Seppo Poutanen profile picture
Seppo
Poutanen
Senior Research Fellow, Turku Centre for Labour Studies (TCLS)
Docent, Sociology
Senior Research Fellow, Associate Professor (Docent)
I am affiliated with Turku Centre for Labour Studies (TCLS)

Contact

+358 29 450 2633
+358 40 723 8993
Rehtorinpellonkatu 3
20500
Turku

Areas of expertise

sociology of science
research policy and innovations
sociology of work and professions
economic sociology
sociology of health and illness
methodology of social sciences
social theory
social epistemology
metaethics

Biography

Seppo Poutanen is Senior Research Fellow and Docent of sociology (Associate Professor) at the University of Turku’s School of Economics, Finland. He is affiliated with Turku Centre for Labour Studies (TCLS). Poutanen has published in the areas of epistemology, sociology of health and illness, social theory, science and technology studies, gender studies and sociology of work & economy (e.g., in addition to several book chapters, in Social Epistemology, Critical Public Health, Journal of Critical Realism, Sociological Research Online, International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, Heliyon, Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies, Cogent Education, Journal of Access Services, Työelämän tutkimus). His main research projects in the recent years (with several colleagues) have dealt with gendered nature of innovation policies, and forms of work, professions and entrepreneurialism in the new digitalised platform economy. The results of these projects are summarised in three books:

Poutanen, S. & Kovalainen, A. (2017) Gender and Innovation in the New Economy - Women, Identity, and Creative Work. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Poutanen, S., Kovalainen, A. & Rouvinen, P. (eds.) (2020) Digital Work and the Platform Economy: Understanding Tasks, Skills and Capabilities in the New Era. New York & Abingdon: Routledge.

Poutanen, S. & Kovalainen, A. (2023) Skills, Creativity and Innovation in the Digital Platform Era: Analyzing the New Reality of Professions and Entrepreneurship. New York & Abingdon: Routledge.

Currently Poutanen is especially interested in how logics and practises of digital platformisation are taking different sectors of public government in Finland – potentially to the extent that a new form of social order can be seen to be emerging.     

Teaching

new forms of work and professions in platform economy, qualitative research methods of social sciences

Research

platform economy, digitalisation, gendered science

Publications

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