BIO:

Karin Berglund is a Professor of Business Administration specializing in sustainable enterprise at the School of Business, Örebro University. Her research focuses on entrepreneurship and innovation as key drivers of change in today’s society. She is particularly interested in alternative forms of entrepreneurship and innovation aimed at addressing complex societal challenges and enabling a sustainable transition—socially as well as environmentally. Adopting a sociological perspective, she explores the identities, practices, and relationships that can facilitate this transition and thereby foster new ways of thinking and acting for a more sustainable future  

Abstract:

In this seminar, the inventor of the information age—Grace Hopper—takes center stage. Hopper’s work in computing during World War II reveals not only how innovation emerges at the intersection of the U.S. entrepreneurial state, wartime geopolitics, and shifting gender roles, but also how social entrepreneurship became entangled with what was later framed as a groundbreaking technological innovation: the programming language.

By situating innovation within the field of critical innovation studies, Berglund presents insights from her study of Grace Hopper, published in Business History: “Social entrepreneurship from margin to centre: Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper’s contributions in transforming society through practices of opening up.” The seminar offers a critical perspective on how contemporary innovation discourse may, paradoxically, reinforce the status quo rather than address the societal challenges we face.