Search results

Doctoral candidates possess specialized knowledge that could support sustainability transitions. Doctoral education, however, often focusses on discipline-specific topics and working methods, making it difficult to “see the bigger picture”. This summer school on wood construction gathered doctoral candidates from different fields to explore how solutions to complex sustainability issues could be found by working together across disciplines and by engaging multiple stakeholders. The purpose of this study is to report the pedagogical approaches taken and to understand whether these fostered the candidates’ ability to develop systemic solutions and professional competency.

Twenty doctoral candidates from various backgrounds participated in a two-week summer school organized by a consortium of four universities. Interdisciplinary groups worked on real-life challenges using a systemic approach to co-create tangible solutions. To support the creation of socio-technical innovations, stakeholders and experts from different fields were involved. The participants completed two questionnaires during the summer school to help elucidate their learning experiences.

The doctoral candidates showed strong willingness to cooperate across disciplines, though they found it important to connect this learning experience to their research. The candidates reported that the experience enhanced their ability to work in a multidisciplinary capacity. The experience identified a solid basis for interdisciplinary learning principles that could be replicated.

The summer school focussed on an innovative learning experience based on a systems thinking approach and the development of interdisciplinary capacity in the research-business ecosystem.

This study was conducted to address the methodical shortcomings and high associated cost of understanding the use of new, poorly understood architectural spaces, such as makerspaces. The proposed quantified method of enhancing current post-occupancy evaluation (POE) practices aims to provide architects, engineers and building professionals with accessible and intuitive data that can be used to conduct comparative studies of spatial changes, understand changes over time (such as those resulting from COVID-19) and verify design intentions after construction through a quantified post-occupancy evaluation.

In this study, we demonstrate the use of ultra-wideband (UWB) technology to gather, analyze and visualize quantified data showing interactions between people, spaces and objects. The experiment was conducted in a makerspace over a four-day hackathon event with a team of four actively tracked participants.

The study shows that by moving beyond simply counting people in a space, a more nuanced pattern of interactions can be discovered, documented and analyzed. The ability to automatically visualize findings intuitively in 3D aids architects and visual thinkers to easily grasp the essence of interactions with minimal effort.

By providing a method for better understanding the spatial and temporal interactions between people, objects and spaces, our approach provides valuable feedback in POE. Specifically, our approach aids practitioners in comparing spaces, verifying design intent and speeding up knowledge building when developing new architectural spaces, such as makerspaces.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the research question of how stakeholder claims for transparency work as a means to support responsibility in the international supply chain.

This theoretical study analyses the relationship between stakeholder claims for corporate transparency and responsible business in the global context, and develops a conceptual model for further theoretical and empirical work.

The study finds that the call for corporate transparency is insufficient as a means to increase responsibility within international supply chains. The erroneous belief that stakeholder claims for transparency will lead to responsible behaviour is identified as the “transparency fallacy”. The fallacy emerges from the denial of opacity in organisations and the blindness to the conditions of international supply chains (including complexity, distance, and resistance) that work against attempts to increase transparency.

Acknowledging the limits of the transparency mechanism in both management theory and practice is necessary in order to advance responsible business in the international arena. Being conceptual in nature, the generic limitations of the type of research apply.

While acknowledging opacity, corporate managers and stakeholders should focus on changing the supply chain conditions to support responsible behaviour. This includes reducing complexity, distance, and resistance in the supply network.

This study contests the commonly assumed link between corporate transparency and responsibility, and sheds light on the limits and unintended consequences of stakeholder attempts to impose transparency on business organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the often complex and contradictory argumentation of a spectrum of different Finnish public sector actors interviewed on the topical issue of Free/Libre Open Source (FLOSS) adoption.

The science and technology‐inspired critical discourse‐analytical approach combines insights from Billig et al. and Fairclough, with a special focus on dilemmatic aspects of socially embedded discourses. The vocabularies used to justify FLOSS implementation highlight power struggles on the level of speech.

The identified dilemmatic discourses express the continuing tension between the freedom to choose, use and develop one's desktop in the spirit of FLOSS on the one hand, and the striving for better desktop control and maintenance by it staff and user advocates on the other.

The research acts as an opening for reframing common and axiomatic knowledge on FLOSS tools.

The asymmetry between the layperson (the ordinary user) and the expert (IT staff) manifests itself in discourse in a way that calls for critical re‐evaluation of the language used in information communication technology (ICT) implementation and support. It also questions the role of pilots in ICT implementation.

