Browsing by Subject "valtiotieteellinen"
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2016)In concert with the emergence of cross-disciplinary collaborative working practices, the demands of creativity and innovation in working life have increased. The problems of the 21st Century are inherently complex and require the creative contributions of multiple stakeholders to solve them. Furthermore, working life settings are often ad hoc and diverse in their nature, making collaboration challenging in terms of creative synergy. However, creativity has been predominantly studied from the individual perspective, meaning the research tradition is out of step with changes in working practices as it does not provide guidance for complex creative and interactional processes. Therefore, new approaches that account for the complexity of human interaction and collaboration need to be developed to better understand what creativity is and how it can emerge from synergy between people who are very different from each other. This is the focus of the dissertation. This dissertation argues that creative collaboration can be approached through the lens of the theories about complex systems. These theories conceptualize creative collaboration as an interactive and emergent phenomenon, in which creativity emerges continuously and unpredictably from the interactions of the actors and elements of the system. This argument is investigated in this study by developing a research framework based on the theories of complex systems and examining creative collaboration through empirical case studies that were conducted in the context of innovation camps. The proposed research framework emphasises three important points of attention when studying creative collaboration: temporal patterns, social mechanisms, and meanings and communication. The findings of the explorative research suggest several interesting research avenues. Firstly, the creative process seems to follow unanticipated temporal orders, including points of sudden discontinuities. This suggests that a creative process requires patience for an efficient working mode to emerge. Secondly, the mechanism of emergence describes how a system of contributors includes both individual and collective level knowledge, skills and memory. This suggests that the emergence of shared practices in a group setting requires a certain level of autonomy and self-direction. Thirdly, human creativity is a process of symbolic exchange and meaning-making. The acknowledgement of the constructive communicative nature of the creative process helps individuals involved in a creative collaborative process understand how different interpretative frames can contribute to a creative process, which stands in contrast to the information transmission-based understanding of communication and knowledge building. This dissertation incorporates two conceptual and three empirical articles that are further developed in the concluding article.
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(2020)Inequality in work and rehabilitation. Agency in the life course of a person with a chronic illness or disabilities In this qualitative longitudinal study, I report on analyses of the agency of people diagnosed with a severe chronic illness when young and the change of agency in the course of their life in relation to the illness, rehabilitation and work. The research subjects had been treated as persons with a chronic illness or disabilities, and disability is understood broadly as limitations of functions and participation in society. The research material consists of deep narrative interviews conducted between 2012 and 2018 of the same people diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) when young. In this study, MS is treated as an example of a disabling illness in illustrating the relationship between society, a chronic illness and disability, since the social experiences of chronic illness and disability are often similar regardless of the specific illness or disability. One goal of the study was to broaden the overall view of disability in Finland from the perspectives of work and rehabilitation. The results of the study are experience-based knowledge on the processes of falling ill, rehabilitation and changes of agency. It is possible to follow these processes in a qualitative longitudinal study. The theoretical basis of the study are the ideas of Anthony Giddens on the relationship between an agent and a structure, the capability approach of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, the actantial model and types of pragmatic modality of Algirdas Julien Greimas, and the theoretical-methodological framework of the modalities of agency, developed further from the types of pragmatic modality by Jyrki Jyrkämä. The concept of modality makes it possible to analyse the nature of a chronic illness and disability in relation to society and to understand health, chronic illness and disability in the course of life as a continuum, in which different phases of chronic illness and comprehensive well-being alternate. The objective of the study was to investigate the kind of agency that is developed in a person diagnosed with a severe chronic illness when young, along with the life course in work and in rehabilitation supporting daily life. The research questions are: 1. What kind of agency is developed in such a person with relation to the illness and rehabilitation, and how does the agency change as the illness progresses and as time passes from the diagnosis? 2. What are the options for such a person to self-determination in planning their rehabilitation and how do these options change as the process of accepting the illness progresses? 3. How does the agency of such a person in relation to work change as the illness and the process of accepting it progress? 4. How is the course of life related to the development of the agency of such a person? The study is based on three sub-studies, from which empirical articles have been written. The research method of the first and third sub-studies was theory-driven content analysis, and that of the second sub-study is narrative actantial analysis. Accepting the diagnosis of a chronic illness is a sensitive process, which requires time. The process comprises the person’s desire, knowledge, abilities and opportunity to process their falling ill and to promote their own cause in social and healthcare services. Significant factors for the acceptance process are the time elapsed since the diagnosis and being admitted to rehabilitation or being left out of it. A recurring experience in the study has been the experience of the interviewees as being left alone without the long-term support of social and healthcare professionals immediately after the diagnosis. The lack of long-term early psychological rehabilitation is related to the difficulty of developing a rational agency to promote one’s own cause in social and healthcare services. Instead, strong emotions dominate the agency of the interviewees in relation to their own illness and rehabilitation soon after the diagnosis. Changing doctors made it more difficult for the interviewees to be admitted to rehabilitation and to initiate it. The difficulty participating in rehabilitation and the rehabilitees’ inadequate understanding of the content, objective and purpose of rehabilitation are related to the paucity of interaction between professionals and the rehabilitees, to missing rehabilitation