I am Docent and associate professor of Work Science, and I research and develop areas such as the interaction between organisations, organising and management. I am interested in everyday processes and how we can describe, understand, explain and develop life in organisations based on complexity, relations and language.

What makes life? Life is complex and has many meanings; language, actions and their interpretations create the process which are manifest as results, effects and structures. In our complex relationships with others, life creates a form of interspace using the "materials" we have at hand. "Materials" are norms, values, structures of opinions and routines. However, emotions, feelings and identity are also included in the understanding of human complexity, alongside the genetic predispositions which neuroscience research has worked hard to understand. A simplified, yet pertinent expression is, "the only thing we have is our experience," amongst which we include norms, values, how opinions are structured and more. Such hazy phenomena are examples of the materials we use in our conversation and actions with others.

Indeed, the material is also an element of how life is made. For example, the train and its accompanying timetable are also a "material". Moreover, occasionally we are alone – but even in our solitude we think of others and relate to them. I exist because you exist. Thus, our existence is always in relation to others, a space in which both you and I create ourselves.

Research is based on practice which is a branch of international practice based research (PBR), which has grown stronger over the 21st century. For example, the Strategies-in-Practice Network. We begin with language and our actions that create structures in different forms. Hence, microprocesses are studied as a foundation of understanding cultures and institutions.

"What makes life?" is my comprehensive research question that I apply to phenomena such as the interaction between organisations I have studied in around 30 projects over my 25 years in academia. I always expand on the characteristics of reality as described above. My teaching methods are also based on these assumptions of the characteristics of reality. In its simple formulation, students compose a tale of their own experience within the relevant field of their studies. This tale is then used to wrestle with literature and teachers.
For me, developing knowledge involves the use of previous theories and research as a foundation for their development and change with support from collecting empirical materials related to the phenomena of cooperation, management, steering, organising, health and wellbeing in organisations. Theories are only significant in their relation to practice – a tool to wrestle with practice.

Between 2011 and 2018, I was the coordinator for the course in school leadership belonging to the National School Leadership Training Programme at Linnaeus University. I have argued with approximately 1,100 headteachers and preschool managers about the characteristics of reality and use of theories as described above. Such an opinion has provided a great challenge to current ideas in the school world.