Value-based methodology to analyze communication services

This paper presents a general view on the provision of communications services, and introduces a formal methodology to analyze the services. The methodology consists of three main tasks: (1) how services create value to users, (2) how users behave in real situations, and (3) how these are combined into one holistic model. As a result, we are able to analyze how different changes in the service effects on the service usage, on the value it creates for the user, and on the business of service providers. The analysis offers a rational basis for designing and optimizing communication terminals and services.     

Reassessing the Structure of Enduring Leisure Involvement

The study compared the importance of spending time in interacting with nature to other leisure activities regarding recovery from work demands. In addition, a multiple mediation model between time spent in interacting with nature and need for recovery through four mediators was tested. Employees of five organizations answered a questionnaire (N = 527). Exercise and being outdoors during free-time was evaluated as the most effective activity for recovery from work stress, and the time spent in interacting with nature was mentioned as second in importance. Time spent in exercise and being outdoors, life satisfaction, and relaxation mediated significantly the relationship between time spent in interacting with nature and need for recovery from work.     

Linking knowledge, entry timing and internationalization strategy

This paper contributes to the current internationalization theory by linking the characteristics of the firm's resource-base, its market-entry timing orientation and international growth orientation so as to shed more light on internationalization strategies. By employing multi-industry data, we find that the nature of the firm's knowledge, its entry timing orientation and international growth orientation are related to its internationalization strategy. Among other results, we find that the firm's accumulated expertise is positively related for both the international growth orientation and entry timing orientation. The international growth orientation, in turn, is related both to the path type of internationalization the firm employs as well as the geographical diversification in market entry. In other words, the results suggest that the firm's resource-base influences on both its entry timing orientation and to the internationalization strategy. These and other findings are discussed with regard to their scholarly and managerial implications.     

Value of knowledge—Technology strategies in different knowledge regimes

This paper introduces a knowledge-based view of the firm, which enables us to analyze how the firm should build up its technology strategies in order to capture profits from knowledge assets through knowledge creation, replication, integration and transfer. The basic idea is to shed light on the mechanisms that make it possible, first, to create value from knowledge assets, second, to protect the value created by using different protection mechanisms (such as legal means or tacitness) and, third, to share the value created between the innovator, imitators and partners (open innovation model). In our model we derive technology strategies based on different knowledge bases and their characteristics. By means of our simulation experiments we open up some black boxes behind technology strategies that are often launched only as empirical generalizations, such as Freeman’s famous technology strategy typology. Our tool can also be used as a framework when the dynamic effects of technology strategies are traced and empirically scrutinized.     

Entrepreneurial Orientation,Dynamic Capabilities and International Performance

In order to be able to seize the opportunities that a dynamic operating environment opens up, entrepreneurial firms have to reconfigure their existing asset base and processes. This study explores the effect of an entrepreneurial orientation and a firm's reconfiguring capabilities on international performance by using survey data from 217 manufacturing and service organizations. Our findings indicate that a firm's entrepreneurial orientation and reconfiguring capabilities have an effect on its international performance and provide empirical support for the dynamic capability view of the firm. Entrepreneurial behavior combined with organizational reconfiguring capabilities constitutes a potential source of competitive advantage.     

Holiday travel,staycations, and subjective well-being

The tourism industry thrives on the notion that holiday travel improves well-being. However, scientific evidence that holiday travel is more beneficial than spending free time at home is lacking. Using the Effort-Recovery and the Limited Resources model as theoretical basis, this study investigates whether workers behave, think, and feel differently during travel than during leisure time spent at home. In a five-week longitudinal field study, we followed 24 workers during free evenings after work, a free weekend at home, and on a free weekend of domestic travel. Within-person differences were investigated between these three occasions in behavior, cognition, and emotions. During travel, employees slept more, engaged more in physical and social activities and less in obligatory activities than during free evenings after work. Hedonic well-being was higher and ruminative thinking lower during travel than during free evenings after work. Physical distance from home and work was related to engagement in resource-providing rather than resource-consuming activities and seems to translate into mental distance from everyday worries. Differences between holiday travel and weekends at home were small. Still, the findings suggest that travel may provide feelings of remoteness in places with novel and fascinating qualities, free of chores.     

Innovation and internationalization as growth strategies: The role of technological capabilities and appropriability

Firms grow either by launching new products (innovation) or by attracting new customers (internationalization) or by using a mixed strategy. An interesting question is whether innovation and internationalization activities are complementary or substitutive. The paper discusses the connections between technological capabilities, their appropriability, innovation activities, and internationalization, and derives hypotheses from the knowledge-based view of the firm. The hypotheses are empirically analyzed using survey data from 300 Finnish firms clustered as follows: (i) domestic replicators, (ii) domestic innovators, (iii) international replicators, and (iv) international innovators. The performance of the clusters is empirically analyzed, the success criteria being actual growth rate and profitability. We conclude that a profitable firm needs to have unused technological capabilities in order to exploit economies of scope through innovation. A strong appropriability regime strengthens growth. Internationalization and innovation combined is the most advisable option when domestic markets are limited.     

Organisational capabilities and internationalisation of the small and medium-sized information and communications technology firms

Especially in changing and unpredictable global environments where small knowledge-intensive information and communications technology (ICT) firms often operate, knowledge-based organisational capabilities are seen to contribute most to the performance. In this paper we explore the internationalisation process of small knowledge-intensive firms by studying the effects of a firm’s organisational capabilities on internationalisation and performance. We use a sample of 124 (of which 55 operate internationally) Finnish small and medium-sized firms. International experience is confirmed to be a significant determinant of internationalisation and international performance. In addition, financial capabilities prove to be a significant indicator of the degree of internationalisation: excellent investment expertise, connections with venture capitalists and good financial management are important capabilities for a small firm with high international growth aspirations.