Institut for Virksomhedsledelse

Research areas and interests 

Dedicating attention to the pluralistic character of organizations, I examine the strategies and practices mobilized by organizations and their multiple actors in navigating and managing institutional and cultural complexity. My research unravels the implications of this for the dynamics and functioning of organizations in a variety of complex empirical contexts, including organizations in highly complex organizational fields, international professional service firms (e.g., architecture firms) and hybrids. Another interrelated line of research concentrates attention on the global careers and work of highly skilled professionals, particularly elucidating their modes of engaging the institutional and organizational contexts within which they operate and coordinating cross-border work. The research, in this vein, falls within the fields of international management and organization studies. It is often grounded in a theory of practice lens and engages in dialogue with institutional scholarship. A current project advances a strategy-as-practice approach to the study of strategizing in global business.

Theoretical areas: organization and management theory, practice theory (e.g., strategy as practice), institutional theory

Research topics (OMT and IM):

• Managing, strategizing and organizing under (institutional and cultural) complexity (e.g., MNCs, public-private, social-business)
• Global careers and professional work (IHRM, IM)

Publications

Publishing in journals such as: Organization Studies, British Journal of Management, European Management Journal, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Business Ethics, Technovation, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management

Referee activity 

Reviewing for e.g.: Academy of Management Review, Organization Studies, Organization, Human Relations, Journal of Management Studies, British Journal of Management, Journal of World Business, International Journal of Human Resource Management, European Management Review, Technovation, Research Policy, Journal of Global Mobility, European Journal of Innovation Management, Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, Cambridge University Press 

Editorial assignments 

Editorial board member at the European Management Journal Editorial Board, 2015-

Current projects, e.g.:

• Strategy as Practice in Global Business (funded by starting grant)

Recent projects directed, e.g.:

• Sustainable city strategizing and initiatives between government, business and civil society actors (e.g., Copenhagen, Seoul)
• Global career mobility of highly skilled professionals (e.g., Denmark, Paris, London) and its institutional infrastructures
• Int. creative professional service firms' strategies and practices of operating across institutional bounds
• How social-business enterprises manage their hybrid nature

For students (supervision):

I supervise students (BSc, MSc, PhD) within the broad fields of organization, management and organizational behavior, and in particular students of international business and management and strategy, organization and leadership (SOL) . I am interested in both mainstream thesis topics and projects that comprise unusual elements, such as a not very typical angle or conducted in unusual settings (recent examples include studies onboard of airplanes as operating units within an MNC, leading teams in an elite sports club, virtual leadership and communication in a search and rescue squadron of the royal air force or the international merger of professional cycling teams). I usually provide you with the opportunity to choose to participate in seminars on thesis writing (colloquia with a small number of students) in addition to the ongoing individual supervision.  

Illustrative examples of recently supervised thesis topic areas include:

• International business and management (e.g., international business negotiations, MNC strategy and organization, strategy-as-practice in MNCs, (S)IHRM, global human resourcing and talent management, cross-border leadership, cross-border M&As, power and conflicts in MNCs, practice and knowledge transfer, international dimensions of organizational behavior, internationalization, strategies of navigating institutional voids/complexity in emerging markets, non-market political/social strategies, strategizing grand challenges/sustainability).
• Global careers and work (e.g., self-initiated expatriation, international assignments, boundaryless careers, distance management, global virtual teams, coordination of dispersed work, graduate trainee programs, repatriation)
• Organization (e.g., organizational identity, change, org. culture, communication, compliance, M&As, institutional entrepreneurship, digital transformation, knowledge management, consultants) 
• HRM (e.g., employer branding, strategy and HRM in M&As, talent management, psychological contracts, layoffs)
• Organizational behavior (e.g., motivation, leadership, teams)
• Strategy as Practice (e.g., strategy workshops, open strategizing, top and middle managers' involvement in strategic change, strategic sensemaking/giving)
• Public-private interaction (e.g., public-private innovation partnerships, networked urban meta-governance in face of wicked problems)
• PhD supervision (e.g., strategy as practice, contextualized expatriate research, digital transformation strategy in a practice-based perspective)  

Teaching interests, e.g.:

• Global management (e.g., MNC, IHRM, int. strategy and organization, global human resourcing and talent management, expatriates etc) (BSc course)
• Strategy as Practice (MSc course)
• Organization studies
• Qualitative methods (BSc)
• Teams (HD)

Academic experience

• Associate professor, School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, 2015-
• Assistant professor, Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, 2014-2015
• Postdoctoral researcher, Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, 2010-2014
• Doctoral research student, Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus University, 2007-2010
• Visiting scholar, Stanford University (Scancor), 2009
• Research associate, International Danish Entrepreneurship Academy (IDEA), 2006 
• Research associate, Centre for Organizational Renewal and Evolution (CORE), ASB, July 2006-2007
• MA Research Degree, Social Anthropology and Ethnography, Aarhus University, 2005
• 2001 Studies at Lund University

Consultancy experience, e.g.:

• 2006 Consultant for The Danish Industry Foundation (outlining large strategic research programmes)
• 2006 Research-based evaluation for the Danish Strategic Research Council, (CORE)

Other work experience

• Center for Evaluation, Aarhus County, 2002
• Editing assistant, Aarhus University, Dept. of Social Anthropology and Ethnography