Hanna Hellgren

I am a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Business Administration and Textile Management. My research and teaching focus on different aspects of organizing and management, with particular emphasis on the public sector and collaboration as a mode of governance. In recent years, my research has primarily examined collaborative arrangements for labour market integration of different target groups, as well as organizing and governance within early childhood education.
In the ongoing project Collaboration for a Second Chance, I work with colleagues to study a labour market initiative in the City of Borås, analysing how close inter-agency collaboration between the Labour Market Department, Social Services, the Swedish Public Employment Service, and the Swedish Prison and Probation Service takes shape as cross-sectoral welfare governance, where labour market integration is employed as a crime prevention strategy.

I received my PhD from the School of Public Administration at the University of Gothenburg. My dissertation, A Story of (Getting to) Remain: A Study of Creating Space for Collaborative Assignments in the Public Sector, examines the establishment of collaboration to support labour market integration of foreign-born individuals. The study demonstrates how the collaborative initiatives examined became established in varying ways as enduring parts of the public sector—both as organizational arrangements and as spaces filled with practices, concepts, and values mobilized to address specific issues. At the same time, the findings show that what remains does not necessarily persist in its original form, idea, or with unchanged objectives, but is shaped through interpretations and adaptations during the process of organizing. The dissertation thus highlights the dynamic interplay of ambitions and relationships that shape and are shaped by collaborative practices, and how actors’ actions can result in enduring spaces—both in the form of organizations and beyond conventional notions of organization and structure.

My teaching centres on organizing and management at the undergraduate, one-year master’s, and master’s levels, and I supervise theses at the undergraduate and master’s levels. For several years, I have also been involved in teaching within the Swedish Institute Academy for Young Professionals (SAYP), funded by the Swedish Institute. The programme included thematic modules on Migration and Integration: Challenges and Good Practices for the Development of Inclusive Societies, organized by the School of Public Administration at the University of Gothenburg in collaboration with the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA).
I am also a member of the external research group Organizing Integration at the School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg.

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Researcher's publications in DiVA (Digitala Vetenskapliga Arkivet)