Aihearkisto: Articles in English

Waste Management Trends in Selected Central Baltic Countries and in Russia

Articles in English, Kiertotalouden ratkaisut, LAMK Pro

In Europe each person is currently generating on average half of tone of household waste per year. Although the management of the waste continues to improve in the EU, the significant amount of potential, valuable secondary raw materials such as metals, wood, plastics, paper and glass are lost in waste streams. Turning waste into a resource is one key to a circular economy. This article analyses current waste management trends in selected Central Baltic counties, i.e. Finland, Sweden, Latvia and in Russia.

Authors: Shima Edalatkhah and Lea Heikinheimo

European legislation as key driver to improve waste management

The European Union’s approach to waste management is based on the waste hierarchy which sets the following priority order: prevention, (preparing for) reuse, recycling, recovery and, as the least preferred option, disposal (which includes landfilling and incineration without energy recovery) (European commission 2019).

The European Commission has set stricter regulations on waste separation, recycling and landfilling. The proposed key points by EU waste policy as the major instrument in waste management include the following, as listed in Figure 1.

          Figure 1. The EU Proposed Waste Management Policy (Bremere 2011))

Waste Management in Finland, Sweden, Latvia and Russia

Eurostat keeps track of statistics on waste management in the European Union. Visualizing this data can help in the understanding of the overall difference among Latvia, Finland, Sweden and Russia. This also highlights the shift that has already taken place in Finland and Sweden.

The total waste generated is the first trend. These numbers give us a basic idea of the input problem. This input is surprisingly similar in these countries nowadays. The national data on waste generated per person had varied greatly in previous years, but in year 2016 Swedish, Russians and Latvians produced nearly the same amount of waste, i.e. 400 kg/capita, respectively. Finns produced 500 kg/capita per year (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Total Waste Generated in Finland, Sweden, Latvia and Russia. (Eurostat 2018)

Secondly, the recycling trend matters as the result of environmental awareness, accessibility and culture. (Eurostat 2018) Latvia shows an impressive trend starting from 2012 while Sweden has a steadier incremental growth. In Latvia, the company The Latvijas Zalais punkts has been promoting environmental education and caring for clean and tidy environment for 15 years, thus contributing to the growing trend (Figure 3).  (The Latvijas Zalais punkts 2019)

Figure 3. Total Recycling in Finland, Sweden, Latvia and Russia. (Eurostat 2018)

Third, we look deeper into the landfill trend. This is the output of the system. In order to change this output, a holistic view of the problem is needed. The 10% EU goal of landfilling was reached in Sweden already in 2004 and in Finland in 2015 (Figure 4). (Eurostat 2018)

Figure 4. Landfilling in Finland, Sweden, Latvia and Russia. (Eurostat 2018)

Fourth are the trends for incineration, which is the process of simply burning waste in a controlled way. This process accounts for 50% of waste treatment in Finland and Sweden. The idea is to take advantage of the heat generated and sending this back to the nearby community. (Statistics Finland 2018)

Figure 5. Disposal – incineration and energy recovery in Finland, Sweden, Latvia and Russia. (Eurostat 2018)

Waste Treatment in Finland and Sweden

The total amount of waste in Finland is about 2.4 to 2.8 million tons per year. Finland’s population was 5.54 million in 2018. Considering the amount of waste and inhabitants, the amount is about 500 kilograms per inhabitant per year. Based on a long-term plan of waste management in Finland specifically after 2000, there is currently a dramatic cut down of the number of landfill sites to less than 3% following the outstanding competition over recovery of waste to both energy production and material recovery. (Statistics Finland 2018)

  Figure 6. Waste Treatment in Finland. (Eurostat 2018)

As the above statistics illustrate, within a period of 14 years, the municipal waste turned to a significant energy fuel for district heat production. The energy recovered municipal waste include biocomponents like wood, paperboard, cardboard and food waste. (Statistics Finland 2018)

The trends in Finland and Sweden is a trend of steady improvement. The rate of landfill has shrunk by the small increase in recycling and large increase in incineration and energy recovery. At the same time the total waste generated seems to be at a standstill.

Figure 7. Waste Treatment in Sweden. (Eurostat 2018)

Waste Treatment in Latvia and Russia

An interesting increase in generated waste for the last 4 years can be seen in Latvia. The increase is 27% (2012-2016). At the same time, the amount of landfill did not grow by more than 3%. This might be an indicator that the process of the landfill is not seen as the solution when more waste is produced. This is a good thing. More landfill could be an easy way when demand rose. The data does, however, not show where the increase of waste went. No increase in other waste treatment is shown and the data from Eurostat does not add up (Figure 8).

