First of all, vowels exist in a continuum, and that continuum is differently structured into "phonemes" in any given language. The difference between [ʌ] and [a] could be prominent for an English speaker, while a Finnish speaker might hear the same sounds as [ɑ] and [ɑː], respectively, interpreting them as a "shorter" and "longer" version of the otherwise "same" vowel; or, under the influence of the Finnish writing system, they could describe them as [ɑ] and [ɑɑ], interpreting them as a "single" and "doubled" version of the same vowel. I'm just saying that even if we choose to use an IPA symbol to represent a vowel, this just doesn't let us abstract it from the language context, from the speaker and the hearer, completely.

That said, [ʌ] could be, in the IPA vowel chart, or in a particular language, identified as a slightly higher vowel than [a], and so the most prominent difference between [ʌ] and [ö], for a particular hearer, could be its rounding (the rounding of the lips).

Norwegian is a North Germanic language and Finnish isn't. Norwegian thus underwent a process called U-umlaut, which, very loosely speaking, included the change of [ʌ] (BTW I'm using this particular symbol mainly to match the symbols used in the OP) to [ö], if followed, in the next syllable, by an [u]. As far as I understand, this vowel shift isn't always reflected in writing in Norwegian; more details here. The U-umlaut is understood to be primarily the assimmilation of rounding (the rounded [u] causes the preceding "a" to be pronounced rounded, and thus not as an [ʌ], but rather an [ö]); and the more general term "umlaut" refers to various vowel shifts along the front/back axis in the history of Germanic languages.

This is far from a complete explanation, because the U-umlaut is a historical process that's sailed past long ago. It's just some difference between Norwegian and Finnish that might or might not be playing a factor. However, systematic relationships between individual vowels are as much language specific as the vowels themselves, and so is the influence of the respective writing system on how the speakers of those languages tackle "foreign" words. (Is it important that your examples are both written with a "u"? That could be your next research topic.)

Under heavy language contact, genetically unrelated languages tend to evolve to have the "same" or very similar sets of vowels, because they keep borrowing words from each other and are forced to establish some mapping over time. However, the systematic relationships between those vowels may be facing less such pressure^[1] and remain distinct for much longer.

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Jirka Hanika‭

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