Making data openly accessible and how to utilize data are becoming increasingly clear in business development. Therefore, succeeding in it can allow a tremendous competitive advantage in the tourism market. The previous research has been lacking to show how tourism enterprises and regions can utilize open data in their favor. In this study, the implementation and the use of open data, and its interconnectedness to sustainable tourism development in Finland, are scrutinized. Visit Finland’s nationally launched open database is used as a case to examine the phenomenon. The study relies on qualitative methods using semi-structured interviews, interviewing tourism businesses, and regional tourism organizations, who meet the criteria of early adopters, following Rogers's diffusion of innovations theory. The study is to explore what both groups think of the advantages, disadvantages, facilitators, and hindrances of the implementation and the usage of the open database along with how they see its linkages to sustainable tourism development. The findings show that the overall perception of launching an open national database is affirmative. The significance of resource management, communication, and collaboration in succeeding in the implementation of the open database is highlighted in the results. The study shows that the diffusion of innovations is a fitting framework for understanding adaptation processes in terms of this kind of innovation. The linkages between open data and openness as a culture with sustainable development shall be made much more clearly, as they are linked; however, people do not often know how. The collaboration between tourism actors through organizational level management needs to be adequately navigated by increased awareness through communication. This way, the value of investing in open data can be perceived, and thus, the challenge of continuousness, which is a challenge of diffusion, can be overcome, and direct and indirect gains can be received by tourism stakeholders. The adaptation climate is favorable by accelerated competition in the global tourism market due to COV19, thereby urging tourism actors to take the digitalization leap. The study shows how all comes down to people and their management of change. Behind every technological appliance, there are people whose shoes must step in order to understand the diffusion.

Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur svenska respektive finska gymnasieelever upplever hälsoundervisningens innehåll och hur de självskattat sina kunskaper om hälsa. Den tidigare forskningen kritiserar idrottsämnet för att innehålla ett för ensidigt innehåll och perspektiv på hälsa. En markant skillnad mellan den svenska och den finska hälsoundervisningen är att idrotts- och hälsoundervisningen är uppdelade i två ämnen i den finska skolan. En annan skillnad i tidigare forskning är att de finska elevernas föräldrar generellt anser att ansvaret för hälsoundervisningen, ligger lika mycket på hemmet som på skolan. Studien genomfördes meden kvantitativ enkätundersökning som datainsamlingsmetod, där 218 elever deltog. Enkätens resultat signifikanstestades sedan i SPSS genom chi2 test. Studiens resultat visade att de finska eleverna hade bättre självskattade kunskaper om hälsa och upplevde att undervisningen innehöll mer hälsa än de svenska eleverna upplevde att deras undervisningen innehöll. Resultatet styrker påståendet om att den svenska hälsoundervisningen kan ha ett för stort fokus på det fysiska perspektivet på hälsa och för lite utrymme för de andra perspektiven på hälsa (det psykiska och det sociala perspektivet). Vissa av de finska eleverna upplevde till och med hälsa som något som enbart innefattar ett psykiskt eller socialt perspektiv, utan någon form av koppling till ett fysiskt perspektiv. Avslutningsvis verkar Sveriges och Finlands olika uppdelning av ämnena idrott och hälsa ha betydelse för hur elever upplever sin hälsoundervisnings innehåll och hur de självskattar sina kunskaper om hälsa.