The paper critically examines the often taken‐for‐granted ideals of open source software and elaborates a methodological tool for spotting power struggles on the level of speech.

This study aims to explore the influence of accounting on trust development in the context of an acquisition negotiation process at the pre-merger stage.

This study adopted a case study research method. Data have been gathered from an acquisition process of two Finnish companies through 18 semi-structured field interviews with the seller’s, the buyer’s and the merged companies’ top management and external advisors who participated in the process.

The study shows how accounting operated as a trust-building mechanism and served as a substitute for personal-based trust. Accounting assisted the negotiators to surface their initial positive beliefs about the acquisition outcome. Progressively, these positive beliefs outweighed negotiators’ initial negative beliefs regarding the acquisition process. Additionally, accounting enabled the negotiators to show risky behaviors via escalating commitment to the acquisition through ad hoc calculations and continuous discussions.

This study adds to the limited prior research examining interfirm trust and the influence of accounting on trust development during acquisition negotiations.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the risks and challenges related to the change in building construction projects to the European Union (EU) zero-energy building (nZEB) decree in the year 2020. Another goal was to create solutions to those risks and challenges.

A workshop method was chosen to gather up-to-date information from the construction cluster in Finland.

In the workshop, the main concern was the level of knowledge and know-how with all the parties working with construction projects. As an answer to this challenge, serious and substantial education in the organisations and competence requirements for designers and piloting as much as possible in the next few years was offered. Commissioning consultant was also seen as vital for nZEB project. Tight schedules and unfit project delivery systems were also seen as a risk for nZEB projects. However, modern project delivery systems were seen to be problematic in practice even if they were functional in theory.

The results of the workshop are valuable for all parties working with building construction projects in Finland and the whole EU area.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the barriers perceived by consumers to lowering their meat consumption levels and adopting a plant-based diet, which means a diet that includes mainly non-meat foods, yet it can contain both vegetarian and meat meals.

The prevalence of different barriers for following a plant-based diet is addressed, as well as consumer profiles considering socio-demographics, values and meat consumption frequencies. The data were collected in 2010 by a survey questionnaire, sent to 4,000 randomly selected Finns (response rate=47.3, n=1,890).

Different types of barriers are perceived to hinder the adoption of a plant-based diet, including meat enjoyment, eating routines, health conceptions and difficulties in preparing vegetarian foods. These barriers are strongly correlated, indicating that consumers may not make qualitative difference between different barriers. Furthermore, there are distinct socio-demographic, value and especially meat consumption frequency elements that strengthen the barrier perception, these being male gender, young age, rural residence, household type of families with children, low education, absence of a vegetarian family member or friend, valuation of traditions and wealth and high meat consumption frequency.

High meat consumption is related to many environmental and public health problems. The results call for multifaceted policy implications that should concentrate on different barriers and certain socio-demographic, value and meat eating groups. Importantly, focus should be not only on the group with the strongest barrier perception but also on those particularly willing to make changes in their meat consumption patterns. One practical implication could be to increase the availability of vegetarian foods in public cafeterias or school canteens, as a decrease in meat consumption frequency is strongly correlated with the alleviation of the barrier perception.

Information about differences in socio-demographics, values and meat consumption frequencies between consumers provide opportunities for focussing policy actions to aid the adoption of a plant-based diet.

Organizations are continually improving their practices to improve operational performance. They already employ Lean Manufacturing techniques (LM) to reduce unnecessary waste. Industry 4.0 techniques enhance operational performance in association with LM. Despite the proven benefits of LM principles and the advancements offered by Industry 4.0 technologies, many organizations struggle to integrate these approaches effectively. This research paper explores how LM principles can be combined with Industry 4.0 technologies to provide valuable guidance for businesses looking to adopt lean automation strategies.

A systematic literature review on LM and Industry 4.0 was done to investigate the possible technical integration of both methods. Ninety-two articles are extracted systematically from the Scopus and Web of Science databases. This study states a systematic literature review, including quantitative analysis of bibliographic networks and cluster analysis, to identify emergent ideas and their further implementation.

The research findings highlight the positive impact of integrating lean production with Industry 4.0 techniques, benefiting organizations in achieving their goals. A lean automation integration framework is proposed based on the literature review and the findings.

This study provides industry administrators and practitioners valuable guidance for enhancing organizational productivity. These implications can provide businesses with competitive advantages, enhance customer satisfaction, and enable them to adapt to the dynamic demands of the contemporary business environment.

This literature review study has substantially contributed to the technological integration of lean and Industry 4.0. The work has also identified potential emerging areas that warrant further research.