With a focus on social dialogue, workplace democracy, discrimination, inclusion, competence and welfare, our research group investigates how technological, regulatory, political, and societal forces are reshaping Norwegian and international working life. We are an interdisciplinary research group with brakgrounds in sociology, social anthropology, human geography, criminology, leadership and management, social work and history, and we use qualitative, quantitative and action research methods.
Our research projects span from fundamental research, commissioned research, to action-oriented research, and we continue to build every day on the research and experiences gained over the past 60 years of AFIs existence. Our funders include The Research Council of Norway, Norwegian ministries, public sector bodies and agencies, trade unions, interest and non-profit organizations, and private sector organizations.
This research group belongs to The Work Research Institute.
Head of research group
Our Core Research Topics
- Industrial relations and power in the workplace, corporate governance, social dialogue, co-determination and participation, tripartite collaboration, collaboration between employers and employees at the company level, trade unions and the labour movement, working conditions, working environment and health and safety, employee representatives on company boards.
- New Public Management (NPM), New Public Governance (NPG), and other governance and management models; organizational cultures and transformation, institutional logics and institutional change; standardization, discretion and learning organizations.
- Regulation, compliance, and governance and the politics of space; governance practices across geographical spaces, places, and scales, as well as institutions and organizations, encompassing practical compliance and frontline policy implementation.
- Labour market regulation, standard and non-standard working arrangements, part-time and platform work, under-employement, salary and working relations and their respective histories; flexibilization, home office, work-life balance, work-life and work-family conflict, working time arrangements, shift labour and health; labour migration.
- Democracy, freedom of speech and whistleblowing (not only) in the context of work; organizational management of conflict and of critical utterances; the role of trade unions in workplace democracy and conflict management.
- (Anti-)discrimination and diversity in working life and labour market connected to ethicity, gender, age, disability, security concerns; workplace perceptions of older workers, retirement age and senior politics; masculinity, gender relations, gender balance and equality across professions; sexual harassment.
- Digitalization, artificial intelligence (AI), algorithmic management and algorithmic governance in the context of work; welfare services and (digital) innovation in the welfare state.
- Regulation of professions, education and vocational training; education, training, competence, career choices, vocational training, and motivation in the context of (transition to) working life and in relation to wages, education-occupation mismatch.
- Regulation, management and leadership strategies and their implementation in relation to sickness absence and return-to-work; supported employment (SE), evidence-based activation work and workplace inclusion; neither in employment, education, nor training (NEET).
- Outsourcing and the role of staffing agencies, privatization of welfare and services, including the privatization of security and intelligence.
- Security management, new intelligence practices, and the securitization of working life; workplace investigations and fact-finding investigations; personnel security, insider threat, security clearances and background checks.
- Essential critical infrastructure workforce and critical occupations in the context of societal security and national security; employees from the perspective of total defence and total preparedness.
Members
Recent Scientific Publications
Støren-Vaczy, Blanka ; Bakkeli, Vidar (2024). Implementing the Place-Train Approach in Train-Place Services: Organizational Culture and Supported Employment. Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies (tidsskrift.dk).
Ingelsrud, Mari Holm ; Dahl, Elin Moen (2024). Changing Intention to Participate in Adult Education and Training in Norway: Compositional and Motivational Factors. Adult Education Quarterly (sagepub.com).
Drange, Ida ; Bakkeli, Nan Zou (2025). Payment problems through a social class lens. Acta Sociologica (sagepub.com).
Bakkeli, Nan Zou ; Drange, Ida (2024). Relationship between payment problems and health: A nation-wide register study in Norway. Sociology of Health and Illness (wiley.com).
Bernstrøm, Vilde Hoff ; Ingelsrud, Mari Holm ; Nilsen, Wendy (2025). The consequences of after-hours work: a fixed-effect study of burnout, pain, detachment and work–home conflict among Norwegian workers. 9 s. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health. Vol. 51 (sjweh.fi).
Ingelsrud, Mari Holm ; Dahl, Elin Moen (2024). Changing Intention to Participate in Adult Education and Training in Norway: Compositional and Motivational Factors. Adult Education Quarterly (sagepub.com).
Kuldova, Tereza Østbø ; Gundhus, Helene Ingebrigtsen; Wathne, Christin Thea (2024). Introduction to volume 1: Algorithmic governance, policing and intelligence in the Global Big Data Era (springer.com). Kuldova, Tereza Østbø; Gundhus, Helene Ingebrigtsen; Wathne, Christin Thea (Red.). Policing and Intelligence in the Global Big Data Era, Volume I: New Global Perspectives on Algorithmic Governance. s. 1-25. Palgrave Macmillan.
Gundhus, Helene Ingebrigtsen; Wathne, Christin Thea ; Kuldova, Tereza Østbø (2024). Introduction to Volume II: Interrogating Cultures of Policing and Intelligence in the Big Data Era (springer.com). Kuldova, Tereza Østbø; Gundhus, Helene Ingebrigtsen; Wathne, Christin Thea (Red.). Policing and Intelligence in the Global Big Data Era, Volume II: New Global Perspectives on the Politics and Ethics of Knowledge. s. 1-24. Palgrave Macmillan.
Spjelkavik, Øystein ; Enehaug, Heidi ; Klethagen, Pål; TERJESEN, Hans Christoffer Aargaard ; Howe, Emilie Isager; Fure, Silje Christine Reistad; Løvstad, Marianne; Andelic, Nada (2023). Workplace accommodation in return to work after mild traumatic brain injury. 14 s. Work : A journal of Prevention, Assesment and rehabilitation. Vol. 74 (sagepub.com).
McDowall, William; Underthun, Anders (2025). Advertising restrictions and sustainability transitions: does banning advertising of harmful products induce innovation in benign alternatives. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions (sciencedirect.com).
Gundhus, Helene Ingebrigtsen; Skjevrak, Pernille Erichsen ; Wathne, Christin Thea (2025). Negotiating digital traces. The epistemic power of recorded police data. Nordic Journal of Science and Technology Studies. Vol. 13 (ntnu.no).
