This study focuses on knowledge workers’ experiences of high performance, and whether there can be found evidence of self-management in those experiences. In previous researches, there has been found that self-management practices can result in higher performance by increasing motivation, organizational engagement and satisfaction with their work. At workplace, employees are able to utilize the process of self-management to pursue their goals more effectively. Some of these goals are set by the organization, in which case the employee can optimize their strategies for ensuring their possibilities to achieve the goals. The employee can also set personal goals regarding their reputation or status at work, regarding their career advancement, or their development in specific skills. The aim of this study was to examine, if implementing self-management practices in employees’ work activities can improve their task performance. This was studied with a phenomenological approach by analyzing the participants’ descriptions of their experiences of high performance. The descriptions were collected through a written interview from employees, who had relevant experience from different knowledge working positions. The results were in line with previous researches about self-management; there was evidence that reducing control-oriented management orientation and including self-management practices in workplace can result in higher performance of knowledge workers. Circumstances of the work task, the work environment, and personal sovereignty and attitudes were the themes that arose from the participants’ answers as having an effect on their performance. Participants also stated, that the experience of high performance has a positive effect on their future work tasks. These findings contribute to the discussion of which kind of management orientation can be used to enhance performance of the employees, and therefore, the whole organization. Managers can utilize these findings about the positive effect of self-management in their organizations to improve the performance of their subordinates. Because the participants in this study were Finnish knowledge workers, these findings can confidently be generalized only to employees from similar cultures than in Finland. More research is needed on validation of these findings to other cultures, industries, and different personalities.

The research focuses on the fields of Born Globals and networks. The aim of the research is to explore the phenomena, unify preceding research on the topic and set ground for future, more in-depth research. This is achieved by finding out how Born Global companies benefit from networks in their early stages. The study is qualitative and conducted as a literature review on academic journals on the field of International Business. The findings of the study are that the nature of the Born Global companies’ environment poses constraints to the internationalization of the firms, and networks can help overcoming them. The conclusions of the study are that Born Globals face the following key constraints in their early stages: (1) Lack of financial and knowledge resources, (2) Lack of economies of scale and (3) Aversion to risk-taking; and that networks help Born Global companies to overcome them by providing access to both financial and knowledge resources, thus enabling them to spend less time on risky development phases. Networks also help by providing Born Global companies legitimacy in the eyes of foreign actors, thus making them attractive as partners.

Tämä opinnäytetyö käisttelee startup-yrityksiä ja niitä tekijöitä, mitkä ohjaavat startup-yrityksen strategista suunnittelua. Startup-yritykset ovat epävarmoissa olosuhteissa toimivia, skaalautuvaa liiketoimintaa etsiviä yrityksiä. Opinnäytetyö käy läpi startup-yritysten skaalautuvaan liiketoimintaan liittyviä haasteita, niin yrityksen sisäisiä tekijöitä kuin myös ulkoisia tekijöitä. Tutkimuksessa avataan myös strategiaa käsitteenä sekä peilataan startup-yrityksen käytössä olevia strategisia vaihtoehtoja olemassaolevaan strategiakirjallisuuteen.

This thesis explores the strategy and its management at the University of Oulu in relation to the political and legal guidance. Conflicting interests inside the organization are also examined. In order to combine both internal and external pressure mechanisms on strategic management and performance measurement, the institutional perspective is needed. Neoinstitutional theory with mechanisms of institutional isomorphism provide framework for understanding what pressure mechanisms affect the most on universities as an organization. In strategic management, attention is also paid to how the strategy is implemented and how the strategic performance is monitored in case university. Thesis is executed as qualitative case study which aims to describe how the external pressure mechanisms for institutional isomorphism a) materialize in the strategic management and b) reflect on the performance measurement criteria of University of Oulu. The analysis was primarily based on three managerial documents. Complementing information was acquired through interviewing the person responsible for these managerial documents, university intranet and official publications. The analysis was carried out as theory-grounded content analysis. The data was coded in theory-based categories: coercive / regulative, mimetic / cultural-cognitive and normative. As a result of analysis it can be stated that institutional isomorphism is materialized in the case of University of Oulu through all three aforementioned mechanisms. The coercive features are based on University law, MCE funding criteria, MCE performance agreement and other laws or regulations. The mimetic features are related to organization structure, management frameworks, monitoring systems and other things, for example profiling. The normative features are rooted in academic profession, social obligations, recruiting and accreditation. The most visible finding regarding the performance measurement were a) strong influence of coercive mechanism through MCE funding criteria, which shows as almost complete copying of funding criteria to be used as performance measurement indicators in strategic management b) the need to further develop the PM system. The findings of this study are from many parts in accordance with previous studies utilizing the same framework in university context and are considered reliable. However further conclusions about how the institutional isomorphism influences other universities’ strategic management and performance measurement cannot be drawn based on this case study. Thus more research is needed on how the universities form, implement and monitor their strategies under the effect of different external and internal pressures.

