Bridging Activity Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis:
Four Studies of Finnish Public and Third sector Organisations
Heli Kaatrakoski
Abstract
An extensive structural change currently underway in Finnish welfare society is evident
in the change in the societal division of labour between the public, private and third
sectors. This change seems to be guided by the neo-liberalist New Public Management
(NPM) doctrine. In workplaces this change is evident in the emergence of new
organisational forms and new ways of organising work. From the point of view of
employees, the emergence of new forms of organisations with blurred and mixed
boundaries can affect them in many ways: work may become fragmented, less secure and
more individual. The pressures to customer orientation, profitability and constant
evaluation, among others, create changes in organisations and their activities. NPM
typically has a linear view of the world through which it underestimates the balance
between productivity, customers and employees. In other words, NPM emphasises the
points of view of the organisations (productivity) and its services (customers) while it
undermines the quality of working life (employees). An imbalance is also evident in
power relations between organisations, thus affecting employees’ daily work.
My research interest is two-layered. Firstly, I am interested in activities that aim to
develop employees’ own work in a situation of organisational change. For that, I focus on
power relations between agents in intervention sessions. Secondly, I am studying local
work activity in the context of a changing broader society mainly being interested in the
effects of societal change as materialised in employees’ speech. I approach these issues
through discourses, word meaning and the movement of meaning.
The theoretical framework of my study is cultural historical activity theory, which is
based on Karl Marx’s materialistic view of historically developed human consciousness.
The theory views human activity as object-oriented, mediated by tools and signs, and
social and historical in nature. I have chosen to use Fairclough’s critical discourse
analysis (CDA) “method” to analyse my discursive data. In his framework, Fairclough
divides the analysis into three interlinked levels: the level of text (description,
linguistics), the level of discursive practice (interpretation, micro-sociology) and the level
of social practice (explanation, macro-sociology). The main challenge in my study
consists of bridging activity theory and the method of critical discourse analysis.
The empirical data consist of 61 interviews (about 67 hours) and 15 intervention sessions
(about 31 hours). In addition, I have complementary data consisting of 62 documents and
156 newspaper and magazine articles. The data were collected from four organisations,
representing new organisational forms. The organisations are the Work Training
Foundation Tekevä (a multi-agency organisation), the City of Tampere (internal
purchaser-provider split), the Finnish Road Administration (external purchaser-provider
split) and the City of Espoo (outsourcing model). Developmental sessions were
conducted in Tekevä and Tampere.
The intervention method used was the Hybrid Laboratory, inspired by the Finnish
intervention method known as the Change Laboratory. The aim of the Tampere
intervention was to record the experiences of the purchaser-provider split pilot combined
with the process thinking model, and to develop proposals to solve problems. Tekevä’s
preliminary intervention theme was to develop the organisational culture. Tekevä was
established by eight public and third-sector organisations and the merger was still in
process. During the intervention, the development focused on co-operation with other
organisations, future-oriented planning and evaluation.
1. Introduction
In the late 1980s the neo-liberalist New Public Management (NPM) doctrine and
organisational models stressing market logic in public and third-sector activity gradually
arrived in Finland, thus initiating changes in the nature of the Finnish welfare society.
The trend followed changes that leaders in several Anglo-Saxon and Western countries
had executed some years earlier. Today, the position of NPM seems contradictory: some
researchers argue that it is “dead”, but in fact it seems very much alive at least in Finland.
NPM ideas are evident in the change in the societal division of labour between the public,
private and third sectors. An ongoing extensive structural change in the Finnish welfare
society is one way to describe the current situation.
At the organisational level, the change in workplaces can be seen through the emergence
of new organisational boundary-crossing (see, e.g., Kerosuo, 2006) forms and new ways
of organising work1. The reorganisation of work and organisations means that the private
and third sectors increasingly assume more responsibility for providing services and
production that used to belong to the public sector. What makes for example, the
character of the purchaser-provider split interesting is that it changes the traditional
hierarchical structure in organisations, relations between agents, steering processes and
the whole logic of such activity (Meklin 2006, 22-23).
When the public sector transfers production and the provision of services to other sector
agents, administrative tasks such as purchasing and tendering become more central to the
work of public sector employees. The nature of the work changes and may become very
different from what it used to be. From the employees’ point of view, the emergence of
new forms of organisations with blurred and mixed organisational boundaries may affect
them in many ways: activities turn out to be fragmented and the idea of the work may
become less secure and more individual. One’s relationship to the organisation may also
become insecure with regard to responsibilities and loyalty (see e.g. Grimshaw et al.,
1
The purchaser-provider split, privatised organisations, public utilities, public-private partnerships (PPP),
contracting, net budgeting, etc.
2
2005). Insecurity and risk-taking, in addition to independence, are also characteristic of
the self-employed. Kovalainen & Österberg (2000, 80-81) argue that the reorganisation
of the public sector pushes its employees to begin working as the self-employed and as
subcontractors. This shift as such is not a negative phenomenon if it is based on one’s
own choice.
Kalliola and Nakari (2006, 35) claim that the NPM doctrine has a rational and linear view
of world and it undermines the balance between productivity, customers and employees.
In other words the NPM doctrine stresses the point of view of the organisation’s
(productivity) and services (customers) while at the same time as it undermines the
quality of working life (employees). In this study, my interest lies in the employees’
perspective.
The reason I became involved in this extremely interesting and demanding research area
goes back several years. Since 2003 I have been working in the former Center for
Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research, now (as of the beginning of 2009)
known as CRADLE or the Center for Research on Activity, Development, and Learning
at the University of Helsinki. The centre is very active in studying and developing the
work of various organisations all over Finland. When my supervisor, Professor Yrjö
Engeström, introduced a project that he and some of his colleagues planned to carry out, I
became very interested in it and in the multidimensional challenge it seemed to offer. I
was lucky to be recruited for the project, and as a result, this study is based on data
gathered during the project.
The project was called Options of privatization and shared responsibility (Yksityistämisen
ja yhteisvastuun ylisektoraaliset vaihtoehdot)2. It began on 1 November 2004 and lasted
until 29 February 2008. The aim of the project was to delineate different kinds of hybrid
organisations in Finland and to develop an intervention method for such organisations.
The organisations chosen for the project were defined as hybrid organisations
representing organisations currently experiencing the societal change underway in
Finland. The hybridity in and of organisations was first defined in the project to mean
that traditional, generally known and accepted boundaries of organisations are crossed
to form new functional entities, or that these organisational boundaries are somehow
blurred, mixed or transformed (Pirkkalainen & Kaatrakoski, 2007). Later, the definition
of hybridity was refined to take into account the societal division of labour. That is,
hybridity came to mean changes in the societal division of labour that are realised inside
the organisations or between the organisations (Pirkkalainen & Kaatrakoski, 2009).
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
2
The project was financed by the Finnish Ministry of Labour and was part of a large-scale undertaking by
the Ministry called ‘Workplace Development Programme’. The Project Manager was Jaana Pirkkalainen,
and the Project Researcher was PhD Student Heli Kaatrakoski. Both were responsible for collecting the
data with help of a student Anu Metsäpelto (a student).
3
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 thirdsector 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 (Pirkkalainen &
Kaatrakoski 2009). Participants (total 61) were interviewed in all four organisations, and
developmental interventions (15 sessions) were conducted in Tampere and Tekevä. The
intervention method was a Hybrid Laboratory (HL), inspired by the Finnish intervention
method Change Laboratory (CL) (Engeström 2007; Virkkunen et al. 1999). CL has it
roots in Developmental Work Research and in cultural-historical activity theory
(Engeström 1995, 1999a).
2. Research questions
My research interest is two-layered. Firstly, I am interested in activities that aim to
develop employees’ own work in a situation of organisational change. For that, I focus on
power relations between agents in intervention sessions. Secondly, I am studying local
work activity in the context of a changing broader society with the focus mainly on the
effects of societal change expressed in employees’ speech. I approach these issues
through discourses, word meaning and the movement of meaning.
My study consists of three parts: the preliminary, basic and main analyses. In the
preliminary analysis3 I answer the first research question:
1. What discourses can be found in current changes in the societal division of labour
between the public, private and third sectors in Finland?
The basis for the preliminary analysis was built while the intervention sessions were
planned and conducted. In this process there seemed to be certain themes of discourses
that continuously came up.
The second research question is:
2. What kind of word meaning and movement of meaning can be traced in the
discourses in the employees’ talk within interventions in the organisations?
A word has no fixed meaning that appears to be the same to everyone and in every
context, for instance. In an organisational setting, managers and employees may have
very different meanings for ‘efficiency’, and the meaning itself can also change. In the
3
This analysis must be deepened.
4
interventions, speech is likely to be directed to change, and my aim is to reveal the
movement of meanings in the organisations studied.
The third research question is:
3. Which power relations transpire in the use of language during the interventions?
In new boundary-crossing organisational forms and fragmented work activities, cooperation between several different size agents from different sectors is mundane.
