Ongoing projects
Reliable knowledge for health care: process and practice of shared decision making (PROSHADE)
A consortium project between Tampere University, University of Eastern Finland, University of Oulu and Duodecim promotes cost-effective and high-quality health care based on reliable information and shared decision-making. Members from the Encounters team will carry out studies on infromation literacy as situated action in epilepsy consultations in face-to-face and video-mediated settings, intention to use digital technologies in healthcare, data mining of use patterns in different health platforms (e.g. OmaKanta) and participate in developing tools to support de-implementation of inappropriate practices in healthcare units and care decisions.
Duration: 2023-2026
Funding: Academy of Finland /Strategic Research Council
Intervening in trouble at work: Navigating power, threat, and delicacy in the shadows of social interaction ideals
This project examines intervention as a social phenomenon. Using interaction research approaches and other qualitative and quantitative methods, we explore cultural ideals related to intervention in workplaces, institutional processes of intervention, and the concrete interaction practices by which interventions are implemented. The project will provide insight into what types of problems are considered to require intervention, who is expected to intervene and when, how intervention occurs, and what its effects are. The results will be used to develop measures that promote social sustainability and inclusivity in workplaces.
Duration: 2025-2029
Funding: Academy of Finland
Talking Green Grassroot Democracy: Revisiting the anatomy of joint decision-making with and among young climate activists in Finland and Sweden
We investigate the anatomy of joint decision-making with and among young climate activists in Finland and Sweden. The case of young climate activists is considered as a testbed for how the democratic logic of joint decision-making may be combined with the urgency of activism – both in general, and specifically in the inherently dilemmatic climate and environmental issues. To tease apart the specific ways in which the practices of joint decision-making draw from the socio-cultural and linguistic contexts of interaction, we examine these interactions in both Finland and in Sweden. Using theories and methods from social psychology, applied languages studies, and intercultural communication, we examine data from both natural and experimental settings. We aim to: (1) unravel the (multimodal sequential) patterns of joint decision-making in Finland and Sweden and (2) to explore solutions to the discrepancies of stakes between the activists and policy makers. In these ways, we create new knowledge about the social-interactional mechanisms that foster or hinder joint decision-making in the inherently dilemmatic climate and environmental issues. Ultimately, we seek to identify those detailed interactional mechanisms that may foster and hinder the emergence of the genuinely democratic grassroot practices critical to the future of our society.
Duration: 2025 –
Funding: Kone Foundation
Completed projects
Healthcare Workers in the Eye of the Digital Turbulence: New Forms of Cooperation and Customer Orientation
Duration: 2017-2020
Funding: The Finnish Work Environment Fund
Web pape: https://projects.tuni.fi/digiterveys/about/
USUTE – SITOUTUAKO ROBOTTIIN? Uuden sukupolven teknologiat ja niiden hyväksyntä työpaikoilla
Uuden teknologian ja robottien tullessa palvelualoille USUTE-tutkimushankkeessa kysytään, miten muuttuvat työ ja työolosuhteet ja onko kehitys yhteiskunnallisesti hyväksyttyä. Tutkimme konkreettisesti, kuinka työolosuhteet ja alakohtaiset rakenteet sekä yksilölliset psykologiset perustarpeet ovat yhteydessä uuden teknologian hyväksyttävyyteen, ja mikä yhteys teknologisilla uudistuksilla on koettuun teknologisen työttömyyden uhkaan.
Kesto: 2019-2021
Rahoitus: Työsuojelurahasto sekä osarahoittajat Teknologiateollisuus, Teollisuusliitto, Julkisten ja hyvinvointialojen liitto (JHL) ja Suomen lähi- perushoitaliitto (Super)
Nettisivut: https://research.tuni.fi/wrc/usute/
Accounting for interactionally troublesome exchanges: Paradoxes, biases, and inequalities in storying, perceiving, and countering problematic social experiences
Social interaction is often about shared enjoyment and solidarity, but it is also a locus of troubling experiences of inequality, discrimination, and disempowerment. The possibility to account for such interactionally troublesome exchanges is key to counteracting their negative effects and to calling for social change. In this project, we investigate such accounts, hypothesizing that people’s possibilities to address the types of trouble that they encounter on a day-to-day basis are not equal. Drawing on a conversation-analytically informed understanding of the significance of minor details of interaction, insights from narrative theory, and a novel interdisciplinary combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, we investigate the production and reception of these accounts, the concerns of self portrayed in them, and the perceptions and explanations of interactional trouble by different people. The results of the project will inform interventions to support well-being at work.
Duration: 2021-2025
Funding: Academy of Finland