Organization

Brand orientations in the public sector

Public organizations 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 organizational and societal consequences – productive as well as destructive – of the processes and outcomes of a brand orientation in public organizations. This is done through qualitative case studies of city organizations in Sweden and in the United States.

Leadership and functional stupidity in organizations

Our researchers study structures and processes in organizations and how these contribute to or against various outcomes, with a specific focus on lack of rationality and thoughtfulness in organization.

Our research is known by its critical awareness and empirical depth. It adds insights about problems and possibilities in managerial work and leadership. It gives input to better understandings and encourages more reflective managerial and organisational practices.

The concept of functional stupidity and the understanding of this phenomenon ­– limited thinking and acting outside a narrow set of assumptions and prescriptions – can encourage resistance and broader reflection, and lead to more thoughtful organizational work and better performance.

Life of measures

In this project our researchers critically examine the development and use of psychometric measures in leadership studies and their impact on client organizations. The aim is to study the life of measures in the (often contrasting) domains of science and business. We want to contribute to a sociological understanding of the relations between academic knowledge production and leadership assessment.

Managing healthcare by numbers

The project ‘Managing Healthcare by Numbers’ investigates what happens in everyday work when it is managed by multiple forms of quantified control. Designed as an ethnographic case study, the project explores how numbers figure in daily work, how control by numbers affects work practices, and the implications for central goals of healthcare, especially quality of care.

The meaning of work

How is the meaning of work experienced? Which 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 employing a couple of questions whereby many conceptual nuances are lost.

Trust-based public management

We conduct research on trust as a governance mechanism in the public sector, as balanced with market/incentives and bureaucracy/regulation. In Sweden, this is sometimes referred to as trust-based public management. This line of research includes studies on the role of professions after New Public Management, whistle-blowing, good governance and distributed leadership.

Big Science and Society, BISS

BISS is one of Lund University’s thematic cooperation initiatives and gathers researchers from four faculties and fourteen external partners (from the public and private sectors) in collaborative activities. In BISS, academic knowledge in various fields is combined with experience and competence of the collaborative partners to deal with issues concerning the launch of two major new research facilities, ESS and MAX IV in Lund.

Branding of Higher Education

The interplay between branding, image and identity at higher education institutions exerts significant and pervasive impact on society as a whole. This project aims to acquire a better understanding of branding and related activities at higher education institutions, notably business schools. The project entails in-depth studies of the meaning and consequences of efforts to brand higher education institutions, with particular focus on its effects on identity and knowledge production: How do researchers, teachers and students respond to the increasingly pervasive investments to make them accept and be committed to particular claims of what their institution is supposed to stand for?