Customer knowledge sharing in cross-border mergers and acquisitions: The role of customer motivation and promise management

Knowledge is a vital source of competitive advantage and renewal for contemporary organizations. However, to date, few studies have scrutinized how mergers and acquisitions (M&As)—processes dependent on knowledge sharing—offer a valuable inter-organizational context through which to understand the attainment of customer knowledge sharing following M&As. Applying an integrated theoretical perspective from customer relationship management and M&A performance research, we study a Chinese–Finnish acquisition and customer firms of the acquired party across four advanced Western countries. We find that customer knowledge sharing is an active relationship management process that relies on the factors of customer dedication-based motivation vs. customer concerns about M&As to maintain relationships after acquisitions. In addition, and more importantly, we find that the promise management mechanisms—making promises, enabling promises, and keeping promises—of the M&A parties reinforce the motivational factors to maintain customer knowledge sharing in cross-border M&As. We propose a conceptual framework of customer knowledge sharing in cross-border M&As.     

How young people perceive factors that support or prevent understanding between worldviews: perspectives of Finnish lower secondary school pupils

This paper investigated Finnish youth’s perceptions on what supports or prevents understanding between people holding different worldviews, especially religious and non-religious ones. A survey using projective, open-ended questions was conducted examining factors that enhance or damage inter-worldview dialogue among Finnish lower secondary school students (N = 563). The data was analysed using qualitative content analysis. Abu-Nimer’s developmental model of interreligious sensitivity was used as a theoretical framework, but data-driven categories were also created. First, pupils thought of reasons why somebody would wish that religions did not exist. Four categories were created: atheism, confusion about religious expressions, problems related to one’s own worldview, or problems in social interaction. Second, pupils reflected on why somebody would be reluctant to share things about his/her faith. The most important feature addressed here was social deviance, either fear of it or its consequences or actual experiences. Third, pupils suggested ways to create a culture of peaceful dialogue. Most responses referred to changes in attitudes or different kinds of social interaction.     

Number of children and later-life mortality among Finns born 1938–50

We investigated the association between number of offspring and later-life mortality of Finnish men and women born 1938–50, and whether the association was explained by living conditions in own childhood and adulthood, chronic conditions, fertility timing, and unobserved characteristics common to siblings. We used a longitudinal 1950 census sample to estimate mortality at ages 50–72. Relative to parents of two children, all-cause mortality is highest among childless men and women, and elevated among those with one child, independently of observed confounders. Fixed-effect models, which control for unobserved characteristics shared by siblings, clearly support these findings among men. Cardiovascular mortality is higher among men with no, one, or at least four children than among those with two. Living conditions in adulthood contribute to the association between the number of children and mortality to a greater extent than childhood background, and chronic conditions contribute to the excess mortality of the childless.     

Perceived barriers to accessing health services among people with disabilities in rural northern Namibia

People living with disabilities (PWD) face unique problems in dealing with conventional healthcare facilities. We investigate the experiences of PWD as they access healthcare facilities in rural Namibia. More specifically, we investigate structural–environmental and process barriers to accessing health facilities. The study relied on semi-structured interviews and purposive sampling. The results showed PWD find it difficult to walk to health centers for treatment due to lack of transport, money to pay for treatment and toilet facilities and the distance is too far for people with lower-limb disabilities. There is a need to consider the unique issues affecting access to healthcare for people living with disabilities to achieve equitable access to healthcare services.     

The Ambiguity of Return Migration: Prolonged Crisis and Uncertainty in the Life Strategies of Young Romanian and Latvian Returnees

Drawing on qualitative research, this study endeavours to identify the determinants of return migration of young Romanians and Latvians in light of the most recent global economic crisis (GEC). The decision-making patterns of young returnees are examined by three main research questions. How do macro-events, such as the GEC, interfere with individual biographies creating specific return experiences? What can we say about the “crisis returnees”, their migration motivations and re-adaptation in the origin country? What are the main challenges of young adults facing life strategies in such uncertain periods? Data are drawn from 51 in-depth interviews with Romanian and Latvian young adults, carried out in late 2015 and early 2016. Findings show that return migration is associated with economic conditions, family life, feelings of homesickness, and re-adaptation experiences. Our results also confirm that youth transitions and migration have become more diversified and complex in the context of the economic crisis.     

A Stain on the White Uniform — The Discursive Construction of Nurses' Industrial Action in the Media

This article focuses on the discursive construction of the nursing profession in the context of an industrial action. Drawing on studies that claim that the diffusion of new public management reforms restructure healthcare professions and on feminist studies arguing that gender is crucial to understanding the concepts and processes of this restructuring, the article examines a media debate surrounding a recent labour dispute in the Finnish healthcare sector. The analysis illustrates how the nursing profession was discursively constructed through a negotiation of individual and societal rights and responsibilities, and how the debate was framed by competing and contested discourses of professionalization, caring, labour markets and new public management. As a consequence, the debate both sustained and reproduced the traditional gendered meanings related to the nursing profession, as well as provided a context for unsettling, at least for a moment, the normative gender order of Finnish society.     

Single and double sexual standards in Finland,Estonia, and St. Petersburg

The sexual revolution and fight for gender equality began in the West during the 1960s but did not reach the Soviet Union until the late 1980s. Using survey data from nationally representative samples from Finland in 1971, 1992, and 1999 and from two former Soviet areas, Estonia in 2000 and St. Petersburg in 1996, we investigated the following: (a) differences across decades and countries in acceptance of the sexual double standard (SDS) in attitudes toward marital infidelity and women's initiating sex; and (b) the relationship between the SDS and sexual satisfaction. Results show that Finland in the 1990s was more egalitarian than Finland in 1971, St. Petersburg in 1996, or Estonia in 2000. Egalitarian sexual attitudes were positively related to sexual satisfaction.