eThesis - School of Business electronic theses

Objectives

The research seeks to describe the Finnish gambling business operational environment and its elements from the international gambling firms’ perspective. The aim is to build a framework in which international firms operate and understand how the environment affects and is affected by these firms. Since the research area is novel, emphasis is put on describing and explaining the phenomenon.

Methodology

Single case study with multiple units of analysis was selected to attain research objectives. Theoretical part comprises of dynamic capabilities theory, which is used to identify the affection of the operational environment on international gambling firms and their attempt to shape the environment. The empirical part consists of an analysis of the dynamic capabilities and the creation of two PESTLE (Political, Economic, Socio-cultural, Technological, Legal, Ethical factors) models developed from document analysis and interviews. This was done to achieve a more comprehensive representation of the operational environment and to get international firms’ viewpoint out to balance the scientific research on this controversial topic. The interviews include six country managers (CM) of full scale gambling firms currently present in Finland and three professional gamblers.

Findings

Although all the factors were found to somewhat affect the operational environment, the political, technological and legal ones play a larger role. Justification of monopoly reasons combined with money raised for the Government and its tight connections with monopoly firms were discovered main political factors. Internet was found to be the main channel and still the only real option for international firms to offer services. Legal part recognized the conflict between the national law and international firms operating according to the EU legislation leading to an operational environment framework being based on practice. The dynamic capability identified was transformability, which is developed around the firm requirements, enabled by CMs and appear in the firms’ outside-in and spanning processes.