INVITATION FOR PHD DEFENCE - Frederik Schade

In order to obtain the PhD degree, Frederik Schade has submitted his thesis entitled:

The Question of Digital Responsibility:
An ethnography of emergent institutional formations in the contemporary governance of technology

For his PhD thesis, Frederik Schade has conducted a long-term ethnographic study of two data governance institutions in a Danish context: the national data protection agency (which enforces GDPR in Denmark) and a private labelling scheme (which labels responsible corporate data practices). Starting from the observation that both governance institutions rely on the notion of “digital responsibility” to define their societal purpose, the project illustrates how responsibility comes to entail two radically different concepts according to its institutional conditions of production; one public/juridical, one private/economic. This exploration contributes to emerging literature on “corporate digital responsibility” (or CDR) by presenting the first ethnographic study of the term’s enactment in concrete institutional settings – an account which problematizes the term’s prior conceptual definitions. To guide and substantiate this study, the thesis outlines a novel theoretical framework for analyzing processes of institutional (de-)formation which might equally inspire future research.

The thesis will be available from research.cbs.dk

Primary Supervisor:
Professor Mikkel Flyverbom
Department of Management, Society and Communication
Copenhagen Business School

Secondary Supervisors:
Professor Lars Thøger Christensen
Department of Management, Society and Communication
Copenhagen Business School

Assessment Committee:
Associate Professor Steen Vallentin (Chair)
Department of Management, Society and Communication
Copenhagen Business School

Professor Hannah Trittin-Ulbrich
Institute for Management and Organization
Leuphana University Lüneburg

Associate Professor Helene Friis Ratner
Danish School of Education
Aarhus University

Date: 15 March 2024
Time: 15:00-17:00
Location: Dalgas Have
Room: DH.Ø.089
Reception: Faculty Club

*The CBS PhD School will host a reception, which will take place immediately after the defence.