Ju fler skakiga rapporter som levereras angående den svenska marknaden, desto fler blickar riktasmot öst. Den finska fastighetsmarknaden är idag hetare än någonsin och många svenska aktörerväljer att resa över Östersjön för att ta del av tillväxten. Den här uppsatsen syftar dock till attundersöka de mindre fastighetsutvecklarna som sedan tidigare befinner sig på finsk mark. Fokuskommer att ligga på hur små och medelstora privata utvecklare finansierar sina projekt och vilkeninställning de har till de eventuella alternativa finansieringsalternativ som finns tillgängliga idagsläget.Information har hämtats från fem stycken intervjuer, varav fyra har genomförts med representanterfrån olika små och medelstora bolag vars huvudverksamhet är fastighetsutveckling. Den femteintervjun genomfördes med en marknadsanalytiker för att få en helhetsbild av marknaden.Undersökningen har givit ett varierat resultat där den gemensamma nämnaren för samtliga bolag ärbankfinansiering. Bankens generositet som finansiär gentemot de olika bolagen varierar och detfinansiella gap som uppstår tvingar bolagen att hitta egna kreativa lösningar när det egna kapitaletinte räcker till för att täcka gapet. De egna modellerna innefattar ofta externa investerare med dyravillkor. Utöver de finansieringslösningar som nu nyttjas finns det i dagsläget inga tillgängligaattraktiva alternativ. Inställningen till nya lösningar är dock mycket positiv och majoriteten tror attbankens roll kommer att minska i framtiden. / As the Swedish real estate market is getting shakier, investors tend to look east to find betteralternatives. Many investors travel across the Baltic sea to get into the blooming Finnish real estatemarket. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the local Finnish small and medium sized realestate developers raise funds for development projects and their perception of alternatives totraditional sources of funds.The information has been gathered from five interviews, four of them with representatives fromsmall to medium-sized companies with real estate development as their core business and the fifthinterview with a market analyst to get a comprehensive picture of the Finnish real estate market. Theresults are varied but one common denominator for the companies which participated in theinterview is that they receive most of their funding from the bank sector. The size of funding thecompanies receive from banks differs and is not always sufficient to cover the funding requirementsfor a project. The companies are expected to use equity to cover the financial gap but in somesituations this is not possible. This fosters companies to invent creative solutions to cover thefinancial gap that often involve external investors and expensive terms. There are sparse alternativesapart from the methods used today and this is probably why the common perception amongst thecompanies is to welcome new forms of funding as they all expect that the banks will play a smallerrole when raising funds in the future.

Over the past decades, investing and saving in mutual funds has become a popular alternativefor generating returns. Interest continues to grow and is widespread among different types ofinvestors, ranging from small-scale savers to professional investors, as well as differentgeographic markets. As interest and investment has grown, so has the range of fundsavailable, and with it the range of focused funds. Among these are real estate funds, fundsconsisting of holdings in the real estate market including different types of real estatecompanies and property-related assets. The ownership of funds is associated with a fee to cover various costs associated withoperating the fund. These fees can vary greatly in size across fund types and managers andaffect the fund’s performance and returns. Fees in relation to return have been researchedwith varying results and with the rise of focused funds, the authors felt that it should befurther investigated. The purpose of this study was thus formulated to investigate whetherthere is a relationship between fund fees and returns for real estate funds. This in turn toanswer whether it is justified for fund managers to charge a higher fee and to examine if theTheory of an Efficient Market holds or not. For this, a total sample of 69 real estate fundsfrom the Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish markets during a 3 year period from 1th of January2020 to the 31th of December 2022 was examined. In summary, based on the conducted regression analyses, it can be inferred that the results,similar to previous research, vary. However, it can be observed that there is a negativerelationship between fund fees and the risk-adjusted returns of real estate funds whenanalysing funds that have been active throughout the examined period. The analyses alsoreveal that the age and size of the funds have an impact on the risk-adjusted returns, whereyounger funds with large assets generate higher returns. This means that young real estatefunds with large assets and lower fees generate higher returns compared to older funds withsmall assets and higher fees. Consequently, it is not justified for managers to charge higherfees, nor for investors to pay them. Investors seeking to maximise their returns are thereforeadvised to choose real estate funds with low fees. Finally, based on this, it can be assumedthat the Theory of Efficient Markets holds for real estate funds in the Swedish, Norwegian,and Finnish markets.

