Research areas

My research takes as its main topic the social processes within and between organizations. My research interests are among others related to:

- Leadership
- Organizational change
- Flexible employment and the changing nature of work
- Diversity issues
- Organizational discourse

 Currently, I am engaged in three more focused research activities (or projects like you might call them).

Firstly, I am reviewing social constructionist and relational constructivism research in leadership studies. My aim is to show that there are plenty of insightful theoretical as well as empirical inputs available that we can draw on. Moreover I intend to demonstrate that deconstructing traditional (positivistic) leadership studies does not mean to destruct the various efforts and results of leadership research. Instead my objective is to adopt a more optimistic and perhaps supportive approach, highlighting what we can gain from a constructionist perspective in terms of theoretical, practical as well as educational insights.

Secondly, I am exploring the critical potential of social constructionism and relational constructivism. No doubt, this thinking has influenced various approaches to critical management studies. Yet, the concept itself is often confronted with the criticism of not being able to do critique as the reasons provided for “right” or “wrong” are itself constructions. Elaborating on that I, among others, intend to define what sorts of critique are possible from a constructivism perspective, taking into account the various reasons for engaging in deconstruction.

Thirdly, I am discussing the problems of leadership research not fully recognizing the changing world of employment. Atypical employment relations have not been covered by leadership studies in terms of for example differences between permanent and temporary workers that might result in various attributions of leadership acceptance and effectiveness. Hence, one aim of this activity it to develop the challenges leadership research might face when engaging with followers in atypical forms of employment.

Tasks

Currently I am teaching various courses in the field of Organization, Human Ressource Management and Research Methodology. Additionally, I am subject director for:

International Management and Organisation
Strategy and Culture
Business Administration I: Organisation
Organisation I: Introduction to Organizational Behaviour
Organizational Management and Strategy
Human Resource Management
Bachelor’s thesis (from 2010)

If you are interested in contacting me regarding the supervision of your BA- or MA-thesis, please have look at the topics I am working with at the moment:

• Leadership and leader emergence
• Implicit Leadership Theories (e.g. mapping the field, investigate ILTs with flexible workers)
• The quest for charismatic leadership
• Term-time employment
• Flexible employment
• Codes of ethcis/codes of conduct

Please note that I will not supervise theses written by a group of students!

Publications

Activities