Organisation – Business Administration

Cultures of speed in contemporary management and organisation

This line of research is based on the observation that organisational life in contemporary society is characterised by acceleration in terms of ideas, technologies, strategies, and practices for constant renewal. While organisations are dependent on renewal for their survival, speed may also lead to myopia, misconceptions, a swift turnover of management fashions, and an over-belief in change as a managerial silver bullet. Aligning with a scholarly countermovement to these trends, which emphasises the need to slow down and reflect, this line of research approaches both individual experiences of acceleration and speed in organisations, and the role of stability and change at the organisational level and in broader society.

Contact: Sanne Frandsen, Sverre Spoelstra, Olof Hallonsten, Christina Lüthy or Monika Müller

Brand orientations in the public sector

Public organisations increasingly follow a brand orientation. They view themselves primarily through the lens of branding, spend resources on communicating what they do, and specifically on creating attractive and legitimate images of themselves.
Our research aims to generate a systematic analysis of organisational and societal consequences—both productive and destructive—of the processes and outcomes of a brand orientation in public organisations. This is done through qualitative case studies of city organisations in Sweden and the United States.

Contact: Jens Rennstam

Managing, organising, and working at night

In this project, we investigate what is happening in and around organisations when it gets dark outside. In organisation and management studies, daytime is usually considered the implicit and exclusive standard when developing theories on organising, managing, and working. However, working at night is becoming normalised in many areas of our 24/7 societies. Every twelve hours, the night ‘interrupts’ daytime operations and activities, which either come to a halt or continue in different ways: work tasks, numbers of managers and employees, formal regulations, and also informal group norms often change, while the bodily and mental strain on people increases. Studying these differences and related experiences in more detail and in different night contexts (traditional contexts such as medical care work or factory production, as well as in the contexts of service work or self-employment, etc.) can help us gain new knowledge about managing and working in extraordinary circumstances that deviate from the usual routines.

Contact: Monika Müller

Leading by algorithm: Reconfiguring the nature of leadership in digitalised work environments

In our digital age, algorithms have become a prominent organisational resource. Spurred by developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning, algorithmic forms of management are now prevalent in almost every sector of industry. This project studies organisations in which human leadership coexists with algorithmic processes, exploring how algorithms reshape leadership roles and influence leader-follower dynamics. The study addresses two key areas: the changing nature of leadership in the presence of algorithms and the ethical considerations arising from data-driven analytics.
Through qualitative research in high-performance organisations, we seek to gain empirical insights into how data-driven analytics are transforming the nature and scope of leadership in digitalised work environments. This helps to address new complexities faced by leaders and their teams. Ultimately, the project contributes to our knowledge about the increasing datafication of the workplace, with a focus on the practical and ethical implications of ‘leading by algorithm’.

Contact: Sverre Spoelstra

The meaning of work

How is the meaning of work experienced? What types of meaning do employees see in their jobs? How does it affect employees to work in jobs that are not experienced as very meaningful? These are some of the questions addressed in this field. In surveys, the meaning of work is usually measured using a couple of questions whereby many conceptual nuances are lost.

In this project, we elaborate on three types of meaning: 

1. Individual meaning that employees personally see in the job.
2. Organisational meaning, i.e. whether employees feel that they are needed at the workplace.
3. Global meaning which depends on whether employees feel that they are contributing to the outside world through their work.
   Analysing how these types of meaning overlap among employees can offer a new understanding of the meaning(s) of work.
   We currently have a project where the main aim is to identify and analyse situations at work in which employees experience a subtype of performance anxiety called “workplace anxiety”. Workplace anxiety refers to the emotional nervousness and apprehension of doing poorly at work.

Contact: Roland Paulsen

Stigma and bodywork of trans entrepreneurs in Bangladesh

The purpose of this project is to examine how individuals in stigmatised and disadvantaged communities use entrepreneurship as emancipation from their marginalised status in society. Recent years have seen an increased interest in entrepreneurship’s role in social sustainability globally, particularly among marginalised communities in the Global South. Yet, we lack in-depth insights into the entrepreneurial journeys, the entrepreneurs’ resilience, and the development of professional identity in the face of societal stigma. This project addresses these issues with a unique longitudinal case study of transwomen entrepreneurs in Bangladesh, using ethnographic methods such as interviews, observations, and focus groups. Transwomen are among the most stigmatised individuals in the Muslim and conservative context of Bangladesh, typically living in poverty and often resorting to sex work or begging due to limited employment opportunities linked to the stigma attached to their non-conforming gender identity. A few have, however, attempted to break free from the stigma and marginalisation through entrepreneurship in a variety of industries. This project follows their journeys.

Contact: Sanne Frandsen

Mistra – Infra Maint

Prioritising infrastructure maintenance is essential for ensuring public safety, promoting economic development, protecting the environment, and enhancing the overall well-being of communities. Drawing upon insights from organisation studies, the social studies of infrastructure, and an emerging literature on repair and maintenance, we conduct research on the maintenance of roads, water, and sewage infrastructures. Understanding that all forms of infrastructure require some kind of organisation to maintain them, and to ensure their operability, we delve into the evolution and adaptation of maintenance organisations in response to shifting priorities and de-prioritisations. By recognising that infrastructure maintenance articulates notions of citizenship, justice, and accessibility, we explore how decisions regarding road, water, and sewage maintenance are made and the subsequent social implications of these decisions. Infra Maint is a larger research programme funded by Mistra, The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research.

Contact: Alexander Paulsson or Marcella Holz

Special-purpose money: Complementary digital currencies and the Sustainable Development Goals

Our mainstream money system fosters economic growth and neoliberal globalisation, yet it excludes many from full economic participation and propels ecological unequal exchange. General-purpose money (GPM) commodifies all values, leading to a focus on low-cost production and long-distance transportation, often at the expense of the environment and labour rights. Our research aims to address these issues by conceptualising a special-purpose money (SPM). Looking beyond existing practices, we explore how such an SPM would recognise and transact different value realms than those acknowledged by GPM, fostering a more inclusive and sustainable socio-economic system. By understanding money as a key artefact in human societies, we take a humanities approach to examining the shortcomings of GPM while exploring how alternative forms of money could be designed and put into circulation. This international project is funded by Formas.

Contact: Alexander Paulsson or Florencia Radeljak

Institutional and historical perspectives on organisations

Current society is an organisation society. It is dominated by formal organisations that carry out most of the activities we, as a society, require: producing goods and services, facilitating innovation, pooling resources, providing spaces for social interaction, and creating and maintaining both tangible and intangible values.

This dominance of formal organisations in society has historical and sociological causes and is linked to the institutions of modern society: the capitalist market economy, the democratic and bureaucratic state, and the systematic and coordinated accumulation of knowledge in science and technology. In this line of research, we analyse various aspects of the organisation society from historical and sociological perspectives, primarily based on institutional theory.

Contact: Olof Hallonsten

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