Presentations of some of our researchers in the area of Management
Thomas Blomquist
Professor in Management.
What is your research about?
I am researching several areas, one is on how firms organise and manage portfolios of projects. Another is digitalization and how firms are collaborating and using the Internet of things to create new businesses and digital platforms. A third is on business ecosystems and effective support systems for new venture creation.
What do you see as the strength of our master programme?
I would say that it has been inspiring to follow the fourth module at the master programs and see how much students have learned during their studies in Umeå. Students can show their capabilities to solve real-life management problems, giving well-grounded suggestions to the management team.
Assistant Professor of Management and Wallander postdoc fellow.
What is your research about?
My research focuses on organizational paradoxes [How organizations and their members deal with contradictory demands] and organizational space [How space affect interactions within organizations and how interactions inform the way space is configured].
Docent in Management. Coordinator for the Management Section and the Master's Programme in Management.
What is your research about?
My key research interest lies mainly in individuals’ experiences of alternative careers and forms of organizing. I am currently working on research on entrepreneurs in the cultural and creative industries, interorganisational relationships, and the experiences of police officers on international assignments.
What do you see as the strength of our master programme?
I think that the theoretical knowledge and analytical skills developed in our program are important in the students’ future careers and will be valuable in any position within organizations.
I am an organizational ethnographer interested in extreme contexts. That is, settings that are dangerous to human life and limb. For example, high altitude mountaineering, in-door climbing, police work, and zombies to mention but a few settings. I typically examine these settings with theories about routines, sensemaking, leadership and team dynamics.
My current research can broadly be divided into two areas, digitalization and project studies. The first area covers issues of how digital technologies is (and can be) used within the Architectural, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry, and the opportunities and challenges following that. The second area deals with projects as a form of organizing and its consequences for people, processes and everyday practice.
What do you see as the strength of our master programme?
The greatest strength of the Master's Programme in Management, I would say, is the combination of theoretical grounding and practical application. Through the programme you get the opportunity to develop into a highly competitive generalist with great potential in the contemporary labour market.
My field of research includes multi-professional teamwork, shared leadership and interorganisational collaboration in the human services sector. Currently, I am pursuing research on non-corporate international assignments in extreme contexts with Swedish police officers as main case.
What do you see as the strength of our master programme?
I believe that the program provides front-line research knowledge in key management areas of high relevance for students’ ability to navigate in a challenging business environment. Further, the pedagogical methods are diversified and supports your development of vital generic skills in communication, teamwork, critical thinking and problem solving.
My research focuses on practices of strategizing, organizing and designing organizations in general. I am currently studying urban development processes by exploring the interplay between temporary and enduring organizing in cities through initiatives of creating cultural, liveable, smart and sustainable environments.
What do you see as the strength of our master programme?
The strength of the master programme consists in its ability to place the development of organizations in a larger perspective. Organizations are in this sense set in motion through dynamic practices – by turning strategy into strategizing, human relations into identity construction, project management into temporary organizing, as well as by transforming strategic plans into processes of implementation in real life organizations.