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Frank Mei­er

Associate Professor

Emner
Beslutningstagning Bestyrelse Forandringsledelse Ledelse Offentlig forvaltning Organisation Projektledelse Uddannelse Diskurs Kvalitativ metode Socialt ansvar

Primary research areas

Lead­er­ship and so­ci­et­al trans­formation
Lead­er­ship and lead­er­ship stud­ies are fa­cing new de­mands by grand, so­ci­et­al trans­form­a­tions, weth­er in the shape of crisis - e.g. cli­mate, geo­pol­it­ics, pan­dem­ics - or in the shape of policy or stra­tegic change - e.g., di­git­al­isa­tion, auto­ma­tion, di­versity and cost-re­duc­tion. Lead­er­ship is sup­posed to lead in dif­fer­ent ways - to ad­ress, strategize, alivi­ate, ex­plore and ex­ploit - these trans­form­a­tions and may it­self change as it re­lies on or is be­ing hol­lowed out by the very same trans­form­a­tions as per­haps in the case of auto­ma­tion
Nov­el lead­er­ship the­or­iz­ing
I ad­dress these so­ci­et­al trans­form­a­tions via sev­er­al the­or­et­ic­al vant­age points, e.g., re­spons­ible lead­er­ship, ad­apt­ive lead­er­ship, lead­er­ship in in­ter­ac­tion or the com­mu­nic­at­ive con­sti­tu­tion of lead­er­ship as well as through a great vari­ety of em­pir­ic­al op­por­tun­it­ies.
Lead­er­ship de­vel­op­ment
Lead­er­ship de­vel­op­ment is an in­teg­ral and lo­gic­al part of the re­search port­fo­lio and via in­ter­ac­tion­al stud­ies, I try to de­tail how learn­ing takes place in lead­er­ship and man­age­ment edu­ca­tion set­tings.

I ex­plore lead­er­ship in the real world to in­stig­ate dia­logue and re­flec­tion with prac­ti­tion­ers. Ideally, I re­gister how lead­er­ship prac­ti­tion­ers them­selves un­der­stand and re­act to the so­ci­et­al and or­gan­iz­a­tion­al trans­form­a­tions and fol­low how these re­acti

Turning leadership studies towards societal transformation 

I am a leadership scholar with a particular focus on how societal changes, often understood as changes in stakeholders’ expectations to leadership, are handled in the leadership process. With the leadership process, I mean the way organizational influence processes play out between organizational members. My theoretical platform – the communicative as constitutive approach - means that I have a distinct opportunity to understand the leadership process as a dialogic accomplishment which, for instance, takes place during otherwise perhaps uneventful meetings. 

My research contributes to  

- Turning leadership to face societal transformation rather than tired and opaque ‘psychological processes’ or the even less credible ‘personality traits’. 

- New ways of thinking leadership theory beyond the tired research interview into interactions and communication going on the organization 

- A realization, that more-than-human beings – e.g. ideas, ideals, technology, futures and pasts – play a role in the leadership process  

- A renewed understanding of responsible leadership if these more-than-human beings also have a voice, in which case what is usually called nature or tech suddenly gets a voice in the leadership process 

- New ways of designing and delivering leadership development as more-than-human beings turn up and participate in programs as well as in the leadership process 

On the level of impact, I contribute to 

- Teaching and course development at CBS Executive Education programmes like Master of Public Governance and Master of Business Development as well as the Norwegian Master in Knowledge Management 

- My broader engagement in management education, in which field I for example currently am vice-chair in the Norwegian national evaluation of 11 master programmes in leadership 

- Various leadership development engagement outside CBS like CBS Executive Foundation, the leadership course with Postgraduate Programme in Orthodontics at the University of Copenhagen. 

Outside activities

Valuing Invisible Work (VIEW), 2020–2024

The col­lab­or­at­ive pro­ject Valu­ing in­vis­ible work (VIEW) sought to un­der­stand ef­fi­ciency am­bi­tions and di­git­al­iz­a­tion pro­jects in prac­tice and was fun­ded by the In­de­pend­ent Dan­ish Re­search Coun­cil, 2020-2024. The pro­ject fo­cussed on the craft­ing and cir­cu­la­tion of promis­sory doc­u­ments such as di­git­al­iz­a­tion strategies and busi­ness plans and on the new tasks that arise with di­git­al­iz­a­tion. The was to in­vest­ig­ate and the­or­ize the ‘in­vis­ible work’ in­volved in di­git­al­iz­a­tion pro­jects, in­clud­ing how it is ascribed mean­ing and val­ued.
Link to WETO

Leadership Development in the Public Sector , 2014–2018

Lead­er­ship and 'per­son­al lead­er­ship' are today seen as cru­cial con­di­tions for the wel­fare state to be able to ful­fil its tasks. At the same time, man­age­ment de­vel­op­ment is seen as an im­port­ant con­di­tion for man­age­ment to be able to meet ex­pect­a­tions. In re­cent years, there­fore, massive in­vest­ments have been made in man­age­ment de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes – both in the form of in­tern­al or­gan­iz­a­tion­al pro­grammes and in the form of ac­tu­al man­age­ment train­ing aimed at pub­lic sec­tor man­agers. Des­pite the wide­spread in­vest­ment in lead­er­ship de­vel­op­ment, it is not known what or­gan­iz­a­tion­al ef­fects the lead­er­ship de­vel­op­ment pro­grams have. Stud­ies of lead­er­ship de­vel­op­ment pro­grams typ­ic­ally fo­cus on in­di­vidu­al par­ti­cipants' per­form­ance in terms of com­pet­en­cies. On the oth­er hand, this pro­ject will in­vest­ig­ate the or­gan­iz­a­tion­al ef­fects of the de­vel­op­ment pro­grams. What prac­tices and be­liefs do the pro­grams form and com­mu­nic­ate in re­la­tion to the wel­fare state's or­gan­iz­a­tions? What do these prac­tices and no­tions mean for the re­la­tion­ship between man­agers and em­ploy­ees and for the per­form­ance of the or­gan­iz­a­tions' tasks? To an­swer these ques­tions, the pro­ject will ex­am­ine both the con­tent/ped­ago­gic­al prac­tices of lead­er­ship de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes and their or­gan­iz­a­tion­al sig­ni­fic­ance. The pro­ject will use dis­course, case and sur­vey meth­ods. An in­tern­al or­gan­iz­a­tion­al de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme and a dip­loma pro­gramme have been chosen as cases.
https://www.cbs.dk/en/cbs-agenda/areas/cbs-leadership-centre/news/award-winning-research-project-management-courses-do-not-work-as-intended