Anne Kovalainen

Areas of expertise

• economic sociology
• entrepreneurship
• new forms of work
• platforms
• qualitative research methods and methodology
• science and technology studies
• gender studies.

Anne Kovalainen is economic sociologist by training and works as Professor of Entrepreneurship and Business Knowhow at the Turku School of Economics, University of Turku. She is director of Business Finland ReGrow project at University of Turku. She led Academy of Finland Strategic Research Council consortium Smart Work in Platform Economy (SWiPE, 2016-2019). She acted as co-PI of Nordic Network on Care Crisis 2018-20. In 2018 she was invited as visiting scholar at Harvard University. She has also worked as faculty fellow at Stanford University School of Sciences and Humanities, at Massachusetts University, at London School of Economics and Political Science and University of Technology Sydney.

In 2021 she will be working at Paderborn University as visiting professor on Digital Society project, jointly with senior research fellow Seppo Poutanen and professor Lena Weber.

She has worked as Minna Canth Academy Professor, as Vice-Chair of Research Council for Culture and Society at Academy of Finland, and as Member of the Standing Committee for Social Sciences at the European Science Foundation (SCSS/ESF). In those roles, she has planned and executed research programmes at national and international levels. She serves international funding organizations. She has served as Board Member of Finnish Innovation Fund (SITRA), University of Turku Board, Finnish Academy of Science and Letters Board, and NORFACE (chair and board) and ESA Boards.

She is editorial board member of ISBJ and JGER journals, and editorial board member of American Sociological Association series RSW. Her recent books include co-edited book by Routledge 2020 (Poutanen, Kovalainen, Rouvinen: Digital Work and the Platform Economy), co-edited book by Emerald 2019 (Vallas, Kovalainen: Work and Labor in the Digital Age) co -authored book by Palgrave Macmillan on gender and innovations (2017), by Sage on qualitative methods (2016), and forthcoming book by Routledge (2021). Her research interests currently include transformations of economy and society, science and technology studies, platforms and new forms of work, gender studies; research methods at large and science policies, higher education included.

Research

Anne Kovalainen's research interests range currently from the contemporary work in the era of the platform economy, to the new forms of entrepreneurialism and to science and technology studies. Her research also covers topics of gender and economy, entrepreneurship and public sector, and qualitative research methods and innovations.