The missing piece between the bars and the line can be explained as a difference in waste generated vs waste treated. However, we do find it very unlikely that the perfect match in 2008, 2009 and 2010 are the result of near 100% treatment. If so the big drop in 2011 should be investigated. The problem is probably due to difference in reporting.

Obviously, the level of incineration and energy recovery needs to increase significantly if the 2030 target is to be reached. Finland´s increase of incineration and energy recovery from 2006 to 2016 is 234 kg/capita. This increase needs to happen in Latvia as well. The 2030 target is not an impossible goal.

 

Figure 8. Waste Treatment in Latvia. (Eurostat 2018)

The situation in Russia is as follows: as the total amount of waste generated is increasing, so are both the amount of landfill waste and landfill volume. The amount of recyclable waste in 2016 has doubled, which may indicate the beginning of a positive trend. But the share of recyclable waste is extremely small, it is a big problem for Russia now. (Eurostat 2018)

                     

Figure 9. Waste Treatment in Russia. (Eurostat 2018)

The results of this study indicate that there is a positive trend of waste management in all case countries. The amount of new landfilling in Sweden and Finland is nearly about zero, partly due to the ban on landfilling of organic waste. There is still a challenge to reach the target value of 65% of recycling of municipal waste by 2030.

Meanwhile in Latvia, the household waste which is not recycled, is landfilled. There has been an outstanding growth in waste recycling though since 2012. In Latvia, it has been discussed whether they should build waste incinerators, or should they use landfills in mining. As the landfill mining can be considered as a part of the wider view of a circular economy, in recent years activity for secondary raw material recovery has received growing interest in EU area and globally. (Särkkä et al. 2018) Russia has recently had positive paces toward improvement in waste management and has high potentials to progress in the future.

References

Bremere, I. 2011. Improving Waste Prevention Policies in the Baltic States. Assessment and Recommendations. Hamburg: Baltic Environmental Forum. [Cited 15 Nov 2018]. Available at: http://bef-de.org/fileadmin/files/Publications/Waste/activity4-1-1_recommendations_waste-prev.pdf

European Commission. 2019. Waste. Environment. [Cited 15 Nov 2018]. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste

Eurostat. 2018. EU Open Data Portal. [Cited 15 Nov 2018]. Available at: https://data.europa.eu/euodp/data/dataset/KvzJCOjr8R9HkDIubruA

Interreg Europe. 2018. Effective municipal waste source. [Cited 15 Nov 2018].
Available at: https://www.interregeurope.eu/policylearning/good-practices/item/234/effective-municipal-waste-source-separation-and-recovery-paeijaet-haeme-region/

Statistics Finland. 2018. Municipal Waste Management. [Cited 15 Nov 2018].
Available at: https://www.stat.fi/til/jate/2016//jate_2016_13_2018-01-15_tie_001_en.html

Särkkä, H., Ranta-Korhonen, T. & Hirvonen, S. 2018. Municipal solid waste landfill as a potential source of secondary raw materials: Case Metsäsairila, Mikkeli. In: Aarrevaara E. & Harjapää A. (Eds.). Smart Cities in Smart Regions 2018: Conference Proceedings. Lahti: Lahti University of Applied Sciences. The Publication Series of Lahti University of Applied Sciences, part 39. 224-231.[Cited 14 Apr 2019]. Available at: URN:NBN:fi:amk-2018091815195

The Latvijas Zalais punkts. 2019. About us. [Cited 14 Apr 2019]. Available at: http://www.zalais.lv/en/about-us/

Authors

Shima Edalatkhah is an International Business Student at Lahti University of Applied Sciences

Lea Heikinheimo, D.Sc. (Tech), works as a Principal lecturer at LAMK, Faculty of Technology. She is also the Manager of the Crea-RE project.

Illustration: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/815927 (CC0)

Published 29.5.2019

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to the Interreg Central Baltic Program for the funding of the projects “Crea-RE Creating aligned studies in Resource Efficiency”.

Also, we would like to thank the partners and all the participants of the Crea-RE project who helped with data collection.

