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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. 

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.