However, such co-operation, instead of being smooth and equal, may turn out to be
demanding because of different positions and needs. Power can be used in various ways
and can be analysed through the use of language.
This third research question is also connected to one interesting aspect which emerged at
the end of the intervention and which concerns the discursive changes that were taking
place while reporting the research results. Järvelin and Pekurinen (2005) reported about
Swedish experiences concerning the purchaser-provider split, writing: “As a
consequence, in the end of the 1990s people began to discuss co-operation instead of
tendering.” (“Tämän seurauksena 1990-luvun lopulla alettiinkin kilpailuttamisen sijasta
puhua yhteistyöstä.”) Järvelin and Pekurinen are a secondary reference, but from the
point of view of my study, what they report is very interesting. How do we move from
the discourse level to the practise level? Does the movement of meaning exist in addition
to interventions, as well as in practice after the interventions? At the moment, my data do
not seem to make such analysis possible. However, my aim is to return to this question in
future.
With this study, I aim to bridge activity theory and the method of critical discourse
analysis (CDA). These two approaches have very strong ontological differences, with
activity theory being based on a materialistic view of humanity, and CDA being
influenced by linguistic idealism, which sees discourse as a self-sufficient modality
(Collins 2008, 244; Engeström 1999b, 169). Activity theorists such as Engeström
(1999b), Collins (1999, 2008) and Jones (2007, 2004) have conducted interesting studies
concerning discourse studies and CDA. Collins and Jones, with their strong culturalhistorical basis, follow through with a very careful analysis of discourse in its “concrete
interconnections”4. The emphasis is on the broader social context. Engeström focuses on
object-oriented activity at the organisation level. Norman Fairclough (e.g. 1997) is one of
the leading CDA researchers. In his work, the social context plays minor role in the
analysis while the emphasis on language is dominant. CDA could therefore bring useful
discourse analytical tools to activity theory.
In the following sections I will briefly introduce the theoretical and methodological
approach of my study.
4
See e.g. Collins 2008, 245.
5
3. Theoretical framework
3.1. Activity theory
The theoretical framework of my study is cultural-historical activity theory (see
Engeström 1987, 1995), which is based on Karl Marx’s (1859) materialistic view of
historically developed human consciousness. Lev Vygotsky (1978, 1987), Aleksei
Leont’ev (1978) and Alexander Luria (Cole et al, 2006) among others, developed from
Marx’s ontology different interpretations of the development of consciousness and
human activity.
The ontological significance of early activity theorists studying activity and human
consciousness was the attempts to overcome the dichotomies that had long been
predominant in psychology: the dichotomies of the external and internal world, individual
and social. The human mind is seen not entirely as a product of inside or outside world.
Rather it is believed to have developed through social interaction mediated by cultural
tools and signs (talk, symbols). These meditational means are products of human cultural
historical activity.
It is this mediation that differentiates human activity from stimulus-reaction actions
typical of animals. But through mediation, humans not only connect to the outside world,
but also change it and, at the same time, their own activity. Vygotsky (1978, 55) argued
that tools are externally oriented, leading to a change in objects (mastery over nature),
and signs are internally oriented, aiming at mastering oneself. Ontologically, in addition
to the rejection of dualism, the activity theoretical approach rejects idealism and is
committed to a materialistic view of human consciousness.
Activity is always collective and object-oriented. The notion of the object is perhaps the
most important (and also crucial) concept in activity theory. When an object meets a
need, a motivation emerges and leads to activity. In other words, activity is a need + an
object. Activity does not exist without an object (Vygotsky, 1987; Leont’ev, 1978;
Engeström, 1987).
Nowadays, activity theory is widespread and cannot be seen as a coherent theory. Still
previously mentioned common features can be summed up as follows: human activity is
mediated, objective, social and historical in nature.
In my research, I firstly study discourse. At this point I define discourse very widely as
language (written or spoken) used in a certain context in interaction with others (see e.g.
Wells 2007, 160). Whether language is just one meditational means (see e.g. Engeström
R. 1999; Engeström Y. 1999b; Sannino 2008) is not discussed here. When I refer to
different kinds of discourses, I refer to discourses which have certain thematic content or
meaning. Within the CDA approach, Fairclough (2003, 124; 1997, 31) defines discourse
as a stable mode of speaking (a form of social practice) that gives meaning to social acts,
situations and relations from a certain viewpoint. His definition is based on ideas from
6
language theory (discourse is social activity and interaction in real social practices) and
post-structural social theory (discourse is a form of knowledge).
Secondly, I study power manifested in language use. The notion of power has not been
developed and elaborated very much in the activity theoretical framework. One recent
study is Tiina Kontinen’s (2007) dissertation, in which she studied development cooperation. Kontinen (ibid. 140-141) argued that power is collective rather than individual,
and that power should be analysed in the processes of object construction. Referring to
Engeström (1993, 67; 1999, 172; 2001, 132; 2005, 13), she brought up three discussions
of power in the activity theoretical framework: discussions of power and the historically
formed division of labour, power and contradictions, and power in relation to mediation
and instruments. As a CDA researcher Ruth Wodak argues that power relations are
discursive, being exercised and negotiated in discourse. She separates power in discourse
and power over discourse (Wodak 1996, 18).
My third interest is word meaning. Both Vygotsky and Leont’ev methodologically
separated word meaning and sense. Leont’ev (1981, 226-227) defined meaning as a
“general reflection of reality developed by humanity” and that is “crystallized and fixed”
in a word. For Leont’ev, meaning was generalisation. Sense was instead something that
“expresses the relation of motive to goal”, which means that sense depends on motive
and is a sense of something for someone (Ibid. 229).
Language is not an isolated and stabile phenomenon in society; rather it has its historical
and cultural roots in a certain context. This I have to take into account in the analysis and
my next step is to present some theoretical insights into language and its connection to
development and to the broader social context. Activity theory pioneers Vygotsky and
Leont’ev put a lot effort to analyse language, word meaning and their development. One
of Vygotsky’s main interests was the development of human consciousness and the
processes of thinking and speech. He drew a conclusion that thinking and speech were
not similar processes, and that the word held a central place in the analysis of thinking
and speech and their development. He also pointed out that meaning mediates thinking
and that the unit of analysis or studying human consciousness is word meaning. The idea
of a unit of analysis followed the Marxian method of the analysis of units instead of the
analysis of elements (Vygotsky, 1978; Collins, 1999).
Development, for Vygotsky, meant qualitative changes in mental functions, where the
structure of interfunctional relations was transformed. His ideas of the dynamic and
changing nature of mental functions fundamentally differed from the ideas of his
predecessors in western psychology. He argued that the development of mental functions
reflects the development of other functions meaning, that development does not take
place isolated from other functions (Vygotsky, 1978).
The notion of historicity is important in activity theory. In the analysis, one must take
into account the broader cultural and historical context, following the dialectical method
and strengthening the importance of studying phenomena ‘in the process of change’
(Vygotsky 1978, 64-65). According to Collins (1999, 128), this means that not to study ‘a
7
thing’, but a “relationship between inter- and intramental functioning and wider social
processes” and that processes need to be approached “as historical and developing
phenomena.”
3.2. Activity theoretical approaches to language studies in a social context
In this section, I present two activity theoretical studies of language taking into account
the broader social context. The first is Collins’ (1999) analysis of the discourse of
downsizing in the USA, and the second is Collins’ and Jones’ (2006) study of a briefing
paper entitled “The socialist case for community ownership”.
3.2.1. Downsizing in General Electric
Collins’ (1999) study followed Vygotsky’s, Leont’ev’s and Luria’s ideas and aimed to
analyse the role of language and social change in human consciousness. One part5 of the
studies was an analysis of the discourse of downsizing in General Electric in the USA.
The data were a transcript of an American television programme about the process of
organisational restructuring in the 1980s and in the beginning of 1990s. The analysis
concentrated on the speech of dominant and subordinate people.
Collins (1999, 75) pointed out that the discourse of downsizing “has been developed and
deployed in a concrete relationship to a particular activity (corporate restructuring within GE), with a
clearly revealed motive (competitive profitability in a global market).” In the analysis of the speech
of trade unionists, Collins showed that term downsizing
“enters into the dialogue with a meaning which comes, not from a dictionary, but as a particular
way of articulating the activity and motives of GE management. However, in the statements of the
trade unionists this meaning takes on a distinctly concrete, and acutely personal, sense. In
Vygotsky’s terms, it has ‘absorbed intellectual and affective content from the entire context in
which it is intertwined’, and seems to be ‘determined by everything in consciousness which is
related to what the word expresses’ (Vygotsky 1987a: 276). In Leont’ev’s terms it has connected
with the reality of the speakers’ own lives in the world, and with their motives (Leont’ev
1978:93).”(Ibid. 76)
He continued: “meaning which is realized is markedly different from the one which is received. It is the
result of a movement in which the partiality of concretely located social consciousnesses finds expression
through a refashioning the received meaning” (Ibid. 76).
