Infrastructure-as-a-Service Usage Determinants in Enterprises

The thesis focuses on the research question, what the determinants of Infrastructure-as-a-Service usage of enterprises are. A wide range of IaaS determinants is collected for an IaaS adoption model of enterprises, which is evaluated in a Web survey. As the economical determinants are especially important, they are separately investigated using a cost-optimizing decision support model. This decision support model is then applied to a potential IaaS use case of a large automobile manufacturer

How hybrids manage growth and social–business tensions in global supply chains: the case of impact sourcing

This study contributes to the growing interest in how hybrid organizations manage paradoxical social–business tensions. Our empirical case is ‘‘impact sourcing’’— hybrids in global supply chains that hire staff from disadvantaged communities to provide services to business clients. We identify two major growth orientations— ‘‘community-focused’’ and ‘‘client-focused’’ growth—their inherent tensions and ways that hybrids manage them. The former favors slow growth and manages tensions through highly integrated client and community relations; the latter promotes faster growth and manages client and community relations separately. Both growth orientations address social–business tensions in particular ways, but also create latent constraints that manifest when entrepreneurial aspirations conflict with the current growth path. In presenting and discussing our findings, we introduce preempting management practices of tensions, and the importance of geographic embeddedness and distance to the paradox literature

Connecting air freight services with the road transport network, Case: FREJA Transport & Logistics Oy

This master’s thesis is made as a commission for FREJA Transport & Logistics Oy. Aim of the thesis is to research how the current export air freight process can be improved with DMAIC cycle. Export air freight process needed improvement because process was mostly outsourced and company’s own resources used poorly. Research is limited to consider only export air transports from Finland to outside Europe. Theoretical part of the research was divided to two separate sections. First section handled the concept of business process improvement, which included such issues as Six Sigma, DMAIC cycle, and SCOR metrics. Second section of the theoretical part considered air freight. Air freight was discussed through six themes: demand for air cargo, aircrafts, transport units, air cargo operators, air freight costs, and future in the market. Lastly a common export air freight process was comprised and explained to set basis for the empirical part. In the empirical part, process was improved step by step as per the DMAIC cycle to reveal the issues causing the limited use of own resources. Main reason for variation and inefficient use of resources was outsourcing and by that linking number of intermediaries in the process. The solution was to insource the road transportation from the consignor to the gateway airport. Results revealed that operating costs can be reduced with the improved process and still offer evenly competitive service. Results of the empirical part were validated by process charts, profitability calculations and other supporting documentation created during the DMAIC cycle.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse