The Nordic Model in a Global Company Situated in Norway. Challenging Institutional Orders?

In this article, we explore the impact of internationalization as organizational processes where institutional actors meet in local contexts and negotiate the institutional order. The internationalization of working life implies that different traditions and practices meet and challenge each other. The focus is on how important elements of the Nordic micro model like cooperation between employees and employers and regulation of working hours are implemented in a global company situated in Norway. In general, it seems that employees and employers cooperate in line with this tradition in the Nordic micro model. Norwegian manager’s practices are described to be in accordance with Scandinavian management traditions, while managers from the United States appear to practice management consistent with the liberal working life model. The findings show a tension-filled clash between two different management practices, which indicates that the Nordic micro model in this field might be under pressure. Manager’s recommendation to the employees was not to become members of the trade union. The absence of trade unions in the organization implies that employees and employers are not cooperating on a collective level. This means that only parts of the regulatory arrangement related to participation and cooperation are implemented. Findings concerning working time and the relation to the institutional order represented by the Norwegian Work Environment Act indicate a clear tension between different institutional traditions in the organization. The company does not respect the Norwegian in working time regulations. These regulations are seen as counterproductive for a company that competes in the international market. This devaluation of the regulations in the Nordic model implies that the institutional order represented in the Nordic micro model is challenged.publishedVersio

Polish migrant fathers using parental leave in Norway

Objective: This article explores how the Norwegian care regime impacts Polish migrant fathers' caring practices. Background: The present study illustrates the importance of context sensitive research when describing the consequences of migration from migratory-source countries in Eastern Europe. When a father’s labor migration takes place in an institutional context with a care regime which includes earmarked parental leave rights for fathers, it can result in the father having more time with his children. Method: To gain insight into fathers' experiences, in-depth research interviews were carried out with Polish fathers of young children. The majority of the informants live in Norway with their children and partners. Results: A main strength of the present study is the illustration of context-sensitive research when describing the consequences of migration from migratory-source countries in Eastern Europe. Conclusion: The findings in this article show how earmarked leave provides opportunities for the migrant fathers to be accessible and responsible and to interact with their child. These caring practices result in fathers bonding with their children and learning how to care for them. In addition, the migrant fathers experience emotional gains

The Translation of Nordic Workplace Democracy to the United States

This paper explores a translation process of Nordic workplace democracy by using an empirical case study of a Norwegian company setting up a subsidiary company in the US. The paper con- tributes to existing accounts of how ideas and practices in international companies are translated from one institutional context to another by focusing on the role of agency in translation processes. Drawing on advances in Scandinavian institutional theory, the findings show how employees from the source context acted as skilled translators in the new local context and helped to close the skills-gap between employees with and without experience of workplace democracy. In addition, the US managers had work experience from the company in Norway as well as from the US. The employees’ and managers’ complementary contextual knowledge represented important institutional bridging skills in the process of reproducing workplace democracy in the new local setting. However, during the translation process, some of the elements in the workplace democracy model were discussed and modified. This demonstrates how the organizations’ approach can change over time, from a reproducing to a modifying mode

The Nordic Model in a Global Company Situated in Norway. Challenging Institutional Orders?

In this article, we explore the impact of internationalization as organizational processes where institutional actors meet in local contexts and negotiate the institutional order. The internationalization of working life implies that different traditions and practices meet and challenge each other. The focus is on how important elements of the Nordic micro model like cooperation between employees and employers and regulation of working hours are implemented in a global company situated in Norway. In general, it seems that employees and employers cooperate in line with this tradition in the Nordic micro model. Norwegian manager’s practices are described to be in accordance with Scandinavian management traditions, while managers from the United States appear to practice management consistent with the liberal working life model. The findings show a tension-filled clash between two different management practices, which indicates that the Nordic micro model in this field might be under pressure. Manager’s recommendation to the employees was not to become members of the trade union. The absence of trade unions in the organization implies that employees and employers are not cooperating on a collective level. This means that only parts of the regulatory arrangement related to participation and cooperation are implemented. Findings concerning working time and the relation to the institutional order represented by the Norwegian Work Environment Act indicate a clear tension between different institutional traditions in the organization. The company does not respect the Norwegian in working time regulations. These regulations are seen as counterproductive for a company that competes in the international market. This devaluation of the regulations in the Nordic model implies that the institutional order represented in the Nordic micro model is challenged

Hybrid Neural Networks with Attention-based Multiple Instance Learning for Improved Grain Identification and Grain Yield Predictions

Agriculture is a critical part of the world's food production, being a vital aspect of all societies. Procedures need to be adjusted to their specific environment because of their climate and field condition disparity. Existing research has demonstrated the potential of grain yield predictions on Norwegian farms. However, this research is limited to regional analytics, which is unable to acquire sufficient plant growth factors influenced by field conditions and farmers' decisions. One factor critical for yield prediction is the crop type planted on a per-field basis. This research effort proposes a novel approach for improving crop yield predictions using a hybrid deep neural network utilizing temporal satellite imagery from a remote sensing system. Additionally, We apply a variety of data, including grain production, meteorological data, and geographical data. The crop yield prediction system is supported by a field-based crop type classification model, which supplies features related to crop type and field area. Our crop classification system takes advantage of both raw satellite images as well as carefully chosen vegetation indices. Further, we propose a multi-class attention-based deep multiple instance learning model to utilize semi-labeled datasets, fully benefiting Norwegian data acquisition. Our best crop classification model, which consists of a time distributed network and a gated recurrent unit, classifies crop types with an accuracy of 70\% and is currently state-of-the-art for country-wide crop type mapping in Norway. Lastly, our yield prediction system enables realistic in-season early predictions that could benefit actors in real-life scenarios

