Although the managerial profession is subjugated by the discipline of strategic manage-ment, managers are not completely subordinate to it. Instead, they are able to use the in-stitutionalized discourse of strategic management, which is not their own product, in nov-el and creative ways. In this paper, we focus on the tactics that managers, as central strat-egy practitioners, use to consume strategy. Drawing on the work of the late Michel de Certeau as a theoretical lens, we conduct an empirical analysis of discourse, produced by 36 managers operating in three case organizations. This analysis allows us to elaborate on three different tactics of strategy consumption: instrumental, playful and intimate. The results capture the reciprocal dynamics between the micro and macro-levels of strategy discourse, that is, between strategic management as an institutional body of knowledge and the discursive practice of individual managers.

The cultural environment is the basis for the memory and identity of the community and the people. It includes significant social and cultural values. When it is well taken care of, regionally characteristic and constructed out of different time periods, it enhances the well-being of people. The first Finnish national Cultural Environment Strategy 2014–2020 offers tools for maintaining the values of our national heritage and improving the vitality and attractiveness of regions.

Strategic management and ethics impose contradictory pressures on managerial sensemaking. Using concepts from Paul Ricoeur’s philosophical work as a theoretical lens, this thesis analyzes a longitudinal data set, produced within strategy meetings and interviews in a multinational corporation undergoing a radical change process. It induces a model of ethical sensemaking in strategic management, founded on the processes of irony, compromise and conflict. The thesis demonstrates how the ethical can become possible and tangible in practice. It is an ethics that prompts reactions with on-going practicalities and acknowledges the unpredictable nature of change.Whereas normative business ethics literature has focused on how strategy is fair, leads to good deeds or is made by virtuous people, this study suggests that ethics is not something separate from the day-to-day, or moment-to-moment activity. It cannot be controlled from a distance. The study shows that business and ethics are not separate – it is about how we live with one another outside of being merely means for one another to gain. Through two interconnected analyses the thesis reveals how strategy work is riddled with tensions and how individuals rely on a number of tactics to navigate in order to live up to the demands of ethics.

In Finland, as well as all over the globe, great weight is put on the possibilities of large data collections and ‘big data’ for generating economic growth, enhancing medical research, and boosting health and wellbeing in totally new ways. This massive data gathering and usage is justified by the moral principle of improving health. The imperative of health thus legitimizes data collection, new infrastructures and innovation policy. It is also supported by the rhetoric of health promotion. New arrangements in health research and innovations in the health sector are justified, as they produce health, while the moral principle of health also obligates individual persons to pursue healthy lifestyles and become healthy citizens. I examine how, in this context of Finnish data-driven medicine, arguments related to privacy and autonomy become silenced when contrasted with the moral principle of health.

Internationalization provides firms a significant opportunity for growth and value creation worldwide. Especially those companies that operate in small and open economies tend to benefit from foreign market expansion. For example, the small size of Finland’s economy sets limitations to the domestic market opportunities. In addition to Finland’s macro-level strengths, Finnish companies’ innovativeness has gained attention as a potential sustained competitive advantage to support firm internationalization. Despite the identified potential, the Finnish food sector’s internationalization has been modest, and the research in this field has been limited. Thus, this thesis studies the internationalization phenomenon in the context of innovative Finnish food sector companies. The purpose of the research is to explore firm internationalization from the process perspective by investigating companies’ time-based decision making and behavior. The thesis aims to find out how and why do innovative Finnish food companies internationalize? The research was carried out as a qualitative study because the purpose was to form an in-depth understanding of the internationalization processes of Finnish food companies. In addition to the empirical research, an extensive literature review of various internationalization theories was conducted to develop a theoretical framework of the studied phenomenon. A multiple-case study was selected as the research strategy and two case-companies were selected, one representing a young SME and the other well established MNE. Both case companies were of Finnish origin, they operated in the food sector and had experience of expanding into international markets. The research data was collected through semi-structured interviews with company representatives, as well as by reviewing companies’ websites, publications, annual reports, and newspaper articles. The key findings of this study show that, in line with the initial hypothesis, food companies can utilize different internationalization strategies depending on their internal capabilities and resources. The accumulation of decisions regarding main internationalization dimensions and the actions taken based on these decisions in relation to time showed two different internationalization processes. The MNE had internationalized incrementally in line with traditional internationalization theories. On the contrary, the SME had internationalized early and rapidly on a global level. In addition, the company’s product portfolio was found to have a significant impact on decision-making and company-level behavior. Lastly, the innovativeness and uniqueness of both the products and the company’s know-how were shown to have a positive impact on achieving a sustainable competitive advantage on a global level.

