It has been claimed that in the context of organizations and management, fathers are invisible. One source of tension for fathers who work and who want to participate in family life is that even though involved fatherhood is emerging in many western societies, a family‐oriented male identity is likely to be problematic for men in organizations. This article aims to contribute to a better understanding of a professional and managerial men's work–family relationship using discourse analysis on data from three different media sources in Finland, published during 1990–2015. We identified two competing discourses: one of stasis, the other of change. The stasis discourse is constructed around traditionally masculine management and fatherhood roles, while the changing discourse embodies more diverse masculinities and fatherhood. We conclude that although the discourse on fatherhood in the organizational context is moving towards gender equality, at the same time a strong discourse is putting a brake on such development, especially regarding management.

The objective is to contribute to understanding entrepreneurship in ageing societies and to suggest avenues to ensure people in their third age (aged 50+) actively contribute to the supply side of the silver economy. To this end, we apply mixed methods to understand the different effects of motives and attitudes on the well-being of part-time entrepreneurs. The analysis is refined by categorizing those entrepreneurs into third-age and prime-age cohorts. The analysis used data from 400 Finnish part-time entrepreneurs. When the stability of the financial situation is controlled for, attitudes to entrepreneurship and selfrealization as a motive explain well-being among third-age group. For the younger age group, financial motives were also important in explaining wellbeing, but recognition and independence motives had a negative effect.

Leadership practices in relation to men's work-family balance in Finnish organizationsLeadership practices in organizations play an important role in shaping the conditions for employees' work-family balance. Previous research on the topic has mainly focused on women; fathers are said to receive little support from leadership for combining work and family. In this study, the focus is on men working in six Finnish organizations representing male-dominated, femaledominated and gender-balanced organizations. Although Finland is considered a frontrunner in gender equality globally, Finnish women still carry the main responsibility for housework and child-care. Through a discursive approach, we seek to answer the following research question: What kind of discourses do working men construct of leadership practices that affect their work-family balance? This study offers insights into the variety of understandings of how men's work-family balance is constrained and/or supported through leadership practices. Our conclusion is that the gender composition and degree of hierarchy of an organization affect leadership practices regarding men's work-family balance. A good relationship between leader and employee supports balance.Fatherhood seems to be handled differently from motherhood in leadership practices. The information produced in this study is not only important with respect to the quality of life of men and their families, but also necessary to advance gender equality in organizational life and society in general.

Purpose This paper aims to examine the growth rates of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) over a three-year period, the relationship between firm size and firm growth in the context of SMEs, and the effect of marketing capability (MC) on firm growth and how it relates to firm size. The theoretical framework is based on the resource-based view and dynamic capabilities. Design/methodology/approach Data were gathered from Finnish SMEs (n = 214) and analyzed with Latent growth curve modeling (structural equation modeling). Respondents were chief executive officers or company owners. Findings Results show that firm size is unrelated to the rate of change, and MC has a significant effect on both the intercept and slope parameters. Smaller SMEs have less MC than larger SMEs. Practical implications While the overall human resources level of the SME is not linked to the rate of growth, MC is. This is an important point for small business growth studies, for it shows what type of personnel is called for during rapid growth. SMEs could advance significantly and rapidly if they invest in versatile human capital, especially in the marketing area. Originality/value Majority of the MC research involves larger corporations. This study brings new insights from SME perspective. In addition, this study suggests that it is imperative to consider different types of growth separately. This study contributes to this need by demonstrating the connection between employee growth rate and MC in SMEs.

Developing new services is vital for a service-based company to succeed in the long run. This requires both innovation capability and understanding customer needs. Previous research has shown that if a firm wishes to develop an innovation superior to the competition, it must have both a strong technology orientation and a strong market orientation. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of market orientation and technology orientation on service innovation capability in SMEs operating in the field of social and health care. In addition, this study examined the obstacles to using digitalization and new technologies in service innovations. Mixed methods design was applied so both quantitative and qualitative data was used. The results from the quantitative part of this study show that both technology orientation and market orientation have a positive and statistically significant effect on service innovation capability in SMEs operating in the field of social and health care. Furthermore, market orientation is the most important variable in the model. The results from the qualitative element again show that some of the hindering factors of using digitalization and new technologies arise from practices and attitudes of social and health care actors but others arise from the digitalization and new technologies themselves.