Følgeforskning - Biogassanlegget på Tingvoll gard

Følgeforskning, det vil si dokumentasjon av gassproduksjon, drift, energibruk og energiproduksjon fra biogass-anlegget på tingvoll gard er gjennomført i tidsrommet 19.juni til 29.september 2017. Resultanene reflekterer ikke stabil drift (ulik organisk belastning), men peker i samme retning som tidligere resultater og erfaringer: følgeforskningen viser at det er avgjørende for stabil biogassproduksjon å oppnå god gjødselflyt fra fjøs til biogassanlegg. Problemer med propellomrøing i fjøset førte til at råstoffet hadde lavt tørrstoff-innhold og testen tyder på av råstoffet inneholdt en høy andel lett-omsettelig organisk materiale. Målt spesifikt metanutbytte for den kontinuelrig omørte reaktor-løsningen er høyt på grunn av tilstanden på råstoffet og anses ikke for å være representativt. Utbytte i form av energiproduksjon i kilowatt-timer er relativt lavt og vil være begrenset selv med homogen gjødsel for anlegget på tingvoll gard. Anlegget er bygd med tanke på utnyttelse av fiskesåpe som tilleggsråstoff for å oppnå lønnsomhet. Intern energibruk i anlegget er relativt høy og kan til dels tilskrives relativt høy energibruk forbundet med pumpe- og varmeveksler -løsning for oppvarming samt for lange rørføringer for transport av gjødsel og substrat med tilhørende varmetap. Bioresten viser tilsvarende Næringsinnhold som tidligere tester men innhold av kobber og sink er høyere enn grenseverdien for klasse 0 i gjeldende gjødselvareforskrift

Church Attendance and Religious Experience : Differential Associations to Well-Being for Norwegian Women and Men?

Previous studies have shown that gender may moderate the relationship between religiousness and mental health in most countries, but few studies have been conducted in Norway and Denmark. This study examined gender differences in religious experiences and church attendance as predictors of existential well-being among 295 women and 233 men from the general Norwegian population. Analyses showed that the structural equation models for women and men did not differ significantly on the global level. The models for women and men, however, showed different patterns. Among men, church attendance and negative religious experiences predicted existential well-being; among women, positive and negative religious experiences were related to existential well-being, but church attendance was not. The present findings suggest that men may benefit more from active religiousness, whereas women may benefit more from affective religiousness. Comparing these results with research in other cultural contexts, we find that different operationalizations of church attendance yield the same types of patterns across cultural contexts. Consequently, the benefits of religiousness may be similar for women and men irrespective of cultural context.© The Author(s) 2015 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage)

Finite SSH chains coupled to a two-level emitter: Hybridization of edge and emitter states

The Hamiltonian for the one-dimensional SSH chain is one of the simplest Hamiltonians that supports topological states. This work considers between one and three finite SSH chains with open boundary conditions that either share a lattice site (or cavity), which -- in turn -- is coupled to a two-level emitter, or are coupled to the same two-level emitter. We investigate the system properties as functions of the emitter-cavity coupling strength $g$ and the detuning between the emitter energy and the center of the band gap. It is found that the energy scale introduced by the edge states that are supported by the uncoupled finite SSH chains leads to a $g$-dependent hybridization of the emitter and edge states that is unique to finite-chain systems. A highly accurate analytical three-state model that captures the band gap physics of $k$-chain ($k \ge 1$) systems is developed. To quantify the robustness of the topological system characteristics, the inverse participation ratio for the cavity-shared and emitter-shared systems consisting of $k$ chains is analyzed as a function of the onsite disorder strength. The $g$-dependent hybridization of the emitter and uncoupled edge states can be probed dynamically.Comment: 10 figure

Forprosjektering av gårdsbiogassanlegg

Denne rapporten tar for seg forprosjektering av gårdsbiogassanlegg og er tenkt å fungere som et oppslagsverk for den som tenker å etablere eget anlegg. Etablering av et gårdsbiogassanlegg er relativt omfattende, og det er behov for å gjøre detaljert kartlegging av ressursgrunnlaget og mulighetene for bruk av produsert energi og biorest. En må spesielt vurdere infrastruktur for gjødsel frem til biogassanlegget da dette er det viktigste grunnlaget for mulig produksjon. Det er en del forskjeller mellom leverandører og løsninger de tilbyr. Etterspør derfor referanser fra ferdigstilte anlegg. Etablering av et gårdsbiogassanlegg krever i tillegg at man forholder seg til ulike lover og mange ulike offentlige instanser med mange ulike krav som må oppfylles. Kravene og steg for steg hvilke instanser og avklaringer man gjør er strukturert i rapporten