The management’s activity and motives gave meaning to the term downsizing, but as the
interviews with the trade unionists showed, downsizing was released with a new
meaning. And this shift arose through movement from the trade unionists’ personal sense
to a new meaning. A personal sense emerged in a particular context and according to the
speakers’ motives. For the trade unionist the term “downsizing” had a negative
dimension (the break-up of families and communities, mental trauma)
“The significance of this study lies primarily in its limitations, and these are analyzed for the purposes of
the ongoing development of the approach” (Collins 1999, 4).
5
8
Further movement of a personal sense occurred because in the programme, the
management representative was obliged to bring out the human side of the downsizing,
and the term absorbed “a sense of ‘survival of the fittest’ and of having to be ‘cruel to be kind’
from the surrounding context of Welch’s [management representative, added by hk] activity”
(Ibid. 76-78).
One aim in Collins’ study (Ibid. 93) was to develop a critical approach to the analysis of
the language, ideology and development of social consciousness and their connection. To
do this, he concludes that it is necessary to engage “with language use in its actual context –
temporally, spatially, and in relation to the relevant systems of social identity and structures of authority.”
So the study needs to be conducted in its actual cultural and historical context. Collins
(Ibid. 101) saw that in his previously presented study, the actual context was lacking, as
in many Norman Fairclough’s CDA studies for instance. So, in order to fill this
weakness, he tried to explore Vygotsky’s ideas in relation to social processes and to link
them to language studies of the Bakhtin Circle (especially Voloshinov, but also
Bakhtin).6 Since my interest bridges discourse and context, it seems relevant to follow
Collins’ footprints and to take Bakhtin’s (e.g. 1986) and Volosinov’s (e.g. 1973) studies
in the methodological framework. Next, I shortly present their ideas in relation to
Collins’ work.
Bakhtin showed how intra-pychological processes were connected to broader social
processes “through the social forms of speech communication, to precisely these broader
processes” (Collins 1999, 126). The analysis of language he approached with an
utterance, pointing out that an utterance (a concrete speech act) is the unit of analysis.
Collins summarised that an utterance “contains the essential relationship between the
system of language” and “its active deployment in the task of making meanings adequate to the
historical moment in which they are invoked” (Ibid. 122).
Another of Bakhtin’s important conceptualisations (Bakhtin, 1986; Engeström R, 1999;
Collins 1999) is multivoicedness, which means that utterances have more than one voice.
Through one speaker can be heard the voices of other speakers. “As this happens a specific
type of relationship will be established between the status and authority of the meanings and evaluations
created by the two voices. Meanings and evaluations also come to be seen as dialogical and multivoiced.”
(Collins 1999, 122-123).
Thirdly Bakhtin argued that utterances invoke a social language and speech genre (not
an individuals’ formulations). Social language is “a discourse peculiar to a specific stratum of
society … within a given social system at a given time” (Collins 1999, 123-124 referring to
Holquist and Emerson). Social language is connected to particular social groups and
classes. A speech genre enriches the social language and is “linked to the ‘conditions and goals’
of different areas of human activity – or to ‘typical situations of speech communication’.” Military
commands, everyday narration and business documents are examples of speech genres
(Collins 1999, 124).
6
Collins pointed out, as several authors done previously that the linking itself is not a new idea (Collins
1999, 118-119).
9
Collins was not quite satisfied with the Bakhtinian contribution to his work, and saw that
enriching Vygotsky’s work with Voloshinov’s (1973) could be the key to developing the
approach he was building. Voloshivov and Bakhtin shared the idea of an utterance as the
unit of analysis being and emphasised the importance of speech genres. Compared to
Vygotsky, Voloshinov shared the idea of stressing the developmental and historical
dimension in studying the relationship between language and wider social processes.
Voloshinov’s central method was to trace movements in the concrete use of language
resulting from wider sociohistorical changes and the semantic development of a word
deployed in the concrete utterance framed within a certain speech genre (Collins 1999,
134 and 136).
As previously mentioned, Vygotsky distinguished meaning and sense methodologically.
Voloshinov distinguished the concepts of theme and meaning (Voloshinov, 1973).
According to Collins, the difference between their methodologies is Vygotsky’s interest
in analysing word semantic and Voloshinov’s interest in utterance semantic. Voloshinov
also emphasised the value aspect in utterances and considers language use a value-laden
activity which involves “taking positions and making judgements about things that matter in the
world” (Collins 1999, 138-139).
Collins (1999, 140) also saw that Voloshinov had a further developed view of Leont’ev’s
movement of meanings (meaning and personal sense). Leont’ev (1981) argued that the
driving force behind the movement of meanings was motives deep in the social relations
of human beings and their lives. Voloshinov’s addition to Leont’ev’s view was that the
driving force was motives “which are themselves framed by a particular linguistically (semantically
and evaluative) mediated perception of interests from within a group of socially organized individuals”
(Ibid. 140).
3.2.2. Briefing paper: “The socialist case for community ownership”
The second example is a study where Collins and Jones (2006) examined a ‘briefing
paper’ titled “The socialist case for community ownership”. They criticised, as noted
earlier (see Engeström 1999b; Collins 1999), that context and language are often seen as
separate interactive parts of reality. They developed an alternative, activity theoretical
approach to study language in a social context with the aim of overcoming the problems
of CDA. They saw (Collins & Jones 2006, 52) that combining linguistic analysis to
process of social change demands understanding “of the interconnected circumstances in and
through which it arises.” They continued, that stating the meaning of this is more than “the idea
that discourse should be situated or embedded in its context after the event -so to speak- as if the relation
between the two were one of interaction.”.
According to the ideas of Vygotsky, Leont’ev, Luria, Ilyenkov, Stetsenko, Arievitch,
Sawchuk, Duarte and Elhamoumi, Collins and Jones based their approach on “grasping
social phenomena concretely in their ‘internal relations’ to other phenomena in a developing system.”
Following the work of preceding scholars, Collins and Jones argued that “discourse is
produced in and through the ‘logic of evolving activity’ that gives it such relevance to the study of social
change”, and that “as an integral product of the real historical development of particular communities,
discourse reveals traces of that development, of its twists and turns, and significant moment of change and
10
reconstitution”
(Collins & Jones 2006, 53). They built their approach to begin heuristically
from discursive processes to proceed to create an account of sociohistorical development.
The approach of Collins & Jones (2006, 59-60) revealed that the stated aim of the
document, which was a critique of paternalism and bureaucracy, actually reflected
contrary ideas. “There was, in other words, a serious gap between what was being justified, and its
justification.” They argued that CDA could not have revealed this result using its typical
methods, because “the concrete system of interacting phenomena would not haven been reconstructed
sufficiently to see it”.
3.3. Activity theoretical critique of critical discourse analysis
My aim was to use critical discourse analysis (CDA) methodology in an activity
theoretical framework. I understood fairly quickly, however, that CDA could not serve as
such in an activity theoretical study. In order to improve my methodological
understanding, I had to examine carefully those studies connected to CDA and its
critique. Few were available, but those I found were very interesting. My next step was to
take a closer overview of the studies of Engeström and Collins & Jones.
As the object of my study is working life and work activities, one way to approach these
is to follow Engeström’s critique of the separation of discourse from object-oriented
productive activity. In his article Communication, Discourse and Activity (1999b), he
referred specifically to the research of Margaret Wetherell (1998), but also generally to
CDA7. According to Engeström, the separation of discourse and object-oriented
productive activity is evident in CDA (see Collins 1999, 170-171). Engeström (1999b,
170) argued that in discourse studies, as in Wetherell’s (1998) the data are usually
gathered in a “pure-talk” situation without being embedded in a practical activity. This,
according to Engeström, can cause problems in the analysis as it may overlook the
empirical and theoretical considerations in connection to talk and action (see Collins
1999, 90).
Secondly, Engeström highlighted the taken-for-granted privilege of discourse as a
weakness in CDA:
“(…) insistence on discourse as a privileged and more-or less self-sufficient
modality of social conduct and interaction.” (Engeström 1999b, 169).
The third point (Ibid. 180-181) was that CDA seems to ignore the analysis of radical
transformations, which in activity theory is a central aspect of the method for
understanding activity and development. In Engeström’s words, activity theory invites us
to ask: “What dynamics and possibilities of change and development are involved in this action?” (Ibid.
180). When analysing activity, change, development, and transformation, one looks back
to the history and ties them to the future.
7
CDA is a wide spread approach, and the critique towards it should always point to a specific direction:
Fairclough’s CDA, Wodak’s approach and so on.
11
Engeström (1999b, 172-173) suggested that in analysing talk, taking the activity system
as a unit of analysis, it is possible to fill the gap between fragmented isolated discourse
(micro level) and larger social (macro level) analysis. Engeström’s activity system is
partly based on a three-level analysis of joint activity developed by Leont’ev (1978).
