Browsing by Subject "muutostoimijuuden ilmaus"

This thesis analyzes the economical thinking of the board of a small cooperative. The diversification of societies has created various new objectives along with new business forms which are challenging the traditional and supposedly rational economical thinking. One of these scarcely studied subjects is the subject cooperative of this research. When designing its business, the cooperative is forced to consider the decided business objectives along with the existing business environment. Thus, this research asks how is the discussion of economy manifested in the board meetings and what is the economic model of the cooperative. The conceptual framework of this qualitative study is cultural-historical activity theory. It posits long-term activity as a formation of collectively structured short-term actions that are influenced by structural units of the activity system. Activity is mediated through mental and material cultural artefacts, rules and division of labor, and it is also constantly transforming as a reaction to disturbances and contradictions in the activity. The subject of this qualitative study is an event organized in a cooperative. This event as a series of actions or as a component of an activity builds the activity of the cooperative. The analysis is based on transcribed data from 14 administrative meetings. With content analysis 24 themes with economic facet were distinguished. Five themes were more strictly analyzed, because both speaking turns and the manifestations of transformative agency condensed in these themes. Manifestations of transformative agency are discursive acts used for influencing the topic of discussion. The frequencies of these manifestations were used to present the tendency existing in the themes to transform the activity. The discussions dealing the event concentrated on three board meetings. In the first two meetings economy was strongly discussed as the plan turned out to be financially unprofitable. The decision to arrange the event was postponed, because the board wanted to ensure even a cost price result. Simultaneously designing and marketing was going on. No discussions on the events financial result took place during the third meeting even though the number of participants and total funding was less than needed for the cost price result. The talk about economy was replaced by talks about marketing and external support. Decision to arrange the event was again postponed, but later approved although the goals for financial result were not met. Still, as the unprofitable event as one component of the activity of the cooperative was linked to other components of the activity, an inference was possible that the board is executing a long-term green economy model as it is aiming to produce socially and ecologically sustainable business by partly abandoning its' profit objectives.