Hanna Lehtimäki

Corporate Responsibility in Communication: Empirical Analysis of Press Releases in a Conflict

The paper examines how the tensions of corporate responsibility are articulated and reconciled in a controversial situation of a foreign investment. We conducted a conventionalist analysis on the company press releases in a case where a Finnish forest industry company invested in a pulp mill in South America. The findings show that the use of language in press releases mobilizes certain stakeholders while reassuring others, and that the argumentation used creates value-neutral communication, making it possible to pursue strategic goals despite competing values. For teaching, we provide insights on how to communicate in a conflict situation.

Appreciative Intelligence® in leadership culture transformation: a case study

An internationally operating tyre manufacturer faced a challenge of a critically negative atmosphere caused by an abrupt insecurity in the market and recent layoffs. The Human Resources and Development Department called in a local university research team, and an organisation development (OD) intervention based on Appreciative Intelligence® and appreciative inquiry was set up to foster leadership culture that would support the international growth of the company. In the process, middle management was interviewed and the top management was engaged in discussing the current and future leadership culture. Middle management defined core values upon which various steps were to be taken to put the goals of future leadership culture in practice. The study shows how a difficult situation can be transferred into an appreciative positive future oriented action.

Social Capital for Strategic Sensitivity in Global Business

The purpose of this case study is to increase our understanding of building strategic sensitivity and the ways by which internal social relationships contribute to it. Applying insights from social capital and social networks theories, the case explores the role of social relations in implementing a strategic initiative. The case study was conducted in close collaboration with the case firm to ensure the applicability of the research findings in an empirical setting. Strategic sensitivity is embedded in social interaction. Exploring both the structural and relational dimensions of social capital allows for understanding the role of social relationships in constraining and enhancing strategic sensitivity. The structural dimension gives information on the efficiency and vulnerability of the social relations, while, the relational dimension shows the motivation for interacting and sharing information and knowledge. Identification of the company as a social entity with humane values manifested in communication is important to the members of the globally operating organization. The case provides empirical evidence on the functioning of social capital and gives an insight to the importance of understanding social connections between the members of the organization.

Framing Dynamically Changing Firm–Stakeholder Relationships in an International Dispute Over a Foreign Investment: A Discursive Analysis Approach

Stakeholder literature tends to presume that effective stakeholder dialogue, occurring directly or indirectly, among a focal firm, local communities, governments, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) is desirable for successful firm–stakeholder relationships. Even if theoretically desirable, effective dialogue does not always occur. There are two key theory-informing lessons in Botnia’s Fray Bentos successful green field pulp mill investment and start-up in Western Uruguay. First, critics could not halt the project politically supported by Uruguay in an expanding multi-party international dispute. Second, the Botnia corporate communications process did not succeed in building consensus relationships, and attention was not paid to discourse creating shared meanings among all stakeholders. Participatory relationships were few, and successful dialogue was at best limited to supporters. This article uses discursive analysis to examine how newspaper and press release texts and language used therein both shaped and reflected the dynamically changing nature of firm–stakeholder relations in the Fray Bentos dispute. Despite the focal firm’s professed good intentions to create participatory relationships with its stakeholders during the building project, various stakeholders opposed the project and Botnia was caught in the crossfire of heated debate between Uruguay and Argentina. Three different frames changing over time are identified: (a) the investment frame, (b) the conflict frame, and (c) the political frame. The analysis shows that the relationships between the focal firm and stakeholders involved many meanings only partly shared, due in part to a lack of corporate appreciation for the role of language in managing firm–stakeholder relationships.

The Social Embeddedness of Strategy Implementation

The purpose of this case is to deepen understanding about strategy implementation. The study draws on a network survey conducted in four internationally operating companies and presents analysis on the role of social relations in strategy implementation. As an outcome, the study provides insight into the ways by which social relations within the firm facilitate strategy implementation. This article contributes to literature of strategic initiatives by examining the informal structure, the social relations in four internationally operating firms.

Managing stakeholder dialogue: the case of Botnia in Uruguay

Stakeholder dialogue is an effective way for a company to enhance its sensitivity to the operational environment and to increase stakeholders’ understandings of the dilemmas facing the company. An open and transparent dialogue process can create fertile ground for solving tensions in stakeholder relations. However, the process is not always straightforward. This article presents a case where a Finnish forest industry company’s decision to build a pulp mill in Uruguay raised both opposing and supporting views among the local interest groups. The company faced the challenge of how to engage with the hostile, opposing groups in order to ensure their operations in Uruguay. By engaging in this case, students will deepen their understanding of the multitude of stakeholder interests and learn to facilitate a dialogue that seeks to find solutions and avoid conflict in a situation of a stakeholder dispute.

Networks in Technology Commercialization

This article examines technology commercialization as networked processes. It presents a longitudinal analysis of a technological invention called intelligent paper over a period of 13 years in 1997–2009. In the analysis, six technology commercialization phases are identified and the roles of various actors in each phase are depicted. The study shows how the processes of technology development and commercialization intertwine and shape each other. The study contributes to literature on commercialization of innovation by presenting an empirical case study where the processes of technology development and commercialization are complex and continuously evolving processes.

Value Co-creation in Stakeholder Relationships: A Case Study

The purpose of this article is to deepen our understanding of co-creation of value in stakeholder relationships. The authors present a case study on the process of strategic transformation in a medium-sized company providing industrial services. The purpose of the study is to analyze how different stakeholder perspectives join in determining what is perceived as valuable in business operations. Stakeholder relationships are studied during a three-year period when the company transformed from a division of a large industrial corporation into an independent service company. The data was collected through personal interviews and from Intranet documents, and analyzed with qualitative content analysis. Management, personnel, customers and owners are the key stakeholders in transformation of value creation. Based on the study, five elements of stakeholder relationships were identified as important in transformation of value creation: (1) History of the relationship, (2) Stakeholder’s objectives, (3) Interaction in the relationship, (4) Learning and information sharing and (5) Trust. The study contributes to literature on value creation by highlighting the complexity of stakeholder relationships and by showing that the salience of stakeholder relationships varies during the transformation.

Positive approaches to enhance customer-focused knowledge sharing culture in a financial services organisation

This case study demonstrates the use of appreciative sharing of knowledge (ASK) approach for creating and sustaining a customer-focused organisation development culture in one of the largest financial services company in Finland. The positive approach to creating a knowledge sharing culture effectively addressed the resistance to change process inherent in any organisational change intervention. The study extracted the core values and knowledge enablers that were the foundation for the growth of the organisation. Using individual and group interviews the authors collected and analysed data for generating actionable recommendations at the individual, group, and organisational level. At the individual level, the capacity to reframe to see the positive, a component of Appreciative Intelligence®, was important. The case study is also a good example of using appreciative inquiry as a knowledge management tool.

Trust and continuous sensemaking: case study on internal dynamics in an industrial company

The purpose of this study is to examine how sense is made in an organisation with regard to its future. This involves a case study of sensemaking that takes place in a continuous dialogue between the top management, middle management and shop stewards in a company preparing for international growth after the global financial crisis. By using a sensemaking framework, the study examines the discourse of trust and shows how different organisational groups participate in creating, shaping and sustaining the organisation and its future. The study contributes to sensemaking literature in organisation studies, first by viewing an organisation as a socially constructed verbal system and showing how sensemaking is created through language and is a continuous process in the organisational dialogue. Second, this study demonstrates how sensemaking analysis can be used to unravel the narratives that legitimise different organisational identities and surface in the politics of sensemaking.