According to Leont’ev in complex activities individuals can have problems
understanding the connections between goals and actions, motives and activities. This
leads to the conclusion that analysing only interaction between individuals at the action
level, for example, is insufficient. Activity system as a unit of analysis “makes seemingly
irrational actions understandable” (Engeström 1999b, 173 and 180).
In his article8, Engeström (1999) presented a four-step analysis of different activity
systems to explain discourse, actions and activity connections, and showed that the focus
should not be on a single activity system, but on the interaction between several activity
systems.
Collins, referring to Huspek’s study 1986) leads us to the fourth critique of CDA, which
is the absence of examples of language use and struggle between people with power and
those without power (Collins 1999, 88). This is an important aspect as some claim that
power relations are the focus of Fairclough’s CDA approach.
Fifthly Collins argued that Fairclough does not aim to develop further his approach,
which seems to be one of Collins’ main interests (Ibid.). Collins himself has completed a
thorough work, especially in “Language, Ideology and Social Consciousness. Developing
a Sociohistorical Approach” (1999) where he attempts to develop the approach by
analysing language and social context.
Sixthly, from an activity theoretical point of view, context seems to be very limited or
totally absent from Fairclough’s work. On the other hand, Collins (1999, 88), in referring
to Dillon et al. (1993), points out that the texts used in analysis have not been gathered
empirically during fieldwork periods, which also shows the absence of real context (see
Engeström 1999b).
Collins and Jones have published articles which carefully examine CDA and its
weaknesses (Collins & Jones 2006; Jones & Collins 2006; Jones 2007; Jones 2004). They
(Jones & Collins 2006, 34) argued that CDA doesn’t take into account sufficiently the
empirical links between discourse and social context. They also pointed out that CDA
gives the impression that in analysing the societal problems of today, the focus can be on
linguistics and not on “empirical investigation or knowledge and expertise in the relevant spheres”
(Ibid. 49).
Referring to the previous sections, I have presented important aspects of studies of
language in activity theory and feel that the emphasis is more or less on activity and
actions. The preliminary reading of language and discourse theories gave me support that
critical discourse analysis could serve as a methodological tool in analysing language and
discourse in connection to activity. However, there is a fundamental ontological
8
This analysis was based on a study by Hart-Landsberg and Reder (1997).
12
difference in the bases of activity theory and CDA. The first one has its roots in
materialism, and the second one in idealism (Collins 2008, 244).
The next section, methodological framework, is firstly a closer overview of CDA, based
mainly on Norman Fairclough’s and Ruth Wodak’s ideas. Secondly, it presents
intervention methods based on Developmental Work Research methodology.
4. Methodological framework
4.1. Critical discourse analysis CDA
Unlike Activity Theoretical approaches, CDA has no uniform and common theory
determining it, though its roots can be found in critical-dialectical and phenomenologicalhermeneutic theory formation (Weiss & Wodak 2003, 5-6.) The disciplinary roots of
CDA lie in Classical Rhetoric, Textlinguistics, Sociolinguistics, Applied Linguistics and
Pragmatics. Ideology, power, hierarchy, gender and sociological variables are relevant
topics in CDA text analysis (ibid. 11). Epistemologically, CDA is emancipatory and
critical, aiming to explain various phenomena (Hämäläinen 2007, 48). From other (noncritical) discourse traditions, CDA differs to some extent in the idea of the unit of
analysis. CDA researchers find “the larger discursive unit of text to be the basic unit of
communication” (Weiss & Wodak 2003, 12). This is where the connection between CDA
and activity theory can be found.
Discourse is defined as the use of language in speech and writing (social practise)
(Fairclough and Wodak 1997, 258). Fairclough defined discourse by combining ideas
from language theory and post-structural social theory. Language theory sees discourse as
social activity and interaction in real social practices. Post-structural social theory
concentrates on the social construction of reality and sees discourse as a form of
knowledge (Fairclough 1997, 31). In addition to discourse being a form of social practise,
discursive events and situations are in a dialectical relation with the social structure. This
means that discursive events are shaped by situations and social structures just as
situations and social structures are shaped by discursive events (Fairclough & Wodak
1997, 258; see Törrönen 2005).
Ideology, power, hierarchy, gender and sociological variables are relevant topics in CDA
text analysis (Weiss & Wodak 2003, 11). Discursive practices hold an important position
in power issues by producing and reproducing unequal power relations (social classes,
women and men). Still, language is powerful not by itself, but through people with
power. In practise, CDA takes the perspective of people without power and analyses the
language of those with power (Fairclough & Wodak 1997, 258; Weiss & Wodak 2003,
14). According to Törrönen, it also means that a CDA researcher decides beforehand who
has power and who does not (Törrönen 2005, 140).9
9
Compared to semiotic sociology for example researchers do decide not who has the power and who are
the objects of power. CDA understands power as possession, semiotic sociology understands power rather
in the Foucauldian way, as an internal interaction power is a random process. As the discourse is not the
13
In CDA discourses can be analysed by 1) strictly concentrating on the internal textual
context, 2) concentrating on cultural perspectives when the focus is on discoursechanging culture or 3) concentrating on societal materialistic, political and/or
economical processes. When the researcher’s task is to study, for example, how discourse
participates in maintaining or changing institutional systems, social practises and
political-economic power relations, CDA can prove to be a useful approach. CDA does
not see discourse autonomous as independent of human agency (compared to e.g. the
Foucauldian approach) (Jokinen & Juhila 1999, 55-56; Törrönen 2005, 139-140).
Fairclough divides the discursive analysis in three interlinked levels:
1. The level of text (description, linguistics),
2. The level of discursive practice (interpretation, micro-sociology) and
3. The level of social practice (explanation; macro-sociology) (Fairclough 1997,
see Hämäläinen, 2007).
The textual level analysis consists of analysing linguistic features such as wording,
metaphors, the structure of the text, and one central dimension is to describe how the
world represents the world. Important points in text analysis include ideational functions
representing the world (ideology, knowledge, societal analysis), interpersonal functions
(social relations, identity, power) and textual functions, which come from Halliday’s
systemic linguistic theory. One central point in textual analysis is interpersonality, which
focuses on analysing the speaker’s or the text producer’s attitude towards, for example,
the topic, ethos and control of interaction.
The level of discursive practice is related to the processes of text production and
consumption and to interpretations of discourse types. This can mean, for example,
analysing how a newspaper text differs from earlier versions, who has been involved in
its production and how different readers receive the text (Törrönen 2005, 146).
On the level of social practice, a researcher concentrates on the institutional,
organisational and societal context, and possible ways to approach it include, for
example, from an economic, political or cultural point of view. The context, institutional
practices around the situation or societal and cultural frames are the focus of interest
(Fairclogh 1997; Törrönen 2005, 147).
Weiss and Wodak (2003, 21-23) have a four-level triangulatory approach to mediation
between discourse and society. The purpose of the model is to guide CDA researchers to
an accurate analysis and help them to transcend the pure linguistic dimensions of the
analysis. This can be accomplished by including “the historical, political, sociological and/or
psychological dimension in the analysis and interpretation of specific discursive occasion.”
The triangulatory approach consists of four levels. The first level is descriptive:
possession of a certain group, the object of the critics is unknown at the beginning of the study, but is
defined during the study (Törrönen 2005).
14
1. The immediate, language or text-internal co-text.
The following levels are part of the theories of context:
2. The intertextual and interdiscursive relationship between utterances, texts,
genres and discourses;
3. The extralinguistic social/sociological variables and institutional frames of a
specific ‘context of situation’;
4. The broader socio-political and historical contexts, in which the discursive
practices are embedded and to which they are related.
4.2. The intervention method of the Change Laboratory
My data, interviews and intervention sessions, were gathered by using Developmental
Work Research methodology. The sessions were conducted by using the Hybrid
Laboratory method (Pirkkalainen & Kaatrakoski, 2009), which is based on the Change
Laboratory (Engeström 1999a, Engeström 2007, Virkkunen et al. 1999). In the following
sections I briefly introduce the methods.
About 25 years ago, researchers in the Center for Activity Theory and Developmental
Work Research at the University of Helsinki developed an intervention method known as
the Change Laboratory (Engeström 1999a; Engeström 2007; Virkkunen et al. 1999). The
method was innovated in a cultural-historical activity theory framework and is based on
Developmental Work Research methodology (Engeström, 1987, 1995).
According to the developers of CL, the method can be used to execute changes in
organisational culture as well as to improve continuously the activity of organisations.
They stress that the traditional division between strategic and operational management
levels can be bridged by developing work practices with the CL method. The
development process is always multivoiced (see Engeström R. 1999) and aims to reveal
historically developed contradictions in the activity of organisations and to find new
solutions to improve it. Intervention requires the active participation of the practitioners,
and the process is very intensive: normally 6-10 sessions arranged weekly or fortnightly.
All the sessions are video recorded, and the recordings are used for reflection in later
sessions. Several CL interventions have been conducted in for example schools, hospitals
and factories.
