Heli Kaatrakoski, M.A. (Educ)
Email: heli.kaatrakoski@helsinki.fi
Tel.: +358 9 191 44251
Fax: +358 9 191 44579
Postal address:
Center for Research on Activity, Development, and Learning CRADLE
P.O. Box 26
FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland
Current Activities
My research interest in my dissertation focuses on the structural change (strongly guided by the New Public Management doctrine stressing market logic in organisation’s activity), currently under way in Finnish welfare state. The change, which changes the division of labour between the public, private and third sector is evident in new forms of organisations, cross-sectoral/hybrid organisations. I am interested in employees’ position in the new organisations and in the extensive process as a whole.
Methodologically and theoretically my challenge is to analyse the effects of the societal change as materialised in employees’ speech and my aim is to approach the problem through discourses (customer orientation, economics, accountability), word meanings and the movement of meanings. I aim to find out if the analysis in cultural-historical activity theoretical framework can bring important aspects to the relation between discourse and societal change and to the understanding of societal change.
The data for my thesis was gathered in a research project Options of privatization and shared responsibility: organization of work and mastery of change in new hybrids of private and public sectors, financed by the Finnish Ministry of Labour and was part of a large-scale undertaking by the Ministry called ‘Workplace Development Programme’. http://www.edu.helsinki.fi/activity/pages/research/hybridi/.
Four organisations were chosen for the project. The Finnish Road Administration represented a pure external purchaser-provider split organisation at the state level. The City of Tampere (day care and primary school) was one of the municipal-level organisations representing an internal purchaser-provider split where the production/service production is mainly internal. The other municipal-level organisation, the City of Espoo (elderly care), represented the outsourcing model. In the outsourcing model, the organisation is not divided to purchasers and providers, but part of the production is organised internally and part externally in varied amounts. The fourth case was the multi-agency organisation Tekevä which, though formally an independent third-sector organisation, remains strongly governed by other organisations (which purchase services from Tekevä, send customers to Tekevä or otherwise work in co-operation with Tekevä) and retains both business and social dimensions in its activity.
Short Biography
Since March 2008 my position has been a full-time Doctoral Student in the doctoral programme on Developmental Work Research and Adult Education (DWEAE)in CRADLE in the University of Helsinki. DWEAE doctoral programme belongs to the Finnish Graduate School in Education and Learning (FiGSEL), financed by the Finland's Ministry of Education and the Finnish Research Academy. I completed the compulsory doctoral studies in December 2008. My supervisor is Professor Yrjö Engeström.
In years 2004-2008 I worked in a research project: Options of privatization and shared responsibility: organization of work and mastery of change in new hybrids of private and public sectors in the University of Helsinki.
My Master's degree I received in Adult Education from University of Helsinki, Deparment of Education in 2001. My minor subjects were Psychology, Communications, Management and General Education. In 2003 I started working as a Research Coordinator in the Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research.
I have also graduated from Lahti Commercial College (Foreign Trade Section) in 1988 and after graduation worked in several positions in public and private sector.
Publications:
Pirkkalainen, J. ja Kaatrakoski H. (2009). Organisaatioiden kehittäminen yhteiskunnallisen työnjaon muutoksessa. Tykes raportteja 66. Helsinki: Tykes.
Kaatrakoski, H. (2009). Bridging Activity Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis: Four Studies of Finnish Public and Third Sector Organisations. Working papers 3/2009. Helsinki: CRADLE, University of Helsinki.
Documents
Web Links
Loppuraportti, Yksityistämisen ja yhteisvastuun ylisektoraaliset vaihtoehdot
Monitoimijaorganisaation kehittäminen
Tampereen kaupungin toimintamalliuudistus käytännössä
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