Virpi Sillanpää

The role on intellectual capital in non-profit elderly care organizations

Purpose – The starting‐point of this paper is the observation that, while intellectual capital (IC) management seems to be a potential approach for non‐profit elderly care organizations, there is a lack of empirical evidence on how it could actually be applied. This paper aims to add to knowledge of this issue.Design/methodology/approach – This is an exploratory, qualitative case study including three case organizations. The case descriptions and analysis are based on interviews with managers of the case organizations.Findings – The study describes which intangible resources are highlighted in the operations of non‐profit elderly care organizations, the existing practices regarding the management of IC factors and the IC needs of management in these organizations.Research limitations/implications – The study focuses on Finnish non‐profits. The operations of the third sector may vary across countries.Practical implications – The elderly care sector is facing big challenges due to the changing age structure...

Intellectual capital management in practice: assessment of implementation and outcomes

In recent decades, a huge variety of models for managing intellectual capital (IC) have been generated. However, understanding how IC management (ICM) models operate in practice and the issues that may be encountered when they are implemented remain a challenging issue. This is because there seems to be a significant gap between the enthusiastic development of ICM models in theory and the application of these models in companies. Therefore, more practically grounded research needs to be carried out. Reporting on action research projects and an interview study, this paper enriches the existing theoretical and framework-oriented IC literature by examining empirically the implementation of ICM projects and their outcomes in six Finnish companies. The findings of the paper include the challenges and success factors affecting the development of ICM projects, likewise the related outcomes and benefits. This provides useful insights for applying ICM to practice.

Overcoming challenges in the implementation of performance measurement

Purpose – The paper aims to evaluate factors affecting the success of the measurement system implementation in the context of two case services with a specific measurement object – productivity.Design/methodology/approach – Interviews with the users of new measurement systems are used to obtain information on the role of known technical and organizational success factors supporting measurement system implementation.Findings – Two key factors were found to affect the success of the measurement system development project. First, the commitment of the operative level was achieved. Second, the chosen measurement tool was suitable for the identified managerial requirements of the organization.Research limitations/implications – In order to improve external validity, it would be useful to assess the implementation of measurement systems with a similar approach in different organizations. Could the positive results described in this study be replicated?Practical implications – The practical implications of this ...

A contingency approach to performance measurement in service operations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the contingency factors affecting performance measurement in the service context. The paper aims to review the literature on performance measurement and synthesize it to a framework that creates a basis for analyzing measurement practices in various kinds of service contexts.Design/methodology/approach – In order to obtain a fresh update to the existing knowledge on the topic, a systematic literature review was carried out. Around 8,000 articles published between 2005 and 2011 were reviewed and as a result 80 papers were chosen for a more detailed examination.Findings – The paper applies a fresh approach to performance measurement in services, increasing generalizability of case study findings. By analyzing a large set of studies, the study identifies contextual factors that affect performance measurement in service operations. The resulting framework acts as a foundation for further research on performance measurement in services.Practical implication...

Performance measurement in welfare services: a survey of Finnish organisations

Purpose – This paper aims to identify the focal elements of performance in Finnish welfare service organisations, how performance is measured in welfare services, and what are management needs regarding the development of performance measurement in the sector.Design/methodology/approach – First, the relevant performance management literature of welfare services is reviewed, then interviews with 15 managers of Finnish welfare service organisations in public, nonprofit and for‐profit sectors are reported.Findings – The paper identifies the key elements of performance in Finnish welfare services. The results of the research indicate that Finnish welfare service organisations are relatively active in their performance measurement. Development needs relate to acquiring more systematic performance measurement approaches and new measures for the quality and long‐term effects of services.Practical implications – Research elaborates the concept of performance in welfare services, thus enabling practitioners to ana...

Intellectual capital management practices in Finnish companies

Not many companies seem to be using the Intellectual Capital Management (ICM) models presented in the literature. The objective is to find out what the current status of ICM is in Finnish companies, how managers wish to develop Intellectual Capital (IC) in their companies and what kind of ICM tools are most desired. The research is carried out by two methods: telephone interviews in 35 companies and case research in 10 companies. The results show that Finnish companies are performing various management activities related to IC as part of different organisational functions. However, a specific ICM activity does not usually exist. Generally, the companies seem to prefer ICM tools designed for the purposes of internal development of IC (e.g. measurement) whereas external IC reporting is not considered important.

Measuring the impacts of welfare service innovations

Purpose – Earlier research highlights the need for the welfare service sector to measure the impacts of their services. However, it seems that the welfare services lack measures to show their long-term effects and impacts. This paper aims to present a framework to measure the multidimensional impacts of welfare service innovations and report the empirical results from two case studies. Design/methodology/approach – In the first part of the paper, the impact measurement literature is reviewed and a framework for measuring the impacts of welfare services is presented. The empirical part of the paper reports the application of the framework in two cases for measuring the impacts of interventions in welfare services in Finland. The aim of the case studies was to assess and illustrate the usefulness of the framework designed. Findings – The framework proposed in the research may serve as a practical tool for decision-makers for assessing the impacts of different services and service innovations in the welfare ...

Application for pre-processing and visualization of electrodermal activity wearable data

Using sensors to gather physiological data about users can provide valuable insights that are not available merely using traditional measures. Electrodermal activity (EDA) can act as an indicator for both physiological and psychological arousal. Measuring arousal has several application areas. For instance, prolonged and often recurring high arousal levels can indicate that a person is suffering from chronic stress. At the other extreme, for example, in elderly care constant low arousal levels can signal that the senior citizens are not getting enough activity and attention from the care personnel. In the context of events, measurement of arousal can indicate when the persons get excited and when they are more calm. This study presents a pilot study of EDA measurements conducted during a trade fair. Providing timely and meaningful information for a group of people being measured, however, requires pre-processing the data and creating visualizations that enable both individual and collective level sense-making of the results. The aim of this study was to develop a process and an open source application that can automatically pre-process large amounts of data from wearable sources, and create visualizations, to be used in events for immediate sense-making.

Can e-government solutions enhance the work in municipalities?: empirical evidence from case lupapiste

Digitalization and increasing demand of e-government services are not changing only the way the citizens can use public services, but also the nature of work of many municipality employees. At best this kind of digitalization can offer added value in the form of enhancing the work of the municipality personnel. In this paper, we study the effects of adopting an e-government service on work in municipalities. Based on an empirical investigation of five municipalities we propose flow efficiency as a key metric to grasp the added value of digitalization of a public service, as it reveals the most valuable activities as well as the potential bottlenecks. Flow efficiency measurement gives therefore a better indicator to be used in e-government process development than e.g. simple throughput time especially when evaluating the effects of digitalization on knowledge work productivity.

Value Assessment of e-Government Service from Municipality Perspective

Value assessment of e-government services remains a challenging task. In this study, we apply a value creation model of electronic business and value for money assessment approach of e-government service in an attempt to better understand value creation from the municipality perspective. By conducting semistructured interviews and analysis of e-government service data we investigate how digital service creates value in public services focusing on the municipality perspective. We present the identified sources of value and the indicators of value that could be derived from the analysis of data from the service. We discuss the complementary findings from performing value assessment using e-commerce and e-government models, the limitations of conducting value assessment of e-government services and performing financial analysis, and conclude with directions for future research.