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This Master’s thesis focuses on the arguments and justifications of Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset, PS) candidates before the Finnish parliamentary elections of 2011, where the populist party succeeded tremendously, over quadrupling its share of votes. The context is one of a rising tide of nationalist populism in Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe. Other studies have theoretically and empirically provided some explanations for this dynamic both elsewhere and in Finland. However, a study of political sociology on the Finns Party candidates’ argumentation can shed light on the cultural specificity the nationalist populist phenomenon takes on in the Finnish case. It is argued here that this specificity is born out of the legacy of Finnish populism, nationalism and political culture, including the legacy of the Finnish Rural Party (Suomen maaseudun puolue, SMP, 1959–1995), the predecessor of the PS. Data that facilitates such an analysis is found in the Helsingin Sanomat Voting Advice Application. This political questionnaire was answered by 202 (85%) PS candidates and released online as open data, providing a unique dataset not previously available. By a content analysis informed by the justification theory of Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot, the study answers the following questions: How is Finnish political culture and history visible in the way the European populist phenomenon takes its shape in the PS? Is the PS geographically divided to a rural part with SMP rural populist roots and an urban part in line with the contemporary European populist radical right? It was hypothesized that rural PS populism is more left-wing in nature and stresses rural poverty, whereas urban PS populism sees immigration issues as more salient and is more right-wing in its economic policy. The rural candidates were expected to present justifications based on equality and social justice more often, and the urban candidates to use ones based on market efficiency. This hypothesis indeed holds true, according to the results of this study, but with some critical corrections. First, the rural/urban division is not as clear-cut as hypothesized. The radical right candidates are a minority even within the urban candidates. The mainstream of rural and urban candidates was more of a left-populist nature. Second, while a gender aspect was missing from the hypothesis, gender was indeed to be considered, since the radical right candidates were even more overwhelmingly male than they were urban. Third, while there were differences between the rural and urban candidates in their usage of justifications, this varied with the question and was not as consistent as hypothesized. Nevertheless, the use of justifications based on efficiency was notable. Both rural and urban candidates often related to political issues as to be decided upon with calculations of expected consequences. This is something that is typical of Finnish political culture, and in this study, it is found to be typical of Finnish populism as well.

The traditional idea of a company consists of five common characteristics. These are legal personality, limited liability, transferable shares, delegated management with board structure and investor ownership. It is said that these core characteristics support the idea of shareholder primacy. The traditional idea of the purpose of a company has been for a long time to maximize the shareholders’ wealth ie shareholder primacy but in the recent years there has been discussions whether that is actually the right purpose or not. Due to this different theories have been created such as enlightened shareholder value and stakeholder primacy. These theories have been discussed by academics and supporters of each group have tried to show that their idea is the best. It has proven to be a difficult task and no one has been able to create bulletproof evidence that would prove their ideas as the best one. Sometimes it is important to look at the legislation in order to find out the purpose of a company. The wording varies in different countries but some do not state a specific purpose. It must be also remembered that there are other obligations that are imposed on companies and their directors by other laws and regulations. These relate especially to social responsibility. It has been recognised that most of the successful companies are acting responsibly. It must be also noticed that there are some big crises that have arisen from directors’ negligent behaviour, such as Enron and BP’s oil spill. Whatever the purpose is, it must be remembered that in order to create successful business, the directors have a variety of issues to consider and take care of. It is difficult to state just one specific purpose as most of these things are attached together.

