What is this Project about?

This study investigates the meanings, beliefs, and rationale behind the concept of community in organizations.

Over the past years, we identified an increase in the word  community in organizational settings.

Our study, therefore, aims to explore questions such as how investors, entrepreneurs/founders, business leaders, managers, and employees view community, what they mean by community, why they find it increasingly important, and how they organize for the community, etc.

We are interested in hearing from different individuals with diverse backgrounds. So whether you are a tech investor/business angel, an entrepreneur, a business leader, a manager with or without team responsibilities, or an employee, as long as you are intrigued to talk about what community means to you - in the workplace or even in society at large, please consider participating in this study. 

At this point, we are mainly looking for individuals who live and work either in the San Francisco Bay Area  (USA) or Stockholm (Sweden). 

By following an inductive grounded theory approach, we hope to learn more about 

a) why organizing for community has increased in organizations, as well as

b) how organizing for community is done in today’s digital world. 

As any organization entity is fundamentally entangled with the cultural dynamics of the societies in which they emerge, exploring our cultural foundations is an essential piece of the puzzle in unveiling structural dynamics between organizations, markets, and societies.

The study design includes a cross-country comparison between North American and Swedish organizations, i.e., we want to explore two different economic models (US liberal capitalism vs. Swedish welfare state) to understand if and how varying institutional infrastructures impact our emphasis and our shared understanding of community for organizations and society.