Reference to this publication

Edalatkhah, S. & Heikinheimo, L. 2019. Waste Management Trends in Selected Central Baltic Countries and in Russia. LAMK Pro. [Cited and date of citation]. Available at: http://www.lamkpub.fi/2019/05/29/waste-management-trends-in-selected-central-baltic-countries-and-in-russia/

A Culturally Diverse Workforce: Is it really worth it?

Älykäs liiketoiminta, Articles in English, LAMK Pro

What does cultural diversity mean and why are people so concerned about it currently? This article discusses the benefits of a culturally diverse workforce. Additionally, the article explores ways for organizations to increase workforce diversity. It is written for individuals interested in cultural diversity and matters related to it. The article is also relevant for organizations wishing to learn about workforce diversity and potentially integrating it into their corporate culture.

Authors: Isabella Härkönen & Tarja Ahonen

Theoretical Background

Cultural diversity can be defined as “the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole” (Kerwin 2010, vii). Because of the broadness of the concept, the study and the article applies a narrow category-based definition, which limits the concept to cover only cultural background.

Cultural diversity can bring many benefits to an organization’s workforce. From the organizational perspective it can improve the organization’s image as an employer and expand the applicant pool. (Leopold & Harris 2009, 129-132.) It also suggests that an organization is socially responsible and provides equal opportunities for all current and future employees (Hofhuis et al. 2013, 180). Moreover, with a diverse workforce organizations can learn more about different markets and potentially increase product awareness (Leopold & Harris 2009, 129-132). Workforce diversity has also been proven to add new perspectives to the problems at hand, increase innovativeness and problem-solving skills (Adler & Gundersen 2008, 102-104; Galinsky et al. 2015, 742).

Increasing workforce diversity can be challenging, but extremely beneficial for organizations in the long run. Theory suggests that the key for increasing workforce diversity is taking advantage of the gap between the number of personnel leaving and the number of new hires. Generally, like any workers, diverse employees can only be retained when there are vacancies in an organization, leading to a slow process. However, a speedy increase can be applied if organizations enter a stage of growth and need to employ additional workforce. (O’Brien et al. 2015, 11-12.)

Key Findings

The study was done in collaboration with Lahti University of Applied Sciences (LAMK). Twelve people working and studying at LAMK were presented questions related to cultural diversity and the case company. (Härkönen 2019, 22, 25.) The answers of interviewees were expected to be very general and noncommittal, but surprisingly interesting perspectives were gained. Revelations were made on different aspects related to the university that were not know beforehand. Sadly, many of them could not be used in the study, because they were slightly off topic.

The study revealed that 50 percent of the participating interviewees felt that LAMK’s workforce is not culturally diverse, 33,3 percent of interviewees answered that LAMK’s workforce is to some extent culturally diverse, and 16,7 percent stated that the workforce is culturally diverse (Härkönen 2019, 26). The results for this part were not as expected. It is clear that workforce diversity is very low at LAMK, yet some find that the workforce is culturally diverse. Reasons behind the answers of the participants who perceive LAMK’s workforce as culturally diverse could be due to the large amount of diverse students, foreign guest lecturers or foreign visitors at the university.

The majority of employees affirmed that a culturally diverse workforce is especially important for organizations nowadays. Moreover, most of the students felt increasing the amount of culturally diverse teachers would be beneficial and could help them learn more about different cultures. (Härkönen 2019, 26-28.) From a student’s perspective, having a diversified teacher base would make the learning environment more interesting. It would bring new teaching styles to the classrooms that do not rely only on PowerPoint presentations. Additionally, having more teachers who speak English as their native language would help students get a custom with the different dialects of the language. This is especially important in business studies, because you will come across several different styles of English during your career.

Various benefits were expressed in the study concerning a culturally diverse LAMK. It would be a competitive advantage against other Finnish universities of applied sciences and increase the amount of foreign students applying to LAMK. Additionally, foreign students would be able to get better support from teachers who have been in the same situation and it could increase the amount of foreign students staying in Finland after their studies. (Härkönen 2019, 28-29.) Other mentioned benefits were very similar to the collected theory, which was a disappointment for the study results. The research could have been more interesting if more new views on the benefits would have been gained.