CL begins by collecting mirror material, ethnographic data such as video recordings and
interviews representing the present state of work practices. The collected data aim to
reveal historically developed work-related tensions, conflicts and disturbances in order to
analyse the origins of problems in work. The data also create a basis for collaboration and
deeper analysis as it is brought back to the participants during the sessions to reflect the
work processes (first stimulus). During the whole CL process, different analytical models
and tools (second stimulus) are used to help practitioners perceive their work activity as a
15
whole, with the help of one or several interventionist-researchers. One central
intervention tool is an activity system, which also serve as the analytical unit of analysis.
During the sessions, participants aim to design new, future activities. In order to design
something new, they must “move” between the past, present and future states of their
activity. This movement brings along a historical aspect in the creation of something
new.
4.3 Hybrid Laboratory
In the project, the intervention method used was the Hybrid Laboratory (HL)
(Pirkkalainen & Kaatrakoski, 2009). The HL is loosely based on the CL method
introduced in the previous section. The purpose of HL is to help organisations to meet
and to be prepared to meet changes that affect their work. It is participatory, stresses the
practitioners’ active role during the sessions and is multivoiced in that it aims to bridge
hierarchical levels and vertical boundaries. However, it is important to bear in mind that
in some respects, HL differs quite a lot from the original CL method. This is partly
because one of the aims of the project was to develop and to pilot a new kind of
intervention method. One central difference is that traditional CL tools are not necessarily
used in the analysis. Further, in the pilots, the analysis did not focus on the object of the
activity, the historical analysis was not made in a careful manner and the intervention did
not proceed in three steps: analysis, design and evaluation.
HL aims to take into account the complex and multilevel character of the organisations,
stressing the “from bottom to up” and cross-sectoral expansion of participation in the
sessions, and emphasising the decision-making dimension. HL also aims to create and to
develop forums where employees, decision-makers and other essential agents inside and
between the organisations can meet. The aim of the forums is to analyse, to develop and
to evaluate work activities and to propose improvements and implementations.
The process starts, as with CL, by collecting mirror material mainly in the form of
interviews and documents. The HL intervention itself consists of three phases, with each
phase consisting of several sessions. The sessions, each of which lasts 2-3 hours, are held
weekly or fortnightly. The first phase, where participation is at a minimum, consists of
several sessions, and the aim is to develop some concrete and practical propositions for
further development. At the same time, the group drafts a list of persons/organisations
needed in decision-making and in consideration of the specified problems or conflicts.
Those actors identified are invited to join the second phase of laboratory sessions. In the
second phase, participation is expanded, and developmental challenges and new solutions
are created through the multivoiced sessions. The third phase can be further expanded,
but in addition to proceeding with the development proposals, one aim is to critically
evaluate the intervention process and the results.
16
5. Data collection and research sites
My main data consist of several interviews and intervention sessions in four
organisations. The data were collected at “the right time”, meaning that the organisations
were going through an organisational and societal change in Finland. The data are
discursive and consist of the voices of actors at different horizontal and vertical levels.
The data are contextual at the social practice level of change, that is in developmental
sessions seeking qualitative change. Unlike in studies in activity theoretical
developmental work research in CDA studies discursive data from intervention sessions
is seldom analysed.
The four organisations where the data were collected were: the City of Tampere, the
Work Training Foundation Tekevä (Työvalmennussäätiö Tekevä), the City of Espoo and
the Finnish Road Administration (Tiehallinto).
Altogether, I have 61 conducted interviews (about 67 hours) and 15 intervention sessions
(about 31 hours) and have also gathered documents concerning the activity of the
organisations. All interviews and intervention sessions are transcribed.
The table below presents the number of interviewees and participants in the intervention
sessions10:
Site
Interviewees
Tampere
Tekevä
Espoo
Finnra
Total
19
12
14
16
61
Intervention session
participants
43
32
75
Interviewees + dev.
sess. participants
13
11
24
Table 1. Interviewees and participants in intervention sessions
Next I present the four research sites in my study.
5.1. The City of Tampere, day care and primary school
The City of Tampere is Finland’s third largest city with over 200 000 inhabitants, and is
one of the municipal level organisations in the project. The empirical part of the study is
concentrated on day cares and primary schools.
10
In the columns, developmental sessions and interview + developmental sessions, the numbers refer to
individuals who participated in the session one or more times. Tables 2 and 3 indicate the numbers of
participants in each session; some participated in several sessions.
17
As a whole the City of Tampere is going through an extensive three-dimensional
organisational change, which includes changes to decision-making structures (model of
mayorship), administrative structures (process thinking combining sectors) and
production structures (purchaser-provider split, dividing agents). The purchaser-provider
split in the City of Tampere is a process-managed internal purchaser-provider split. In
addition to city’s own production, part of the services is purchased from external
providers. In this study, the process thinking was seen, for instance, as a demand for
intensive co-operation between the school and day care. As of 1 January 2007, the City of
Tampere has been led by an elected mayor and four deputy mayors. The new model is
based on the need to clarify the political nature of planning and to ensure a more
customer-oriented approach. The supreme decision-making body of the City of Tampere
is the City Council with its 67 members. From the beginning of 2007, committees have
been entirely restructured; the new structure is based on process thinking rather than on
earlier sector-based assignments.
I gathered data in Tampere in the forms of interviews and an intervention. The aim of the
intervention was to record experiences of a purchaser-provider split pilot and cooperation with schools and day care centres and to find solutions to problems that arise.
The intervention was held between September 2006 and January 2007, and interviews
were conducted about six months prior. The table below aims to clarify from what area
and in what way the practitioners (total 29) participated in the intervention, and how
many there were in each phase and session.
Tampere
Employees
Administration
Private day care centres
Elected officials
Trade union
representatives
Total
Interviews
9
4
2
4
-
Phase 1
sessions 1-4
10 (10+10+9+7)
-
Phase 2
sessions 5-7
8 (6+6+6)
6 (1 +6+1)
5 (3+2+1)
2 (1+2+2)
Phase 3, closing
seminar
8
3
1
4
-
19
10
21
16
-
Table 2. Number of practitioners in HL in Tampere
The employees were teachers, preschool teachers, day care centre mangers and a
headmaster. Participants from administration were managers/directors from the purchaser
and provider sides, research and evaluation, club activity, the legal department and the
real estate department. The private day care centre representatives were day care centre
managers. Elected official participants were from different political parties and
represented both the purchaser and provider side. The trade union representatives came
from the Public Sector Negotiating Commission (JUKO) and the Trade Union of
Education in Finland (OAJ).
18
5.2. Work Training Foundation Tekevä
The second site is the Work Training Foundation Tekevä (Työvalmennussäätiö Tekevä),
a third sector agent and service provider. Tekevä’s goal is to improve the individual’s
ability to work and to function in society through working. Target groups include the
long-term unemployed, people under threat of social exclusion and the disabled.
(www.tekeva.net) Tekevä is an example of a public, third and private sector hybrid that is
financed mainly by the public sector. Most of the trainees arriving there are sent by the
state or local employment office, and the main major financial contributor is the City of
Jyväskylä. Business aspects such as production, subcontracting and placing trainees in
firms, are central dimensions of Tekevä’s activity.
As in Tampere, in Tekevä we collected data in the form of interviews and an
intervention. Originally, the aim of the intervention was to unify the organisational
culture after the merger of several organisations to form Tekevä. In the process, the
development concentrated on co-operation over boundaries. The intervention was
conducted between August and November 2006, and the mirror material was collected
about six months earlier. This table describes the areas and participation of the
practitioners (total 33) that participated in the intervention and how many participated in
each phase and session.
Tekevä
Employees
Board members
Others
Total
Interviews Phase 1
sessions 1-3
7
13 (11+9+9)
4
5 (3+2+2)
1
12
18
Phase 2 sessions
4-6
9 (8+6+8)
2 (2+1+0)
6 (4+3+3)
17
Phase 3,
closing seminar
11
3
7
21
Table 3. Number of practitioners in HL in Tekevä
The group of employees consisted of work trainers, a training manager, a project coordinator, a marketing manager, a laundry worker, an occupational health nurse, a service
adviser and a financial manager. The managing director was included in this group. The
board members came from five different (Tekevä’s founding) organisations. The group
others included a trainee, a representative from Jyväskylä City Employment Services and
Social and Family Services, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela), Jyväskylä
Regional Development Company (Jykes), Insurance Rehabilitation Association (VKK),
Jyväskylä Employment Service Centre (Työvoiman palvelukeskus TYP), Entrepreneurs
of Jyväskylä (Jyväskylän yrittäjät ry) and Jyvälä’s Settlement (Jyvälän setlementti).
5.3. Finnish Road Administration (FINNRA)
Finnra is a state level organisation operating under the Ministry of Transport and
Communications. It is responsible for Finland’s highway network and also plans,
maintains and develops transport systems in co-operation with other authorities. One
19
central task of Finnra is to offer official (e.g. permits and agreements regarding the use of
roads) and information services. Finnra is very actively involved in international cooperation with foreign road administrations, international organisations and neighbouring
areas.