This Master’s thesis examines the moral and political claims presented in the climate change debate in the French public sphere. My research material includes newspaper coverage from United Nations Climate Change Summits in Copenhagen (2009) and Durban (2011) in the French daily Le Monde as well as interviews from local civil society actors. While media debates on climate change have been widely studied, the moral dimension of these debates has been largely neglected. The objective of this study is to fill this gap and emphasize the moral and cultural dimensions in tracing the problems related to global climate governance. Secondly, I will emphasize the growing role of civil society actors in the governance of climate change, the solutions they offer and the way in which they justify their arguments. France is chosen as the context for this study because of its strong commitment to environmental issues at the political level. The central role of nuclear power in its energy production as well as France’s active role in shaping EU’s climate policy makes it an interesting research context as well. The concepts and methods from political sociology, utilized in this study, will shed light on the cultural specificities of this debate in the French media and civil society. By the theoretical framework of justification theory, developed by Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot, my objective is to analyse climate change related disputes and serve as well as a contribution to this fairly new approach in sociology. With a method called Public Justifications Analysis (PJA), I aim to answer the following research questions: What are the specific features of the climate change debate in the French media and civil society? What kinds of solutions do different actors offer to tackle climate change and how do they justify them morally? What are actors’ conceptions of justice and worth, and in which sense do these conceptions differ and on the other hand converge? How is the French political culture visible in the public debate and in argumentation? With justification theory we can reach culturally sensitive results in relation to climate politics and thus make comparative research between different countries and their climate change debates. In this study, the results will be compared to the findings obtained from the U.S. The main results of the study can be summarized as follows: Firstly, civic values are at the heart of the French argumentation forming a bridge between the media debate and the interviews from civil society. French actors argued that democratic decision-making in the form of a global, legally binding agreement is the most effective way to tackle climate change. French actors also emphasized social justice and called for solidarity and burden sharing between the rich and poor countries. Secondly, civil society organisations offered alternative frames in the interviews to understand climate politics. In addition, their arguments were generally more radical than those presented in the media debate: they argued that market, civic and ecological values are not compatible and therefore suggested more profound changes to the societal system by stronger democratic regulation of global economy. Overall, the use of civic arguments seemed to be typical of French political culture on the basis of this study’s results. Thirdly, while the relationship between the French state and the civil society has traditionally been conflictual, in the case of climate politics it was more based on negotiation and mediation.

The possible presence of periodicity in the terrestrial impact crater data has been discussed in several papers since 1984. The authenticity of this detected periodicity data is controversial. It is possible, however, that real periodicity is present and could be detected from more accurate and complete data. In our study we created simulated different probability distributions for terrestrial impact crater record, that covered completely aperiodic and periodic impact cratering scenarios, as well as two specific combinations of these two cases, with four different impact crater age uncertainties. From these distributions we then generated simulated time series of impact craters with different numbers of craters and tested if the periodicity in the distribution could be detected using the Rayleigh method. Our analysis shows that if only one third of the terrestrial impact craters are caused by periodic cratering events, the detection of a real period in the data is very difficult and probably could not be detected even if better impact crater data became available. If two thirds of the craters are caused by periodic impacts, detection is possible, but would require substantially better data than which is currently available. We conclude that the periodicities reported so far in the impact crater data are not caused by real physical phenomena.

The decathlon is a track and field event that consists of ten single events, which are performed in the same order during two competitive days. The result from each event is according to the official scoring table transformed into points which are then added together and result in the final score. The aim of this study is to see, what makes an elite decathlete. The individual development in each event is observed. For this study material consisting of all recorded data by decathletes with a personal best of over 8 500 points from year 1970 to 2019 have been used. From the data the best (individual) results made within a decathlon per year was chosen up until the best season. Changes in the decathlete´s profile has been analyzed in four stages (clusters). Changes in the individual development pattern based on the initial level in each event is also observed. The theory part covers the linear mixed-effects model introduced by Laird and Ware. The restricted maximum likelihood method related to the model is deduced in detail. According to the results of the study it seems like the sprint events are of great importance in the decathlon. Especially initially weak 400-meter-runners make a notable progress. However, some initially weak events remain relatively weak compared to the initially stronger.

Objective. In today’s workplaces an increasing number of tasks is completed in teams. Hence, to understand the psychological processes affecting interaction within and success of teams in different environments is of great importance. To study these processes, a new TT10 questionnaire (84 questions, 10 separate subscales) was created. The aim of this thesis was to study the validity and reliability of the TT10 by studying multiple literature-based hypotheses about connections between the subscales of the TT10 in two separate studies. Methods. In study 1 (n=49) 10 teams from two Finnish technology companies filled the TT10 and basic demographic information online. In study 2 (n=124) there were 62 pairs consisting of an employee of a Finnish insurance company and a customer. The counterparts in each pair were anonymously in contact with each other in an online chat for 20 minutes during which their task was to solve puzzles together. After the experiment they were asked to review the interaction of their pair with a shortened version (27 questions) of the TT10. Results. Almost all of the hypotheses gained support. Different subscales were in connection with each other mostly in the hypothesized ways. Conclusions. The most promising subscales of the TT10 were psychological safety, social cohesion, collaboration, and co-flow. However, limitations such as a very limited number of participants in study 1 made some of the results a bit unclear. However, according to these preliminary results, the TT10 seems to be a promising questionnaire that still needs fine-graining.

