During the development project the City of Vantaa have had the main role. This is because in the Kuusijärvi area the land is owned by the Vantaa City. When the development project was written down to the City’s development the department of city planning was taking the charge about starting the project. In the beginning, two working groups was set up. Another group was a steering group and the other one monitoring group. Later the groups were combined to one smaller working group. It consisted of the City’s employees from different departments such as tourism, sport services, city planning and business services. When the project was going forward the group invited other stakeholders to participate to workshops. The aim of the workshops was innovating and share ideas together with the residents, entrepreneurs and associations. The working group was interested to have new knowledge about the needs and requirements the area is missing. Additionally, the City of Vantaa managed a survey for the firms operating in the Kuusijärvi area earlier.
In the interviews, same words and phrases such as leader, scattered responsibility, the City of Vantaa, landlord, different facets and “one host” were repeated. The summary of roles can be seen from the table 5. Even the roles of the project have been clear to everyone during the whole development process, all interviewees brought up their concern about the responsibility from practical perspective. Because there are many different organizations and facets involved in the area it is confusing who is respond of each matter. This issue was mentioned also in the workshops. Moreover, lack of responsibility disclosed different emotions and feelings to the interviews. I noticed that
the participators felt frustration, uncertainty and anger because they did not know who is responsible of different matters in Kuusijärvi. Both public and private sector hoped that there could be one facet who could be contacted if needed.
“There should really be one person of facet who to contact to”.
Interview 4.
At Kuusijärvi, the cafeteria entrepreneur has rented the restaurant building from the City of Vantaa. Moreover, she sells tickets to the smoked saunas which are owned by the City. Because the cafeteria entrepreneur is present at the place daily she is the one who receives all feedback from users and other operators. All feedback may not concern their activities and it is challenging to send message forward when the correct responsible facet is not aware. This is one issue all the interviewees hoped to be developed further and to have resources.
“At Kuusijärvi, there is a certain issue when there are many different departments from the City who are responsible of different matters. Every department is responsible only about their own field. Nobody takes the responsibility of the pig picture.
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So, it (responsibility) should be directed to one facet. Now it is like that..plus that we are here, but we are not the City of Vantaa but always present here, meaning we receive all the issues. And eventually, to me. I don’t necessarily know where to send feedback”.
Interview 4.
Table 5. Summary of roles.
Code Frequent themes & words Roles During the development process
- The City if Vantaa - Entrepreneurs - Residents - Assosiations Roles in practice
- Scattered leadership between Café Kuusijärvi &
the City of Vantaa - Many different facet - “One host”
- Entrepreneurs - Associations
Moreover, in the survey which was conducted in spring 2015 the results revealed that firms hoped that there could be “one host” in Kuusijärvi who could maintenance the area. At the workshops participators whished that the City of Vantaa would take more active role in Kuusijärvi. Considering the roles specifically in the tourism business, the importance of networking and communicating has been emphasized (Mendonça et al.
2015; Selby et al. 2011). The public sector has important role when creating new communication streams and sharing information. Moreover, the public sector should participate to advance the creation of tourism infrastructure and attractions. (The City of Vantaa 2016; Mendonça et al. 2015; Selby et al. 2011.)
The City of Vantaa’s role at Kuusijärvi is important. It is the land owner and the landlord in the area. There are many departments of the city such as city planning, tourism and educational services and enterprises owned by the City of Vantaa such as Vantti Ltd.
which maintains the City’s property, operating. Besides this, several private enterprises operate at Kuusijärvi. Based on the experiences of the participators it is difficult to understand which operator from the City of Vantaa is responsible of certain issues and tasks. Tukiainen et al. (2015) emphasize the leader role of the public sector in innovation processes. Moreover, Moore (2009) introduces the concept of networked government which is related to collaborative innovation. Networked government includes effective coordination across government organizations and the possible integration of both for profit and nonprofit sector organizations. This way innovative which benefit both public and private sector can be created. The results of the analysis reveal that the City of Vantaa would have advantage of networked government concept which could be adapted to the field of the public sector. Using networked concept the organization can communicate with different departments inside the organization.
Because the City of Vantaa is relatively wide organization including several public departments and city-owned firms it is recommended that they consider a facet which interacts across the different fields and communicates between different stakeholders (the City of Vantaa 2016; Moore 2009; Tukiainen et al. 2015.)