Two concrete ways were suggested for increasing LAMK’s workforce diversity: Changing LAMK’s official working language to English and increasing the amount of teacher exchange. First, even though being a big undertaking for LAMK, changing the working language to English would be a positive investment for its future. It would increase its competitiveness and increase the amount of foreign students and employees wanting to be a part of the organization. Second, increasing the amount of teacher exchange would be an easy way to gain different perspectives and increase the amount of diversity in many aspects. Teachers going abroad would gain international knowledge and potentially new teaching styles. At the same time, LAMK’s students and employees would benefit from interacting with foreign teachers working at the university. (Härkönen 2019, 31, 35-36.) At the moment, the Universities of Applied Sciences in Finland are not very culturally diverse. This is why it is especially important for LAMK to take advantage of this gap and use it to their advantage. When performing the interviews, very little was known on the ways LAMK could increase its workforce diversity. The results were pleasantly surprising. Such concrete suggestions were not predicted beforehand. It is rewarding to see that the study provided real recommendations that the university can potentially use in the future.

Last word

To answer the opening questions, the concept of cultural diversity is an integral part of tomorrow’s business. Organizations must adapt to the changes brought by globalization and embrace cultural diversity. A culturally diversified workforce has been proven to be beneficial for organizations, making it a major trend in business. Therefore, future organizational focus should be on creating efficient diverse working environments and not playing it safe with a fully homogenous workforce.

References

Adler, N. & Gundersen, A. 2008. International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior. 5th ed. Mason: Thomson South-Western.

Galinsky, A., Todd, A., Homan, A., Phillips K., Apfelbaum, E., Sasaki, S., Richeson, J., Olayon, J. & Maddux, W. 2015. Maximizing the Gains and Minimizing the Pains od Diversity: a Policy Perspective. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 10(6). [Cited 6 Mar 2019]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1745691615598513

Hofhuis, J., Zee, K. & Otten, S. 2013. Measuring employee perception on the effects of cultural diversity at work: development of the Benefits and Threats of Diversity Scale. Quality & Quantity. 49(1). [Cited 6 Mar 2019]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-013-9981-7

Härkönen, I. 2019. Culturally Diversified Workforce: A Benefit or a Challenge? Bachelor’s thesis. Lahti University of Applied Sciences Ltd, Business and Hospitality Management. Lahti. [Cited 21 May 2019]. Available at: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2019052812395

Kerwin, L. 2010. Cultural Diversity: Issues, Challenges and Perspectives. New York: Nova Science Publishers.

Leopold, J. & Harris, L. 2009. The Strategic Managing of Human Resources. 2nd ed. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

O’Brien, K., Scheffer, M., Nes, E. & Lee, R. 2015. How to Break the Cycle of Low Workforce Diversity: A Model for Change. PLoS ONE. 10(7). [Cited 8 Mar 2019]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133208

Authors

Härkönen, Isabella. 2019. Fourth-year International Business student. Lahti University of Applied Sciences. Finland.

Ahonen, Tarja. 2019. Senior Lecturer. Lahti University of Applied Sciences Ltd, Business and Hospitality Management. Lahti.

Cover image: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1436885 (CC0)

Published: 29.5.2019

Reference to this publication

Härkönen, I. & Ahonen, T. 2019. A Culturally Diverse Workforce: Is it really worth it? LAMK Pro. [Cited and date of citation]. Available at: http://www.lamkpub.fi/2019/05/29/a-culturally-diverse-workforce-is-it-really-worth-it/

Six Skills Help You Stand Out in A Hypercompetitive Labour Market

Articles in English, LAMK Pro, Muut

“Anxious.” “Lost.” “Everything’s a struggle.” are some examples of the ways most recent university grads described their experience transitioning from school to the professional world. Why so? Because most of the grads need to undergo a “change-of-state” from being a student to being a short-termed (sometimes long-term) unemployed. This article is written for students who are struggling to enhance their competiveness in the labour market in order to get employed.

Authors: Phuong Nguyen and Marja Viljanen

Skills Challenge in Europe and Finland

Compared to other groups, the stagnation in the European markets hit the young more severely. For instance, the rate of youth unemployment in Finland reached 17.2% in December 2018, trebling the general unemployment rate (Statista 2018).

Skill mismatch is one of the key reasons to this dilemma. While many employers face difficulties in recruiting staff, unemployment levels remain relatively high. According to Cedefop European Skills and Jobs Survey, 39% of European employers have difficulty finding people with desirable skills. And more than half of 12 million long-termed unemployed are considered low-skilled. (Skills Panorama 2016.)

EmploySkills Project+

On recognizing the problem and aiming to solve it, Erasmus+ project, entitled “Strengthening students’ employability through enhanced skills formation (abbr. EmploySkills)” was formed. The expected outcome of the project is to develop curricula relevant to the labour market and societal needs.