Apotti is an electronic health record system (EHRs) used in the Uusimaa region of Finland. The system is based on structured records which aims to maximize the collection of big data, which is expected to bring long-awaited solutions for our health care system suffering from structural funding and efficiency issues. As such, Apotti reflects the paradigm of datafication, which means quantifying social reality into data to be later used in value-making purposes. However, the endeavors gaining benefits from big data might be problematic from the point of view of nursing, that is hard, if not impossible to quantify due to its multidimensional nature, which also operates beyond visible performance. For this reason, there is a tension between the datafication paradigm and nursing practice in a more data-driven health care system. In this thesis, I explore this tension by examining the experiences of Finnish nurses using the Apotti system. The material of this thesis consists of eight in-depth interviews of nurses using the Apotti system, collected during the year 2023. The analysis was done using theory-guided content analysis. As a theoretical framework, Hartmut Rosa’s theory of social acceleration is used. According to the theory of social acceleration, the essence of modernity is acceleration, consisting of technical acceleration, acceleration of social change and the acceleration of pace of life. Rosa’s theory suggests that accelerated life leads to an alienated relationship with the world, as modern subjects seek to do more in absolute numbers but end up doing qualitatively worse. Rosa also uses care work as an example of an alienated relationship: caretakers do not encounter the patient on a reciprocal basis anymore, but the patient is fragmented into discrete pieces of parameters on which the health care staff focuses on under constant pressures of being effective. Accelerated life, according to Rosa, roots back to the ethos of controllability which seeks to dominate the surrounding reality by technological and scientific processes. As such, for both datafication and controllability, value creation is linked to how successfully the surrounding reality becomes exploitable for humans. The analysis consists of three parts, starting with handling time scarcity in nursing practice. Datafication is linked to this in two ways: firstly, doing the EHRs is not a minor, but major work task in nursing practice. Secondly, as value and meaning assimilates with data, work that does not show in the data starts lacking crucial evidence of its existence, leading to an accelerating data mill with increased amount of mandatory data work. The second part of the analysis elucidates the “invisible” work of nurses not shown in the data. In this part, challenges related to the nature of structural records against the nursing practice are also scrutinized, as well as more profound problems related to data collection and uncritical use of data. In the third part of the analysis, the medication process in Apotti is examined. Even if the medication process in Apotti is rendered as rock solid as possible, by shifting the focus away from nurses own judgement to technological procedures that are never flawless and often very complex, new hazards to medication safety emerge. This thesis discusses how Apotti, being a technological solution for time scarcity in the health care sector, has not decreased time scarcity, but instead by changing the social reality of nurses has resulted into an opposite outcome with increasing demands raising from datafication. Nevertheless, nurses hold resistance to these demands by actively maintaining more holistic relationship with patients by focusing on the human behind the parameters representing a human and prioritizing patient care over data work. The main contribution of this thesis is showing the limits to quantitative data in representing and guiding nursing practice, which should be acknowledged when health care sector becomes more data-driven. As nursing is being quantified regardless of being a profession that seems hard if not impossible to define in quantitative manners, qualitative research is also needed to elucidate essential work that remains in the shadows of quantification.

Finnish economy performed remarkably well for decades after the war. Finland achieved an enviable standard of living with a combination of free-market capitalism and extensive welfare state. The long period of growth, which was temporarily disrupted by the 1990s depression, culminated in the spectacular rise of Nokia that pushed the entire country forward. Eventually the period of growth ended in global financial crisis of 2007-2008. While Finland’s neighbors were able to bounce back in few years, it took a decade for Finland to recover, and the effects of the prolonged recovery are felt yet today. This dissertation focusses on identifying the underlying reasons to Finland’s poor performance in recent years. The research question in this dissertation is broad: to identify significant trends and phenomena that cross sector boundaries and cannot be described by a single model and a narrow approach. The approach is to systematically review well established theories, sector by sector, and then present cross-country evidence to shed light on Finland’s economy. A lot of emphasize is on Schumpeterian endogenous growth theory, which explains why firms invest in research and development. Schumpeterian theory is tested with a panel data regression, using sector-level Product Market Competition data and data on triadic patent presentations. Data used in this dissertation is collected from public sources, including Statistics Finland, Eurostat, OECD, UN, ILO, WIPO and The World Bank. A Statistically significant and positive relationship between PMC and rate of innovation was found to exist using Finnish data for 2013 and 2017. As PMC has declined in key industries in Finland, it means that firms’ incentives to innovate have decreased. This coincides with austerity measures that have impacted public sector R&D spending. These factors, among with others, have contributed to Total Factor Productivity decline, which is worrisome. Other notable findings include Finland’s post-crisis growth in private demand, that substantially contributed to Finland’s recovery. However, much of that growth comes from spending on housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, that is related to steep increase in electricity transmission tariffs. In other words, increased spending reduced welfare. As overall conclusion, Finland needs a more strategic approach to economic policy. Finland would benefit from focusing on policies that spur innovation and generate growth, namely, stronger focus on market economy and R&D. Deregulation, supporting the market economy, and lowering the obstacles that stand in the way of immigration of skilled workers, are examples of those policies.

