Skills, Creativity and Innovation in the Digital Platform Era: Analyzing the New Reality of Professions and Entrepreneurship

Skills, Creativity and Innovation in the Digital Platform Era: Analyzing the New Reality of Professions and Entrepreneurship brings together two important areas: the separate research topics of professions, platforms, and entrepreneurship, and the various dimensions of what platformization means to work and to professions in contemporary societies. One of the most noteworthy global aspects in current societies is the intensifying presence of technology, to the extent that we can talk about the omnipotence of technologies, a kind of technological imperative that prevails in societies. This new type of technological imperative emerges in the working lives of practicing professionals from medical doctors to lawyers and from teachers to preachers. Platforms have become a powerful actor as enablers and reorganizers of work, creating new types of inequalities but also expanding the market relations for new professions such as social influencers. How do platforms govern and shape work and lead to new questions concerning organizing of work and professions? These are few of the key questions Poutanen and Kovalainen explore in this profound and insightful book.

Seppo Poutanen is Senior Research Fellow and Docent of sociology at the University of Turku’s School of Economics, Finland. He is trained both in philosophy and sociology, and his areas of expertise include metaethics, social epistemology, social theory, sociology of science and technology, gender studies, methodology of social sciences, and economic sociology. He has also worked as faculty fellow at Harvard University, Stanford University, and London School of Economics and Political Science.

Anne Kovalainen is an economic sociologist by training and Professor at the University of Turku’s School of Economics, Finland. She is a member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters and the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters. She has also worked as faculty fellow at Harvard University, Stanford University, and London School of Economics and Political Science.