Key account management as a company’s strategy – Ways to improve commitment of the key personnel

Tämän kandidaatintutkielman tavoitteena on luoda kokonaisvaltainen käsitys siitä, mitkä ovat merkittävimmät keinot joiden avulla yritykset voivat tukea avainasiakashallinnan avainhenkilöiden, asiakkuusjohtajan ja asiakkuuspäälliköiden, sitoutumista avainasiakashallintastrategiaan. Sitoutumiseen liittyen pyritään löytämään kriittisiä tekijöitä, jotka vaikuttavat avainhenkilöiden sitoutumisen tasoon sekä toimenpiteitä ja ratkaisuja joiden avulla avainasiakashallintastrategiaan sitoutumista voidaan edesauttaa. Tutkielmassa tutkitaan myös organisaation sisäisiä tekijöitä, joita avainasiakashallinnan menestyminen edellyttää organisaatiolta, sillä myös nämä tekijät vaikuttavat avainasiakashallinnan parissa toimivien henkilöiden sitoutumiseen. Tutkielma on toteutettu hyödyntäen kvalitatiivisia tutkimusmenetelmiä. Tutkimusaineisto on kerätty puolistrukturoitujen haastatteluiden avulla, mitkä on toteutettu case yrityksen kahdelle avainasiakashallintaan osallistuvalle henkilölle, asiakkuusjohtajalle ja asiakkuuspäällikölle. Tutkielman tulokset osoittavat, että avainasiakashallintaan osallistuvien henkilöiden strategiaan sitoutumista lisää merkittävästi työtehtävässä ja työympäristössä viihtyminen sekä avainasiakkaiden kanssa toimiminen ja avainasiakassuhteen kehittäminen. Yritysten tulisikin rahallisten kannustinten sijaan panostaa erityisesti niihin sitouttamiskeinoihin, jotka saavat avainasiakasrajapinnassa työskentelevän henkilön viihtymään työtehtävässään ja työympäristössään sekä kokemaan työnsä avainasiakashallinnan ja organisaation kannalta merkittäväksi. Yritysten tulisi myös pyrkiä muotoilemaan työtehtävät tarkasti, asettaa selkeät tavoitteet ja antaa avainasiakashallinnan avainhenkilöille riittävästi vapauksia, jotta he voivat kehittää avainasiakassuhteita mahdollisimman vapaasti.This bachelor’s thesis’ aim is to create comprehensive outlook on which are the most significant ways for companies to improve the strategic commitment of the key personnel of key account management. This study aims to discover the most critical factors and actions which can support the person’s commitment to key account management. This thesis also examines the intra organizational factors that key account management requires from the organization in order to achieve success, since these factors have an impact to the commitment of the key personnel of KAM as well. This study utilizes qualitative research methods. The research material has been collected through semi-structured interviews with key account director and key account manager from the case company of this study. The results of this study indicate that the most significant factors which improve the strategic commitment of the employees who participate to KAM are pleasant work assignments, work culture, interaction with key accounts and developing the key account relationships. Instead of financial rewarding, companies should focus on the ways how they can support organizational and work task related satisfaction and make employees feel that their work is significant to KAM and to the organization. Companies should also aim to formulate work tasks as precise as possible, place clear targets and allow the key personnel of KAM to develop the key account relationships as they see fit

El texto literario como herramienta para el desarrollo de la competencia intercultural en el aula ELE en centros de educación liberal de adultos

