WETO – Work, Expertise, Technology and Organization
Work, Expertise, Technology and Organization (WETO) examines how contemporary work practices are shaped by expertise and technologies, and how these elements co-constitute organizational life.
About WETO
WETO focuses on the co-constitution of work, organization, expertise, and technology. The research group examines how work, technology, and expertise are organized, how they have organizing effects, and what consequences they produce in contemporary organizations.
Theoretical and methodological foundation
Research at WETO draws on conceptual developments from social and organizational theories and uses qualitative and ethnographic methods. The group emphasizes how work, expertise, technology, and organization relate to forms of power, management, and rationality.
WETO investigates how technology and expertise function as sources of organizational authority and how they shape the distribution and coordination of work. The research highlights how different forms of expertise influence organizational practices and decision-making.
Empirical fields and technologies
Members of WETO study areas such as energy production, agricultural production, and healthcare. Other projects focus on specific technologies, including automated case-processing solutions, organizational tools, and market devices.
The group explores how technologies make organizations visible to themselves and enable organizational operations. WETO also examines the consequences of new technologies and forms of expertise for work practices and how these developments influence changing understandings of work and organization.
Scientific ambition
WETO aims to produce advanced scientific knowledge that is relevant within academia and valuable for actors outside academic environments.
Explore upcoming WETO events
The WETO event calendar offers an overview of courses, talks, and research activities across the group.
Research at WETO
Current projects (Panel content)
Methods for digital inclusion (MEDIN)
Duration:
The MEDIN project addresses digital exclusion among long-term incarcerated individuals in Danish prisons. The project is led by Ursula Plesner and is funded with DKK 5.3 million from the Velux Foundation’s HUM-praxis programme.
Collaboration and purpose
MEDIN is based on close collaboration between CBS, the Social Legal Aid Foundation, and the think tank Justitia. The project aims to strengthen digital inclusion through educational methods and policy recommendations developed jointly by the Foundation and Justitia, drawing on both research and practice-based experiments.
Research focus
From a research perspective, MEDIN generates new knowledge on the organization of digital inclusion, including shifts in responsibility, mechanisms of digital exclusion, and interactions between civil society actors and public authorities. The project also examines how research findings can inform political decision-making and support the development of practical tools to help incarcerated individuals in their digital integration.
Methods and work packages
The project consists of three work packages that combine document analysis, interviews, and practice-based experiments to ensure evidence-based solutions. Through an advisory board and broad dissemination, MEDIN aims to anchor knowledge and create long-term impacts on digital inclusion in Denmark.
Recordkeeping in Frontline Work: Balancing Bureaucratic, Professional and Relational Concerns (RECORD)
Duration: 2024–2027
Written case records play a crucial role in the delivery of public services. They serve important legal and administrative purposes, support professional knowledge sharing and coordination, and are increasingly used during relational encounters with citizens.
Research questions
The RECORD project examines how frontline workers prioritise different purposes of recordkeeping in everyday practice, how these priorities are reflected in actual case records, and what implications this has for citizens and stakeholders.
Empirical focus
The project focuses on child protection agencies, an area where the quality and legality of case records have repeatedly been questioned by oversight authorities. The study seeks to understand how case records are produced and used, and how this shapes citizens’ experience of public encounters and the state more broadly.
Methods and research design
The project is based on ethnographic fieldwork and uses qualitative methods, including organisational ethnography in municipal child protection agencies, narrative interviews with children and families, and document analysis.
Research team
Anne Mette Møller (PI)
Louise Jørring (Postdoc)
Advisory board
Steven Maynard-Moody
Gabriela Lotta
Anat Gofen
Nadine Raaphorst
Green Transition through Dynamics of Problematizations: How Forms of Expertise Influence the Financial and Social Valuation of Energy Resources in Denmark (GT-Dynprob)
Duration:
GT-Dynprob is a research project funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark. The project examines how different forms of expertise influence the financial and social valuation of energy resources in Denmark.
Collaboration and project group
The project group includes researchers from Aalborg University, Copenhagen Business School, and DTU.
Research team
José Ossandon
Peter Holm Jacobsen
Trine Pallesen
Advisory board
Kristin Asdal
Daniel Breslau
Susi Geiger
Julia Steinberger
The Inner Workings of the Danish Parliament – A study of the professional socialization of members of parliament in a cultural perspective
Duration:
This PhD project examines the cultural context of the Danish parliament and explores how workplace dynamics and professional norms shape parliamentary work at Christiansborg.
Research focus
The study investigates processes of professional socialization among members of parliament and considers how these dynamics relate to broader questions about crises of representation.
Researcher
PhD research project by Nanna Camilla Mulamila Olsen
Past projects (Panel content)
Public Actors’ Capacities in the Governance of Green Transitions (CAPACITOR)
Duration: 2021–2023
Public actors such as municipalities, national agencies, and public utilities are central to reducing CO₂ emissions and leading green transitions.
Research questions
The CAPACITOR project examines how public actors develop and use organisational capacities in the governance of green transitions, and which combinations of capacities are needed to achieve transition goals.
Methods and empirical basis
The project compares 24 in-depth cases across the energy and maritime transport sectors. The dataset includes more than 250 interviews, 24 observations, and over 450 documents.
Research team
Trine Pallesen
Explore the Markets and Valuation Group
The group examines situations in which markets have been implemented as tools to solve environmental and social problems.
People at WETO
WETO brings together researchers working on work practices, expertise, technology, and organization. The list below presents all members connected to the group, ordered alphabetically.
Centre contact
Kirstine Zinck Pedersen
Postal and visiting address
Department of Organization
Copenhagen Business School
Kilevej 14A
DK-2000 Frederiksberg
Denmark
Phone: +45 3815 2815
E-mail: reception.ioa@cbs.dk
EAN: 5798009814821