Tutkielman tavoitteena oli selvittää, miten kasvavan ohjelmistoyrityksen johtaminen muuttuu kansainvälistymisen myötä. Tarkastelukohteena olivat erityisesti pienet- ja keskisuuret ohjelmistoyritykset ja tutkielma tarjoaa kattavan kehitysmallin sille, kuinka haastattelemani johtohenkilöt näkevät johtamisen muuttuneen aikaisempaa verkostoituneemman ja kansainvälistyneemmän maailman myötä. Tutkielmassa on haluttu tarkastella johtamisen kehittymistä erityisesti tilanteessa, jossa yritys on kasvanut ja kansainvälistynyt nopeasti. Kulttuurin ja erilaisten tapojen vaikutus ohjaa johtamisessa tapahtuvia muutoksia ja vastuun hajauttaminen vaatii yrityksen johtohenkilöltä tarkkaa visiota siitä, mihin ja miten toimintaa halutaan kehittää ja tehostaa. Vision jalkauttaminen läpi organisaatiorakenteen vaatii johdolta pitkäjänteistä ja systemaattista työtä, joka on elintärkeää, kun halutaan saavuttaa toimiva yrityskulttuuri kaikille toiminta-alueille. Muutoksen johtaminen ja yrityksen sisäisen viestinnän tehostaminen kuuluvat myös tärkeinä osa-alueina modernin johtajan arkeen.

<p> This qualitative research utilized grounded theory methodology to generate a theory for understanding why companies have incorporated corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and to identify the impact of CSR on organizations that have implemented the practices. The focus was on understanding the perspective of employees who work directly in CSR departments for employers who practice CSR. A central factor in the research was to discover how employees dealt with the reality of why companies incorporated CSR and the impacts on the organization. The employees&rsquo; experience demonstrated employers often utilized CSR to generate new business, maintain existing business, present positive images to general public, enrich workplace culture and sustain environmental compliance. </p><p> This study used semi-structured one-on-one interviews with employees who worked in CSR departments for employers who practiced CSR. Interview participants were recruited through both opportunity and snowball sampling. Opportunity sampling occurred by posting the &ldquo;posting to participate&rdquo; on the researcher&rsquo;s LinkedIn profile and other social media groups and networks related to CSR. Snowball sampling occurred through the request in the &ldquo;posting to participate&rdquo; that asked viewers to forward the invitation to those they believed would be interested in taking part in the study. KEY WORDS: corporate social responsibility (CSR), grounded theory, internal CSR, external CSR, doing right, employees, business intent, business driven, need, donate, giving back, society, responsibility</p><p>

<p> The inadequacy of entrepreneurial knowledge among 21-25 year olds in Nigeria with recent undergraduate degrees has led to youth unemployment after graduating from universities. The development of entrepreneurship skills through entrepreneurship education programs for the students in tertiary institutions in Nigeria may bridge the unemployment gap. Guided by the theory of planned behavior, the purpose of this exploratory multiple case study was to gain a robust common understanding of how undergraduates from 21-25 years old can obtain the entrepreneurial knowledge required for self-employment in Nigeria. Data collection involved semistructured interviews, field notes, and archived training documents, with a purposeful sample of 15 undergraduate degree holders over 21 years old, who had been self-employed, in different industries and possessed entrepreneurial knowledge and experiences. Using Yin&rsquo;s 5 step data analysis process, member checking, and triangulation resulted in the emergence of codes, themes, and categories. The key themes were knowledge of business management, identification of business opportunities, information from workshop and seminars, information from social media and customer service, information on innovation, and mentor and mentee relationship. The findings from this study provide the empirical evidence needed to support entrepreneurship education as well as insight on tertiary institutions&rsquo; commitment to entrepreneurship education that may lead to the creation of employment and empowers entrepreneurs towards national growth and development. The implications for positive social change include reshaping the way undergraduates prepare for self-employment, leading to a reduction of unemployment among youths in Nigeria.</p><p>