El presente trabajo trata el uso de textos literarios en la enseñanza del Español como Lengua Extranjera (ELE) en centros de educación liberal de adultos en Finlandia. La mayor parte de estos centros son instituciones municipales con apoyo financiero estatal. Su alumnado se caracteriza por una edad promedio avanzada, si bien los grupos de lenguas extranjeras suelen ser intergeneracionales. El español se encuentra en el segundo lugar en cuanto a la popularidad de las lenguas extranjeras que en ellos se imparten. El marco teórico del estudio consiste en el ciclo de aprendizaje formulado por David Kolb (1984) y en el pensamiento pedagógico de la educación lingüística e intercultural empleada en Finlandia desde la década de 1990. El concepto clave es la competencia intercultural, la capacidad del usuario de una lengua extranjera de observar y analizar diferencias culturales, superar estereotipos y sobrepasar sus propios límites para alcanzar una nueva perspectiva, no sólo de la cultura de la lengua meta, sino también de su propia cultura. Otro concepto clave es la autenticidad del aprendizaje en sus varias dimensiones: los textos usados, las actividades y la actuación del docente. En la parte empírica del trabajo analizo el material didáctico ¿Qué tal?, destinado a estudiantes de ELE de habla finlandesa. Comparo la frecuencia de las referencias y alusiones a la literatura con la de otras formas de arte para evaluar su papel en los manuales. Además, presto atención a la contextualización de las referencias literarias desde el punto de vista de la autenticidad del aprendizaje, una cualidad necesaria para el desarrollo de la competencia intercultural. La aplicación didáctica se compone de un conjunto de actividades creado para que los alumnos aprendan el concepto de la rima estudiando textos de dos poetas españoles que figuran en ¿Qué tal?, Bécquer y Lorca. La propuesta sigue el modelo del ciclo de aprendizaje de Kolb: se empieza por experiencias personales para después pasar a una observación reflexiva de la rima. Después, la fase de la conceptualización incluye la contextualización y la comparación intercultural que posiblemente conducen a nuevas interpretaciones sobre los textos. Para finalizar con una experimentación activa, los estudiantes crean su propio poema con rimas. El estudio demuestra que para crear posibilidades de verdaderos encuentros interculturales en el aula, el docente de ELE debe estar dispuesto a adaptar el material, dado que por la escasa y poco sistemática contextualización de los contenidos literarios, este sólo da pistas iniciales. Considero también que sólo con actuación auténtica es capaz de realizar en la práctica docente los objetivos y los valores esenciales de la educación liberal de adultos

Fates of nutrient elements and heavy metals during thermal conversion of cattle slurry-derived anaerobic digestates

Thermal processes are emerging as promising solutions to recovering phosphorus and other nutrient elements from anaerobic digestates. The feasibility of nutrient element recovery depends largely on the fates of nutrient elements and heavy metals during thermal processing. This study assesses the partitioning of macronutrients (N, P, K, Na, Ca and Mg) and heavy metals (Zn, Cu, and Mn) between condensed and gaseous phases during thermal conversion of cattle slurry digestates in gas atmospheres of pyrolysis, combustion, and gasification processes. This study also assesses the chemical forms of macronutrients retained in combustion ashes. The partitioning of elements between condensed and gaseous phases was quantified by mass balances based on elemental analyses of char and ash residues. The char and ash residues were prepared in a fixed-bed, batch reactor at temperatures within the range 800–1000 °C. Powder X-ray diffraction was used to identify the chemical forms of macronutrient elements in combustion ashes. Volatilisation of P was low (< 20%) when the digestates were heated in inert and oxidising atmospheres, whereas a reducing atmosphere volatilized P to a major extent (~ 60% at 1000 °C). Oxidising atmospheres increased volatilisation of N but suppressed volatilisation of K, Na, and Zn. Volatilisation of the following elements was low (< 30%) in all investigated operating conditions: Ca, Mg, Mn, and Cu. The combustion ashes contained both high concentrations of P (around 7 w/w%) and acceptable concentrations of regulated heavy metals (Cu, and Zn) for application on agricultural and forest soils in Finland. Phosphorous was retained in the combustion ashes in the form of whitlockite. This form of P is expected to be available to plants when the ashes are added to soil.202

Molecular composition of fresh and aged aerosols from residential wood combustion and gasoline car with modern emission mitigation technology

Emissions from road traffic and residential heating contribute to urban air pollution. Advances in emission reduction technologies may alter the composition of emissions and affect their fate during atmospheric processing. Here, emissions of a gasoline car and a wood stove, both equipped with modern emission mitigation technology, were photochemically aged in an oxidation flow reactor to the equivalent of one to five days of photochemical aging. Fresh and aged exhausts were analyzed by ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry. The gasoline car equipped with a three-way catalyst and a gasoline particle filter emitted minor primary fine particulate matter (PM2.5), but aging led to formation of particulate low-volatile, oxygenated and highly nitrogen-containing compounds, formed from volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and gases incl. NOx, SO2, and NH3. Reduction of the particle concentration was also observed for the application of an electrostatic precipitator with residential wood combustion but with no significant effect on the chemical composition of PM2.5. Comparing the effect of short and medium photochemical exposures on PM2.5 of both emission sources indicates a similar trend for formation of new organic compounds with increased carbon oxidation state and nitrogen content. The overall bulk compositions of the studied emission exhausts became more similar by aging, with many newly formed elemental compositions being shared. However, the presence of particulate matter in wood combustion results in differences in the molecular properties of secondary particles, as some compounds were preserved during aging

Fine particle emissions from sauna stoves : effects of combustion appliance and fuel, and implications for the Finnish emission inventory