Despite increasing interest in the discursive aspects of strategy, few studies have examined strategy texts and their power effects. We draw from Critical Discourse Analysis to better understand the power of strategic plans as a directive genre. In our empirical analysis, we examined the creation of the official strategic plan of the City of Lahti in Finland. As a result of our inductive analysis, we identified five central discursive features of this plan: self-authorization, special terminology, discursive innovation, forced consensus and deonticity. We argue that these features can, with due caution, be generalized and conceived as distinctive features of the strategy genre. We maintain that these discursive features are not trivial characteristics; they have important implications for the textual agency of strategic plans, their performative effects, impact on power relations and ideological implications.

During the 1990s there was a worldwide decline in the number of terrorist attacks, whereas political crime in general increased in most Western liberal democracies. The study analyses the emergence of radical alternative movements in Finland in the 1990s and their illegal underground activities as a phenomenon of the late modern risk society. Since reflexivity is an essential feature of late modernity, the study also discusses ways in which law enforcement can manage risks posed by political crime. Secrecy influences the character of radical alternative movements. In the context of late modern social flux they are better understood as communitarian movements than social ones. Belonging to the community is more important to their supporters than the activities of the community. Furthermore, radical alternative movements consist of beliefs non-typical to mainstream society. They are part of the so-called cultic milieu - the dynamics of which is influenced by its relationship to mainstream society and the ideology of 'seeking'. Finnish society in the 1990s provided a fertile breeding ground for the emergence of radical movements and illegal underground activities. However, international influences which were adopted played a significant role. Radical alternative movements did not have to subscribe to illegal underground activities since their political agenda was not illegitimate. Illegal underground activities were organised based on the strategy of leaderless resistance. Nevertheless, structures had to be created to provide for resources and to mobilise illegal underground activities. The refrain of violence against persons was the most important strategic choice. For instance, it prevented the use of effective law enforcement counter-measures. However, no short or long-term political goals were achieved by illegal means. The tactics seemed to have served mainly organisational maintenance. Illegal underground activities impinge directly upon the rights and liberties of others. However, balancing between liberty and order is a major challenge as democratic values are preserved by adopting the very means that tend to subvert them. Analysis is a new tool for law enforcement and can be used to assess threats and risks, set priorities and formulate counter-strategies.

