Meet our new associate professor, Birke Dorothea Otto

A short intro: Who are you, and what’s your professional background?
I am a cultural sociologist by training (in German: Kulturwissenschaftlerin), but since my studies, I have mostly worked at business schools in different countries, including Essex Business School in the UK, the School of Business and Economics at the Free University in Berlin, and CBS in Denmark. At these places, I could study business and organisation from a social science perspective and developed my research specifically to explore how creativity and innovation “happens” – that is, as a social, cultural and material process and activity. I do this by following and observing innovators over longer periods of time. For example, in one study, I explore how innovators interpret and respond to failure as something that is quite common and integral to the innovation journey. I study such questions in a variety of organisational contexts, such as online innovation communities, scientific laboratories and the healthcare industry.

I have also always been concerned with how businesses and organisations can be a part of achieving sustainable social change, and I am therefore very engaged in teaching students about the potential of social innovation and new or alternative forms of organisation. I try to turn these values into practice by being a committed member of the editorial collective of the independent, open-access journal ephemera. Theory and Politics of Organization.

Why did you choose to work at BTECH?
I was drawn to BTECH’s interdisciplinary and applied working environment, which I found very unique. I believe and know from experience that novel, original and relevant research often emerges through encounters between people and organisations with different ways of thinking and doing things – and who thereby find ways to communicate or even collaborate with each other. I appreciate the openness that often goes hand in hand with such interdisciplinary work environments. From what I’ve seen so far, BTECH seems to accommodate this openness in a very friendly and supportive community at AU Herning.

Would you like to share a bit about yourself, your family and your hobbies?
I have been living in Denmark for many years now and even have two (half-) Danish children. And yet, I still find myself constantly surprised, curious and eager to explore more of what it means to live in this wonderful Scandinavian country.