The project consists of five intellectual outputs in total. Findings presented in this article are a part of the first output O1, which acts as a foundation for the next steps. Lahti University of Applied Sciences is one of the core partners in the project.

Theoretical Study of Transversal Skills

According to UNESCO IBE 2018, transversal skills are “skills related to a particular job, task, academic discipline or area of knowledge and that can be used in a wide variety of situations and work settings” (UNEVOC 2018). Some popular transversal skills are communication, collaboration, creative thinking or leadership. Nowadays, the term “transferable skills”, which has the same meaning as “transversal skills”, has been used more commonly (European Training Thesaurus 2018, as cited in ELGPN 2018).

The importance of transversal skills is indisputable. ”Transversal knowledge, skills and competencies are the building blocks for the development of the ”hard” skills and competencies required to succeed on the labour market.” (ESCOpedia 2018). As transversal skills are relevant to a broad range of occupations and sectors, they can be seen as the cornerstone for the personal development of a person (ESCOpedia 2018).

According to Nedelkoska and Quintini 2018 (as cited in Hogarth 2018), about 14% of jobs in 32 OECD countries which participated in PIAAC were highly automatable (i.e., with a probability of automation of over 70%). The only bottlenecks to automation are, however, social intelligence, cognitive intelligence, perception and manipulation that only human possess (Hogarth 2018). Therefore, transversal skills are of pivotal importance.

Research Methodology

The whole structure of the research is illustrated in Figure 1. The research adopts a deductive approach and applies the mixed-research method so as to better evaluate and understand the problem. In this case, qualitative method is used to provide an overview of the main issues while quantitative method collects descriptive data and bring an insight into the issue.

FIGURE 1. Research Structure (Nguyen 2019)

Key Findings

As a result, 20 transversal skills are divided into four groups in the order of significance for the working life (see Table 1). Amongst, type-1 comprises highly required skills at the first stage of a recruitment process, whilst type-2 includes skills that are necessary and critical for work process and career ladder. (Nguyen 2019.)

TABLE 1. Category of Transversal Skills (Nguyen 2019)

It is also worth noting that social skill is one of five most critical transversal skills, while collaboration skill is considered as the most important transversal skill by the majority of the interviewees. (Nguyen 2019.)

On the other hand, the research showed that the majority of graduate students lack these transversal skills: technology literacy, leadership, creativity, self-initiative, social skills, critical thinking and media literacy. Amongst, grads are most dissatisfied with the extent to which technology literacy and leadership skill are taught at higher education institutions (i.e. 29% and 27% respectively). (Nguyen 2019.)

Comparing opinions from both sides, it is concluded that many grads lack critical transversal skills because they misunderstood the expectation from employers. Now that we have understood the opinions from the employer side, we suggest students put more effort on the following six transversal skills in order to improve their employability: technology literacy, social skill, collaboration, self-initiative, creativity and critical thinking (Nguyen 2019.)

Although transversal skills are interpersonal and hard to teach, it is not impossible to acquire and develop a new transversal skill. As an outcome of the research, a practical guideline (see Figure 2) was created with a view to assisting students in developing their competencies in the six transversal skills.

FIGURE 2. Guidelines on the Improvement of Transversal Skills

Role of Higher Education Institutions

At the end of the focus group interview, the interviewees recommend schools should have their students take Personality Test. In addition, it is imperative that higher education institutions facilitate students to take more practical trainings that are in accordance with their career goals and integrate proactively transversal skills into the curriculum. Courses about self-management, leadership and technology seem to be in need for the matter.

Last word

Although the concept “transversal skills” is quite new, the significance of them in our life is undeniable. This research was conducted in Finland; accordingly, the result is more likely applicable to the Finnish labour market. However, future researchers can use this as a reference for the similar topic. More importantly, this research showed positive correlations between transversal skills. Therefore, it is highly recommended that future researchers do other in-depth research on the correlations between transversal skills.

