Stefan Einarsson
During my studies for a Master of Science in Business Administration at Stockholm School of Economics I started working in the Civil Society Research Program the Centre for Management and Organization at SSE as a research assistant in 2003. I am since 2005 a PhD Student in Business Administration at the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) with a planned defence of my thesis in the fall 2010.
The two main focal points of my research are (1) strategy and governance in coherent groups of organisations – you might even call them spheres of organisations - within Civil Society. The focus of this research is the vehicles of distinction and separation that decides which organisations are inside and what organisations are outside the sphere, as well as the mechanisms of integration that keeps this diverse set of organisations together into a coherent group or sphere of organisations. Of particular interest is when different logics, rationalities and organizational forms are mixed within the same coherent group of organizations; and (2) the significance of foundations in the wider society which involves the size, structure and development of the foundation sector but also issues of strategy and internal governance of foundations.
I am also currently working as the Swedish coordinator of The European Programme In Civil Society Leadership - EPICS which is a trans-European top executive programme. Another important assignment is as the secretary of the Association of Swedish Foundations (Stiftelser i Samverkan) - an association of foundations and individuals dedicated to creating a supportive legal and fiscal environment for foundations.
CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS
Strategic governance in coherent groups of social movement organizations (thesis project). Firmly rooted in the CSO governance project my thesis is about strategy and governance in coherent groups of organizations and the mechanisms of integration that keeps a group of social movement organizations together. The thesis is a longitudinal case study of the Swedish temperance movement from 1970-2009. The data for this thesis project is about 9,000 pages bills, motions, congress discussions, strategy documents and annual reports. These pages have been processed in an OCR program and analyzed with the help of the computer program NVivo. This data has also been complemented with 40 qualitative interviews which also have been analyzed with the help of Nvivo.
Strategy and governance in producer co-operatives. Complementary to my thesis project I am also studying the strategy and governance within agricultural producers' co-operatives.
Grant making strategies in foundations. I am currently working on a project which aims at exploring the grantmaking processes and strategies among Swedish, US and Austrian foundations. We are aiming at creating a tentative typology on how grantmaking strategies evolve over time in different Nonprofit regimes.
Publications
Einarsson, S. (2011) "The Revitalization of a Popular Movement. Case Study Research from Sweden" Voluntas Vol 22, No 4, pp 658-681.
Einarsson, S. (2011) "Culture transformed from organizational goal to organizational tool - longitudinal case study of a civil society organization" in Nordic Civil Society at a Cross-Roads. Transforming the Popular Movement Tradition, Wijkström, F. & Zimmer, A., Nomos
Einarsson, S., McGinnis, J. & Schneider, H. (2011) "Minor adjustments or minor changes. Explaining grantmaking strategies across three countries" Arnova, Toronto, Canada, November 17-19, 2011
Einarsson, S., McGinnis, J. & Schneider, H. (2011) "Exploring the talk action gap: A qualitative investigation of foundation practises across three regime types" Terzo Workshop Sulle Fondazioni, Centro di Richerce Sulla Cooperazione e sul Nonprofit (CRC) dell'Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano, March 28th 2011
