Anna Tyllström

I am organizational theorist doing research about lobbying, corporate influence on politics, political consulting, corporate networks, and the construction of expertise.

Much of my work to date has focused on the emergence of the Swedish market for public relations consulting. In my PhD thesis, I particularly examined the linguistic processes of market legitimation and illegitimation, and the close links between public relations and politics. I have also conducted ethnographic field studies of lobbying, and interviewed politicians on their perceptions, and use, of lobbying.

In my current research, I am studying how social networks, so influential in the corporate world, are formed and entertained in high-ranked business educational programs. I also hold an empirical interest in how formation of expertise works through opinion-building on social media.

I teach broadly on topics like organizational analysis, qualitative methods, academic writing, and societal consequences of consulting.

My current research is financed by the Swedish Research Council (VR), Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ), Handelsbanken's Research Foundations and The Crafoord Foundation. I am a previous Wallander Postdoctoral Scholar and an Arnberg Prize laureate. I have been a guest researcher at University of Alberta, Canada, Northwestern University, USA, and Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, and I am also affiliated to the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm.

On a regular basis, I write columns in Universitetsläraren, the magazine of the Swedish Association of University Teachers.

Areas of expertise: Organization theory, Institutional theory, Social Construction of Markets, Illegitimate markets, Market Categorization, Public Relations, Corporate-Political Interaction, Semiotics, Qualitative Social Network Analysis