References

ELGPN 2018. Transversal skills. [cited 6 Apr 2019]. Available at: http://www.elgpn.eu/elgpndb/view/251

ESCOpedia 2018. Skill reusability level. [cited 25 Feb 2018]. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/esco/portal/escopedia/Skill_reusability_level

Hogarth, T. 2018. Economy, employment and skills: European, regional and global perspectives in an age of uncertainty. Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini. [cited 25 Feb 2018]. Available at: http://www.fondazionebrodolini.it/sites/default/files/pubblicazioni/file/q61_x_web_cor_0.pdf

Molinsky, A. & Pisman, S. 2019. The biggest hurdles recent graduates face entering the workforce. [cited 27 Apr 2019]. Available at: https://hbr.org/2019/04/the-biggest-hurdles-recent-graduates-face-entering-the-workforce

Nguyen, P. 2019. Enhancing the employability of graduate students with transversal skills. Bachelor’s thesis. Lahti University of Applied Sciences, Business Administration. Lahti. [cited 27 Apr 2019]. Available at: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201904276194

Skills Panorama 2016. Skills challenges in Europe. [cited 27 Apr 2019]. Available at: https://skillspanorama.cedefop.europa.eu/en/analytical_highlights/skills-challenges-europe-2016

Statista 2018. Youth unemployment rate in Europe (EU member states) as of December 2018 (seasonally adjusted). [cited 18 Feb 2018]. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/266228/youth-unemployment-rate-in-eu-countries/

UNEVOC 2018. Transversal skills. [cited 25 Feb 2018]. Available at: https://unevoc.unesco.org/go.php?q=TVETipedia+Glossary+A-Z&id=577

Authors

Phuong Nguyen has studied Business and Administration at Faculty of Business and Hospitality Management at Lahti University of Applied Sciences and has graduated and received a BBA degree in May 2019.

Marja Viljanen works as a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Business and Hospitality Management, Lahti University of Applied Sciences.

Illustration: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/714525 (CC0)

Published: 13.5.2019

Reference to this publication

Nguyen, P. & Viljanen, M. 2019. Six Skills Help You Stand Out in A Hypercompetitive Labour Market. LAMK Pro. [Cited and date of citation]. Available at: http://www.lamkpub.fi/2019/05/13/six-skills-help-you-stand-out-in-a-hypercompetitive-labour-market/

Motivation for employer consultation in Transversal Skills and Employability

Articles in English, Kiertotalouden ratkaisut, LAMK Pro

The purpose of the employer consultations made for the local employers was to get clarification of transversal skills and employability attributes sought by renewables sector in Lahti area. This data was used during the project to benchmark the contents of the intensive study periods (ISP) and basic scientific knowledge behind the program design. This in its part guaranteed quality and actuality of teaching and learning. 

Author: Juha Hyytiäinen

The view of PEETS program design team concerning transversal skills

The view of transversal skills of the design team of the PEETS program is summarized in picture one. This picture is also used in student induction to give students an overall view what transversal skills mean so that they can better reflect what they learn during the ISPs. The questions asked during the employer consultations were devised based on this framework.

Figure 1. Transversal skills divided into four fields (Belt 2017).

Method used to get the employer/stakeholder view

The method in getting the employer view in Lahti was three staged. In the first stage in 2017 seven energy/renewables sector companies in Lahti area were contacted by phone and asked three basic questions about transversal skills and if they seemed interested a fourth additional question that probed the willingness to cooperate with the project in the future. The persons contacted were CEOs, HR-managers or key officers within the company.  At the second stage in 2018 small student teams and individual students made stakeholder interviews as course prework in renewables sector according to the instructions from Dr. Jantien Belt (The Hague University of Applied Sciences) mainly in Finland, Netherlands and Scotland. Finnish team did four interviews with one exception, which was a timber company in Australia. The types of interviews students made varied some despite the common framework. Third stage composed of free questions asked during the company presentations and visits (4 companies) during the ISP2.

Results of the employer consultations

The most frequently mentioned new employee skills from the seven 2017 phone interviews are summarized in table one.

Personal/social skills intercultural attitude/knowledge foreign languages
Motivation/willingness to work (3) Openness (4) English (6)
Team work skills (3) Recognizes cultural differences (3) Swedish (4)
Initiative (2) Ability to make contact/ask (2) Russian (3)
Situational awareness (2) Ability to accept different kinds of people (1) German (3)
Honesty, openness, ability to learn new, critical thinking (1) Adaptability (1) According to the target country (2)

Table 1. Summary of results from 2017 phone interviews made in Lahti area for seven companies. Numbers in brackets represent the times the attribute was mentioned in the interviews.

The key attributes concerning new employees from 2018 student team interviews (3 + 1 a timber company in Australia) are listed below.

