Student

Business Studies

Business Studies is a broad subject in the social sciences. Our research touches on multiple areas of the subject and our research projects are often conducted with other subjects, often with an international perspective.

Research in Business Studies at Södertörn University includes the dynamics of entrepreneurship, sustainable development, art, culture and economics, the financial market and its organisations, and institutional change. Several of the subject’s research projects are conducted with a great deal of cooperation with researchers in other disciplines and many projects have an international perspective.

The subject admits its own doctoral students as part of research area for doctoral studies called Politics, Economy and the Organisation of Society. It also participates in research partnerships at research centres such as ENTER forum, Reinvent, the Academy of Public Administration, CBEES and Stockholm MediaLab, as well as the Institute of Contemporary History and the School of Natural Sciences, Technology and Environmental Studies.

Read more about our research under the following headings:

The concept of sustainable development challenges established knowledge about business, economics and the organisation of society. The UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, aiming at 2030, gather people and societies around these issues on a global basis. They provide substance to discussions about how academia, business, the public sector and civil society contribute to economic, societal, cultural and ecological aspects of development that is temporally and geographically sustainable. Our ambitions as researchers are to critically and constructively illuminate societal challenges, and how people, organisations and business contribute to sustainable development.

We have become accustomed to acronyms such as CSR – corporate social responsibility – where we examine how businesses can act responsibly in society. Our researchers also study the efforts made by businesses and other actors to develop inclusive structures for marginalised groups, the development of improved logistics for returned goods and thus better use of resources, and new systems for renewable energy.

Our growing research into sustainable development has contributed to a new Master’s programme, taught in English, in Leadership for Sustainable Development and an interdisciplinary course in Challenge-driven Project Management for Sustainable Development. These also include research into education for sustainable development.

Issues of sustainable development are highly relevant in many contexts. The university’s location in the south of Stockholm means that urban issues, not least those that arise from studies of the urban periphery, are actualised in our research. Some of our researchers are also active within REINVENT – the Centre for City Dynamics.

In 2022, we joined forces with five other higher education institutions in Stockholm to organise a conference for the International Sustainable Development Research Society on the theme of Sustainable Development and Courage: Culture, Art and Human Rights. Our researchers are happy to edit special editions for renowned international journals and publishers.

BSD Research group


Agnieszka Stefaniec (affiliated)​

Ann-Sofie Köping Olsson​

Arash Kordestani​

Cecilia Gullberg​

Erik Borg (Smart City Georgia)​

Fakhreddin Fakhrai Rad​

Karin Dahlström​

Karin Winroth​

Keyvan Hosseini (affiliated)​

Malin Gawell​

Maria Smolander ​

Monika Kostera (guest professor)

Mounia Borg ​

Paulina Rytkönen​

Pejvak Oghazi​

Peter Dobers​

Sara Persson ​

Tommy Larsson Segerlind

Entrepreneurship and innovation has been a strong area of research since the university was founded, where one important element is long-run studies of business and industry dynamics. They deal with the conditions for entrepreneurship and business start-ups, businesses’ growth and survival, as well as closures and bankruptcies. This relates to innovation and innovation diffusion when publicly-owned businesses are privatised, in the security sector or in agricultural industries. Change is studies at multiple levels of analysis and through the establishment of quantitative databases.

Immaterial rights, such as patents and brands, are extremely relevant to contemporary entrepreneurship. Our research illustrates how these processes are linked and expressed in different ways, such as in internationalisation. How innovations emerge from teams and how founders influence corporate development is another theme. Additionally, digitalisation has changed the conditions for how innovations are created and managed.

Entrepreneurship and innovation are also found in societal and cultural spheres. Södertörn University has vibrant research into social entrepreneurship and social enterprise in social economics and civil society, as well as cultural activities that link to marker conditions, politics and citizen engagement. Ethnographically inspired approaches and narrative methods are often used here, to study the various nuances of events in a sensitive manner – including those that are more difficult to capture.

Entrepreneurship and innovation always develop in a context. At Södertörn University, these phenomena are studied in the Stockholm region and its municipalities – particularly in the more peripheral areas and in the archipelago, as well as in the rest of Sweden. Many projects expand across the Baltic Sea and Eastern Europe, such as the Baltic states, Poland and Russia. A few projects move further out into Europe and the world, for example Rwanda and Tanzania.

Researchers in entrepreneurship and innovation are active in the ENTER forum.