En gestion de projet, comme dans les autres disciplines de gestion, l'implication est un élément clé dans l'atteinte des objectifs. Une revue de la littérature permet de constater l'existence d'un grand nombre d'articles traitant de la gestion de projet et des critères de succès qui y sont rattachés, mais également de l'implication des membres d'une équipe et des différences culturelles dans le cas d’équipes multiculturelles. C'est donc au cours de ces recherches que les questions suivantes se sont posées : Existe-t-il un lien entre perception de l’importance des critères de succès d’un projet et implication organisationnelle ? Existe-t-il un lien entre perception de l’importance des critères de succès d’un projet et culture ? Ou encore existe-t-il un lien entre la culture d’origine d’une personne et son implication en tant que membre d’une équipe de projet ? Ce mémoire de recherche vise ainsi à effectuer une étude exploratoire sur les liens entre perception des critères de succès, culture, et implication dans un contexte de projet au sein d’une organisation. Afin de pouvoir apporter quelques éléments de réponse à ces différentes interrogations, le chercheur a choisi d’aborder ces questions de recherche avec une approche quantitative auprès des membres de l’AIESEC (Association Internationale des Étudiants en Sciences Économiques et Commerciales) qui travaillent sur des projets durant leurs mandats. L’instrument de collecte de données est un questionnaire en ligne de 33 questions construit à partir du VSM08 d'Hofstede (2008) sur les 6 dimensions culturelles, de l’échelle de Meyer, Allen et Smith (1993) sur l’implication organisationnelle, ainsi qu’à partir d’une échelle mesurant la perception de l’importance de 9 critères de succès liés à la gestion de projet (Toor & Ogunlana, 2010). Parmi les 658 retours, seuls 131 questionnaires étaient traitables. Ainsi, l’analyse de données a permis de constater qu’il existait bel et bien des relations significatives entre les dimensions culturelles sélectionnées, les composantes de l’implication organisationnelle et la perception de l’importance des critères de succès d’un projet. Les résultats de cette recherche, bien que constituant un début de réponse sur les relations qui existent entre les variables étudiées, pourraient aider les gestionnaires de projet à adapter leur gestion d’équipe en fonction des profils des uns et des autres, et ce, dans le but d’optimiser la performance globale dudit projet.

<p> Despite much improvement over the past several decades, women continue to be underrepresented across many STEM fields. In this study, I draw upon past research to theorize that (1) there exist a substantial gender performance gap among STEM researchers and that (2) the gap is disproportionately larger among <i>star performers,</i> i.e., individuals who produce output many times greater than others holding the same job (Aguinis &amp; O&rsquo;Boyle, 2014). I then discuss how a gender performance gap specifically among star performers can be more harmful to the underrepresented group than an equivalent gap among average performers. To investigate the possible existence of such gender performance gaps, I assess the research productivity of all researchers in the fields of mathematics, materials sciences, and genetics who have published in the past decade at least one article in the most influential journals in their fields. Using the process of <i>distribution pitting</i> (Joo, Aguinis &amp; Bradley, 2017), I identify the best-fitting theoretical distributions and associated dominant generative mechanisms that shape individual performance across the three STEM fields. Assessment of the shapes of the performance distributions confirms the existence of considerable gender performance gaps in favor of men, although the gap was substantially lower in the field of genetics compared to in the others. In addition, the findings suggest that (1) individual STEM researchers vary in performance predominantly due to differences in their accumulation rates (i.e., average output produced per time period), and (2) women&rsquo;s research output accumulation rates are lower (on average) and also less variable compared to men&rsquo;s. Implications for theory and practice based on these findings are discussed.</p><p>

<p> The nonprofit sector is confronted with persistent challenges that emerging leaders in the industry may find difficult to overcome without consistent leadership development. There is a leadership gap in the nonprofit industry that is expected to increase and organizational leaders are challenged to recruit, develop, and retain qualified emergent leaders to close the gap. Leaders in the nonprofit sector are feeling pressure to increase business professionalization, improve performance and streamline operations, while sustaining the mission for which agencies exist. A cadre of professional leaders, who have a heart for serving, is required to transform nonprofit agencies to meet future demands. Transformational leaders are recognized for their capacity to successfully transform organizations from one state to another. The transformational leader is one who can effectively meet the needs of followers while simultaneously meeting the needs of the organization. The framework of transformational leadership is the most widely studied leadership construct in the literature and can be a viable framework for planning the development of emergent leaders in the nonprofit sector. This research was conducted to further the understanding of the future challenges nonprofit organizations may face and the strategies required to close the void of emerging leaders in the sector.</p><p>