Finnra has a short history as the Finnish Road Administration, formely Tielaitos, because
in 2001, this governmental agent, was split into a purchaser organisation (Finnra) and a
provider organisation (Tieliikelaitos, now Destia). After the division, and as a purchaser
and a specialist organisation Finnra has performed only administrative tasks, such as
purchasing, and no longer engages in production. Finnra’s position as a societal agent has
changed as has the organisation’s “identity”. This change entails being an administrative
agent in addition to being a market customer oriented organisation. New way of working
has increased the need for new know how that so far has lacked the organisation. The
new know how includes skills in purchasing, contracting, legal issues and marketing. One
interesting dimension of the change is that the needed products and services are defined
by the different parts or the organisation in which they are purchased.
Contrary to initial plans, the intervention was not conducted in Finnra. However, 12 civil
servants were interviewed from different areas of the organisation: infra-building,
maintenance, purchasing, law and research. In addition, I also interviewed one
representative from the Ministry of Transport and Communications and one producer
representative. The data were gathered during the first six months of 2005.
Interviews
FINNRA (Tiehallinto)
Employees
12
Ministry of Transport and Communications 1
representative
Producer representative
1
Total
14
Table 4. Number of interviewees in Finnra
The employees interviewed in Finnra were various experts, directors and managers from
several areas such as purchasing, planning, financing, developing, maintenance and
project management, and included a researcher and a layer.
5.4. City of Espoo, elderly care
The City of Espoo, with over 235 000 inhabitants, is the second largest city in Finland.
Our research case in Espoo was a home care unit for the elderly. Home care includes
home help services, home nursing, support for close caring relatives and support services
(e.g. meals, shopping and transportation). Home care in Espoo is arranged as its own
production by using service vouchers and by purchasing from private and third-sector
producers. Purchasing invites tenders from the purchasing organisation. The difference
between Espoo and Tampere is that in Espoo, the organisation is not divided into
providers and purchasers, so it is not an internal purchaser-provider split organisation.
20
In 2004, earlier separate social and health services were combined to function together.
Structurally, an elderly care unit consisted of five home care centres managed by a home
care manager. Inside the five areas, the work is divided among area teams.
The intervention was not conducted in the City of Espoo. Rather, we conducted
altogether 16 interviews, during the winter of 2004-2005 and spring of 2005.
Espoo
Interviews
Employees
Chief shop steward (pääluottamusmies)
Espoo’s
Council
for
the
Elderly
representative
External producer representatives
Total
10
1
1
4
16
Table 5. Number of interviewees in Espoo
The representatives of the City of Espoo included nurses, head nurses, home care
managers, a head doctor, different level directors and specialist (e.g. work hygienist).
Those interviewed included the chief shop steward and one representative from Espoo’s
Council for the Elderly. In addition, four external producer representatives (directors, a
project planner and a service manager) were interviewed.
During the intervention process, I read several documents (total 62, see Appendix 1)11,
newspaper and magazine scraps (see Table 6) which served as complementary data.
SCRAPS
Year
199612
2004
Pieces
1
19
Newspaper/magazine
Sosiaaliturva
Voima, kunta ja me, HS, International Herald Tribune, The
Washington Post, Kansan uutiset, Aamulehti, Viikkolehti
2005
55
Mediuutiset, HS, Aamulehti, Kansan uutiset, Metro, Uutislehti 100,
2006
61
2007
15
HS, Kansan uutiset, Tiedonantaja kuntaliite, Kauppalehti,
Kaupunkilehti Vartti,
Jako Uusiks!, Voima, Yliopisto, Talouselämä, HS
No reference
5
HS
Total
156
Table 6. Newspaper and magazine scraps
11
To make the reading easier, I placed the list of documents in the appendix.
”Kiistelty ja kiitelty tilaaja-tuottaja malli. Tampere suunnitteli ja luopui.” (Controversial and applauded
purchaser-provider split. Tampere planned and abandoned). This article is included in the data because it is
about Tampere giving up plans to proceed with apurchaser-provider split in 1994.
12
21
6. Preliminary analysis
Interview transcripts and intervention recordings were used to identify confusing
argumentations in the data. Compulsory competitive tendering, customer orientation,
evaluation, productivity, efficiency, trust (Kantola & Kautto 2002; Niiranen 2001)
contracts, relational contracts (Mcneill 1978) transaction costs (Williamson 1985) and
the transparency of organisations (Saari 2005) were the central terms that were heard and
read everywhere. They were certainly familiar to all who live in countries that have
undergone similar societal change. I identified three discourses: customer orientation,
economic and accountability discourses.
Accountability13 may be an unfamiliar concept to some readers. It is very multi-layered,
but this paper is not sufficiently relevant to merit a thorough examination. However, I
will introduce some of its aspects briefly. Accountability defines the relationship of
formal control between agents. This can be in the form of annual appraisals, departmental
reviews or meetings with parents where the results of the activity or performance are to
be evaluated. Teachers can be accountable to governors, parents and students.
Accountability refers to the discursive exchange of accounts, as it is also a construction
of the currency of discourse about the performance and criteria that need to be used in
assessments (Day & Klein 1987; Kickert 2002; Ranson 2003; Lähdesmäki 2003).
Evaluation and assessment are closely connected to the notion of quality. The roots of
quality management in production can be traced to the beginning of the 19th century.
Today in the neo-liberal world, quality management in production has increasingly
spread to service production and to the public sector, creating new challenges for
accountability. One question to ask is whether the meaning of quality management (and
evaluation in this process) has become more a control than a management instrument
(Vaara 2006, 415-418).
Next, I provide some excerpts of the documents, scraps and transcriptions, which formed
the basis for the preliminary analysis.
The first is an example of customer orientation discourse:
Helsingin Sanomat, 1 November 2007:
“Espoo pestasi Trainers’ Housen trimmaajaksi. Sosiaali- ja terveyspalveluiden parantamiseen
uhrataan noin 200 000 euroa. (…) ’Asiakaskeskeisyys- ja lähtöisyys’, perustelee sopimusta
Espoon perusturvajohtaja. Samalla tavalla julkisella sektorilla kuin yksityiselläkin kannattaa
kehittää osaamista ja pysyä vähintäänkin ajan tasalla. (…) Kouluttamisella halutaan viestiä
asukkaille, että asiakaslähtöisyyttä pidetään tärkeänä. (…) Yhtälailla haluamme viestittää omalle
henkilöstölle, että tahdomme satsata hyvään osaamiseen.”
”Espoo hired Trainers’ House to trim social and health services by 200 000 euros. (…) ‘Customer
orientation’ justifies Espoo’s Basic Security Director contract. ‘It is worth developing competence
and, at a minimum, being as up-to-date in the public sector as in the private sector. (…) Through
13
Some Finnish translations of accountability are vastuullisuus (ja tilivelvollisuus) or vastuuvelvollisuus.
22
training we aim to communicate to inhabitants that customer orientation is important. (…) We also
want to communicate to our own personnel that we aim to invest in good competence’.”
The second example, from Tampere’s strategy valid until 2016, embodies customer
orientation and economical discourses. It also gives a hint of accountability discourse,
referring to good quality outsourced services.
“Tampere järjestää asukkailleen asiakaslähtöisiä, laadukkaita ja kustannustehokkaita palveluja
yhteistyössä muiden palveluntuottajien kanssa.”
”Tampere arranges customer-oriented, high quality economical services in co-operation with other
service providers.”
The third example is from Tekevä’s 2006 Annual Report, which represents accountability
discourse.
“Vuodesta 2004 alkaen Tekevä –säätiön toimintaa on vuosittain arvioitu tuloskorttiin (ns. BSC –
malli) perustuvalla kokonaistuloksellisuuden arvioinnilla. Tuloskortista on vuosien myötä
muodostunut hyvä tapa asettaa yleishyödylliselle toiminnalle tavoitteet, jotka perustuvat säätiön
perustehtävän toteuttamiseen ja joiden toteuttamista voidaan arvioida säännöllisesti.”
”Since 2004 Tekevä’s activity has been evaluated by a total profitability method based on BSC. In
recent the score card has developed a good tool to set goals for non-profit activity, which is based
on implementing the foundation’s core tasks and whose implementation can be evaluated
regularly.”
The fourth example is from a Finnra brochure, which presents a life-cycle model in road
building. This excerpt contains customer orientation and economic discourses.
Finnra. Life-cycle model opens new possibilities. July 2004:
“Varsinkin suurille tiehankkeille elinkaarimalli tarjoaa asiakaslähtöisen, kustannuksia säästävän ja
tilaajan riskejä merkittävästi vähentävän vaihtoehdon.”
”Especially for large road projects, the life-cycle model offers a customer-oriented, economical
and risk-decreasing alternative for purchasers.”
