Ahlstrom corporation or Ahlstrom-Munksjö is a leading multinational company that manufactures fiber-based products. The company aims to provide for its customers the most sustainable, innovative, and environment-friendly fiber solutions. Ahlstrom-Munksjö’s product line consists of various elements, such as décor papers, filters, release liners, nonwoven fabrics, tapes, and medical fiber materials for medical diagnostics. Initially Ahlstrom corporation was a separate company, however, in 2017 it merged with Munksjö Oyj company. The result of the given merging formed Ahlstrom-Munksjö conglomerate commercial organization. Although its production sites are mainly located in Europe, Ahlstrom-Munksjö operates in North and South America, and Asia. The company’s headquarters are based in Helsinki, Finland, and it employs 8000 people. Ahlstrom corporation is a leading example of a company with an effective strategic approach in shifting the social assumptions towards innovation and sustainability.
Ahlstrom-Munksjö possesses clearly defined strategies and methodologies of shifting the process of cultural learning and dynamics. Transmission of culture can be generally described as an objective behavioral influence of a group of people on social values and cultural trends (Spiro, 2019). The company plays a significant role in changing the standards of cultural transmission through Ahlstrom-Munksjö’s vision, which is to promote innovation with environment-friendly methods. Ahlstrom corporation has always made ambitious attempts in popularizing and promoting the concepts of sustainability. For example, the company produces nonwoven fiber filter media for water purification in order to propagate the idea of environment-friendly production of drinkable water. Numerous activities and arrangements are made by Ahlstrom-Munksjö regarding these strategies.
Ahlstrom corporation’s views, mission, and values were profoundly influenced and shaped by their location. The main reasons behind this idea are that the company’s outlook and perspective are formed on the basis of production and manufacturing. Ahlstrom corporation’s sustainability and innovative strategies would not be fully propagated if the company was founded and operated in high commodity locations. In other words, every company is partially or completely shaped through its collocative environment, where mass and cheap manufacturing sites tend to create more of similar commercial units (Truskanov & Prat, 2018). Local values and approaches to production highly shift the norms and means of strategizing the production process.
Nevertheless, the factors of nationwide elements additively have an impact on determining the core values of a company. The Ahlstrom corporation was founded in Finland by Antti Ahlstrom, who was one of the leading entrepreneurs in his country. Finland as the country of origin played a major part in defining the set of views of the Ahlstrom-Munksjö. It is important to understand that Finland’s small size allowed the given company avoid unnecessary political distractions and economic discrepancies, which could hinder the ideas of Ahlstrom corporation (Spear & Roper, 2016). In addition, the company was a pioneer among Finnish companies in going international, mainly due to the fact that Finland is not a big and economically competitive country.
All firms possess some form of a strategic approach towards bettering their performance. However, the key defining factor that predicts the success of the strategy is its well-defined outline and systematic execution. Without a proper set of strategic planning, a firm can have an unexpected disturbance, and its practical application tends to be highly hindered (Spear & Roper, 2016). Thus, it is important for a commercial organization to come up with a properly defined strategy in order to succeed.
In conclusion, Ahlstrom-Munksjö is one of the outstanding examples of innovation and sustainability-focused companies, which reaches its goals through an excellent strategic approach towards improving economic performance. The company represents a pioneer commercial organization in Finland with a significant impact on global market. Ahlstrom-Munksjö positions itself as an engine of cultural transmission by imposing its philosophy both on Finland and the rest of the world. Values and mission of the Ahlstrom corporation represent historically shaped views, which were additionally determined by the country of origin.
References
Spear, S., & Roper, S. (2016). Storytelling in organisations: supporting or subverting corporate strategy? Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 21(4), 516-532.
Spiro, D. (2019). Multigenerational transmission of culture. SSRN, 7(1), 1-33.
Truskanov, N., & Prat, Y. (2018). Cultural transmission in an ever-changing world: Trial-and-error copying may be more robust than precise imitation. Royal Society, 373(1743), 1-81.