Research

In the course of the two decades surrounding the year 2000 universities underwent momentous changes in response to environmental pressures and a rise of complexity in organizational life. During these years Thomas Sewerin had the privilege of working – as a consultant, organizational psychologist and sometimes psychotherapist – intimately with a handful of Swedish universities. Doing leadership training with present and future leaders, management team coaching and team development in a great variety of work environments in these universities provided an open window into the challenges of teams and leadership in Academia. In addition to the public and explicit concerns of change and development in the social arena of these organizations he had the opportunity to reflect upon and respond to what was keeping leaders and team members awake at night.

The overall aim of the dissertation is to address some of the principal concerns of leadership and team members in the universities that Thomas has visited. These are often practical concerns but Thomas has perceived that how these concerns and dilemmas are understood, made meaningful and theoretically grasped, is a major part of their resolution. Through the body of four studies, his ambition has been to venture into creative twists of problem-solving, in practical interventions and in theory writing about these issues.

The articles:

Sewerin T, Holmberg R and Benner M (2009) Management development on the edge: HRM in a knowledge intensive organization. Leadership in Health Services. Emerald.

Sewerin T and Holmberg R (2017) Contextualizing distributed leadership in higher education. Higher Education Research and Development. Vol 36.

Sewerin T., Formal leaders’ changing approaches when dealing with destructive research leaders in academia.
To be submitted.

Sewerin T. and Brodin E. (2018) Managing disharmonies during sixty years of creative teamwork in a singular university research environment.
To be submitted.