Etla » Publications

Outsourcing, Occupational Restructuring, and Employee Well-Being: Is There a Silver Lining?

Mika Maliranta — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 10:49:23 +0000

Industrial Relations. A Journal of Economy and Society. Vol. 52:4, pp. 878-941, October 2013

Evaluation of the Academy of Finland

Terttu Luukkonen — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 07:50:24 +0000

Reports of the Ministry of Education and Culture, Finland 2013:14

Microsoft Acquires Nokia: Implications for the Two Companies and Finland

Jyrki Ali-Yrkkö — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 22:46:34 +0000

Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s phone business has considerable implications for Nokia and potentially for Finland as a country, but little immediate effects on Microsoft and related industries. One might ask, couldn’t there have been better remedies for the challenges both Microsoft and Nokia were facing?

Industry restructuring in the ICT sector – What does labor mobility tell us about skill relatedness and knowledge spillovers?

Tuomo Nikulainen — Wed, 28 Aug 2013 07:09:52 +0000

Industries go through different phases of evolution where old skills become obsolete and new skills arecrucial for the industrial renewal process. Industry evolution is usually addressed from the perspectives of production and exports, leaving one factor largely unexplored: human capital. Industry restructuring isa dynamic process where skills developed in one industry move to other industries as individuals change employers. We argue that the labor flows between industries reveal skill relatedness because individuals move to industries that value their existing skills. We also argue that the labor flows differ between highand low-skill labor. By examining these flows, we can identify spillover effects between industries during restructuring. To address this argument, we analyze all individual-level labor flows originating from the Finnish ICT sector for 1989-2010. This industry sector-level study focuses on three ICT industries (manufacturing, services and software), and we address the differences in labor mobility between the individuals with different professional skill levels. We find several differences in the labor market dynamics over time for each ICT industry and for the different skill levels.

The Future of Internet Era Organizations – The Concept of Chief Complementary Officer

Timo Seppälä — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 11:41:46 +0000

Implications of Value Creation and Capture in Global Value Chains – Lessons from 39 Grassroots Cases

Jyrki Ali-Yrkkö — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 06:46:40 +0000

This report summarizes 39 detailed ETLA case studies of global value chains (GVCs). The findings suggest that the value added in global value chains is less tied to their tangible aspects than what conventional wisdom suggests. Intangible aspects of GVCs tend to be more important, but their poor measurement in available statistics misguides. With the raise of GVCs, interests of governments and multinational enterprises operating within national borders are increasingly at odds, e.g., when it comes to transfer pricing practices. The evidence from Finland shows that misinterpreted (or ignored) transfer pricing rules have significant impacts on GDP and other macroeconomic measures. Since multinational enterprises, and GVCs they operate, have grown to dominate international trade, the focus of national policymakers should shift from companies and industries to tasks and functions that are conducted within national borders.

Performance-related Pay and Gender Wage Differences

Antti Kauhanen — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 13:57:16 +0000

Applied Economics (2013), Vol. 45 (36): pp. 5131-5143

Theory and Measurement of Competitiveness

Olavi Rantala — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 10:24:10 +0000

The study deals with the theory and measurement of competitiveness. The basic theory of firm implies that under constant returns to scale the unit cost of production can be used to measure the marginal cost of production and to model the impact of competitiveness on the market share of a firm. The competitiveness and the market share of a firm is the lower the higher its unit costs are compared to the average unit costs of all firms in the market. Empirical measurement of the unit costs of the Finnish industry is made with respect to Germany. It turns out that the unit costs of the Finnish industry have risen higher than the unit costs of the German industry since 2005, calculated without the effect of electronics industry. In addition to production costs the study deals with the theoretical and empirical impact of transportation costs on competitiveness in export markets. This is an important issue for Finland locating geographically far away from the main markets of the world. A major disadvantage for the future competitiveness of Finnish export industry will be the EU sulphur directive and the possible inclusion of shipping into the EU emissions trading scheme. The longer marine transportation distance from Finland means that Finland will lose competitiveness for example compared to Germany.

Servitization as a Productive Strategy of a Firm – Evidence from the Forest-Based Industries

Kaija Hyvönen-Rajecki — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 11:45:57 +0000

A central aspect of the industrial evolution in the advanced economies is the phenomenon called servitization. In general, the term servitization or product-service transition is used to highlight the change, where the tangible offering of a manufacturing firm is augmented with intangible services. In this paper, servitization is addressed broadly as a strategic reorientation by a manufacturing firm which entails adjustments in the firm business model as well. A useful framework to address the product-service transition is the socio-economic view of service productivity. On that basis, the paper shows how the productive strategy of the servitizing firm is linked with the business model that builds on service-dominant (S-D) logic. The resources and capabilities of the firm are central drivers in servitization. Via the empirical case study of the servitization strategies in the Finnish forest cluster, the paper extends the scope of analysis in the servitization research from the installed base -industries to the process industries. In a wider context, this paper contributes to the research collaboration between Aalto University (BIT) and Research Institute of the Finnish Economy, ETLA in the field of service research.

The role of business subsidies in job creation of start-ups, gazelles and incumbents

Heli Koski — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 12:35:19 +0000

Small Business Economics (2013), Vol. 41:1, pp. 195-214