Peter Wad

I am an Associate Professor emeritus at the Department of Management, Society and Communication.

My research on labor organization in developing countries dates to the mid-1980s. Having retired as an emeritus in 2016 I have scaled down my international fieldwork. Yet, most recently I contributed to a forthcoming anthology on trade unions and labor representation in Asia, edited by Russell Lansbury and Lee Byoung-Hoon, with a chapter on Malaysian trade unionism. During the last decade I participated in several international conferences, and in the aftermath, papers have been published in the Journal of Industrial Relations (2012), Geoforum 44 (2013) and the Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies (2014). Together with Rene Ofreneo, University of the Philippines, I made a chapter on labor markets in Southeast Asia to the anthology, The New Political Economy of Southeast Asia (2010), edited by Rajah Rasiah, University of Malaya, and Johannes Dragsbæk Schmidt, Aalborg University. Finally, a chapter on trade unions in the Asian automotive industries was published in the anthology, Cars, Automobility and Development in Asia: Wheels of Change (2015), edited by Arve Hansen and Kenneth Bo Nielsen.

Industrial policy in developing countries has been one of my main teaching areas, while research experience has been achieved mainly in the sector of automobile industrialization in Asia (see e.g. co-authored article with Rick Doner). A state-of-the-art review of the field, Governance, business and development, is made for the anthology, Business and Development Studies, edited by Peter Lund-Thomsen, Michael W. Hansen and Adam Lindgreen and published in 2019/2020. While emeritus I have and do participate in a study group of emeriti, based at RUC and focusing on development studies with particular emphasis on Southeast Asian affairs.

My ongoing interest in research philosophy and methodology translated into a book chapter on realist research theory and critical realism in a Danish anthology on these matters within political science, sociology and administration, lastly published in the 3rd edition 2015. As an emeritus I participate in another Danish book project on research styles in sociology and other social sciences. It was published in 2025. This work took place while I simultaneously updated and reviewed my knowledge of the state of the art of Danish and international sociology, my profession by education. 

Selected publications

Wad, P. (2025),”Postpositivisme og mekanismer på mellemniveau.” I: Forskningsstilarter - i sociologi og andre socialvidenskaber. Redaktion: Anders Blok og Antje Gimmler. København: Hans Reitzels Forlag, s. 83-109.

Wad, P. (2020), “Malaysian Trade Unions in the Twenty-first Century.” In: Byoung-Hoon Lee; Ng Sek-Hong; Russell D. Lansbury (eds.) Trade Unions and Labour Movements in the Asia-Pacific Region. Abingdon: Routledge 2020, p. 166-184 (Routledge Studies in the Growth Economies of Asia, Vol. 143).

Wad, P. (2020), “Governance, Business, and Development.” In: Peter Lund-Thomsen; Michael Wendelboe Hansen; Adam Lindgreen (eds.) Business and Development Studies: Issues and Perspectives. Abingdon : Routledge 2020, p. 17-54 (Routledge Studies in Innovation, Organizations and Technology).

Doner, R.F. and Wad, P. (2014), “Financial Crises and Automotive Industry Development in Southeast Asia”, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 44 No. 4, pp. 664–687.

Wad, P. (2013), "Getting labour rights right at a foreign controlled company in Malaysia: A Global Labour Network perspective", Geoforum44, 2013, pp. 52-61.

Wad, P. (2010), "Impact of the Global Economic and Financial Crisis over the Automotive Industry in Developing Countries", Working Paper 16, 2009. Vienna: UNIDO.