The last example is from an interview of two preschool teachers and represents
employees’ voices of customer orientation discourse.
N3: Such flexibility has appeared I think. Nor can we ask anymore; precise information
can’t be requested … children’s parents’ holidays, nothing. Sometimes it feels like, “help”!
Because nothing can be requested anymore: “When they will be picked up?” or “When will
they come?” or “When are they on holiday?” We are like scouts, always pulled in different
directions.
N1: Yes.
N3: Even if we were…. Sometimes it can be done, but then kind of…. always comes.
N2: Too much is too much.
N3: Sometimes drawing the line…
N1: Yes, when can be then.
N3: Yes, when the line does come, where…
N1: There isn’t really any kind of ….
23
N3: Yes.
N1: Clear, formulated yet...
N3:Yes. No, we always have to be more flexible, to work from morning to evening, and to
balance when we have time to balance.
These excerpts are all in one way or another connected to new organisational forms and
to reorganising work following an NPM regime. The preliminary reading raised many
questions. What does customer orientation mean? What does it mean from the
employees’ point of view? What is the word meaning of “customer orientation”?
Secondly, the economic discourse of service production, outsourcing, contracting,
compulsory competitive contracting and risk transfer seemed to vary considerably and
was even illogical occasionally. Some activities were claimed to be cheaper when
outsourced, but actually were not. How shall we understand this economic discourse?
Thirdly, contract-based outsourced (and also, within the organisation, divided) activities
normally demand evaluation and quality control in order to enable decisions to be made
about future actions and contract renewal. This increases demands for accountability,
which also increases the evaluation of difficult-to-measure services.
All that I have presented above is common knowledge for many of us, and in many
countries this discussion may already be dead and buried. However, in Finland we are
living in the middle of this discourse and change and instead of sinking in it, I argue that
all this is only just beginning rising. My interest lies in what I can find “behind” these
discourses, words and word meanings in the Finnish cultural-historical context. Using a
relevant methodology, it is possible through language analysis to understand wider social
change processes (Collins 2008, 243).
With these examples I attempted to clarify for readers what kind of data led me to find
different discourses in my preliminary analysis. “The method” I used was based on
qualitative content analysis (e.g. Tuomi & Sarajärvi 2002) and I did it simply by
collecting similar utterances that contained the same theme.
7. Example of data analysis
In this section, I introduce an example of an analysis of power relations by using
discursive methods. Power relations between different agents in different organisations
(especially in multi-agency organisations) caught my attention in a very early stage of
this study. I connected it to increasing organisational forms of partnerships and networks.
Is equality or inequality in power relations between organisations manifested in language
use?
Fairclough (1997) divides the discursive analysis into three levels: text, discursive
practice and social practice. Inspired by Fairclough, I aimed to conduct a text-level
analysis, which focused, for instance, on linguistic features, ideational functions and
interpersonal functions. Power and interpersonality aspects are analysed (the speaker’s
24
attitude towards the topic, negativity, positivity, ethos, social relations), and modal
analysis is used.
The excerpt is from the last intervention session in the Work Foundation Tekevä. The
whole intervention process was divided into two parts. In the first part, the participants
were mainly employees from Tekevä. To the second part, several people were invited
from those organisations that were central and important agents in developing Tekevä’s
work practices. One of the central organisations was the local Employment Office, but no
one from there was able to participate in any session. One person, N15, from the
Jyväskylä Employment Service Centre TYP (a centre established by the Employment
Offices, the Social Insurance Institution and the Municipals to serve people who are
especially difficult to employ) was able to participate in the last session. N15 represented
one of Tekevä’s customer organisations.
Between the sessions, all the invited persons received the material produced in the
previous sessions. It seemed that N15 was not quite satisfied with the material she had
received; she felt it was overly critical in some way. N15 came to the session a little late
and began talking in a defensive manner. She wanted to make sure that everyone
understood that she did not represent the Employment Office, though she did work in the
TYP which was in fact part of the Employment Office. On the other hand, she wanted to
defend the absence of Employment Office representatives. In other words, she wanted to
stress the distinction between “us” (TYP) and “them” (Employment Office), yet on the
other hand, the two are clearly separate organisations.
N15: I have to say now, that I don’t represent the whole Employment Office, but the Jyväskylä
Employment Service Centre.
N1: Exactly, yes, but anyway--N15: And surely you are aware of why the Employment Office representatives unfortunately
couldn’t come here. It is not about their lack of willingness to co-operate, but because of really
busy times at work. That is also the reason why I could participate only in this session
N1: ## Yes, yes.
N15: We have terrible customer pressure at work, too. And then Tekevä, though it is a large
service provider, is for us only one service provider and co-operator. If we think of this year, we
have contracts with ten service providers. And then it must be limited; What are the
opportunities for us to participate deeply in such development sessions. It is important, but this
is just for you to know.
N15: ## Nii, täytyy nyt sanoa, ett mä en edusta tässä koko Työvoimatoimistoa vaan
Työvoimapalvelukeskusta.
N1: Nimenomaan, joo, mutt kuitenki --N15: Ja sitte varmaan ootte tietoisia siitä, että minkä takia Työvoimatoimistosta ei valitettavasti
ole tänne edustusta saatu. Että kyse ei ole varmaan mistään yhteistyöhaluttomuudesta, vaan ihan
oikeesti työkiireistä. Se oli myös syy, minkä takia itse vain tähän tilaisuuteen pääsen
osallistumaan.
N1: ## Joo. Joo.
N15: Ett meill on hirveet asiakaspaineet myöskin. Ja taas sitte Tekevä, vaikka onkin mittava
palveluntuottaja, niin on meille vaan yksi palveluntuottaja ja yhteistyökumppani. Ett jos tätä
vuotta ajatellaan, ni TYPilläki on kymmenelle eri palvelutuottajalle ostopalvelusopimuksia. Ja
sitten täytyy aina rajata sillee, että mitkä on ne mahollisuudet, missä voiaan olla sitte mitenki
syvällisesti mukana tämmösissä kehittymishankkeissa. Tärkeä asia on. Mutt tämä nyt vain
tiedoksi.
25
In this excerpt, the speaker uses, for example, no metaphors to describe actors, but certain
word utterances (“for us only one service provider and co-operator”) show how she
stresses her organisation’s or Employment Office’s position. She also stresses her
position: she has the right to speak.
(“is possible”, “is likely”, “maybe”; N15 use no words to show uncertainty, but stresses
her authority.)
täytyy nyt sanoa,
I have to say now.
She begins by saying that she has an important announcement, and in this way shows that
she has a right to speak.
ja sitte varmaan ootte tietosia
and surely you are aware of.
She points out that people at Tekevä must know that Employment Office workers are
very busy. My comment: Do Employment Office staff know whether Tekevä’s
employees are busy? I think this shows a power relation between the organisations, but
how does one take into account the fact that the speaker comes from a third organisation?
vaan ihan oikeesti työkiireistä
but because of really busy times at work.
This utterance stresses the perception that employment Office people are very busy;
Tekevä employees should think nothing else.
meill on hirveet asiakaspaineet myöskin
we have awful customer pressures, too.
She comes back to her own organisation. Organisation TYP’s employees are just as busy
as Employment Office staff. So Tekevä employees should think nothing else and not say
that they lack interest in participating.
Tekevä, vaikka onkin mittava palveluntuottaja, niin on meille vaan yksi palveluntuottaja
Tekevä, though it is a large service provider, is only one service provider for us.
She points out that Tekevä is only one of many service providers; they must not think that
they are something special. They are only one of their customers. This sounds as though
TYP was the powerful agent, and the service providers must not task them to do
anything.
TYPilläki on kymmenelle eri palvelutuottajalle
TYP also has a contract with ten different service providers.
This shows an attitude, that TYP is a big agent in the field, that they have many other
service providers, and that they can and have the privilege of deciding whose activities
are important.
mitenkin syvällisesti mukana tämmösissä kehittymishankkeissa
participate deeply in such development sessions.
26
This utterance shows that TYP has the power to decide what to participate in, whether it
be Tekevä’s or another organisation’s ”tämmösiin” development activities. “Tämmösii”
usually refers to something of lesser importance.
tämä nyt vaan tiedoksi
this is just for you to know.
She ended her talk similarly to the way she started: with a kind of announcement. She
wanted to take her place and say what she had to say; after finishing, she showed that
others can now talk.
The power aspect can be seen when she stresses that, for them, Tekevä is only one among
several service providers. TYP representatives were invited to the second part of the
intervention, and N15, as the only representative, was able to participate only in the last
one. She stressed that employees at TYP are as busy as those at the Employment Office.
Because Tekevä is only one service provider, TYP employees can decide; they have the
power to decide what to participate in. Thinking of equal organisational networks and
different kinds of partnerships can show that the partner organisations may not be in an
equal position.