plans, to beginning rehabilitation too late and to the prejudices associated with rehabilitation and the fears of its stigmatising effect. These are problems of the multi-sectoral rehabilitation service system that are difficult to discern. They also reduce the opportunities of persons with chronic illness or disabilities to self-determination in planning their own rehabilitation. The agency of the interviewees in relation to work changes as the symptoms of chronic illness and the process of accepting it progress individually. The change can be explained by the ability of the interviewees to accept the decline of their abilities and the options to adjust their existing work to it, part-time work or the opportunity to change their job description or line of work. Confidence in staying in work is provided by the support of the employer and work community, whereas distrust in the employer experienced by the interviewees reduces most their desire to negotiate on reconciling their chronic illness and work. Occupational and medical rehabilitation maintain the person’s capacity to function and work, even when the illness progresses or when changes take place at work. In contrast, staying outside rehabilitation creates uncertainty to the chronically ill or disabled person on the sufficiency of their own abilities and reduces their opportunities to negotiate in the workplace. Due to their education and social background, persons with a chronic illness or disabilities are in unequal positions with each other both in work and in social and healthcare services. A severe chronic illness or disability cannot be separated from other parts of life. Instead, agency in work and rehabilitation are built on the basis of their agency in relation to the surrounding community that these persons had before suffering from the illness or disability. People with a strong foundation for life are best able to process their own illness, being disabled or being a rehabilitee. Similarly, they have an opportunity to realise their self-determination in planning their rehabilitation and they are in an easier position to negotiate at work. The situation is weakest for persons with multiple chronic illnesses, depression and economic or emotional needs, and no support from their employer. These factors hinder implementing self-determination in planning rehabilitation and the negotiation of options at work. Keywords: agency, chronic illness, disability, life in the workforce, rehabilitation, course of life, longitudinal study
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(Väittelijä, 2016)Abstract Silent alarm how incidents in society have been managed between 2012 and 2014 According to the government resolution on comprehensive security of 2012, situation snapshots are among of the most important bases of decision-making at all levels of operations. The resolution finds that preparedness arrangements related to Finnish security are well-functioning and do not require large-scale reforms; neither is there any reason to develop regulations related to specific procedures or incident management systems. In 2000s prior to 2010 and subsequently numerous regulatory and structural reforms applying to all security operators. The point of departure of the study was the researcher s view based on administrative experiences that the decision-makers lacked knowledge about the effects of reforms in the practical management of incidents. The aim of the study was to update the situation snapshot presented in the government resolution with the perspective of competent practical security operators. Incident management is a new concept and used as a sub-area of security management in government resolutions in the 2010s. The upper framework of the study is the framework of the management of overall security, which includes the security management of normal circumstances, incidents and war-time conditions. The main question posed by the study is: What did the state of incident management look like from the perspective of competent authorities after the administrative reforms and changes in the security environment that took place in the 2000s at the end of 2014? The empirical study focused on years 2012 2014. The study was a qualitative case study. The study object was selected as the macro and operative micro level of practical operations. At both levels, the aim was to gather comprehensive empirical data. In all 130 security operators were interviewed for the study. The micro level data comprises in all 79 interviews of emergency centre, rescue, police, border guard and municipal employees. These are supplemented by 11 regional level interviews with Regional State Administrative Agency and Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment employees. The macro level interview data comprises 38 interviews with the management of ministries, central government and NGOs. The document sources at macro level comprise government programmes, government resolutions, committee reports, regulative and structural reform decisions made in the 2000s and investigation reports of crisis and incident situations experienced. The interpretation of the sources is based on theory-based content analysis, for the purpose of which a loose interpretative framework based on international research literature was created. Its strategic management analyses are derived from T.E. Drabek s strategic management roadmap as well as concepts belonging to L. Johnston and C. Shearing s management theory. Operative management criteria are based on concepts formulated by Johnson and Shearing, which have been supplemented with H. de Bruijn and E.F. ten Heuvelhof s hybrid management criteria. Finally, the study observations have been analysed from the perspective of Drabek s main concept related to incident situations; coordination. Based on the analyses performed, the answer to the main question of the study, can be summarised as follows: 1.From the perspective of the competent authorities, incident management during the study period was administratively disorganised. The view presented in the 2012 resolution about the functioning of the arrangements during normal circumstances did not correspond to the management demands in 2012, or at the end of 2014. 2. The state of management exhibited significant deficiencies in both the strategic management coordination capabilities at the end of 2014. The hierarchical and network management arrangements related to incidents did not correspond to the hybrid management requirements of the incidents. 3. During the study period, the threats related to incidents increased and their management became an increasingly important area of comprehensive security. The deficiencies found in the study also weakened the management preconditions of comprehensive security. The practical conclusion of the study is that the management of incidents and comprehensive security require significant corrective measures and reforms. Moreover, the study revealed that the necessary reforms do not require large additional resources; some of the corrective measures can be performed with existing resources and some by reallocating resources. Based on the study findings, it appears that the loose theoretical framework created for content analysis seemed to suit the object of study and the analysis of data collected for it. Keywords: Comprehensive security, incident management, coordination, strategic, operative, hierarchical, network and hybrid management
