Research profile

Marita Svane holds the position of associate professor in organizations, leadership and HRM at Aalborg University Business School. She holds a Ph.D. in intercultural organizational relations and is a member of the research group SOM (Strategising, Organising, and Management).

Marita Svane’s research profile lies at the intersection of organization, leadership, and communication with a focus on organizational storytelling and material discourses, meaningful work, ethics and responsibility, as well as sustainability and sustainability communication.

In various research projects, she has studied organizational changes with a special interest in the dynamics of organizational storytelling, identity constructions, and multi-voiced sensemaking and how these dynamics influence on our working lives and meaningful work. Moreover, she is interested in critically studying how power, dialogue, and ethics play out in the encounter between employee living stories and dominating organizational and strategic narratives. One of her core ambitions is to encourage an open space for critical reflexive thinking and explorative and experimental actions at a local, micro level within the organization to release it from organizational closure.

In her research activities, she works closely with organizations and practitioners in relational and reflexive ways. Over the years, she has participated in multiple seminars, workshops, and conferences, where academics and practitioners from municipalities, regions, and companies have participated to share insights and perspectives as part of management learning.

For several years, Marita Svane was employed in the financial sector as an HR business partner and gained considerable real-life experience in working with and facilitating strategic HRM practices, leadership development, organizational development, and strategy processes.

She has a long experience in problem-based teaching and learning in the graduate and executive programs at Aalborg University Business School. For several years, she held the position of coordinator of the master's program in Organization & Strategy and coordinates various modules at the master's level as well as in executive programs.

Currently, Marita Svane works on two research projects related to the financial sector. In one of the projects, she focuses on how to manage and make sense of organizational crises fuelled by moral scandals, including issues such as trust, organizational identity, and ethics. In the other project, she studies how the organization makes sense of digitalization at various hierarchical levels and how sensemaking processes brake down the strategy of digitalizing. In an upcoming project in the textile industry, Marita Svane will focus on sustainability, ethics, and sustainability communication.