Roadmap for implementing environmental DNA (eDNA) and other molecular monitoring methods in Finland – Vision and Action Plan for 2022-2025 Technological development in molecular methodology has been extremely fast in the past two decades, and groundbreaking new approaches have been introduced. It is now possible to detect and quantify DNA or RNA of target species or even map the whole species community in environmental samples of water, sediment, soil, air or assemblages of whole organisms. Moreover, the costs of high-throughput sequencing and other advanced molecular methods have decreased and methodological pipelines from sampling to data analysis developed sufficiently to allow large-scale, routine application of the new methods in environmental monitoring. This presents a huge opportunity to improve the coverage, accuracy and cost-efficiency of monitoring, enabling a much more complete picture of biodiversity and the state of the environment and their trends. As the new European Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and other international policies to halt biodiversity loss and the degradation of habitats are translated into concrete measures, the quality of the monitoring data will play a crucial role in determining their success or failure. In this roadmap commissioned by the Finnish Ministry of the Environment, we assess the state-of-the-art in molecular monitoring methods in Finland within the international context, identify challenges and development areas that remain to be addressed and propose an action plan for promoting the coordinated implementation of molecular methods in national monitoring programs. Apart from the most recent scientific literature, our analysis is based on survey results, direct enquiries and interviews. Participation of the national community of experts from different sectors was enabled and invited at several stages of the roadmap preparation. Internationally, molecular monitoring methods are being actively developed and are routinely implemented in monitoring across different taxa and ecosystems. In Finland, molecular monitoring methods have been tested and piloted by all major institutions responsible for environmental monitoring, and the methods are already applied routinely in the monitoring of individual game species such as the wolf and European and Canadian beaver. However, other areas such as the monitoring of biodiversity, threatened species, non-mammalian invasive species or emerging plant or animal pests remain less developed, and national efforts and expertise are scattered across different organizations. Funding and know-how are perceived as the most important factors limiting molecular monitoring method implementation. We estimate that extensive, routine implementation of a wide range of molecular monitoring methods is conceivable in Finland before 2030. As the primary development areas for reaching this goal, we identify (i) international coordination and standard development, (ii) networking across sectors, (iii) education, (iv) infrastructure, (v) reference sequence libraries and the mapping of whole genomes, and (vi) modelling and analysis tool development. For concrete actions in 2022–2025, we propose (1) a cross-governmental funding instrument, (2) a permanent working group responsible for national and international coordination, (3) a national network and (4) an online platform to enhance interaction and knowledge transfer, as well as (5) a national data management system with collectively agreed data and metadata formats and standards. ---------- Kansallinen tiekartta ympäristö-DNA:n ja muiden molekyylibiologisten seurantamenetelmien käyttöönotolle – visio ja toimenpidesuunnitelma vuosille 2022-2025 Molekyylibiologisten menetelmien teknologinen kehitys on ollut ennennäkemättömän nopeaa kahden viime vuosikymmenen aikana. Uudet menetelmät mahdollistavat kohdelajien DNA:n tai RNA:n havaitsemisen ja runsausmäärityksen tai koko eliöyhteisön kartoittamisen esimerkiksi vesi-, sedimentti-, maaperä- tai ilmanäytteistä tai kokonaisia yksilöitä sisältävistä kokoomanäytteistä. Massiivisen rinnakkaissekvensoinnin ja muiden menetelmien kustannukset ovat merkittävästi laskeneet ja menetelmäketjut näytteenotosta tulosten tulkintaan kehittyneet asteelle, joka mahdollistaa niiden laajamittaisen, rutiininomaisen käytön ympäristön seurannassa. Uusien menetelmien avulla voimme parantaa seurannan kattavuutta, tarkkuutta ja kustannustehokkuutta ja siten täydentää seurannan kautta muodostuvaa kuvaa luonnon monimuotoisuudesta ja sen muutoksista. Tälle tiedolle on suuri tarve – laadukas seuranta on keskeinen edellytys sille, että EU:n uuden biodiversiteettistrategian ja muiden luontokadon ja elinympäristöjen tilan huonontumisen pysäyttämiseen tähtäävien kansainvälisten sitoumusten toimeenpano onnistuu. Tässä ympäristöministeriön tilaamassa tiekartassa arvioimme molekyylibiologisten seurantamenetelmien nykytilaa Suomessa osana laajempaa kansainvälistä kenttää, tunnistamme huomiota vaativia haasteita ja kehityskohteita ja ehdotamme konkreettisia toimenpiteitä molekyylibiologisten seurantamenetelmien koordinoidun käyttöönoton edistämiseksi lähivuosien aikana. Selvityksemme perustuu uusimman tieteellisen kirjallisuuden lisäksi kyselytutkimukseen sekä suoriin tiedusteluihin ja haastatteluihin. Yhteiskunnan eri sektoreita edustava kansallinen asiantuntijayhteisö osallistui tiekartan valmisteluun työn eri vaiheissa. Molekyylibiologisia seurantamenetelmiä kehitetään parhaillaan aktiivisesti ympäri maailmaa eri eliöryhmille ja ekosysteemeille, ja yksittäisiä menetelmiä on useissa maissa otettu myös rutiininomaiseen käyttöön. Suomessa menetelmiä on kehitetty ja pilotoitu kaikissa keskeisissä ympäristön seurantaa koordinoivissa laitoksissa, ja yksittäisten riistaeläinten kuten suden ja kanadan- ja euroopanmajavan seurannassa ne ovat jo rutiinikäytössä. Biodiversiteetin, uhanalaisten lajien, vieraslajien (nisäkkäitä lukuun ottamatta) ja muiden haitallisten lajien kansallisessa seurannassa molekyylibiologisten menetelmien käyttö on kuitenkin vielä kokeiluasteella, ja kehittämishankkeiden ja asiantuntijuuden kenttä on hajanainen. Riittämätöntä rahoitusta ja osaamista pidetään alan asiantuntijoiden keskuudessa tärkeimpinä menetelmien käyttöönottoa rajoittavina tekijöinä. Arviomme mukaan laaja kirjo molekyylibiologisia seurantamenetelmiä olisi mahdollista ottaa laajamittaiseen rutiininomaiseen käyttöön vuoteen 2030 mennessä. Tärkeimmiksi kehityskohteiksi nousivat (i) kansainvälinen koordinaatio ja menetelmien standardointi, (ii) organisaatioiden ja sektoreiden välinen verkostoituminen, (iii) koulutus, (iv) infrastruktuuri, (v) referenssisekvenssikirjastot ja kokonaisten genomien kartoittaminen sekä (vi) malli- ja analyysityökalujen kehittäminen. Konkreettisiksi toimenpiteiksi vuosille 2022-2025 esitämme (1) poikkihallinnollista rahoitusohjelmaa molekyylibiologisten seurantamenetelmien käyttöönottoa edistäville tutkimus- ja kehityshankkeille, (2) pysyvää työryhmää kansallisen ja kansainvälisen koordinaation edistämiseksi, (3) olemassa olevan kansallisen asiantuntijaverkoston laajentamista, (4) internet-pohjaista alustaa vuorovaikutuksen ja tiedonjaon tehostamiseksi sekä (5) kansallista, yhdessä sovittuja data- ja metadatastandardeja noudattavaa molekyylibiologisten seuranta-aineistojen tiedonhallintajärjestelmää.

