PhD Candidate
MPhil (University of Cambridge)
Year of entry: 2021
I’m a PhD Candidate in the Organisational Theory and Information Systems group, studying how organisations and communities establish alternative forms of organising at the fringes of society. My research is fully supported by the Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholarship and the Cambridge Trust International Scholarship (honorary).
Research topic
Making Heaven a Place on Earth: Utopianism and Organisation Studies
Research interests
Grand challenges; utopias; meaningful work; ethnography.
Pathway
Organisational Theory and Information Systems
Supervisor
Professor Thomas Roulet and Professor Jennifer Howard-Grenville
Biography
Our world is being rocked by grand challenges, be it climate change, wars, global pandemics, or poverty. For many of these challenges, there is no tech fix. They are systemically routed in how our societies are organised: climate change is linked to our obsession with economic growth, companies are not built to act responsibly, and capitalism thrives on inequality. Because of this, we need to fundamentally rethink how we live, labour, and love together.
Jonas Spengler’s research supports efforts at rethinking social life by studying how organisations and communities create ‘real utopias’ – ie how they establish alternative forms of organising at the fringes of society. Through ethnographically embedding with real utopias, he seeks to understand the challenges and solutions that one encounters when putting dreams into practice. His research is fully supported by the Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholarship and the Cambridge Trust International Scholarship (honorary).
Jonas holds a Master of Philosophy (Dist.) in Innovation, Strategy and Organisation from the University of Cambridge and a BA (Summa Cum Laude) in Liberal Arts & Sciences from University College Maastricht.
Prior to his PhD studies, Jonas worked as a management consultant for Metaplan GmbH where he facilitated organisational change in numerous organisations, from NGOs to multi-national corporations.
Publications and papers
- Howard-Grenville, J. and Spengler, J. (2022) “Surfing the grand challenges wave in management scholarship: how did we get here, where are we now, and what’s next?” Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 79: 279-295 (DOI: 10.1108/S0733-558X20220000079025)