Materials

The material of the study consists of 5 interviews with representatives of export industry companies in Eastern Finland. The more specific focusing of the study, as well as choosing

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and contacting the target companies, was done in collaboration with Karelia UAS. The collaboration is based on the idea that the results of the study are meant to be used in

developing the language education of the university. In turn, the contacts and partnerships of the institution were utilized in contacting the representatives of the target companies.

The scope of the study was narrowed down to examine the language needs in a specific field, to better match the scale of a Master’s Thesis. As the aim of the study is to examine the language needs of the regional companies and provide information to the Karelia UAS for developing language education, the study was narrowed down with the requirements and needs of the institution in mind. The field of companies in Eastern Finland was chosen via an internal query, in which the English language teachers and heads of education departments in Karelia UAS were asked to express their needs, ideas and preferences about the target field of the study. Among the proposals, the field of export industries was chosen as the specific focus of the study, as many of the largest companies in the region represent this field of companies.

They are large corporations that function in multiple countries and are therefore expected to include the use of the English language in their daily functions. The selection of the companies was performed with relevancy and practicality in mind. Karelia UAS has a key-partnership arrangement with some of the regional companies: these companies help development education and curricula to match the needs of the working life, as well as cooperate in the form of internships and thesis commissions. Therefore, it is justifiable to utilize these contacts and alliances for the purposes of this study as well. In addition, the companies that were chosen for the study are for the most part some of the largest and most prominent

companies in the field of export industries in Eastern Finland and major employers for the graduates of Karelia UAS. Furthermore, one of the previous studies, the report on language needs (Airola 2004), which was utilized frequently in the theoretical framework of this study, were conducted by or on cooperation with Karelia University of Applied Sciences. This indicates that the approach is indeed valid, functional and a suitable choice for this study as well.

The interview structure was piloted in an export industry company in South-Eastern Finland.

Originally, the pilot was not planned to be included in the data, but because the interview

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structure or outline needed no changes, and the pilot interview produced great results, the results of the pilot company were decided to be included in the final material as company 1.

As the other companies in the study were from the region of North Karelia, the scope of the study had to be slightly adjusted to include the pilot company. Although the regional scope of the study is thus Eastern Finland, the results and implications are still relevant for Karelia UAS, as the institution is essential in the larger region as well, in terms of both student admission and producing educated employees in the region. In addition, it should be noted that the company was moderately smaller than the target companies of the study, thus broadening the possible landscape of language needs the study can produce.

Finally, a brief overview of the companies in which the interviews were conducted is

presented. This includes the background information of the companies, which consists of the position of the interviewee in the company, the size and educational composition of the company, the field of the company and the language policy or official working language of the company. This provides the necessary information to place the results in a context regarding the size and field of the company, as well as the educational level of the employees. The information is presented in Table 4 below.

29 Table 4. Overview of the interviewed companies.

Company Company 1 Company 2 Company 3 Company 4 Company 5

The ethical considerations for the study were mainly related to the collection and

management of the interview data. In the data collection process, the interviewees were informed of the research process and the use of the data, as well as assured that participating is voluntary and that they may terminate the interview at any given time. At the start of the interviews, the participants were verbally asked to consent to using the data for research and education development purposes. As the aim is to chart the language needs of companies, the interviews do not include any personal or sensitive questions regarding the interviewees themselves. However, the questions and the gathered data can be viewed as private and somewhat sensitive to the participating companies. Therefore, the data was anonymized, and