N15 wanted to highlight the fact that the lack of participation was due not to
unwillingness, but to lack of time. Arnkil et al. (2004) reported in a TYP evaluation that
governmental agents and municipal agents experienced tension between their activities.
This may be due to differences of their organisational cultures. In my case, Tekevä is a
small third-sector agent whereas the Employment Office is a big organisation directed
from top down that may be unaccustomed to accepting invitations for co-operation from
small organisations. Lack of time was probably the reason why so few participated, but
there may also be other reasons, such as the organisational culture.
8. Research timetable and schedule for writing the dissertation
My dissertation is a monograph. A rough sketch and plan for the next writing steps
appear in the table below.
Chapter
2009
2010
1. Introduction
2 months
2. Research questions
1 month
3 months
3. Theoretical
2 months
3 months
framework
4. Methodological
2 months
3 months
framework
5. Data and analysis
4 months
2 months
6. Conclusions
7. Reflection of the
research process
Table 6. Schedule for writing the dissertation
27
2011
3 months
2 months
2012
1 month
1 month
1 month
3 months
1 month
1 month
1 month
1 month
1 month
3 months
2 months
All the data have been collected in 2005-2007 and the doctoral studies completed in
2007-2008. My aim is to finalise the dissertation in 2013.
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APPENDIX 1
1. Tekevä documents
Tekevän vuosiraportit, Annual Reports 2001-2007.
31
Tekevän toimintasuunnitelma ja budjetti. Tekevä’s Strategy and Budget 2006.
Tekevän säännöt, The constitution of Tekevä. 30 November 1998.
Valmu henkilöstölehti, the employees’ newsletter, March 2006.
2. Espoo documents
Espoon sosiaali- ja terveystoimi, hallinto- ja kehittämisyksikkö. Kotihoidon laatu- ja taluskriteerit. Social
and health services, administration and development centre: Quality and financial criteria. 17
September 1999.
Espoon vanhusneuvosto tukee – toimii – toteuttaa 1997-2005. Espoo’s Council for the Elderly supports –
acts – realises.
Espoon vanhusneuvoston esityksiä kaupungin hallinnolle 2001. Espoo’s Council for the Elderly proposals
to city administration.
Espoon sosiaali- ja terveystoimi. Kaupungin kotihoidon asiakkaaksi ottamisen periaatteet. Social and health
services. The principles for taking home customers in Espoo. 22 May 2003.
Espoon vanhusneuvoston esityksiä kaupungin hallinnolle 2004. Espoo’s Council for the Elderly proposals
to the city administration.
Espoon vanhusjärjestöjen esityksiä vanhusneuvostolle 2004. Espoo’s elderly associations’ proposals for the
Espoo’s Council for the Elderly.
Lähimmäisapu ry (a service provider) 1982-2002.
Lähimmäisapu ry:n vuosikertomus. Annual report 2003
Lähimmäisapu ry. Hyvä elämä kotona projektin toimintakertomus 2004. The good life at home –projects
annual report 2004
Medivire (a service provider) ”Turvapuhelimella apu on aina lähellä”, ”Yöpartio auttaa Sinua ja läheisiäsi”
and ”Ammattitaitoinen ratkaisu arjen askareisiin”. A brochure about security phones, night service
and general services.
Sosiaali- ja terveysministeriö, tiedote 283/2004. Sosiaali- ja terveysministeriö ja Espoon kaupunki
neuvottelivat sosiaalialan kehittämisestä. The ministry of social affairs and health. Newsletter
283/2004. Ministry and social affairs and the City of Espoo negotiated of developing social
services.
3. Finnra documents
Hankintastrategia/Procurement Strategy. 6 May 2004/Ta, MT. Finnra.
ELINKAARIMALLI avaa uusia mahdollisuuksia. The life-cycle model opens new possibilities. July 2004.
Finnra.
E18:n Muurlan ja Lohjan välinen osuus toteutetaan elinkaarimallilla. E18 motorway between Muurla and
Lohja is realised with the life-cycle model. Newsletter 13 February 2004. Ministry of Transport
and Communications Finland.
http://www.valtioneuvosto.fi/vn/liston/base.lsp?r=63597&k=fi&rapo=2119&old=727. Accessed
on 12 March 2004.
E18 Muurla – Lohja. Finnra. http://alk.tiehallinto.fi/e18/index2.html. Accessed on 29 October 2004.
E18 Muurla – Lohja. Finnra. http://www.tiehallinto.fi7servlet/page?pageid==70&dad=julia_s.
E 18 hankintamenettely/Procuration Procedure. Finnra. http://alk.tiehallinto.fi/e18/hankintamenettely.html.
Accessed on 29 October 2004.
E18 alustava aikataulu/preliminary schedule. http://alk.tiehallinto.fi/e18/aikataulu.html. Accessed on 29
October 2004.
E18 tarjoajat/tenderers. http://alk.tiehallinto.fi/e18/tarjoajat.html. Accessed on 29th of October 2004.
Infraprojektin toteteutus projektinjohto- ja hoitopalvelumenettelyillä elinkaaritalous tavoitteena. (Kiiras)
Implementation of infra projects using project management and maintenance service procedures
and aiming for a life-cycle economy. 29 April 2003.
4. Tampere documents
32
Kaikem paree Tampere. Tampereen tasapainoinen kaupunkistrategia vuoteen 2016. Tampere’s strategy
until 2016.
Tampereen kaupungin päivähoidon ja perusopetuksen johtokunnan johtosääntö. The ordinance of the
directorate of day cares and schools in Tampere. Voimaantulo 1.1.2005.
Tampereen kaupungin kasvatus- ja opetuslautakunnan johtosääntö. The ordinance of the board of education
in Tampere.Voimaantulo 1.1.2005.
Tampereen kaupungin hyvinvointipalvelujen johtosääntö. The ordinance of welfare services in Tampere.
Tampereen kaupungin lautakuntien johtosääntö. The ordinance of the boards in Tampere.Voimaantulo
1.1.2005.
Kasvatus- ja opetuspalvelujen toimintasääntö. Tampereen kaupunki. Regulations in education services in
Tampere. Voimaantulo 1.1.2007.
Päivähoidon, esiopetuksen, peruskoulun sekä koululaisten aamu- ja iltapäivähoidon uusi toimintamalli.
Lahden päivähoidon ja perusopetuksen edustajien vierailu Tampereella 13.1.2006. A new model
for morning and afternoon before- and after-school activities in day cares, presechools and
schools.. The day care and school representatives visit from the City of Lahti on 13 January 2006.
Children’s and youth’s services in Tampere. A sketch 15 June 2006.
Prosessit päivähoidossa. Esitys 7.9.-12.10.2005. Processes in day care. A presentation from 7 September to
12 October 2005.
Laatukriteerien arviointitavat (päivähoito). The methods of evaluation of quality criteria (day care).
Tampereen kaupungin kasvatuksen ja koulutuksen arvioinnin perusteet – ja arviointikohteita
taloussuunnitelmakaudelle. Tampereen kaupungin kasvatus- ja opetuspalveluiden raporttisarja
3/2006. The basis for Tampere’s education evaluation and evaluation objects for the financial
period.
Päivähoidon tilaaja-tuottajamalli. Lännen tulosalueen vuosisuunnitelma vuodelle 2006. Purchaser-provider
split in day care. The western area’s budget for year 2006 4 November 2006.
Päivähoidon tilaaja-tuottajamalli. Kaakon tulosalueen vuosisuunnitelma vuodelle 2006. Purchaser-provider
split in day care. The south-eastern area’s budget for the 2006 4 November 2006.
Päivähoidon tilaaja-tuottajamalli. Etelän tulosalueen vuosisuunnitelma vuodelle 2006. Purchaser-provider
split in day care. The southern area’s budget for the 2006 4 November 2006.
Päivähoidon tilaaja-tuottajamalli. Keskustan tulosalueen vuosisuunnitelma vuodelle 2006. Purchaserprovider split in day care. The centre area’s budget for the 2006 4 November 2006.
Tampereen kaupunki, kasvatus- ja opetustoimiala, päivähoito. Tuotantosopimuksen liite 4. Ydinprosessi:
asiakkuuden syntyminen. The City of Tampere, education and day care. Production contract
Appendix 4. A core process: birth of customership.
Yhteistyömalli Terälahden ap/ip-tominnan järjestämiseksi. (Riekkola and Vänninmaja). Co-operation
model for arranging Terälahti’s before- and after-school activities.
Varhaiskasvatuksen ja esiopetuksen palvelusopimus 2007. A service contract 2007 for day care and
preschool.
Tampereen kaupungin toimintamallin uudistusprosessin jatkaminen – peruslinjaukset ja aikataulu.
Continuing the reform process for Tampere’s new management model – the basic definitions and
schedule. 25 November 2003.
Tampereen pormestarin ohjelma 2007-2008. The mayor of Tampere program for 2007 and 2008.
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Tampereen kaupungin uusi toimintamalli 2007-. Kaupunginvaltuuston seminaari toimintamallin
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