EI Research group


Ann-Sofie Köping Olsson​

Karin Dahlström​

Karin Winroth​

Malin Gawell​

Marcus Box​

Mikael Lönnborg​

Mounia Borg​

Natallia Pashkevich​

Nima Yahyapour​

Paulina Rytkönen​

Pejvak Oghazi ​

Tommy Larsson Segerlind​

Truls Neubeck

 

Södertörn University’s research on financing has, for a number of years, studied the financial markets’ functioning and development. For example, this has covered the establishment of markets for external financing in the former planned economies of Eastern Europe, or how financial crises have affected businesses’ potential to mobilise resources. The activities of insurance companies and how their market has changed over the past 25 years have also been carefully examined.

Financing is particularly challenging for small and medium-sized enterprises. For example, new small business often find it difficult to access capital from banks and venture capitalists. Increased demands for flexibility and just-in-time solutions also require new financial structures. Our research thus emphasises access to capital for start-ups, the rationalisation of short-term investments which are increasingly important for survival and growth. Business loans, an important element of businesses’ short-term financing are studies, as is role of investment banks for businesses.

FFM Research group


Cheick Wagué​

Darush Yazdanfar ​

Maria Smolander

Mikael Lönnborg​

Natallia Pashkevich​

Peter Jönsson

A number of our researchers study how markets are created and developed – in Sweden, in the Baltic Sea region, and globally. Some, for example, are examining the emergence of an international healthcare market, while others are studying financial markets or art market. This could involve understand which actors are participating and the conditions that influence opportunities and barriers, as well as how purchasing, procurement, flows and supplier chains function.

The markets are also affected by demand. Consumer preferences, choices and demands are extremely important. One way this is studied is through a focus on consumer activities on social media and how the contribute to the creation of celebrities, for example, in the fashion and media industries. Other studies examine consumer influence on the popularity of tourist destinations or how elderly people relate to care services.

This are areas in which digitalisation has had a clear effect. The fourth industrial revolution, industry 4.0, in which technology enables automation and entirely new ways of developing different types of processes, is a clear part of our research. Terms like artificial intelligence, smart factories, smart homes or machine learning are put into practice, both in what is studied and in the scientific approaches with which these phenomena are studied. New models for thinking about business and business development in non-traditional interactions, such as the circular economy, are studied.

This dynamic development is studied in various ways, with a grounding in theories about flows, marketing, consumer behaviour and logistics, such as actor network theory or artificial intelligence. Methodologically, qualitative and quantitative approaches are used and often combined. There are also elements of big data, where the amount of data is so extensive that special methods are required to process it.

MBM Research group


Anita Radon​

Ann-Sofie Köping Olsson ​

Carina Holmberg​

Cheick Wagué​

Erik Borg​

Fakhreddin Fakhrai Rad​

Karin Winroth​

Keyvan Hosseini​

Kjell Ljungbo​

Lars Vigerland ​

Natallia Pashkevich​

Paulina Rytkönen​

Pejvak Oghazi ​

Tommy Larsson Segerlind

Business Studies in Sweden has a long tradition of developing theories on the basis of thorough empirical studies of different types of organisations. This tradition continues in the subject at Södertörn. The theme, Organising and leading, includes studies of reforms, governance and change within education, the police, public administration, other public organisation and in the business world. Organisation and leadership in civil society and culture and the arts are also subjects of study.

There is an emerging field of research in the borderland between digitalisation and the organisation of civil society, in the links between grass roots activism and social media. What characterises organisational initiatives taken via social media and how do they differ from what occurs in established organisations? How is organising affected by the new digital landscape? Of particular interest – and linked to auditing research – is understanding how accountability changes when forms of organisation change.

In the culture sector, both politics and practice are studied. Cultural policy has always been receptive to the era’s dominant trends (regionalisation, markets and management), but is also locked into patterns that were established a long time ago. In addition to studies of cultural policy in itself, the way that cultural enterprises (theatres, orchestras, etc.) are organised and led is also studied. The relationships between actors are examined at the micro level, as well as the space for creativity in strongly institutionalised contexts.

Research into the organisation of the public sector is conducted in close cooperation with the Department of Public Administration and the Academy of Public Administration. It includes studies of changes and reforms, the Europeanisation of politics and administration, the governance and leadership of public bodies, the machinations of public administration (including the development of NPM ideas) and the emergence and consequences of “an audit society”. Some of our researchers are also active within REINVENT – the Centre for City Dynamics.

OL Research group


Agnes Käll​

Ann-Sofie Köping Olsson​

Cecilia Gullberg​

Erik Borg​

Eva Norrman Brandt​

Karin Winroth​

Kjell Ljungbo​

Malin Gawell​

Monika Kostera (guest professor)​

Mounia Borg ​

Noomi Weinryb​

Peter Dobers​

Sara Persson​

Tommy Larsson Segerlind​

Truls Neubeck (affiliated)

 

Programmes & courses
Projects & publications
Third stream activities
Staff
Events calendar

Share

Facebook Mail Twitter

Page updated

08-02-2024