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The Digitalisation of Management project

An international project funded by the Swedish Funding Council FORTE, the Digitalisation of Management investigates the consequences of digital technology for middle management roles.

Digitalisation, the development and implementation of increasingly smarter, faster and cheaper digitally-based technology, is transforming organisational processes and practices. This technology opens up new possibilities for both co-ordination and control by changing power structures in working life through real-time surveillance.

Together with Märladalen University in Sweden, the Business School is developing comparative knowledge on digitalisation and its consequences for management within Swedish and UK organisations.

Started in January 2017, the research from this six-year program of work is expected to impact public and private organisations undergoing digital transformation. It will also contribute conceptually and methodologically to the development of what has been termed ‘sociomateriality’.

The project encompasses four sub-projects focusing on different aspects of digitalisation:

  • Projectification
  • Leadership work
  • Flexibilisation
  • The experience of technology

The sub-projects will draw on case studies from local authorities and businesses in Sweden and the UK. The cases will be studied ethnographically.

The Digitalisation of Management project is part of the Centre for Research into the Organization of Work and Consumption (CROWC).

Objectives

The project will address the following research questions:
  1. What are the consequences of digitalisation for managerial practice?
  2. To what extent does digitalisation facilitate or impede certain forms of management?
  3. How are the new work practices emerging from digitalisation experienced within organisations?

The Digitalisation of Management team

  • Prof Chris Ivory, ARU (Project Lead)
  • James Bullen, ARU
  • Prof Anette Hallin, Åbo Academy & Mälardalen University
  • Dr Lucia Crevani, Mälardalen University
  • Eva Lindell, Mälardalen University
  • Anna Ulin, Mälardalen University
  • Christoffer Anderson, Mälardalen University

For more information on the project, please contact Professor Chris Ivory ([email protected])