This study is investigates changes in strategic culture in South Africa. The focus is on two White Papers on Defence, of 1977 and 1996. A strategic culture –based approach is employed. Strategic culture refers to a relatively enduring consensus about values, beliefs and beliefs concerning the use of force. A national strategy community consists of people who guide and lead defence policy, and who share a common strategic culture. Strategic culture is studied here with a specific focus on national strategic communities, defence doctrines and civil-military relations. The 1977 White Paper introduces the doctrine of total strategy that defined South Africa's defence policy until the late 1980s. Its starting point was South Africa's rapidly deteriorating security situation. Internal and external pressure directed at South Africa's policy of separate development or apartheid was interpreted as a 'total onslaught' by Soviet Union and its allies, with the aim of establishing majority rule sympathetic to the Soviet Union. To counter this threat a 'total strategy' that included military means was devised. Membership in the national strategic community was restricted on ethnic, racial and political grounds. Security policies were informed by strategic scholarship that was developed in a closed environment, mainly within the defence establishment and Afrikaans-language universities. Civil-military relations were characterized by a process of rapid militarization. Defence doctrine relied on total strategy and counter-revolutionary warfare. The 1996 White Paper aims at the demilitarization of security policies. The transition to democracy in South Africa had begun in 1990 and culminated in the country's first democratic elections in 1994. The basic premise of defence planning was that the country was not faced with any military threat in the foreseeable future. The country had, however, inherited from the former government an oversized defence force and an equally immense defence industry. The downsizing of both was imperative. In light of the government's objectives of social-economic development the resources consumed by the defence sector were a serious problem. The national strategic community was defined on normative grounds: the Department of Defence sought the cooperation of civil society actors who, in the main, had a background in critical security studies. Regarding civil-military relations the White Paper stresses civil supremacy over armed forces, and the role of the Parliament in directing defence policy. Defence doctrine is based on the concepts of human security and common security - both reflect a broad security agenda.

Despite the acknowledged importance of strategic planning in business and other organizations, there are few studies focusing on strategy texts and the related processes of their production and consumption. In this paper, we attempt to partially fill this research gap by examining the institutionalized aspects of strategy discourse: what strategy is as genre. Combining textual analysis and analysis of conversation, the article focuses on the official strategy of the City of Lahti in Finland. Our analysis shows how specific communicative purposes and lexico-grammatical features characterize the genre of strategy and how the actual negotiations over strategy text involve particular kinds of intersubjectivity and intertextuality.