Jukka Majava

University of Oulu · Department of Industrial Engineering and Management

Developing circular economy products involves a wide array of stakeholders that affect different phases of the product development process. This article studies stakeholder management in circular economy product development by conducting a case study on a circular materials producer in the mining industry. The key stakeholders were identified, cate...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the benefits and challenges of implementing circular economy (CE), as well as shed light on the influence of procurement strategy in CE implementation in construction projects. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative research approach with abductive reasoning was adopted. The empirical data wer...

The automotive industry faces challenges because of the electrification of vehicles and the rapidly increasing need for electric vehicle batteries (EVBs). Raw materials availability is limited; however, there will also be a significant number of end-of-life (EOL) batteries. This creates various circular economy (CE) business opportunities for EVB m...

Purpose Recently, interest in sustainability has grown globally in the heavy vehicle and equipment industry (HVEI). However, this industry's complexity poses a challenge to the implementation of generic sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices. This study aims to identify SSCM's barriers, practices and performance (BPP) indicators in th...

BACKGROUND: Constructive feedback has positively contributed to learning and development, especially for disengaged and underprivileged learners. The study examines whether the perceived impacts from constructive feedback are different between the male and female learners. OBJECTIVE: The objective is to assess whether there is a significant differe...

Sustainable business practices are those that allow companies to increase their profit while still considering the triple bottom line of sustainability, which involves economic, environmental, and social aspects. There are a lot of studies exploring various aspects of supply chain practices. However, there remains a gap for the proposal of a comple...

Industry 4.0—also known as the modern industrial revolution—nurtures close collaboration between various organizations so that they can come together for innovation. While aiming for digital transformation through such innovation, these organizations form certain interdependencies due to the pool of resources and tasks they agree to share to reach...

BACKGROUND: Overcoming the disengagement feeling in a human- centric environment such as a workplace or a school is essential. In fact, the disengagement in a workplace or at school is one of the major challenges today. Lack of meaningful engagement contributes to this feeling. OBJECTIVE: It is to assess the impacts of external feedback on learning...

The integration of the concept of the circular economy (CE) within the supply chain is known as the circular supply chain (CSC). Although various articles have identified barriers to implementing CE, no comprehensive study has investigated the impacts of barriers focusing on CSC. This study includes a systematic literature review to contextualize t...

BACKGROUND: Transition into Industry 4.0 has had many significant impacts. Customization symbolizes leanness, flexibility, adaptability, and agility. A business operator needs to recognize the factors that contribute to better utilization of the talents of its workforce and more effective workplace learning. OBJECTIVE: The study aims to provide a c...

This study analyses remanufacturing operations of a Finnish heavy vehicle manufacturer with global operations. The company has remanufactured and refurbished certain components for a decade in a centralised remanufacturing and recycling centre in Finland, but it has encountered significant challenges, especially in reverse logistics. The company co...

Due to economic and environmental advantages, transferring from linear systems into circular economies has been accelerated, especially in developed countries, which affects companies’ relations. Among different tools and methodologies, the closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) model as an established approach has shown its efficiency in reflecting these...

Industry 4.0 has been identified as a major contributor to the era of digitalisation. Its implications for sustainable development have gained widespread attention from the perspectives of the triple bottom line, sustainable business models and circular economy. The purpose of this paper is to map the broad field of sustainable development and inve...

BACKGROUND: How to reconnect the disengaged learners has been a major challenge for human learning. Motivating the disengaged learners through traditional interventions has not been effective. OBJECTIVE: The study aims to examine whether feedback from an external unit would be more persuasive for the disengaged learners. The perception on a lack of...

Being multinational and complex, global supply chains may be extremely vulnerable to sudden crises, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to issues related to the health and lives of people, the pandemic has also had negative impacts on supply chains, and many companies dependent on them have been struggling. The ability to recover from...

Purpose: Globally operating companies have been disrupted by many simultaneous crises in recent years, specifically the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit, and trade wars. This study identifies the key factors in companies’ decisions to expand their global supply chains or to operate more locally in today’s world. Study design/methodology/approach: This ar...

This paper addresses supply chain transparency improvement in a triadic manufacturer-supplier-supplier relationship. It investigates the problem of improving transparency using a set of interviews; then, a detailed problematization and a simulation model is formulated based on the results. The interview results show that there are two key issues to...

This paper addresses supply chain transparency improvement in a manufacturer-supplier relationship. It investigates the problem of improving transparency is using a set of interviews; then, a detailed problematization and a simulation model is formulated based on the results. There are two key issues: information systems issues related directly to...

Purpose: Servitization is a rising trend as companies look for new revenue streams. This paper presents a study of customer care business model evolution in the smartphone industry. The paper identifies key changes in the business models during recent years and their implications for companies seeking after-sales service excellence and new revenue...

