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Dan Kär­re­man

Professor

Subjects
Management Leadership Organisation Communication Qualitative methods Knowledge work

Primary research areas

Con­trol in com­plex or­gan­iz­a­tions
My in­terest in this area stems from the ob­ser­va­tion that bur­eau­crat­ic forms of con­trol in or­gan­iz­a­tions for the last forty years have been sup­ple­men­ted and partly sub­sti­tuted by oth­er forms of con­trol. Ma­na­geri­al activ­ity fo­cuses on af­fect­ing mean­ings and in­ter­pret­a­tions of the sym­bol­ic en­vir­on­ment or­gan­iz­a­tion­al mem­bers op­er­ate in. In con­tem­por­ary or­gan­iz­a­tion stud­ies much of this is un­der­stood by way of iden­tity and iden­tity work.
Crit­ic­al man­age­ment stud­ies
Gen­er­ally speak­ing, crit­ic­al per­spect­ives in man­age­ment stud­ies are aligned to schools of thought that ques­tion the power re­la­tions im­plied by man­age­ment. These in­cludes la­bour pro­cess the­ory, fem­in­ist or­gan­iz­a­tion stud­ies, rad­ic­al hu­man­ism ideas, neo-Gram­s­cian the­ory and ‘crit­ic­al’ ver­sions of post mod­ern­ism. Here, the idea of man­age­ment is sys­tem­at­ic­ally ques­tioned, and treated with sus­pi­cion. The pur­pose is not to ques­tion the use­ful­ness of man­age­ment prac­tices per se, but rather to scru­tin­ize the so­cial costs of these prac­tices.
Or­gan­iz­a­tion­al com­mu­nic­a­tion
Re­cently the com­mu­nic­at­ive con­sti­tu­tion of or­gan­iz­a­tion/or­gan­iz­ing per­spect­ive has emerged as an in­flu­en­tial ver­sion of the lin­guist­ic turn in or­gan­iz­a­tion stud­ies. Some of my con­tem­por­ary re­search has en­gaged with this per­spect­ive. Here, I have en­gaged with the role of bull­shit and gos­sip in or­gan­iz­a­tion­al pro­cesses, and with the role of or­gan­iz­a­tion­al­ity for un­der­stand­ing the emer­gence of co-work­ing.

Skep­tic­al glances on the know­ledge eco­nomy

My research is about understanding what happens when organizations treat knowledge as a critical resource. This has proven to be a fruitful idea, but it also comes with several inherent problems. One problem, for instance, is that all resources are based on knowledge - so what, then, is the actual difference? The answer to that question, to which my research has contributed, is that the key lies in making knowledge esoteric and inaccessible. This raises further questions, such as how this process happens and whether it is morally and politically justifiable. 

This leads to another important area of my research: Critical Management Studies, or CMS for short. CMS is based on the idea that business activities take place within systems of power, and that the interpretive authority of elites - business leaders or experts - cannot be accepted without critical scrutiny. Thus, I am particularly interested in the various ways leadership manifests in organizations. CMS is also concerned with pointing out injustices and unwarranted inequalities in more general ways. 

The intersection between CMS and knowledge as a critical resource for business lies in asking how knowledge for business opportunities is created, developed, and managed in ways that contribute to a better society. This does not only mean more innovation and more efficient companies, but also recognizing when entrepreneurship, innovation, and efficiency go astray - leading to greater unfreedom, indignity, and injustice. 

Publications

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12 November 2025

Managing Urban Nights

Night Mayors, Commons Creation, and Bodily Interconnectedness

Monika Müller

Chri­sti­an Hu­ber, Associate Professor

Dan Kär­re­man, Professor

Go to publication

June 2025

The Faroe Islands and the Oil That Never Was

Else-Fulfilling Prophecies and Organizational Change

Den­nis Scho­e­ne­born, Professor

Dan Kär­re­man, Professor

Go to publication

January 2025

Working With Pride In the Shadow of Shame

Emotional Dissonance and Identity Work During a Corporate Scandal

Sanne Frandsen

Johanne Grant

Dan Kär­re­man, Professor

Go to publication

Outside activities

Pro­fess­or in Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion, Lund Uni­ver­sity, Sweden , 2023 - on­go­ing

I have a 20% po­s­i­tion at Lund Uni­ver­sity, School of Eco­nom­ics and Man­age­ment, since 2023

Mem­ber of the B1 as­sess­ment com­mit­tee, Riks­bankens Ju­bileums­fond , 2023 - 2026

Riks­bankens Ju­bileums­fond is one of Sweden’s largest re­search found­a­tions and provides fund­ing for the so­cial sci­ences. The B1 com­mit­tee al­loc­ates fund­ing for busi­ness ad­min­is­tra­tion, cul­tur­al geo­graphy, eco­nom­ics, eco­nom­ic his­tory, law, polit­ic­al sci­ence and stat­ist­ics.