  1. Willingness to learn, Willingness to learn/work, communicating effectively and behaving properly with the people from other cultures, English and Swedish
  2. What really matters is education and your personality, Finnish and English
  3. All the transversal skills are important – I can’t choose between them, Being able to say no to someone and talk about difficult topics without making people feel bad, curiosity about other cultures, English other foreign language competency isn’t that important since you can find someone to translate
  4. Good ethic, ability to do the job with little supervision, Being able to interact with others in a positive and effective way and communicating effectively and behaving properly with the people from other cultures, languages needed depends on business

The key points that rose from questions asked during the company visits and company presentations during the 2018 ISP included attitude, listening to the customer, finding the right team for the job.

Conclusions from the employer/stakeholder consultations

The most important attributes that rose from the consultations belong to the attitude field of the picture one. A supervisor engineer in a big multinational company that was visited during the 2018 ISP in Finland stated that attitude is the most important thing in a new employee. The ability to communicate with different people was also considered a key attribute. Language wise English was the most frequently mentioned and it was considered a basic requirement. Other language needs arise from the environment or target country. Also translators can be also used e.g. in places there languages differ from main European languages.

The stakeholder consultations have helped to develop PEETS program further. The results also point to a direction of a learning environment that develops positive attitudes towards doing work, learning new things and willingness to participate. A multicultural and multidisciplinary environment

helps to promote communication skills between different people. Problem solving and project work in real life cases with real and simulated difficulties make this more realistic. The build in reflection system enhances the learning or at least focuses students and staff to think the key points in their experiences and learning. PEETS program has used this approach from the start and it has developed with every iteration. This approach and four fields of transversal skills could be used as a tool to develop and benchmark programs and courses in LAMK.  

References

Belt, J. 2017. Transversal skills. Power point presentation. The Hague University of Applied Sciences.

Author

Juha Hyytiäinen works as a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Technology in Lahti University of Applied Sciences.

Illustration: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/596254 (CC0)

Published: 25.4.2019

Reference to this publication

Hyytiäinen, J. 2019. Motivation for employer consultation in Transversal Skills and Employability. LAMK Pro. [Cited and date of citation]. Available at: http://www.lamkpub.fi/2019/04/25/motivation-for-employer-consultation-in-transversal-skills-and-employability/

Enhancing the Collaboration between Finnish and International UASs Students – Finnish Student’s Perspective

Articles in English, LAMK Pro, Uudistava oppiminen

What is the Finnish UAS’s students experiences and expectations about international students while studying together at UAS? Do the UASs supply opportunities for local students to study/work together with international students? Universities of applied sciences (UAS) throughout Finland, offer various opportunities for such situations. This article describes one such opportunity: internationalization at home. The article also suggests some solutions for UAS to improve the experiences of the Finnish UAS students – to be more successful.

Authors: Hoa Vu & Tarja Ahonen

International Studying in Finland

Finland’s educational background is well-known worldwide because it is the heart of the Finnish welfare society. Every year, UASs in Finland welcome thousands of international students to study there. This huge amount of newcomers give a chance for all students to work and study in a multicultural environment. However, the multicultural environment might affect local students due to the cultural diversity in the classrooms. The research, based on the perspective of local students, aims to enhance the collaboration between Finnish and international students within Finland’s UASs. The study determines the expectations and experiences of Finnish students while they study/work with international classmates. Based on these aspects, suggestions are given to help UASs fulfill the gaps. It also helps UASs improve the experiences of their local students.

Internalization at Home and Gap Model of Service Quality

In 2017, the total number of international students in Finland account for 6,8% of total number of all higher education students while 9,551 local students applied for the exchange program and 10,445 international students came to Finland for their exchange period (Study in Finland 2017). This shows that there are many Finnish students who do not study abroad. Internationalization at home is the process whereby the intercultural, international and global dimensions are mixed intentionally into the education systems for students in a country. The programme brings opportunities for students to develop further their knowledge, experience, and soft skills e.g., in intercultural understanding, multicultural, intercultural and critical thinking, etc without traveling aboard. (Beelen & Jones 2015) Thus, “internationalization at home” programmes should be applied by educational institutions effectively to bring international studying environments to Finnish students.

