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The continued flow of immigrants in various countries, including Finland, has made it necessary to assess their level of integration for both academic and policy reasons. Despite the proliferation of multiple immigration integration indices, none of them are irreproachable. The indicators of integration levels are context-dependent. The index should also be both standardized to facilitate cross-comparative research and flexible to be relevant across multiple contexts. The choice of the unit of analysis also alters the definition of integration.

The main purpose of this study is to identify the indicators of immigration integration levels at the individual level in the Finnish context. Thereafter, a combined index identifying six types of integration measures – psychological, linguistic, economic, political, social and navigational – based on the Immigration Policy Lab (IPL) Integration Index, is administered to foreigners in Finland (N = 86). The sample consists of young (20–40), highly educated individuals, from 36 different countries who have migrated to Finland predominantly for family and study purposes.

The results show that immigrants who have stayed longer in Finland and are highly educated display higher levels of integration. Immigrants who are naturalized citizens display higher levels of integration across all dimensions. IPL Integration Index performs in the expected direction and can be applied across Finland in a larger random sample, after slight modifications, to increase generalizability. The study further suggests that Finnish immigration integration schemes focus excessively on macrolevel policies aiming at linguistic, economic and navigational integration of new immigrants at the cost of individual psychosocial integration of well-established immigrants.

Nowadays, social media influences tourists in their decision making process and plays an important role in the digital marketing strategy of tourism service providers. The purpose of this study is to examine the presence of tourism businesses in the most popular social media channel in Russia – VKontakte (VK). The data consist of Finnish and Russian groups devoted to tourism in VK: 10,000 Finnish groups and 5,000 Russian groups were found and the 12 most popular out of each group were chosen for the analysis. The findings show that VK is widely used by Finnish and Russian tourism firms, but there is still potential for more effective implementation of the channel. The group discussions on the most popular topics can provide firms with useful knowledge for planning their digital strategies for the Russian market.

Finland's performance in PISA has created considerable interest in the country's education system, to ascertain what has made Finland so successful in the survey. In reference to the phenomenon, this chapter discusses cross-national attraction, policy borrowing, the effect of Finland in PISA, and its influence on education policy. This chapter explores at length the theoretical background of cross-national attraction and policy borrowing, also investigating cases that have already occurred. It discusses Finland's role as the new object of cross-national attraction and eventual policy borrowing. The chapter incorporates research into the reasons for Finland's success in PISA, the possibilities of policy transfer from Finland, and delves into the likelihood of policy implications as a result of Finland in PISA. This cross-national attraction denotes the first stage in policy borrowing; however, comparative educationalists, for years, have warned about the uncritical transfer of education policy. Research in Finland has revealed many reasons for the country's PISA success stem from contextual factors: those related to historical, cultural, societal, and political features of Finland. Therefore, policy borrowing from Finland needs to heed warnings of past comparativists. The new phenomenon of Finland in PISA has generated much curiosity from those in education, educational policy, and politics. Policymakers are keen to incorporate Finland's educational features into their education systems. PISA and Finland's performance in the survey influence educational policy. This illustrates the importance the warnings of past and present comparative educationalists in order to prevent uncritical policy borrowing.

COVID-19 has created an unprecedented situation for Finland like never before. These are desperate times for Finland. And desperate times need desperate measures. The Government of Finland is pulling out all the stops and doing everything possible in its continued fight against COVID-19 virus. The crisis primarily erupted due to the initial delay in action and lack of preparedness required to tackle this kind of crisis. Communication channels were put to best use by the Finnish Government in an effort to reach out to all the people in Finland. The people living in Finland should strictly follow the guidelines and support the measures by the Government in full tandem to ensure that the COVID-19 virus is defeated and stops further transmission by breaking the chain. This paper portrays different possible trajectories and outcomes associated with the impacts of the pandemic in Finland.

This chapter examines the security political attitudes in Finland, a relatively modern, relatively affluent ‘western type’ EU country, where approximately 80% of the male cohort still undergoes compulsory military training. In this chapter, some of the reasons for this are examined as well as the reasons behind the marked differences in relevant attitudes between Finland and some other EU countries.

The purpose of this paper is to find the challenges confronted by NGOs in the implementation of the active labour market policies of Finland and Sweden, and how the challenges could be overcome.