Sauna Stoves (SS) are simple wood combustion appliances used mainly in Nordic countries. They generate emissions that have an impact on air quality and climate. In this study, a new measurement concept for comparing the operation, thermal efficiency, and real-life fine particle and gaseous emissions of SS was utilized. In addition, a novel, simple, and universal emission calculation procedure for the determination of nominal emission factors was developed for which the equations are presented for the first time. Fine particle and gaseous concentrations from 10 different types of SS were investigated. It was found that each SS model was an individual in relation to stove performance: stove heating time, air-to-fuel ratio, thermal efficiency, and emissions. Nine-fold differences in fine particle mass (PM1) concentrations, and about 90-fold differences in concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) were found between the SS, when dry (11% moisture content) birch wood was used. By using moist (18%) wood, particle number and carbon monoxide concentrations increased, but interestingly, PM1, PAH, and black carbon (BC) concentrations clearly decreased, when comparing to dry wood. E.g., PAH concentrations were 5.5–9.6 times higher with dry wood than with moist wood. Between wood species, 2–3-fold maximum differences in the emissions were found, whereas about 1.5-fold differences were observed between bark-containing and debarked wood logs. On average, the emissions measured in this study were considerably lower than in previous studies and emission inventories. This suggests that overall the designs of sauna stoves available on the market have improved during the 2010s. The findings of this study were used to update the calculation scheme behind the inventories, causing the estimates for total PM emissions from SS in Finland to decrease. However, wood-fired sauna stoves are still estimated to be the highest individual emission source of fine particles and black carbon in Finland

Variation of Absorption Angstrom Exponent in Aerosols From Different Emission Sources

The absorption Angstrom exponent (AAE) describes the spectral dependence of light absorption by aerosols. AAE is typically used to differentiate between different aerosol types for example., black carbon, brown carbon, and dust particles. In this study, the variation of AAE was investigated mainly in fresh aerosol emissions from different fuel and combustion types, including emissions from ships, buses, coal-fired power plants, and residential wood burning. The results were assembled to provide a compendium of AAE values from different emission sources. A dual-spot aethalometer (AE33) was used in all measurements to obtain the light absorption coefficients at seven wavelengths (370-950 nm). AAE(470/950) varied greatly between the different emission sources, ranging from -0.2 +/- 0.7 to 3.0 +/- 0.8. The correlation between the AAE(470/950) and AAE(370-950) results was good (R-2 = 0.95) and the mean bias error between these was 0.02. In the ship engine exhaust emissions, the highest AAE(470/950) values (up to 2.0 +/- 0.1) were observed when high sulfur content heavy fuel oil was used, whereas low sulfur content fuels had the lowest AAE(470/950) (0.9-1.1). In the diesel bus exhaust emissions, AAE(470/950) increased in the order of acceleration (0.8 +/- 0.1), deceleration (1.1 +/- 0.1), and steady driving (1.2 +/- 0.1). In the coal-fired power plant emissions, the variation of AAE(470/950) was substantial (from -0.1 +/- 2.1 to 0.9 +/- 1.6) due to the differences in the fuels and flue gas cleaning conditions. Fresh wood-burning derived aerosols had AAE(470/950) from 1.1 +/- 0.1 (modern masonry heater) to 1.4 +/- 0.1 (pellet boiler), lower than typically associated with wood burning, while the burn cycle phase affected AAE variation.Peer reviewe

Contribution of brown carbon to light absorption in emissions of European residential biomass combustion appliances

Residential biomass combustion significantly contributes to light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosols in the atmosphere, impacting the earth's radiative balance at regional and global levels. This study investigates the contribution of brown carbon (BrC) to the total particulate light absorption in the wavelength range of 370–950 nm (BrC370–950) and the particulate absorption Ångström exponents (AAE470/950) in 15 different European residential combustion appliances using a variety of wood-based fuels. BrC370–950 was estimated to be from 1 % to 21 % for wood log stoves and 10 % for a fully automatized residential pellet boiler. Correlations between the ratio of organic to elemental carbon (OC / EC) and BrC370–950 indicated that a one-unit increase in OC / EC corresponded to approximately a 14 % increase in BrC370–950. Additionally, BrC370–950 was clearly influenced by the fuel moisture content and the combustion efficiency, while the effect of the combustion appliance type was less prominent. AAE470/950 of wood log combustion aerosols ranged from 1.06 to 1.61. By examining the correlation between AAE470/950 and OC / EC, an AAE470/950 close to unity was found for pure black carbon (BC) particles originating from residential wood combustion. This supports the common assumption used to differentiate light absorption caused by BC and BrC. Moreover, diesel aerosols exhibited an AAE470/950 of 1.02, with BrC contributing only 0.66 % to the total absorption, aligning with the assumption employed in source apportionment. These findings provide important data to assess the BrC from residential wood combustion with different emission characteristics and confirm that BrC can be a major contributor to particulate UV and near-UV light absorption for northern European wood stove emissions with relatively high OC / EC ratios.</p

