FEKIS 2025: Business administration in the digital era – How to move forward?
Welcome to the School of Business and Economics at Linnaeus University (Campus Kalmar) and the 2025 subject conference for the The Swedish Academy of Business and Management (FEKIS).
FEKIS 2025 will take place at Linnaeus University's newly built campus at Universitetskajen in Kalmar on 14-16 October 2025. We are now planning and preparing for the conference and our theme with questions is presented below.
All necessary information about the conference will gradually be published on this website.
Do you have questions or want more information?
Please contact fekis2025@lnu.se
FEKIS 2025 – Theme: Business administration in the digital era – how to move forward?
Business administration, both as an academic field and as a set of practices, has always existed in symbiosis with technology and technological developments. The most prominent technological development of our time is the ongoing, and accelerating, digitalisation.
This development affects all areas of interest to business administration; such as the management of huge amounts of consumer data, collected and analysed through digital channels and tools; complex information systems that connect global networks of operations and supply chains in real time; new business models supported by digitalisation; AI-supported analysis of financial information; remote management through digital communication; digital prototyping in product development; and algorithms for which the organisational consequences are almost impossible to oversee. The question in the digital era is no longer (just) who guides and leads us, but what? New, and new-old, questions in the borderland between business administration and technology arise that need to be problematised and researched.
AI-generated image of the business administrator of the future!
The digital development is also affecting our teaching and our courses and programmes. Following the Covid-19 pandemic, which temporarily made digital teaching necessary, many colleagues testify that students are still asking for digital solutions, like recorded lectures, Zoom seminars, and more. The convenience and reach of technology seem, among many students, to trump the value of physical meetings in classrooms and on campus. How do we respond to this and balance the value of face-to-face meetings as part of the educational experience with the benefits of the opportunities provided by the new technological tools?
There is also the question of how digital and technological developments affect our courses and programmes and the mission of universities in general? What is a business administrator in an increasingly digital reality, and what do they need to know? And are we, at the business administration departments, capable of providing the education that may be expected on our own, or do we need to establish even closer cooperation with our colleagues at other faculties? At the same time, it is important that other fields of knowledge and competences do not fall under the shadow of a supposed technological imperative. Technologies should not be seen as stable entities, “tools” to be used, but as complex relational systems involving not only other technologies but also us humans.
Thus, technological developments, not least in AI, raise everything from economic, technical and legal issues to social and purely existential issues, all of which, even if they are not in the traditional centre of our subject, are relevant to business administration. The question then is how these, more humanistic and critical perspectives, should be given space in business administration education, while both politicians and other stakeholders demand even more applied and business-useful programmes?
Some suggestions for more specific questions:
- What does digitialisation and AI mean for the questions, methods and dissemination of results in business administration research? As data is collected, systematised, transcribed, translated and analysed using increasingly complex technology, are we sure that the researcher is still always in the driver's seat? What research questions arise at the interface between business administration and technology and how do we best study them? What does sustainable development mean in the meeting between business administration and technology?
- What makes an education in business administration relevant in the future, and for whom? What will the digital and physical learning environments of the future look like? What do we know about business administration didactics, and how might this need to be developed to meet the students and knowledge needs of the digital era? What does lifelong learning in business administration mean? What is the role of more traditional education in the light of an increasingly prevalent technological imperative?
- What is the best way to manage and organise business administration operations at our higher education institutions? By what means do we ensure the continued societal relevance of business administration in the digital era? How do we reach out with our knowledge to a broader group of societal stakeholders? How can we collaborate and co-produce knowledge with different stakeholders to help address the opportunities and challenges of technological development?
We are accredited
The School of Business and Economics at Linnaeus University is accredited by The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, AACSB.
Föreningen Företagsekonomi i Sverige FEKIS
The Swedish Academy of Business and Management (swe FEKIS) aims at promoting the development of academic education and research within the discipline of business studies in Sweden.
PRME
PRME is a UN initiative that aims to strengthen the sustainability profile of business and management schools worldwide, and to equip their students with the knowledge and skills they need to become responsible leaders.
A sustainable event
This conference is a sustainability-assured meeting in accordance with Linnaeus University’s guidelines for sustainable events. These guidelines are linked to the 17 global goals in Agenda 2030 and comprise the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, the social, and the environmental.
Learn more about Linnaeus University´s sustainable events here.