the development of women's management competencies. The gendered nature of the competency development was also analyzed.

A qualitative interview study was conducted with 20 women who completed the programme. Content analysis was used to analyze the data.

In addition to improving the women's business competencies and their mastery of management language, the programme contributed to the creation of a clearer managerial identity, greater assertiveness, and increased credibility in a managerial role. The development of management competencies was shown to be gendered in varying ways. An all-women learning environment was experienced as a safe and supportive social context for development.

Only a specifically women's MBA was studied. The topic should also be studied in a mixed MBA group.

MBAs should pay systematic attention to the informal and social learning context. A combination of “masculinity” and “femininity” might be worth taking into consideration when all-women management development programmes are planned and conducted. This study suggests that an all-women group in an MBA has the potential to challenge and even transform participants' ideas and assumptions about the dominance of masculinity in management and to increase their understanding of the importance of femininity in management.

A gender angle on research into management development and particularly MBAs is very rare. This study shed light on the topic by showing that competency development in MBAs is not, as is often assumed, gender neutral but gendered.