Purpose The “big room” concept and lean philosophy have become increasingly popular in the construction industry. Visual control is a central part of lean philosophy and the big room concept; its aim is to improve information flow, joint problem-solving and real-time decision-making. Visual control facilitates effective project management by provid...

New Product Development (NPD) is vital for companies that operate in international markets. Yet, NPD has become increasingly challenging to manage; products are becoming ever more complex and various customers and multiple stakeholders' needs must be satisfied. Additionally, NPD is often conducted in multiple locations around the world. Product dev...

Excellence in product development can be achieved by integrating various stakeholders' requirements into a winning offering. After-market services have become increasingly important for companies, as digitalisation enables new business models and revenue streams. The integration of customer care must be performed in the product development (PD) pro...

The competitiveness of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is vital for the European economy. Also, manufacturing is often the core competence of SMEs. Adopting lean philosophy is a viable and popular approach for developing production and enabling continuous improvement. Despite the increased interest in empirical lean research, the body of...

Innovation-driven enterprises (IDEs) engage with various stakeholders during new product development and commercialisation. Spatial ecosystems in which these enterprises operate provide them with the local business environment for new innovation development. Our study analyses IDEs' stakeholders in two spatial information and communication technolo...

University-business cooperation has become an increasingly important issue in the 21st century. The modern universities are expected to fulfil their part as a builder of the productive economy. Key factors in reaching this goal include societal impact and the working life relevance of education. University-business cooperation (UBC) is a natural wa...

FULL TEXT: http://jultika.oulu.fi/Record/nbnfi-fe201703235785 Purpose – Increasing competition in global markets requires many countries to seek new growth sectors. In addition, the nature of competition is changing. This paper applies the business ecosystem concept and studies San Diego as a spatial health and life sciences ecosystem. The purpose...

Business ecosystems have changed the nature of competition among regions. Various organisations have been established to catalyse local innovation, such as CONNECT in San Diego, California, USA. This study explores the role of an intermediary organisation in establishing trust in a business ecosystem. This paper presents literature findings on busi...

This original research evaluates contactless smart card technology as a source of innovation in public transportation. Ticketing and fare collection are in global transition from cash, paper tickets and contact cards to contactless payment. The global diffusion of contactless smart cards has progressed slowly by the local diffusions of separate pla...

This paper reports on research toward a new theoretical model of analyzing “smart city” development in the context of five Sociological Drivers (Technologies, Social structures, Cultural drivers, Economic drivers, Governance). These drivers are analyzsed for their impact in support of five Intelligent Community Indicators (Broadband Cconnectivity,...

Multiple stakeholders affect new product development (NPD). Despite rich literature, the previous studies have inadequately addressed stakeholder involvement in different NPD project phases. This study assesses the key stakeholders for product management and research and development (R&D) in an NPD project in ICT industry, the stakeholders' roles,...

Product development is affected by various drivers and multiple stakeholders. This study assesses relationships between different external and internal stakeholders and product development drivers. The relationships between stakeholders and product development drivers are analysed at managerial level in NPD intensive companies, which operate in...

Industry competition is moving from the company-level towards business ecosystems, where organizations must develop mutually beneficial relationships with each other. This paper studies business ecosystem phenomena, focusing especially on the spatial (geographical) context within the health and life sciences industry. In addition, business ecosyste...

Doctoral dissertation

Purpose: Competition in different industries is moving from individual companies towards business ecosystems, where companies must proactively develop mutually beneficial relationships with various organizations. The purpose of this paper is to study the phenomenon of business ecosystem with a focus on spatial (geographical) context. Further, the a...

Purpose – Ensuring the sufficient service level is essential for critical materials in industrial maintenance. This study aims to evaluate the use of statistically imperfect data in a stochastic simulation-based inventory optimization where items' failure characteristics are derived from historical consumption data, which represents a real-life sit...

Meeting customer needs is considered to be vital for new product success. This study explores customer need identification and related challenges in product management and research and development (R&D) in a market driven context, where a large number of customers exist. This paper reviews the literature on customer interaction and needs in a produ...

Today's product development must address often conflicting needs of multiple stakeholder groups. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the main product development drivers and how their importance is perceived in different types of companies and projects. This paper presents a synthesising list of main product development drivers based on literat...

Purpose – Companies engage in various relationships with external stakeholders to create attractive offerings. The purpose of this study is to describe the most common business collaboration concepts, and compare their characteristics. The concepts are evaluated in terms of their implications for companies, particularly in innovation and NPD collab...

Purpose: This paper studies product management and R&D managers’ views of customer definition and representation in market-driven NPD in ICT industry, when products are developed for a large number of customers. In market-driven context, the customers have different priorities and certain customers may even drive the efforts, but individual custome...