Thesis Chapters by Annina Lattu
Thesis for: Master of Science (Economics and Business Administration), 2018
Universities have been, and still are, the leading institutions of knowledge production. Global c... more Universities have been, and still are, the leading institutions of knowledge production. Global competition has reached to the higher education sector and the talk of the new social contract between higher education and societies has been on the table since 1980’s. In Finland the Universities Act reform was enacted in 2009 starting a broader societal conversation of the role, meaning and mission of the university institution.
Lately Finnish higher education sector has gone through a rough path. Substantial cuts have been performed in the budget of universities since 2015 and although small compensatory investments have been made, the direction of public funding in higher education appears to be declining and aligning the global trend of increasing marketization of the higher education system. Besides being crucial assets to nation-states and companies, information and knowledge are needed in order to find pathways towards more sustainable practices. In the times of the current planetary crisis, a well functioning, sustainable university system is more important than ever.
This thesis focuses to study the social and economic sustainability tensions in the Finnish university system and seeks answer to the question: ”What kind of social and economic sustainability tensions exist in the Finnish university system?”. The theory of the thesis is based on the integrative framework by Hahn et al. (2015), which was developed to study the tensions in the field of corporate sustainability. Recognizing the tensions and contradictions help organizations to see a broader spectrum of possible strategies in order to strive for more sustainable ways of operating.
This study follows the qualitative research tradition, the ontology of the study is social constructionism and subjectivism, and the methodology is phenomenology. The empirical part of this study consists of 11 semi-structured interviews of the management of two Finnish universities and of the senior officials of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland working with higher education policy.
The contribution of this thesis is, first of all, to view Finnish higher education through the emergent modern corporate sustainability lens uniting the perspectives of sustainability studies, political science, higher education studies and management studies in the theoretical framework. Secondly, this thesis provides three management perspectives from different, opposite sides of the Finnish university system and thirdly, forms a systemic perspective of the Finnish university system and its’ social and economic tensions. Based on the findings, there are eleven sustainability tensions in the Finnish university system. The most strongly perceived tensions according to this study were the tensions regarding pressure on the ‘public purse’ and pressures for societal impact and interaction.
Papers by Annina Lattu
Sustainability, 2020
Universities are increasingly engaged in marketization and are also expected to transform into mo... more Universities are increasingly engaged in marketization and are also expected to transform into more sustainable institutions and be change-agents pushing forward the movement of sustainable development. This article introduces an analytical framework originated by Hahn et al. (2015) for understanding tensions concerning corporate sustainability to the context of the Finnish university system in order to answer the following questions: What are the tensions relating to Finnish universities' social and economic sustainability, and what strategies might universities use to cope with these tensions? Through analyzing interviews with university managers and officials from the Ministry of Education and Culture in Finland, we find that Hahn et al.'s framework is generally applicable in analyzing tensions of sustainability in universities, and we identify six tensions relating to the sustainability of Finnish universities. The tensions are related to 1) academic leadership and management legitimacy, 2) regional political tensions and university profiling, 3) political power over the university system, 4) changing academic work and profession, 5) academic autonomy and the role of the state, and 6) the future role of the university institution. Moreover, the article discusses issues regarding how to adapt the framework of corporate sustainability to the context of higher education.
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Thesis Chapters by Annina Lattu
Lately Finnish higher education sector has gone through a rough path. Substantial cuts have been performed in the budget of universities since 2015 and although small compensatory investments have been made, the direction of public funding in higher education appears to be declining and aligning the global trend of increasing marketization of the higher education system. Besides being crucial assets to nation-states and companies, information and knowledge are needed in order to find pathways towards more sustainable practices. In the times of the current planetary crisis, a well functioning, sustainable university system is more important than ever.
This thesis focuses to study the social and economic sustainability tensions in the Finnish university system and seeks answer to the question: ”What kind of social and economic sustainability tensions exist in the Finnish university system?”. The theory of the thesis is based on the integrative framework by Hahn et al. (2015), which was developed to study the tensions in the field of corporate sustainability. Recognizing the tensions and contradictions help organizations to see a broader spectrum of possible strategies in order to strive for more sustainable ways of operating.
This study follows the qualitative research tradition, the ontology of the study is social constructionism and subjectivism, and the methodology is phenomenology. The empirical part of this study consists of 11 semi-structured interviews of the management of two Finnish universities and of the senior officials of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland working with higher education policy.
The contribution of this thesis is, first of all, to view Finnish higher education through the emergent modern corporate sustainability lens uniting the perspectives of sustainability studies, political science, higher education studies and management studies in the theoretical framework. Secondly, this thesis provides three management perspectives from different, opposite sides of the Finnish university system and thirdly, forms a systemic perspective of the Finnish university system and its’ social and economic tensions. Based on the findings, there are eleven sustainability tensions in the Finnish university system. The most strongly perceived tensions according to this study were the tensions regarding pressure on the ‘public purse’ and pressures for societal impact and interaction.
Papers by Annina Lattu
Lately Finnish higher education sector has gone through a rough path. Substantial cuts have been performed in the budget of universities since 2015 and although small compensatory investments have been made, the direction of public funding in higher education appears to be declining and aligning the global trend of increasing marketization of the higher education system. Besides being crucial assets to nation-states and companies, information and knowledge are needed in order to find pathways towards more sustainable practices. In the times of the current planetary crisis, a well functioning, sustainable university system is more important than ever.
This thesis focuses to study the social and economic sustainability tensions in the Finnish university system and seeks answer to the question: ”What kind of social and economic sustainability tensions exist in the Finnish university system?”. The theory of the thesis is based on the integrative framework by Hahn et al. (2015), which was developed to study the tensions in the field of corporate sustainability. Recognizing the tensions and contradictions help organizations to see a broader spectrum of possible strategies in order to strive for more sustainable ways of operating.
This study follows the qualitative research tradition, the ontology of the study is social constructionism and subjectivism, and the methodology is phenomenology. The empirical part of this study consists of 11 semi-structured interviews of the management of two Finnish universities and of the senior officials of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland working with higher education policy.
The contribution of this thesis is, first of all, to view Finnish higher education through the emergent modern corporate sustainability lens uniting the perspectives of sustainability studies, political science, higher education studies and management studies in the theoretical framework. Secondly, this thesis provides three management perspectives from different, opposite sides of the Finnish university system and thirdly, forms a systemic perspective of the Finnish university system and its’ social and economic tensions. Based on the findings, there are eleven sustainability tensions in the Finnish university system. The most strongly perceived tensions according to this study were the tensions regarding pressure on the ‘public purse’ and pressures for societal impact and interaction.