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Elena Raviola

Professor

The Design Unit
Telephone
+46 31-786 45 16
+46 766-18 45 16
Mail
elena.raviola@gu.se
Visiting address
Viktoriagatan 13, plan 3
41125 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 603
40530 Göteborg

About Elena Raviola

Since 2018, I work as Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Professor in Design Management and I lead the research centre Business and Design Lab, a long-term collaboration between the Academy of Art and Design and the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg. My main research interest lies in understanding the role of technology and other material artifacts in organizing and managing professional work, especially in cultural and creative fields. I am more specifically interested in how professional norms, rules, structures and ideas are enacted, changed and maintained, in practice and how technology intervenes in these professional practices, transforming over time what is considered professional. Theoretically, I have mainly worked between institutional theory and actor-network theory.

My main field of investigation has been news production. I have conducted a number of ethnographic studies in Italy, France and Sweden in established and new news organizations, all struggling with the establishment and development of so-called digital journalism. Most recently, I have been following two relatively new trends in journalism, namely entrepreneurial journalism and robotjournalism. Both enabled by digital technologies, they have been different responses to the so-much-debated crisis of journalism and news organizations.

I am also interested in the meeting between the arts and business both in academic and industrial practices. I have done research on artistic interventions, that is the use of art in business and other organizations. I have a deep interest for developing qualitative studies and academic writing and in particular by looking at art practices, such as choreography.

I have studied and worked internationally in different countries. I have been visiting researcher at Stanford, Bocconi University and Sciences Po. I have also worked at Jönköping International Business School and Copenhagen Business School before coming to the School of Business, Economics and Law in Gothenburg.

Research areas

  • Materiality and organizing, technology and professional work, creative work, managing professional work, institutional work, news production, qualitative methods

Teaching areas

  • Design in organizational contexts, Organization Theory, Ethnography, Qualitative Methods.

Selected publications

Palmer, H., Polk, M. and Raviola, E. (2025) The situatednessof dilemmas in boundary spaces: uncovering paradoxical conditions for increasingeffectiveness through transdisciplinary research approaches, Global Social Challenges Journal,4: 20–45.

Gasparin, M., Hjorth, D., & Raviola, E. (2025). Crafting Traditions and Speculative Imaginaries.Organization Studies, 46(4), 604-611.

Raviola, E. and Gasparin, M. (2024). With Latour in our hands: Discovering the politics oforganizing and the aesthetic matter of things. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management. Special issue in memory of Bruno Latour. Edited by Czarniawska, Cochoy and Corvellec.

Sabelfeld, Lana, Dumay, John, Jönsson, Sten, Corvellec, Hervé, Catasús, Bino, Solli, Rolf;Eriksson-Zetterquist, Ulla, Raviola, Elena, Quattrone, Paolo, Guthrie, James (in press). BarbaraCzarniawska (1948-2024): Reflections in Memory of Her Work and Life. Accounting, Auditing, Accountability Journal.

Cnosse, B., Crovini, C., Elias, S.R.S.T.A., Müller-Christensen, B. and Raviola E. (2024).Celebrating the 40th anniversary of SJM while looking ahead: Reflections from five womenAssociate Editors on their role and future directions for the journal". Scandinavian Journal of Management.

Raviola, E. (2024) In Memory of Barbara Czarniawska. Scandinavian Journal of Management.

Raviola, E., Gasparin M. and Hansson, H. (2024) Commoning through institutional aesthetics:Crafting frames, boundaries and reflections in practice. Ephemera: Theory & politics inorganization, 23(3), 251-277.

Pallas, J., Grünberg, J., Edlund, P., & Raviola, E. (2024). Producing and sustaining fieldconfiguringevents: the role of prizes in a Swedish Book Fair. Culture and Organization, 1-18.

Barbara, C., Raviola, E., da Silveira, R. A., & Tarim, E. (2023). Organising OutsideOrganizations–Part II. puntOorg International Journal, 8(2), 134-135.

Eneman, M., Ljungberg, J., Raviola, E., & Rolandsson, B. (2022) The sensitive nature of facialrecognition: Tensions between the Swedish police and regulatory authorities. Information Polity,1-14.

Raviola, E. (2022) Organizing Independence: Negotiations between Journalism and Business Management in News Organizations. Edward Elgar.

Pierazzini, M. E., Bertelli, L., & Raviola, E. (2021). Working with words: Italian feminism and organization studies. Gender, Work & Organization.

Langley, A., Lindberg, K., Mørk, B. E., Nicolini, D., Raviola, E., & Walter, L. (2019). Boundary work among groups, occupations, and organizations: From cartography to process. Academy of Management Annals, 13(2), 704-736.

Bringing Technology and Meaning into Institutional Work: Making News at an Italian Business NewspaperRaviola, Elena, Norbäck, MariaOrganization Studies, 34:8, s. 1171-1194, 2013