Raimo Blom

Social contradictions in informational capitalism: The case of Finnish wage earners and their labor market situation

Along with the diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs), work processes are becoming ever more knowledge intensive. In keeping with this trend, the number of informational (or knowledge) workers in Finland has more than tripled from 12% in 1988 to 39% in 2000. What makes the Finnish case unique and interesting is the exceptional speed with which the information sector of the economy has grown. A few years after facing the most severe economic recession in its history in the early 1990s, Finland is now considered to have an advanced information economy. However, our empirical analysis--based on survey data from 1988, 1994, and 2000--yields a somewhat more critical picture of the Finnish information society than what usually comes across in the mainstream media. The opportunities for social equality offered by the growth of informational work are far more limited than was the case with the transition from agricultural to industrial production.

Associational Activeness and Attitudes towards Political Citizenship in Finland from a Comparative Perspective

This article first focuses on the development of the system of associations and association memberships in Finland as well as additional forms of political participation from a comparative perspective and, second, expands the examination by analysing ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ dimensions of participation, i.e., the development of the number of Finnish association memberships and peoples ideas of, and attitudes towards political citizenship. The typology of polity regimes adopted in this article (Schofer & Fourcade-Gourinchas) functions as a structuring scheme for understanding the differentia specifica of Finnish political participation. Two structural characteristics of the civil society have had special importance and continuity: First, the close relationship between the state and voluntary associations in all subfields of civil society, and, second the sovereign position of formal, registered associations along with the weakness of alternative forms of collective action. In Finland a strong, relatively equal civil society has developed as a combination of active voluntary associations, individual actors with many association memberships and citizens who on average have relatively weak attitudes towards political citizenship and who are not very eager to use alternative, less conventional repertoires of acting collectively.

The Relevance of Class Theory

1. The problems involved in an attempt to outline class structure are also encountered at the other levels of class research and class theory (e.g. class consciousness and action). 2. Class action necessarily suggests the problem of how individual consciousness, action, and collective organization are related. 3. Apart from these constitutional problems, class research always has a theoretical problem to decide: the relation between class theory and research.

Information Society and the Transformation of Organizations in Finland.

In this article, the authors analyze and evaluate the nature of organizational change in Finland. This is against the backdrop of social theories that emphasize the transformation of work based on new technology and increasing knowledge intensity. Our empirical data are drawn from three case studies: Metso Automation, the global market leader in paper and pulp machine automation; Telenor, which produces and sells internet-based business catalogs; and the city of Ylöjärvi, which is responsible for social services. Our study shows that there are large differences between organizational types in terms of team formation, pay systems, recruitment, and forms of control. We argue that organizational differences reflect more general differences between traditional and proactive, flexible workplaces that coexist in the emerging information based society.

Precarity in Different Worlds of Social Classes

This chapter addresses social classes in contemporary Europe, with the specific goal of analysing what has been and what can be meant by the precariat and precarity in terms of class and how class analysis can contribute to actually understanding precariousness and precarization. This is done by analysing class positions from the point of view of reproduction of classes. By comparing different European class regimes, we examine whether reproduction of classes, and thereby reproduction of precariousness, follows similar or different patterns in selected European countries, including Russia. In particular, we compare Russia with the Nordic countries. In many ways, Russia is a critical case, which helps us to evaluate the relevance and range of the concept of precariat in class analysis.

THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM AND THE WORK SITUATION: A COMPARISON OF FINLAND AND ESTONIA

The article compares the work situations of five occupational groups in Finland and Estonia: industrial workers, clerical employees, technicians, teachers and managers. The main concern is with the structuration of the work situation, of which four aspects are given central attention: 1) objective characteristics, 2) the reproduction situation, 3) the nature of work, and 4) developmental aspects of work and the subjective experiences of qualification requirements. The main differences between the two countries are summarised as follows: 1) Wage differentials between occupational groups are greater in Finland than in Estonia. The differences between genders are greater in Estonia. In Estonia relative incomes are highest among industrial workers, in Finland among managers. 2) In all occupational groups Estonian workers have a higher educational level than colleagues in Finland. 3) All occupational groups experience more mental and physical stress in Finland than in Estonia. 4) Finnish managers have more decision-making authority than their Estonian colleagues, but Estonian workers have supervisory and task authority more often than do Finnish workers.

Managerial threats and prospects in Russian firms: the case of St. Petersburg 1999–2005

If management in firms of the concrete region focuses on innovation development, the economy of this region will have chances to become the innovation economy. What are the chances in this respect of St. Petersburg in the North-West Russia? In order to answer this question we have investigated managerial practices in local enterprises during two time periods 1999–2000 (N = 982) and 2004–2005 (N = 633). Our research has revealed: strategies employed by industrial firms is already under an insuperable influence of the modern global information society. The innovation economy has already started to form in the region.

Social environment and management: direct and return inter-influences – the case of St. Petersburg's firms in 2004

The study reviews both the influence of social environment on management and the reciprocal readiness of managers to promote the decision of problems of their social environment. The empirical part of the research was carried out from 2003 to 2004. One hundred twenty-nine managers have been surveyed and 15 deep interviews have been carried out.

Book Reviews : R. Coleman, L. Rainwater & K. McClelland: Social Standing in America: New Dimensions of Class, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1979. 353 pp

The study aims to explore the ways in which objective characteristics (incomes, job and education) are translated into status evaluations. The authors describe the changing conceptions of class and stratas in America, the role of different resources in producing a definite social standing (their role in people’s judgments of social standing and their significanceas the cause of individual social standing) and the respondents’ images of opportunity and social mobility in the past, in the present and in the future in America. The interview sample of the study covers nine hundred interviews from the areas of Boston and Kansas City. A smaller sample of judges were used to get an estimate of the status of occupations. The data are analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Thus the research report contains two very different kinds of results qualitative descriptions of class structure and social standing by the respondents’ own words and very narrow and sophisticated quantitative analyses (the authors called these ’social arithmetic’). There are too many different analytical results to give them all in detail. Some, however, can be described briefly. There are seven major stratas seen by most Americans (p. 124):

Book Reviews : Richard Scase (Ed.): Readings in the Swedish Class Structure, Pergamon Press, Oxford 1976

a collection of (ten) articles, nine of which present stratification research made in Sweden. Scase’s article comparing ’class, status and power’ in Britain and Sweden completes the volume. The Introduction was also written by Scase. The book is in three parts: The first, The Distribution of Ecollomic Rewards, has five articles the concentration of economic power (Commission Research); the regulation of class conflict (Fulcher); the wage-political objectives of labour market organizations (Hart and Otter); poverty and social assistance (Korpi); and development of thc Swedish class structure (Therborn). Part II, The Distributioll of Opportullities, is composed of an article about social mobility (Erikson) and one about educational equality (Harnqvist and Bengtsson). The third part, Inequality aiid Political Processes, has articles about social democratic loyalty (Himmelstrand and Lindhagen), democracy and political participation (Johansson), and also the abovementioned article by Scase. With three exceptions, all the articles have been published previously (1968-72), and so in a way the book contains mainly ’old discussions’. By abstracting from the different special contents of the various studies one can reach the following general theme. Taking the economic laws of capitalism as a starting point, what possibilities are there for the labour