Tutkielman tarkoitus oli tutkia, kumpaa englannin kahdesta suuresta variantista suomalaiset yhdeksäsluokkalaiset suosivat, amerikanenglantia vai brittienglantia. Tarkoituksena oli myös tutkia, miten oppilaiden vapaa-aikanaan kohtaama englannin kieli vaikuttaa heidän mieltymyksiinsä. Vastauksia haettiin kolmen tutkimuskysymyksen kautta: 1) Kumpi variantti, brittienglanti vai amerikanenglanti, on suositumpi suomalaisten yläkouluikäisten oppilaiden keskuudessa? 2) Kuinka johdonmukaisesti oppilaat käyttävät sitä varianttia, jota he käyttävät eniten? ja 3) Miten oppilaiden käyttämä englanninkielinen media heijastuu variantin käytön johdonmukaisuuteen? Tutkimuksen teoriatausta käsittelee ensin englannin varianttien historiaa ja eroja. Teoriataustassa myös selvitetään englannin asemaa Suomessa ja maailmalla, sekä esitellään tutkimuksia englannin oppimisesta luokkahuoneen ulkopuolella. Myös aiempia tutkimuksia oppilaiden mieltymyksistä englannin variantteja kohtaan käsitellään. Aiemmat tutkimukset Suomessa ovat tarkastelleet ruotsinkielisiä oppilaita (Sjöholm, 2004) tai suomenkielisiä lukio-opiskelijoita (Järvenpää, 2014), joten tämä tutkimus tuo aiheeseen uuden näkökulman keskittymällä suomenkielisin yläkouluikäisiin oppilaisiin. Tutkimuksessa yhdisteltiin sekä määrällisiä että laadullisia menetelmiä. Tutkimusaineisto kerättiin keväällä 2015 kyselyllä, johon vastasi yhteensä 101 yhdeksäsluokkalaista oppilasta kahdesta helsinkiläisestä koulusta. Oppilaista 53 oli tyttöjä ja 43 poikia, joiden lisäksi viisi oppilasta ei ilmoittanut sukupuoltaan. Oppilaat olivat iältään 14-17-vuotiaita. Tutkimukseen osallistuneista oppilaista 23 oli englantipainotteisella luokalla, mutta tämän ei koettu olevan ratkaisevaa sen kannalta, mitä variantteja oppilaat suosivat. Kyselylomake rakentui kahdesta osasta. Ensimmäisessä osassa annettiin yhteensä 15 sanaparia, joissa oppilaiden tuli valita kumman vaihtoehdon he valitsisivat mieluummin. Kymmenessä näistä sanapareista oli kaksi samaa tarkoittavaa sanaa, joista toista käytetään enemmän brittienglannissa ja toista amerikanenglannissa. Loput viisi sanaparia sisälsivät saman sanan kahdessa eri kirjoitusasussa, jotka jälleen edustivat tutkimuksen kahta englannin varianttia. Kyselylomakkeen toinen osa selvitti vastaajien taustatietoja, kuten iän, sukupuolen ja oppilaan puhumat kielet. Lisäksi oppilaita pyydettiin arvioimaan oppikirjojen, television ja elokuvien, musiikin, kirjojen, videopelien ja internetin vaikutusta omaan englannin kielen taitoonsa. Tämän jälkeen oppilaita pyydettiin vielä arvioimaan, kuinka paljon aikaa he käyttävät edellä mainittuihin aktiviteetteihin englannin kielellä. Tutkimuksessa selvisi, että keskimäärin yhdeksäsluokkalaiset valitsivat sanoista mieluummin amerikan-englantilaisen kuin brittienglantilaisen vaihtoehdon, mutta yksittäisten sanaparien kohdalla suurin osa oppilaista valitsi toisinaan mieluummin brittienglannin sanan. Kirjoitusasuissa brittienglanti oli suositumpi kuin amerikanenglanti, mutta myös tässä näkyi vaihtelua yksittäisten sanaparien kohdalla. Suurin osa oppilaista ei ollut kovinkaan johdonmukainen valinnoissaan ja vain 10 % oppilaista osoitti vahvaa johdonmukaisuutta käyttämässään variantissa. Tutkimus myös osoitti, että oppilaiden vapaa-aikanaan käyttämällä englannin kielellä oli yhteyksiä heidän mieltymyksiinsä varianttien välillä. Esimerkiksi television ja elokuvien katselun ja amerikanenglannin suosimisen välillä havaittiin yhteys.

