Organization and Management emphasizes strategy work, sustainability and human resources

Organization and Management comprises a broad group of scholars. Research and teaching in the discipline is informed by the recognition of complexities that pluralist demands from multiple stakeholder groups create for management.

Research and teaching in our discipline focus on three main areas:

• strategy practices, managerial cognition, discourse, and institutional environments of organizations
• sustainability management, corporate social responsibility, and business ethics
• management and development of human resources as well as ‘doing’ gender and diversity in organizations

The interests of our group members extend further to innovation processes within companies and society at large, and to the study of academic work and management education as well as philosophy of management.

Learner-centered and interactive teaching

Our teaching is learner-centered, interactive, and informed by rigorous and current academic research. In order to offer state-of-the art competences and skills to our students we invite guest speakers from companies and other organizations in our classes to debate timely and relevant themes and topics with our master’s students. We commonly use real cases in our teaching.

The discipline provides courses for bachelor’s degree at the School of Business and three master’s degree programs: Management and International Business, Creative Sustainability and Strategy.

The discipline runs a high-quality, full-time doctoral program that is designed for individuals aiming at an academic career in Finland and abroad.

Widely published research

Our discipline seeks actively to engage with the international academic community and practitioners. Members of our discipline have recently published their research in top tier journals such as:

• Academy of Management Review
• Academy of Management Journal
• Ecological Economics
• Gender, Work and Organization
• Human Relations
• Journal of Business Ethics
• Journal of Management Studies
• Organization
• Organization Science
• Organization Studies
• Strategic Management Journal

Projects and networks

Much of the research in the discipline takes place in international and Finnish collaborative projects, funded by e.g. the European Union, the Academy of Finland, and the Finnish Innovation Agency Tekes. We design our research projects to provide actionable knowledge for our partners and to accumulate comprehensive empirical data sets that enable high quality research. On-going research projects are also an important source of teaching materials.

Our scholars’ research collaboration involves companies, non-governmental organizations, the public sector, as well as Finnish and international universities. Together these networks provide tangible benefits for our students:

1)    Our collaboration with a variety of organizations offers our master’s students opportunities to design and conduct their thesis research in collaboration with practitioners in order to create real-life impact.

2)    Our doctoral students make use of collaborative ties by gaining insight and data on problems faced by companies and the public sector. Connections with leading scholars abroad provide our doctoral students with opportunities to spend periods studying abroad and to learn by working together with international scholars.

Strong societal impact

Our discipline has always been strong in terms of its societal impact. For example, our research projects within sustainability management inform companies and policy-makers in areas such as:

• transition toward environmentally sustainable energy use in society
• inclusive business for poverty alleviation in low-income emerging markets
• sustainability innovation at large.

We seek to accomplish societal impact in our core areas through innovative research projects involving business enterprises. Our faculty is also actively involved in delivering tailored executive education, in professional associations, and funding bodies.

The discipline hosts Aalto Global Impact (AGI), an organization seeking to increase local and global societal impact of Aalto University’s sustainability research and teaching.