BIZ Success funding for three excellent projects

Starting from Autumn 2023, the School of Business has granted funding for hiring postdocs/research assistants. The funding has been granted to researchers, who have fared well in European Research Council (ERC), Horizon Europe application processes or in Research Council of Finland calls. The postdocs/research assistants should be hired at the very latest one year after receiving this funding. The funding is expected to be used for launching the research described in the ERC/Horizon/RCF application. 

In autumn 2024, BIZ Success funding will go to Ciprian Domnisory, Assistant Professor of Economics, Iiris Saittakari, Assistant Professor of International Business, and Moritz Scherleitner, Assistant Professor of Business Law. 

Project descriptions

Ciprian Domnisoru: The role of firms in shaping the work, study, and graduation choices of student employees 

How do firms affect the academic outcomes of their student employees? Reducing delays in graduation and facilitating school to work transitions are essential challenges, yet academic research and policymaking are focused on the decisions of students and universities, despite the significant interactions between firms and students who combine work and studies. 

This project proposes new methods to incorporate firms in analyses of student outcomes. It uses links between Finnish administrative employer-employee data and university coursework and grade data to quantify how firm policies impact student success. One of the outcomes will be estimates of firm-specific effects on student employee academic performance, as measured through course grades and on-time completion.  

Iiris Saittakari: Complexities of Green Foreign Direct Investment 

This research project investigates multinational companies’ green foreign direct investment (FDI). Whereas global cities are overwhelmingly preferred sites for FDI in general, large green FDI projects are typically planned in peripheries due to the availability of land. Green FDI are thus an opportunity to not only reduce global carbon emissions but also to revitalize areas that were hollowed out as manufacturing jobs moved abroad, offering hope for “places that don’t matter” (Rodríguez-Pose, 2018). 

However, there are several challenges and complexities associated with green FDI. First, peripheral cities often have limited resources to manage the massive green energy FDI projects on their own. Second, while the green FDI are needed to meet the global carbon reduction goals, they may not be socially or environmentally sustainable on a local scale. Third, locational requirements for green FDI differ substantially from those of traditional FDI. This project aims to unpack these complexities and shed light on the role of various actors, including cities, in green FDI location process.

Moritz Scherleitner and Iiris Saittakari: Private Sector Transitioning to Sustainability 

PRIVATUS examines multinational companies’ location decisions and the impact of EU regulatory and fiscal law and policy on them. Two interlinked yet separate investments are used as an example: green steel production and wind mill parks. The work is empirical, drawing on extensive interview data, and doctrinal and theoretical as it explores various nexus there are on the matter: local/global arena, biodiversity/climate regulation, environmental/fiscal policy, and decisions made at public/private/NGO organizations. 

The research untangles tensions pressure from investments cause to national administrative-legal system, originally created for local environmental impacts, also facing increasing pressure from calls of just transition. We also study fiscal policy and the role of private sector’s financial abilities in solving global sustainability crises. Eventually PRIVATUS develops sustainability law theory that is sensitive to this diversity in public and private law, and in real life.