Tässä pro gradu -tutkielmassa perehdytään maagiseen muutokseen ja sen vaikutuksiin kahdessa maagisen realismin lajityyppiin lukeutuvassa teoksessa, Angela Carterin The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffmanissa sekä Jonathan Carrollin White Applesissa. Muutosta ja sen vaikutuksia puretaan tutkimalla fiktion osamaailmojen välisen rajapinnan murtumista sekä fiktion maailman sisäisten sääntöjen muuttumista. Maaginen realismi tarjoaa kiinnostavan lähtökohdan sääntöjen muuttumisen tutkimiselle, sillä siinä lukijan maailmaa muistuttavassa maailmassa alkaa tapahtua selittämättömiä asioita, joita sekä henkilöhahmot että lukijat joutuvat peilaamaan oman maailmansa sääntöjä vasten. Oudot ilmiöt voivat asettaa kyseenalaisiksi esimerkiksi luonnonlait ja sen, mikä on fiktion maailmassa mahdollista tai sallittua. Teoreettinen viitekehys sääntöjen muuttumisen hetkelle ja sen seuraamuksille löytyy fantastisen teoriasta ja etenkin Tzvetan Todorovin ajattelusta, jota täydennetään Marie-Laure Ryanin käsitteillä fiktion mahdollisista maailmoista. Mahdollisten maailmojen teoria sekä fantastisen kirjallisuuden määritelmät tarjoavat hyviä työkaluja fiktion osamaailmojen erittelemiseen ja tutkimiseen. Eri osamaailmojen tarkastelusta on kuitenkin mielekästä jatkaa eteenpäin ja pohtia sitä, kuinka eri fiktion tasot vaikuttavat toisiinsa ja millaisia seurauksia osamaailmojen välisellä liikkeellä tai sääntöjen rikkoutumisella on niin juonelle kuin henkilöhahmoille ja lopulta mitä muutokset ja reaktiot niihin kertovat. Muuttuneet säännöt mahdollistavat myös ironian syntymisen. Tutkielman kahdessa kohderomaanissa fiktion maailmat rakentuvat eri tavoin. Jonathan Carrollin White Apples -teoksessa fiktion osamaailmat ovat erillisiä, ja maailmojen välillä tapahtuu liikettä eri suuntiin. Maaginen muutos ei vaikuta ainoastaan elävien maailmaa asuttavien ihmisten toimintaan, vaan myös fiktion muista osamaailmoista kotoisin olevat hahmot joutuvat omaksumaan uudenlaisia sääntöjä. Angela Carterin The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffmanissa taas muutos käynnistyy hiljalleen ihmisen toiminnan seurauksena. Romaanissa ei tarjota yksiselitteistä vastausta siihen, rakentuuko fiktion maailma yhdestä vai monesta erillisestä maailmasta. Muutos tutusta outoon ja siirtyminen meidän maailmaamme muistuttavasta maailmasta fantastisen piriin toimii myös juonen katalysaattorina. Henkilöhahmot joutuvat omaksumaan uusia sääntöjä ja tarttumaan toimeen. Romaanien tarkastelu Todorovin itseyden ja toiseuden teemojen kautta osoittaa myös, kuinka tehokas keino maaginen realismi on erilaisten vaihtoehtojen pohtimiseen: itseyden teemoilla voidaan käsitellä tietämistä ja mahdollisuuksia, toiseuden teemat taas koskevat houkutusta, himoa ja seksuaalisuutta. Mahdollisten maailmojen teoriaa ja fantastisen erilaisia määritelmiä yhdistelemällä voidaan siis analysoida maailmojen rakentumista ja niiden välistä liikettä monella eri tasolla, aina fiktion rakenteesta romaanin esittelemään tematiikkaan saakka. Se, mikä yhdistää niin strukturalistista kuin temaattisempaa tulkintaa on sääntöjen, mahdollisuuksien ja mahdottomuuksien analyyttinen tarkastelu.