This is a qualitative empirical case study where two NGOs were selected in Finland and one NGO was selected in Sweden for the data collection. The two selected NGOs in Finland were Jyväskylän Katulähetys in the City of Jyväskylä and Pirkanmaan Sininauha in the City of Tampere. Meanwhile, the one selected NGO in Sweden was Stockholm’s Stadsmission in the City of Stockholm. Primary data for this study were collected through interviews with two senior executives of the selected NGOs in Finland and Sweden. Secondary data were collected through the websites of the selected NGOs in Finland and Sweden, the organizational records, books, published and unpublished research and from internet websites. The data were analyzed through qualitative content and thematic analyses.

The findings revealed that the selected NGOs in Finland and Sweden were confronted with four main challenges in their work, namely: funding challenge because the NGOs did not have sufficient funds to carry out their activities effectively; credibility challenge mainly by the NGO in Sweden because Sweden is a very secular country where there is political resistance for public money being given to faith-based organizations in the country; workforce recruitment challenge because the NGOs have to employ specifically long-term unemployed people from disadvantaged groups in the case of the NGOs in Finland, and because whenever they have to compete with other stakeholders for a bid to win a project funded by the city council, the city council often demands that about 80 per cent of their staff need to have a social work qualification in the case of the NGOs in Sweden; and competition challenge because of competition with other stakeholders to win bids from the city council in the case of the NGOs in Sweden. On the other hand, the findings revealed that these challenges could be overcome if the Government of Finland and Sweden provide the NGOs with sufficient funds for them to carry out their activities.

The limitations of this study are that this is a case study focused only on two NGOs in Finland and one NGO in Sweden. Thus, in order to generalize the findings to include the whole country, it is recommended that a more representative number of NGOs be studied in future studies. This study also focused only on NGOs with a religious background in Finland and Sweden. Future studies could include NGOs with a non-religious background.

The practical implication of this study is that the study may be useful to policy makers in the development of policies for NGOs involved in the area of social service provision.

The social implication is that this study may contribute in making NGOs to become more effective in their work in the society.

This study is original in that it is an empirical research.

This paper aims to present the baseline results of a research and development project targeted to improve the occupational well‐being of school staff and maintain their ability to work, in Finland and Estonia. It reveals the most problematic factors in the various aspects of the school community and professional competence and outlines development needs in the school communities.

The overall project design is action research, conducted during 2009‐2013 in the SHE (Schools for Health in Europe) network in Finland and Estonia. The baseline survey data were collected in 2009‐2010 with a web‐based Well‐being at your work index questionnaire and analysed statistically using descriptive statistics, sum variables of factors and Mann‐Whitney tests.

The general opinions of the Finnish school staffs were more affirmative than those of Estonian school staffs regarding their own personal occupational well‐being in comparison with the best in the profession (p=0.000). However, the Finns were more critical than the Estonians when estimating the general well‐being of the staff in their working community, maintenance of their ability to work, the aspects of the school community and professional competence and development needs in the school communities.

The results cannot be widely generalised due to the geographically defined samples, but they can be suggestive in comparable situations in Finland and Estonia.

There is a need to develop the occupational well‐being of school staff and maintenance of their ability to work in the school communities: specific interventions will be developed on the basis of the results obtained from the project schools.

The purpose of this paper is to participate in the convergence‐divergence debate related to the trends in European human resource management (HRM). The paper evaluates the converging vs diverging implications in Estonia and Finland by comparing HR strategies, policies and practices between the two countries in the context of HRM in the Nordic and EU‐15 countries.

The research is part of a large international comparative HRM project (CRANET), which covers over 30 countries. Empirical data were collected by a survey questionnaire mailed to large private and public organisations employing over 200 employees. The Estonian survey data involve 69 organisations and the Finnish data 269. The data cover private companies and public sector organisations.

The comparison of HRM in Estonia and Finland revealed a few interesting empirical observations: First, in spite of Estonia's short history as an independent Baltic state, HRM has stabilised its position at both strategic and policy level's as well as in HR practices. Second, there is a converging (directional) trend between Estonian and Finnish HRM. Third, the Estonian HRM matches with the EU‐15 HRM; Estonia does not increase diversity in the European HRM.

The main limitation of the study is related to survey methodology. In further research longitudinal data as well as case studies and triangulation are needed to open country‐level trends in the convergence‐divergence debate.

Estonian companies and public organisations might need to pay more attention to equality/diversity policy. Special attention should be paid to HRM in public organisations.

The main value of the paper is related to the contribution to the convergence debate in HRM.