The Department of Organization and Industrial Sociology (OIS) aims to generate and communicate new useful and relevant knowledge about the organisation and development of business to inspire practicians to engage in novel ideas and behavioural changes. The Department staff deal with organisational change and development in a number of industries and sectors that are crucial to society, e.g. health, construction, IT, film and media, environment and energy. The Department's research draws on several disciplines, especially within the social sciences, and is based on in-depth empirical studies of practice in private and public organisations and NGOs. It is the Department's ambition to achieve international recognition and further develop research collaboration with both researchers and practicians within a variety of sectors.

Highlights of 2004

Internationalisation

Publication of two books by very well-reputed British publishers: Professor Peer Hull Kristensen and Jonathan Zeitlin's book entitled "Local Players in Global Games" was published by Oxford University Press. Professor Ann Westenholz and assistant research professor Torben Elgaard Jensen edited and contributed to "Identity in the Age of the New Economy", published by Edward Elgar Publishers.

The Department had a number of well-reputed international guests: Silviya Svejenova, Cranfield University; Paul Thompson, Strathclyde University; Woody Powell, Stanford University; Stewart Clegg, University of Technology, Sydney; and professor Paul Duguid, University of California, Berkeley. The Department co-organised and hosted several CBS seminars: In connection with professor David J. Teece's appointment as honorary doctor at CBS, professor Kristian Kreiner and assistant research professor Mie Augier organised the seminar "Strategic Management as Entrepreneurial Action"; IOA visiting professor Paul Duguid co-organised a seminar on "Organizing Practice" with professors Lucy Suchman, Lancaster University, and Jean Lave, University of California, Berkeley; and associate professors Peter Kjær and Jesper Strandgaard Petersen co-organised a seminar with professor Frank Dobbin, Harvard University, and John Campbell, Darmouth College, on "The power of Institutions and the Power of Institutional Theory".

Partnership with the business community

With Jørgen Nue Møller's appointment in February as adjunct professor, OIS, MBA-Byg and CBS marked the start of a closer academic collaboration with someone who holds a very central position in the network of managers and politicians in the Danish construction sector.

Although we attach great weight to the international perspective, we do not intend to disregard the publication of books in the Nordic languages. Thus, in October, assistant professor Christian Frankel and OIS presented a book project concerning the politicisation of enterprises at a well-attended seminar for the business community and the media.

The Research Center for Hospital Management and Organization, FLOS, which has existed for five years as a research unit with substantial external funding, held a number of seminars for hospital service stakeholders in the autumn and a highly successful and well-attended closing conference in December.

The learning university

The Department was evaluated by professors Silvia Gheradi, Universita di Trento, and Lars Lindkvist, Linköping University, as part of CBS' ongoing quality assurance of department environments. The Department has drawn up a self-evaluation report in the form of intellectual capital accounts – the Department's first, and the first ever for a university department.

Academic profile

The Department's research aims to identify and understand changes in working life and business. It is our ambition to challenge traditional and usual notions of strategy, organisation and management. The Department's academic profile is characterised by a research approach and method of making realistic assumptions as to the uncertainty and complexity influencing business development today. We study the processes, through which activities are organised and modified; we examine the relations and interaction between various actors; and we conduct in-depth empirical analyses.

Most of the Department's research projects are thus aimed at current empirical issues concerning the organisation and development of working life in many different types of organisations, sectors and industries. Our attention is not only directed at individual organisations, but also at their interaction with the wider institutional context. The Department's research staff base their analyses on a wide range of social science theories, including behavioural, cultural, complexity and institutional theories, but they are increasingly supplemented by language and communication theory as well as actor-network theory. The conditions and processes under which organisations emerge and develop are pivotal elements of much of the Department's research.

Research strategy

The Department's research strategy spans different disciplines and domains and different analytical levels in our empirical studies. During the course of 2004, several Department research activities were grouped in major comprehensive projects and/or centres: the Center for Business and Politics, the Center for Health Management, the CINEMA project, which forms part of Imagine .. Creative Industries Research. At the end of the year, the Realdania foundation granted DKK 25 mill. for the establishment of the new Center for Management Studies of the Building Process. This is a centre "without walls" consisting of a network of researchers from Danish and international research institutions with its management and administrative centre at OIS. The centre will be headed by professor Kristian Kreiner. The Department wishes to continue the consolidation of research activities that is achieved through project organisation, and it therefore encourages the staff to establish projects and be part of centres.

Research results

The Department published a number of successful books this year. Two of them deserve special mention, as they were published by extremely well-reputed publishers: Oxford University Press and Edward Elgar Publishers. Both publishers require peer reviews of manuscripts. They require the same quality of a manuscript as publishers of the best international journals, so the two publications are significant.

As appears from the figure below, OIS' rate of publication has been at the same level as in the previous two-three years. Nevertheless, the number of contributions in foreign-language journals and anthologies is beginning to decline. Although to some extent this is explained by fluctuations in the publication rate of individual researchers and the fact that several of the Department's otherwise productive researchers have been deeply engaged in a number of CBS development projects during this period, the decline is definitely unsatisfactory.

Therefore, the Department's publication efforts must be targeted much more and supported by a recruiting policy attaching greater weight to international publication than has previously been the case.

Research relations to practice

Communication of research results is important in order to safeguard research relations to practice, and it is gratifying that the Department researchers continue to be very active in this field (cf. the Other publications category in the above shown graph). The Department's relations to practice are developed especially through the education initiatives under the auspices of CBS Executive, notably Master programmes established on the initiative of several members of the Department staff, to which they are highly committed, as well as Summer School events. Furthermore, several members of the OIS staff have extensive working relationships with private businesses and public institutions.

The closing-down of the Research Center for Hospital Management and Organization (FLOS) means that part of the Department's funding in 2004 will be discontinued. Yet, there are reasons for optimism with regard to the coming years, because the newly established Center for Health Management will be able to carry on some of the FLOS activities, and because of the Realdania foundation's funding of the establishment of the Center for Management Studies of the Building Process headed by Kristian Kreiner. In addition to the funding contributed by the foundation (DKK 25 mill.), similar amounts have been allocated by the participating enterprises and research organisations. This is the largest single amount ever allocated to a CBS researcher.