Facts about the project
Project Manager
Annika Schilling
Project Members
Annika Schilling (Lnu)
Funding Organizations
Ragnar Söderbergs stiftelse
Timetable
2013–2016
Subject
Business administration, Leadership, Entrepreneurship and Organization Economy
More about the project
Knowledge intensive services and knowledge work constitute a large part of the growing service sector. The focus of this project is on the embodied dimensions of knowledge work, i.e. how knowledge workers use and adapt how they look and dress in order to create trust in their professional roles.
The purpose is to develop knowledge about the embodiment of professional identities through focusing in three research questions
- How and for what purposes do knowledge workers embody their professional identity through how they dress and adoptions of their body?
- How and to what extent does knowledge workers consume their professional identity through clothing, accessories and other embodied expressions?
- How do the social structures surrounding the knowledge workers contribute to the development of a specific embodied practice?
The project is based on social construction and identity theories and take three perspectives
- a competence perspective,
- a consumer culture perspective and
- a power perspective.
Empirically the project will focus on three knowledge intensive service industries: business law, management consulting and PR- and communication consulting. The study will be conducted through deep interviews, focus groups and observations combined with photography and short interviews.