Pasi Hirvonen

This study explores how managers discursively construct innovation cultures as relational phenomena in Finnish innovation-oriented companies. Drawing on critical discursive psychology (CDP) and a collective case study design, this research analyses in-depth interviews with five senior managers to uncover the interpretive repertoires and subject positions they employ when discussing innovation. The findings reveal three key repertoires: (a) culture-through-communication , where managers function as communicative facilitators fostering shared understanding; (b) collaborative development , positioning managers as partnership builders engaging internal and external stakeholders; and (c) purposeful integration , where managers serve as community developers aligning individual purpose with collective innovation goals. These repertoires highlight how innovation cultures are co-constructed through everyday dialogue, relational practices, and meaning-making processes. Rather than viewing innovation culture as a static or top-down construct, this study emphasizes its dynamic, discursive, and relational nature. Theoretically, the research contributes to organizational discourse studies by providing a nuanced framework for understanding managerial agency in shaping innovation cultures. Practically, it emphasizes the importance of communicative leadership and relational competence in fostering innovation. The study invites further exploration into how discursive practices shape innovation across diverse organizational and cultural contexts.

This study explores how moral orders – context-specific frameworks of acceptable behaviour – shape agency and ethics in personalised medicine (PM). Using a discursive narrative approach, the study analyses international research programme initiatives, particularly those funded by the International Consortium for Personalized Medicine, to elucidate the moral orders influencing PM. The findings reveal three main storylines: joining forces and creating impact, hoping for a better tomorrow, and empowering diverse voices. These narratives position PM as a transformative force, a visionary tool, and a participative method. The first two storylines are shaped by a professional-centric moral order, while the third is influenced by an inclusion-centric moral order. These storylines give rise to new moral orders emphasising PM's functional and clinical development and collaborative empowerment. The study highlights that moral orders are dynamic, shaped by the context of PM and constructed in discourse. It contributes to the medical humanities by illuminating the agency-related and ethical implications of organising PM research from the perspective of relevant actors.

This chapter explores the dynamics of researcher–patient relationships in academic settings. Grounded in the boundary work literature and adopting a narrative filmmaking approach, it will analyse how boundaries between researchers and patients are negotiated in the university context. The study's primary contribution is the concept of ‘double involvement’, which illustrates how sustainable and meaningful relationships and interactions are based on the involvement of both the patient and the researcher. This double involvement is facilitated through researcher reflexivity and iterative discussions on both parties' roles and areas of expertise in health-related research. Our study enhances understanding of how reflexive practices are embedded, challenged, or sustained in organisations operating in ethically charged environments such as academic institutions.

Team creativity and team functioning have increasingly been the focus of organizational research in recent decades. From an innovation management perspective, creative teams are important because they serve as one of the social arenas in which innovation is fostered. Most studies on creative teams prioritize an individualistic approach, emphasizing normative generalizations about effective team behaviour and identifying requirements for creative teamwork. However, a socio-cultural approach highlights the social processes that shape creative teams and the emergence of team creativity as a social and interactional phenomenon. In addition to a brief overview of the individualistic approach, this entry presents a socio-cultural approach as an alternative way of understanding creative teams. The conceptual overview and discussion are followed by an application of the socio-cultural approach, focusing on the emergence of team creativity as a social and interactional phenomenon.

The entry examines the role of normative expectations in fostering innovation, which is conceptualized as a collaborative endeavour among industrial sectors, scientists and governments. These stakeholders establish policies designed to stimulate innovation, which may originate from self-interest or a desire to benefit society. Innovations are linked to a network of rights and duties, which may be referred to as ‘moral orders of innovation’ by applying the vocabulary used by social scientist Rom Harré. This entry presents a comprehensive account of moral orders and their relationship to innovation and proposes a moral-order-based approach to innovation management research. Furthermore, the chapter examines the recent prominence of science diplomacy and its conceptualization of science as a tool for societal advancement, offering insights into the impact of innovation on national and international practices.

