Making Sense of After‐School Care Dilemmas in Mothers' Stories of After‐School Care in Finland and Sweden

The study focuses on dilemmas in storied experiences of everyday after‐school care arrangements among Swedish and Finnish mothers. Finland and Sweden, which share a history of strong labour market attachment among women, arrange institutional after‐school care in similar ways. The data consist of interviews with three Swedish and six Finnish mothers. A positioning analysis of four stories shows how decisions related to children's after‐school hours were allocated among different actors. Two reoccurring dilemmas, Competent‐dependent child stories and Unburdened‐deficient mother stories, emerged from the data analysis as related to prevailing moral discourses on childhood and motherhood.     

Organizational and supervisory justice effects on experienced threat during change: The moderating role of leader in-group representativeness

We explore the complex interplay between organizational justice and supervisory justice when predicting group members' threat perceptions in a context of organizational change. Based on the assumptions of relational models of procedural justice and prior research done in the multifoci justice framework, we hypothesize that the extent to which a supervisor is seen to embody and represent key in-group attributes will moderate the interaction between the supervisor's own interactional justice and the overall organizational procedural justice. Specifically, organizational justice is expected to decrease employees' feelings of threat particularly when the supervisor treats group members fairly and is perceived to be in-group representative rather than non-representative. We found support for this hypothesis across two studies, a cross-sectional survey and a scenario experiment. The findings confirm the particularly powerful role that an in-group representative leader's interactional fairness has in managing group members' responses to fundamental organizational processes. The implications for further research and practice are discussed.     

Transition to Work: Effects of Preparedness and Goal Construction on Employment and Depressive Symptoms

This study examines the mediating role of employment preparedness in improving employment, mental health, and construction of work‐life goals among young vocational school graduates who participated in the School‐to‐Work effectiveness trial. The trial included a 1‐week intervention program that focused on enhancing employment preparedness. In this trial, 416 graduates of secondary vocational institutes were randomized into a control and experimental group. All the study participants were assessed at baseline, immediately after the intervention, and 10 months later. The results showed that the School‐to‐Work intervention increased employment preparedness, which in turn increased employment at the 10‐month follow‐up. Furthermore, employment predicted work‐life‐related personal goals and lower financial strain, which in turn was associated with lower depressive symptoms. The implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Looking into the ‘black box’ – unlocking the effect of integration on acquisition performance

Extending research on the performance of Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As), this paper seeks to explain how the post-acquisition integration phase affects acquisition performance. Despite extensive research efforts, there remains a scant understanding of how acquisition implementation, particularly in the post-acquisition integration phase, impacts the performance of M&As. Based on an extensive study of eight acquisitions, in this paper, a grounded model detailing the mechanisms by which the post-acquisition integration phase affects acquisition performance is developed. The model posits that integration-related factors do not bear directly upon acquisition performance. Instead, their effect is mediated by functional organizations in both firms. When focusing into these functional mediating dynamics, we observe that integration-related processual, behavioral and cultural factors affect the identified functional mediators in different ways. Going forward, we echo calls for integrated perspectives to the study of M&A and M&A performance in particular.     

Types of Temporary Employment: An 8-Year Follow-Up of Labour Market Attachment

This study aimed to find out how heterogeneous temporary employment is reflected in later labour market attachment. Using data from Finnish Quality of Work Life Surveys in 1990, 1997 and 2003 merged with an 8-year register follow-up, we compared permanent workers with three categories of temporary employees: substitutes, common fixed-term (e.g. project workers), and periphery (seasonal, on-call, temporary agency and employment subsidy) workers. First, we applied sequence analysis to identify the main activities at the end of each follow-up year for all employees with permanent and temporary contracts. On this basis, we formed six typical employment sequence clusters. Second, we performed multinomial logistic regression to find out whether there are statistically significant differences between temporary and permanent employees in terms of how they are divided between the sequence clusters. Four in five permanent employees were in stable employment over the following 8 years, compared to only two in five temporary periphery workers. The corresponding proportion for substitute workers was 70% and for common fixed-term workers 64%. Compared to permanent workers, those in common fixed-term or periphery temporary employment were more likely to become unemployed, whereas substitute workers were not. Our major finding is that periphery employment clearly increases the risk of being edged out of the labour market through retirement, especially on disability pension.     

Critical Aspects of Organizational Learning Research and Proposals for Its Measurement

Based on an extensive literature review, this paper reveals several gaps in organizational learning (OL) research that need filling before we can really talk about a theory of organizational learning or verify the traits and very existence of learning organizations (LO) as a phenomenon. The critique, however, is not targeted at any single model or theory of organizational learning, but at theory building, which constantly drifts away with new definitions and approaches that break up rather than construct a theory. Despite the fact that numerous consultation tools for turning organizations into learning models have been developed and applied, the concept of organizational learning itself still remains vague and there is an urgent need for a holistic model of OL. Too much emphasis is put on studying the learning of individuals instead of concentrating on the learning of organizations. Since the theory is highly dispersed and does not really build on earlier findings, rich empirical studies are needed in order to validate measures of organizational learning. Modelling of the organizational learning process and clarification of how learning of individuals is turned into learning of organizations is needed. This paper introduces one set of OL measures developed to study whether organizational learning occurred during the operational and business culture change process of a single case company. Suggestions for further OL research are made on the basis of experiences gained when empirically testing this model.     

Responsibility in Home–School Relations — Finnish Parents' Views

Finnish parents' views on responsibility in the home–school relations were explored. Responsibility was here understood as responsibility over education and upbringing. The data consist of semi‐structured interviews with 24 mothers and four fathers. In the home–school discourses, parents and teachers were often referred to as partners, and active parental involvement in school life was seen as a key to children's success. However, in some discourses teachers and parents were seen as polar opposites, e.g. teachers as experts — parents as laymen. Few references were made to children's responsibility.     

The business ecosystem concept in innovation policy context: building a conceptual framework

The aim of this conceptual paper is to explore the business ecosystem concept in innovation policy context, and question whether it has something new to bring to the innovation policy field compared to previous theoretical discussions. A comparative study was conducted where three widely utilized policy approaches were examined together with the business ecosystem concept. The ecosystem concept differs from the three approaches, for example, in its evolving around innovation, and its self-organizing and self-renewing nature. This paper sets a conceptual basis for further empirical research concerning the innovation policy implications of the business ecosystem concept.     

Improving the Well-Being and Safety of Children with Sensors and Mobile Technology

The well-being and safety of children and young people are important aspects in all contexts of everyday life. In particular, a feeling of insecurity might be a problem when being alone. Bullying is also common among school-age children and teenagers. Hence, there is a great need for personalized support systems to resolve these problems. This article describes a new area of research in sensor and social web development to help indicate children’s insecurity in their daily environment. Deeper integration of sensors and the social web would allow us to foresee drastic changes in communities and new social–ethical scenarios will emerge.