The primary objective of this thesis is to conduct a comparative analysis of Sweden'slegislation, that criminalizes the purchase of sexual services, with Finland's laws thatdistinguish prostitution from human trafficking and prohibit the purchase of sexual services ifthe customer is aware of or ought to have suspected that the prostitute is a victim of humantrafficking. The study aims to identify and examine the core differences between these laws and how they reflect distinct views on prostitution and women, and the extent to which they are aligned with gender equality. The study employs a liberal sex work perspective which regards prostitution as a form of work that can be separated from the individual's body and aneo-abolitionist perspective that views prostitution, whether voluntary or involuntary, as a harmful and exploitative practice that oppresses women. The study employs a most-similardesign and ideological analysis to address the research questions. The results reveal the legislations' role in promoting gender equality as part of a broader feminist struggle against patriarchal structures. Sweden's law addresses gender inequality by identifying prostitution as a manifestation of male violence against women, while Finland's law targets exploitation insex trafficking, maintaining gender equality by protecting those most vulnerable inprostitution.

L’évaluation des apprentissages est un thème central dans le contexte scolaire qui préoccupe de nombreux acteurs s’inscrivant de près ou de loin dans le quotidien des salles de classe et des pratiques et décisions qui s’articulent au sein de celles-ci : ministères de l’Éducation, directions d’établissements, enseignants, élèves et parents. En parallèle, les concepts d’efficacité et de performance sous-jacents au néolibéralisme (Levasseur, 2006) tendent à se tailler une place grandissante dans certains pans de la gestion du système éducatif québécois, entre autres (Duclos, 2014). Dans d’autres systèmes éducatifs, comme celui de la Finlande, c’est plutôt la mise de l’avant du processus d’apprentissage et de l’accompagnement de l’élève dans ce processus par le biais de l’évaluation qui ressort apparemment du discours éducatif. Les pratiques d’évaluation des apprentissages, puisqu’elles sont à la fois soumises à de nombreuses contraintes et dynamiques sociales ayant cours entre plusieurs acteurs scolaires ou extrascolaires, peuvent constituer un reflet pertinent du contexte éducatif et évaluatif au sein duquel elles s’insèrent. D’un autre côté, d’autres acteurs du milieu scolaire peuvent aussi nous permettre de mieux comprendre les enjeux et mécanismes entourant l’évaluation des apprentissages : les élèves. Comment vivent-ils avec l’évaluation dans le contexte éducatif précis qui les concerne ? S’agit-il d’un passage obligé sans réelles conséquences graves ou d’un processus plus difficilement vécu par ces derniers ? La littérature relève à ce propos plusieurs impacts significatifs de l’évaluation sur les élèves. C’est donc en nous attardant non seulement aux perceptions d’enseignants quant à de tels impacts et aux éléments influençant leurs choix évaluatifs, mais aussi aux pratiques évaluatives autodéclarées de ces acteurs du contexte scolaire que nous avons tenté d’appréhender la culture évaluative de deux contextes bien distincts : celui du Québec et de la Finlande. Cette recherche de maitrise se veut explorer, d’un point de vue sociologique interactionniste, les mécanismes de création et de variation d’une telle culture dans différents contextes ainsi que les possibles retombées de celle-ci sur les élèves. Cette exploration a été permise notamment par un fort désir de recours au terrain nous ayant menés à réaliser des entretiens avec des enseignants issus des deux contextes étudiés. / Learning assessment is a central theme in the school context that preoccupies many actors who are involved in the day-to-day life of classrooms and the practices and decisions that are made within them: Departments of Education, school principals, teachers, students and parents. Concurrently, the concepts of efficiency and performance inherent to neoliberalism (Levasseur, 2006) tend to play an increasingly important role in certain management aspects of the Quebec education system, among others (Duclos, 2014). In other education systems, such as Finland’s, it is rather the emphasis on the learning process and supporting the student in this process through evaluation that apparently emerges from the educational discourse. Since learning assessment practices are subject to numerous constraints and social dynamics between several school or out-of-school actors, they can accurately reflect the educational and assessment context in which they are used. However, there are other actors in the school environment can also help us better understand the issues and mechanisms surrounding learning assessment: the students themselves. How do they cope with evaluation in the specific educational context that concerns them? Is it an obligatory step with no real serious consequences, or is it a process that is more difficult for them? In this regard, the literature identifies several significant impacts of evaluation on students. By focusing not only on teachers’ perceptions of such impacts and the elements influencing their evaluative choices, but also on the self-declared evaluative practices of these actors in the school context, we have attempted to understand the evaluative culture of two very distinct contexts: Quebec and Finland. This master’s research aims to explore, from a sociological interactionist point of view, the creation and variation mechanisms of such a culture in different contexts as well as the possible repercussions of this culture on the students. This exploration was made possible by a strong desire to do fieldwork, which led us to conduct interviews with teachers from the two contexts studied.