This study examines the phases and dynamics of workplace bullying (WB) as a social positioning phenomenon within moral orders. Applying the positioning theory (PT) and the relational model of WB, the study analyses 136 written online stories of WB, utilizing narrative analysis of positioning in self-other relationships. The findings, limited to the perspective of the bullied (targets), identify four distinct storylines of WB that involve different forms of positioning: (1) the loss of health and ability to work, (2) passive acceptance of bullying, (3) unresolved conflict, and (4) active opponent in bullying. These findings shed light on the development and variations in WB storylines regarding the target, perpetrator, and work community, with a focus on the organizational and interpersonal power dynamics associated with WB. Furthermore, each WB storyline emphasizes the diverse strategies employed in response to WB and the various paths WB can follow over time.

This chapter examines the utilization of conversation analysis as a research methodology for Positioning Theory-oriented research. Despite being distinct forms of discursive psychology, conversation analysis and Positioning Theory share several key similarities. These include their focus on conversations as the primary social reality, the immanentist nature of social relations, the sequential nature of interpersonal interactions, and the study of interaction orders. These shared characteristics serve as the foundation for exploring the methodological potential of employing conversation analysis in Positioning Theory research. The chapter argues that conversation analysis provides methodological procedures for analyzing interpersonal positioning, constructing personal and social storylines, and establishing local normative orders in interaction. It begins with a brief overview of the history and development of conversation analysis, followed by an introduction to its key conceptual and theoretical underpinnings. A comparison of the main similarities and differences between conversation analysis and Positioning Theory is also presented. Additionally, the chapter discusses central methodological and analytical procedures employed in conversation analysis, accompanied by examples of existing research that utilizes conversation analysis data and Positioning Theory. The empirical examples specifically focus on institutional multiparty interactions within group settings.

This chapter draws attention to societal entrepreneurship in universities. More specifically, it explores how researchers give meaning to university–industry collaboration in the context of a neuroscience research community engaged in solving global health challenges. The intensive case study explores how the experiences of university–industry collaboration in this context are constructed around two key metaphors. The ‘together–apart’ metaphor illuminates the relational aspects of collaboration, such as researchers’ awareness of the positions, goals, and significance of communication, as well as the different interests of the collaborating parties. The ‘pace of change’ metaphor illustrates the temporality of collaboration, such as time needed and the unpredictable tempo of collaboration. This chapter demonstrates the potential of the societal entrepreneurship research approach when aiming to better understand university-industry collaboration that extends beyond commercial and competitive aspirations concerning entrepreneurial activities in universities.

This case study examines how top academic managers make sense of entrepreneurship at the university. Based on semiotic analysis, the findings outline three management narratives. The entrepreneurial narrative emphasizes management by experience, the humanistic narrative focuses on management by networks and the development narrative highlights management by vision. Unpacking the dynamics of each narrative, our analysis sheds light on the conflicted role of academic managers at a crossroads between traditional academia and entrepreneurial management. Research Questions/Objective: How top academic managers make sense of entrepreneurship at the university through narratives? Links to Theory: The conceptual and theoretical framework of this case study is built based on academic entrepreneurship and narrative theory. Phenomenon Studied: Academic entrepreneurship Case Context: Academic top managers of a Finnish multidisciplinary university Findings: The findings outline how top academic managers make sense of academic entrepreneurship through three management narratives. The entrepreneurial narrative centres around the idea of management by experience and emphasizes the manager’s own entrepreneurial experiences. The humanistic narrative centres around the idea of management by networks highlighting how the managers can guide and assist others who act as entrepreneurs. Finally, the development narrative centres around management by vision and focuses on the overall picture of the entrepreneurial university. Discussions: The case study implies that academic entrepreneurship (AE) is understood and conceptualized by the managers in multifaceted and sometimes contradictory ways. Representing the frontline of academic management and changes in Finnish universities, the top academic managers are confronted with tensions between the ideals of traditional academia and the contemporary entrepreneurial developments in universities. This study contributes to the field of academic management by highlighting the much-needed experience-based perspective of top academic managers in relation to AE.