Elina Henttonen

The growth strategies of women-controlled SMEs: a case study on Finnish software companies

This article addresses the issue of excellence through the analysis of the growth strategies and practices performed in women-controlled companies operating in a high-growth industrial context. Taking the strategy-as-practice perspective and drawing on qualitative and interpretative methodologies, the article examines how women owner-managers view themselves as strategy makers and how they describe their strategy practices as well as their growth strategies in relation to the rapidly growing Finnish software industry. The results show that in a high-growth industrial culture, the women owner-managers articulate growth as a taken-for-granted objective and as an unquestionable source of future success for their companies. Furthermore, the women owner-managers position themselves as experienced and competent leaders of various types of growth strategies.

Ethnographic Field Notes and Reflexivity

Ethnographers have devoted a great deal of attention on the issues of writing the final product of ethnographic research, the ethnographic research report. The issues related to the process of writing ethnographic field notes, however, have received much less attention in methodological discussions. Emerson et al. (1995) point out that even after the discovery of ‘writing’ as a central practice of ethnographic research (Clifford & Marcus 1986, Van Maanen 1988), field notes remained as ‘invisible work’ in ethnographic literature. They argue that while many ethnographers are uneasy with the messy, unfinished, and personal character of their field notes, these have mostly remained private documents. Remaining private documents, the impact of field notes on research findings and results has also left unexplored.

Managing Client Contacts of Small KIBS Companies: Turning Technology Into Business

This article investigates how small companies providing new-technology-based services (T-KIBS) manage their client contacts. Many KIBS companies have extensive and close contacts with their clients, to the extent that their services can actually be co-produced together with the clients. This study analyzes data from four empirical cases and provides new knowledge on the relevance, forms and consequences of managing client contacts. The data was collected through ethnographic field work and qualitative interviews with the owner-managers of four Finnish software service companies, which can also be called T-KIBS. The results show that although every company had its unique way of managing its client contacts, they all used their client contacts as a vehicle in turning technology into business. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-2934-9.ch006