Det finlandssvenska teckenspråket är ett minoritetsspråk med ungefär 100 språkanvändare, främst i Finland. Språket håller på att revitaliseras och de senaste åren har flera språkstärkande åtgärder genomförts. Syftet med denna studie är att ta reda på om det finns tidigare revitaliseringsinsatser för små teckenspråk, och om man kunde finna liknande processer i arbetet för dessa språk. Detta gjordes via systematisk litteraturstudie med hjälp av sökord, där artiklar valdes ut för fördjupad läsning. Resultatet från sökningarna visar få material gällande språkrevitalisering av teckenspråk, däremot större mängd material gällande språkrevitalisering av talade språken. Uppsatsens resultat är fokuserade på vitalitet, språkattityder samt lyckade revitaliseringsmetoder i de samiska språken, däribland språkbo- och mentorsverksamhet. I diskussionsdelen tas utmaningar med att implementera dylika metoder för det finlandssvenska teckenspråket upp. Attityderna i samhället påverkar språkets utveckling men också språkgruppen själv har ett ansvar gentemot teckenspråket och dess fortlevnad. Slutligen konstateras det att samhället också måste ta sitt ansvar för att främja inlärning av teckenspråk samt skapa tillgängliga domäner för att användning av teckenspråket. Detta för att säkerställa minoritetens teckenspråks överlevnad.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine changed the security environment of Europe overnight. This study addresses how this affected the rhetoric regarding European identity and the threats to it, in the Finnish parliament insecurity related discussions. It does this by employing the three part framework of social identity used by Brewer and Herman in their bookabout European identity. The framework contains three aspects: the composition, the content and the in-group out-group perceptions of identity. It attempts to unearth these aspects of European identity, byemploying concepts such as nested identity and the division between ethnicand cultural identity. The study presents the results of qualitative contentanalysis with quantitative elements of Finnish parliamentary sessions fromthe Spring of 2022. The study concludes that European Identity is used inthe Finnish parliament to both increase Finnish sense of security whilebuilding solidarity with Ukraine. The nature of European identity isprimarily civil and the threats towards it are also conceived as civil threats,however with the caveats that all national/political identities are a mix ofethnic and civil elements. The study also concludes that both EU andEuropean identity matter, but that European identity is more universal.

No description available.

In light of the recent Swedish's and Finnish's NATO applications, this thesis seeks to examine the motivations and reasoning behind these simultaneous applications by drawing on two theoretical frameworks, liberalism and neorealism. As such, it seeks to answer the research question: In what ways does the interplay of liberal and neorealist motivations in Finland’s and Sweden's NATO applications provide insights into their applications?. To do so, a qualitative comparative case study will be undertaken, focusing on official government documents published between the 13th of May 2022 until 3rd of April 2023. The analysis of both Finland's and Sweden's NATO applications shows the similar intricate interplay between liberal and neorealist motivations. The decision-making processes of both Finland and Sweden involve considerations of international cooperation, shared values, security calculations, and the evolving security environment. The presence of both theories underscores the complexity of these decisions and the multifaceted nature of international relations.