The research considers Finnish UASs students as the customers. The analyses part of the research mentions the service quality, customer experiences, satisfaction and Gap Model of Service Quality. The Gap Model of Service Quality is used to demonstrate the gaps between service quality and customer satisfaction. There are five gaps in total, in which the gaps between customer expectation and management perception as well as between management perception and the service quality specification are mentioned in the research. The gap between customer expectation and management perception happens when service providers do not realize which characteristic of products and services should be fulfilled to meet customer’s needs. The gap between management perception and the service quality specification occurs when the companies completely realize their customer’s expectation, but they do not have enough resources to fulfill the needs. (Parasuraman etc. 1985, 44-45)

Findings

The expectation and experience of Finnish students are determined. Finnish students have several expectations such as enhance language skills, expand network, have knowledge of cultural difference. The experiences of Finnish students are divided into two types of experiences. The positive experiences include having a chance to meet lovely people from around the world, having interesting times, gaining knowledge of cultural differences, increasing the language skills. The negative experiences include the lack of responsibilities of some international students in teamwork, lack of punctuality and problems in communicating due to the cultural differences. (Vu 2019, 48-49)

The gaps between expectations and experiences of Finnish UASs students with other international classmate are determined. The gap of language difficulties is due to the gap of ”customer expectation and management perception”. Thus, both Finnish and international students do not have the necessary English language skills to understand each other. However, the UASs do not recognize this situation and therefore the schools do not necessarily have actions to fulfill it. The author also believes that the gap of cultural difference is due to the gap between ”management perception and the service quality specification”. Studying among different nationalities might cause some cultural conflicts. Although the UASs are aware of the existing conflicts, they do not have sufficient resources to fulfill the gap. (Vu 2019, 41)

The ” internationalization at home” programme is seen to be successful since several respondents have positive feedback to the programme. Respondents emphasize how it helps them to develop and enhance their knowledge of cultural differences, improve language skills, further develop soft skills such as communication, teamwork, have an international studying/working environment, save abroad living costs and traveling time. (Vu 2019, 42)

Recommendation for Enhancing Collaboration

The first recommendation is make language courses compulsory to local students to help them improve their English skills. These courses can include some tips/guidelines on how to communicate more effectively. These courses also fulfill the gap of ” customer expectation and management perception”. Second, UASs should open cultural courses for newbies. These courses provide students knowledge of different cultures and supplies different skills and tools on how to study/work among other nationalities without having conflicts. The gap of ” management perception and the service quality specification” are also narrowed down through those cultural courses since new students obtain the necessary knowledge from the beginning of their studies. The third recommendation is the arrangement of local tutor students for international newbies. The combination brings Finnish tutors a chance to make new friends, reduce the cultural shock and to gain experience in the international studying/working environment. The fourth solution is increasing the involvement of teachers during the courses by managing the teamwork and helping students when needed. They can also make a survey after the course to evaluate the participation of each student during their teamwork assignments. Finally, UASs could provide programmes that let students take courses from different faculties. Students can gain knowledge and get new friends at the same time through these programmes. (Vu 2019, 45-47)

References

Beelen, J. & Jones, E. 2015. Redefining Internationalization at Home. The European Higher Education Area. [Cited 23 March 2019]. Available at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-20877-0_5

Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. & Berry, L. 1985. A Conceptual Model of Services Quality and Its Implications for Future Research. American Marketing Association. The USA: American Marketing Association.

Study in Finland. 2017. Higher Education in Finland 2016-2017. Study in Finland.  [Cited on 17 October 2018]. Available at: http://www.studyinfinland.fi/instancedata/prime_product_julkaisu/cimo/embeds/studyinfinlandwwwstructure/100601_Higher_Education_Finland_2016_2017.pdf

Vu, Hoa. 2019. Enhancing the Collaboration between Finnish and International UASs Students – Finnish Student’s Perspective. Bachelor’s thesis. Lahti University of Applied Sciences, Business and Hospitality Management. Lahti.

Authors

Vu, Hoa. 2019. Fourth-year International Business student. Lahti University of Applied Sciences. Finland.

Ahonen, Tarja. 2019. Senior Lecturer. Lahti University of Applied Sciences Ltd, Business and Hospitality Management. Lahti.

Published: 16.4.2019

Reference to this publication

Vu, H. & Ahonen, T. 2019. Enhancing the Collaboration between Finnish and International UASs Students – Finnish Student’s Perspective. LAMK Pro. [Cited and date of citation]. Available at: http://www.lamkpub.fi/2019/04/16/enhancing-the-collaboration-between-finnish-and-international-uass-students-finnish-students-perspective/