Metabolic Profiling as Well as Stable Isotope Assisted Metabolic and Proteomic Analysis of RAW 264.7 Macrophages Exposed to Ship Engine Aerosol Emissions: Different Effects of Heavy Fuel Oil and Refined Diesel Fuel

Exposure to air pollution resulting from fossil fuel combustion has been linked to multiple short-term and long term health effects. In a previous study, exposure of lung epithelial cells to engine exhaust from heavy fuel oil (HFO) and diesel fuel (DF), two of the main fuels used in marine engines, led to an increased regulation of several pathways associated with adverse cellular effects, including pro-inflammatory pathways. In addition, DF exhaust exposure was shown to have a wider response on multiple cellular regulatory levels compared to HFO emissions, suggesting a potentially higher toxicity of DF emissions over HFO. In order to further understand these effects, as well as to validate these findings in another cell line, we investigated macrophages under the same conditions as a more inflammationrelevant model. An air-liquid interface aerosol exposure system was used to provide a more biologically relevant exposure system compared to submerged experiments, with cells exposed to either the complete aerosol (particle and gas phase), or the gas phase only (with particles filtered out). Data from cytotoxicity assays were integrated with metabolomics and proteomics analyses, including stable isotope-assisted metabolomics, in order to uncover pathways affected by combustion aerosol exposure in macrophages. Through this approach, we determined differing phenotypic effects associated with the different components of aerosol. The particle phase of diluted combustion aerosols was found to induce increased cell death in macrophages, while the gas phase was found more to affect the metabolic profile. In particular, a higher cytotoxicity of DF aerosol emission was observed in relation to the HFO aerosol. Furthermore, macrophage exposure to the gas phase of HFO leads to an induction of a pro-inflammatory metabolic and proteomic phenotype. These results validate the effects found in lung epithelial cells, confirming the role of inflammation and cellular stress in the response to combustion aerosols

Exposure and harm to combustion-derived wood particles

The human respiratory system is the gateway of entry for inhaled detritus from anthropogenic (e.g. combustion-derived (CD) particulate matter (PM; e.g. diesel exhaust and wood-burning PM). Adult humans inhale 20m3 of air and suspended debris (gases and particles) into the airways daily. Inhalation exposure to CDPM (Figure 1) is known to increase the risk of morbidity and mortality of lung and heart diseases in all exposed individuals. The physicochemical properties of size, surface area and presence of transition metals have been implicated as drivers of the oxidative capacity of CDPM. However, the precise role of reactive organic compounds (ROC) in ambient aerosols, present either in the gas or particle phase has not been fully-investigated for their relevance in the induction of the observed adverse health effects. When addressing the toxicity of inhalation hazards such as wood smoke CDPM, a model that resembles the human lung responding to toxic challenges is required. In our in vitro exposure studies, we utilised normal human bronchial epithelial (NHBE) cells grown at the air-liquid interface (ALI) using filter-well technology (Prytherch et al 2011), to create an in vivo-like 3-dimensional lung model. This model is a fully-differentiated, pseudo-stratified, muco-ciliary epithelium containing basal, serous, Clara, goblet and ciliated cells. NHBE cells were exposed to wood smoke derived from Spruce, Beech and Birch at a dose of 152µg/cm2: carbon black (CB; negative control; Monarch 120, Cabot UK; DQ12 quartz (positive control). Following exposure (24 hours), tissue integrity (i.e. transepithelial electrical resistance (TEER) was measured to reveal minor disruption to bronchial tissue integrity (Figure 2). However, changes in cellular energy levels (i.e. ATP) between the types of wood smokes (Figure 3), could infer the smoke acted as an irritant to the lung environment. Wood smoke exposure can depress the immune system and damage the layer of cells in the lungs that protect and cleanse the airways. Further work on the biological and histological impacts of wood smoke will allow us to reveal mechanisms behind the changes observed, as well identifying biomarkers of cell damage by specific CDPM ROCs. For vulnerable populations, such as people with asthma, chronic respiratory disease and those with cardiovascular disease, wood smoke is particularly harmful, even at short exposures it can prove dangerous. Wood smoke interferes with normal lung development in infants and children. It also increases children’s risk of lower respiratory infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia. Prytherch, Z., Job, C., Marshall, H., Oreffo, V., Foster, M. and BéruBé, K.A. (2011) Macro. Bios. 11, 1467–77. This work was supported by HICE (www.hice-vi.eu)