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This qualitative case study explores how situated rationality is achieved and maintained between two coexisting institutional logics, ‘global’ financial efficiency and ‘local’ customer-owners, around a performance measurement system in a large cooperative bank. We focus especially on the relationship between financial performance measures and softer, cooperative and communal organisational values. The results highlight that communal values may be effectively used to smooth and manage managerial contradictions; thus, situated rationality for operations can be achieved and maintained. This may also explain the resilience and success of communal values and cooperatively formed organisations in markets, even though the efficiency of such organisations is sometimes doubted. This also indicates the potential of alternative, more responsible and moderate modes of banking and finance for healing some of the problems of an extreme style of capitalism. peerReviewed

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Conference paper. Presented in the EIASM 5th Workshop on trust within and between organizations, Jan 28-29, 2010, Madrid, Spain peerReviewed

The development of value networks is regarded as a necessity for achieving agility in global markets. Nowadays the focal companies often state that they are committing to more in-depth partnerships with selected suppliers, which are given more responsibility over both production and R&D. In this article we study the relationship of one focal company with its suppliers and identify the main concerns regarding governance and cooperation within the studied supply network in relation with the focal company’s strategy to enhance its innovative capabilities and ensure capacity in its supplier network. By analyzing the network relationships from three differing vantage points (the focal company, the supply companies, and the venture capitalists) we present three most challenging issues in the development of partnerships within the strategic context. peerReviewed

The aim of the dissertation is to advance our knowledge and understanding related to the internationalization processes of the Finnish forest industry companies by answering the following questions in which, it is considered, the internationalization of business activities plays an important role: how has it been possible for a group of once small companies operating from a small and remote country to rise into such prominent positions within the forest industry internationally? And: by which means have the remaining companies come to be what they are today? The thesis consists of three parts: 1) an introductory essay, laying down the frame of reference of the study, 2) three articles, each of which approaches the phenomenon studied from different viewpoint, and 3) discussion and reflection synthesizing the contributions of the three articles included in the dissertation. The main arguments of the study are interrelated. It is argued that 1) due to internationalization processes' multifaceted and complex nature it is necessary to approach the subject from multiple perspectives, and to utilize multiple levels of analysis to enable holistic representation and analysis of the phenomenon, and 2) due to its complex processual nature, internationalization is best approached by adopting a longitudinal research strategy to its analysis. Thus, the starting point of the study is discontent with much of the recent IB research with its ever-narrowing focus and static approaches. The results of the dissertation highlight the importance of the mid-1990s as a watershed in the orientation of the Finnish forest industry firms' international involvement strategy. Prior to the mid-1990s the process was characterized by small steps in order to accumulate experiential knowledge of international operations, later to be replaced by spectacular mergers and international acquisitions, resulting in the three remaining companies that have reached mature stage of internationalization with operations in dozens of countries. Millä keinoilla alkujaan pienet, syrjäisestä Suomesta ponnistaneet metsäteollisuusyhtiöt ovat kyenneet nousemaan nykyisiin asemiinsa maailmanlaajuisesti merkittävinä metsäteollisuustoimijoina? Pasi Sajasalo tarkastelee väitöskirjassaan tämän suomalaisittain tärkeän toimialan keskeisten yhtiöiden kehitystä viimeksi kuluneiden parin vuosikymmenen aikana ja tulee siihen johtopäätökseen, että yhtiöiden strategian muutoksella 90-luvun puolivälissä on ollut ratkaiseva merkitys. Suomalaisten metsäteollisuusyhtiöiden kansainvälistymisstrategia on muovautunut voimien ja vastavoimien puristuksessa monimutkaisen prosessin seurauksena. Kansainvälistymiskehityksen leimallinen piirre on ollut liiketoiminnan hallitsevien toimintatapojen murros toisaalta toimialan kilpailuympäristön muutosten, toisaalta yhtiöiden strategisten valintojen seurauksena.

Both the management and decisionmaking in municipal organizations may be characterized as tensional. Previous scholarly work has tried to identify (cf. Haveri, 2010; Luomala, 2003) and solve (Pynnönen, 2015) some of the sources of tensions. In this empirical study we focus on the orientations of political decision-makers and office-holders towards preparation in municipal decision-making in a relatively large municipal organization. According to our findings, both politicians and office-holders resort to the principles of new public management (NPM) including management accounting ratiocentered functional planning, but also to more subjective, value and attitude-based metaphorical symbolic planning in their preparation of decision-making. While for office-holders functional planning seems to be the dominant orientation, politicians, instead seem to display tendency to resort to more symbolic planning orientation. peerReviewed

The future is uncertain, but what is certain is that we can make sense of the future through our ‘antenarratives’. In this study, I shed light on prospective sensemaking and apply the concept of antenarrative as a framework to identify how strategy practitioners make sense of AI projects. The empirical case organization is a large Finnish financial organization that aims to be a digital leader. The case organization is currently developing and implementing AI in its business operations, a recent and emerging wave in the financial business sector. Following a thematic analysis, the narratives that seem to either reflect positive (that promote) or negative (that impede) changes were examined. The results are twofold: practitioners ‘normalize change’ and ‘make meaning’ as positive prospective sensemaking, while as negative prospective sensemaking practitioners reflected on their ‘capability challenges’ and ‘dilemmas’. peerReviewed