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Stefan Schwar­zkopf

Associate Professor

Emner
Geopolitik Sikkerhed Religion Moral Marked

Primary research areas

Sociology of markets after Liberalism

How do political distinctions and concepts make markets, and what is role of utopian-temporal concepts of the future in this (e.g. in visions of the circular economy or ‘net zero’)

Geopolitics, borders and lines

How can we bring back attention to lines, borders and the act of concrete space ordering – instead of events, fluidity, and assemblages – into organization studies

Paradoxes and the dark sides of business morality

How does the desire to do ‘good’ lead to moral over-reach and the unfolding of a logic of sectarianism, which we know from political cultures, but which used to be relatively absent in the economy of society.

Organizational strategies and structures in polarized times

My research helps society understand the challenges that emerge when entrepreneurs and companies as actors with a supposedly economic rationale engage with value-driven social movements. Empirically, I study how organizations engage in non-market strategies, which means I reconstruct how the demand for virtue and ‘morality’ changes organizational strategies, and ultimately capitalism, as organizations begin to interact with the competing civil religions of our time. In theoretical terms, my research puts thresholds, lines, borders and the act of concrete space ordering centre stage – as an antidote to contemporary emphasis on time, events, fluidity, and assemblages. 

I have published in leading journals in management and organization studies, economic sociology, and market studies, such as Organization Studies; Organization; Economy and Society; Environment and Planning D; Marketing Theory; and Theory, Culture & Society. I was Principal Investigator of two DFF-funded research projects (2020-2023). I have won the 2009 Coleman Prize for Best PhD Dissertation in British Business History (awarded by the Association of Business Historians), the 2012 Charles Slater Award for the Best Article in the Journal of Macromarketing, and a number of teaching awards at CBS. I am involved in organizing the bi-annual Interdisciplinary Market Studies Workshops (IMSW).

Recent research projects

The circularity trap and ownership avoidance

In order to live more sustainably, consumers must practice affective ownership. Recent societal trends undermine these practices of care. This project studies the causes and implications.

Progressive Geoeconomics

The polycrisis has brought geopolitics and security concerns back into mainstream management research. How can local communities bring about a set of practices called progressive geoeconomics?