Our
PhD Fellows
Our PhD scholars bring diverse perspectives and profound insights to the table, exploring entrepreneurship beyond conventional boundaries. Get ready to embark on a journey into their academic pursuits, aspirations, and the unique narratives that drive their passion for rethinking entrepreneurship.
Anders Bollmann
Anders Theis Bollmann is a PhD fellow at Copenhagen Business School. His project explores the complex relationship between entrepreneurialism and military and security thinking, practice, and policy. Anders is particularly interested in how entrepreneurialist ideologies and discourse (1) affect the way that defense and security political challenges are understood and addressed at a macro-level and (2) increasingly permeate into military organizations shaping not only military culture and professional identity but also the concrete thinking and practice of military actors and organizations at the mezzo-level.
Previously, Anders has worked as a research assistant at The Center for Military Studies at Copenhagen University and as a research consultant at the Royal Danish Defence College. There, his research primarily focused on the relationship between emerging (military) technologies, military practice and thinking, and defense policy. Anders has published several research articles and anthology chapters around issues ranging from the technopolitics of the Danish Defence to the dual ontology of war. Anders received his Master’s Degree in Philosophy & Science Studies and History from Roskilde University in 2017. He wrote his thesis on the ethics of irregular warfare/counterinsurgency as a collaboration between Roskilde University and the Royal Danish Defence College.
Lauren Eaton
Lauren Eaton is a PhD Fellow at the Department of Business Humanities and Law at Copenhagen Business School. Hailing from New Zealand, she holds a Master of Commerce in Management with Distinction and a Bachelor of Commerce in Human Resource Management and Commercial Law from Victoria University of Wellington.
Her academic background is firmly grounded in the business school, but she also incorporates a humanities perspective, drawing on a historical perspective to shed new light on contemporary issues. Her research leverages history as a lens to critically examine the present and to think creatively about the future, particularly in the areas of labour, organisation, and society.
Lauren is joining the Rethinking Entrepreneurship project supported by the Carlsberg Foundation. She aspires to generate a deeper understanding of the social discourse surrounding entrepreneurship by investigating the popularisation of entrepreneurship concepts from scholarly debates to popular discourse.
Alexander Elg
Alexander Elg is PhD Fellow at the Department of Business Humanities and Law at Copenhagen Business School. His PhD research will focus on the logics that govern European investment decisions, most notably within the framework of programmatic research funding. Using Entrepreneurialism as symptom of- and lens through which to view- contemporary capitalism, Alexander hopes to understand (1) the construction of European financial infrastructure and (2) how this infrastructure shapes state investment capabilities. While a political scientist by training, he approaches research from an interdisciplinary standpoint, borrowing from sociology, law, philosophy, economics, and history.
Alexander holds a BA (Cum Laude) and an MPP (Summa Cum Laude) from Sciences Po Paris, and his professional experience includes positions at Accenture, the European Commission, and the OECD. He is a recipient of the Swedish-French Association academic scholarship, and was selected as winner of the Humanities & Social Science Category of the Swedish 2023 Nova 111 Student List.
Nicolai C. Jepsen
Nicolai Jepsen is a PhD fellow at Copenhagen Business School. His project takes its point of departure in the Uberization of the service sector, following the Great Recession of 2008, which gave rise to the gig economy. Situated between micro-entrepreneurship and traditional temp work, the gig economy is a labor market characterized by algorithmically managed piecework mediated by online platforms. With phrases like “be your own boss” and “work when you decide” scrawled across recruitment posters, labor platforms evoke ideals of entrepreneurialism. However, while early proponents of platform work promised entrepreneurial opportunities for the masses through labor autonomy and flexibility, the reality appears less rosy.
Nicolai’s research aims to understand how leading actors within the gig economy mobilize and politicize the semantic field of entrepreneurship to attract gig workers and how this affects the self-narratives and work-life expectations of people engaged in gig work. Before starting his PhD, Nicolai received his master’s degree in Organizational Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Copenhagen Business School. He worked as a student assistant during his studies at the Department of Business Humanities and Law.
Research interests: Entrepreneurialism, platform capitalism, algorithmic management, gig economy, future of work.
Wanjun (Jim) Lei
After being a research assistant and student in Macau and Copenhagen, Jim successfully completed his degree in Business Administration and Philosophy at CBS. He wrote his master thesis under the supervision of Sverre Spoelstra and is now starting his PhD as part of the Rethinking Entrepreneurship in Society project at CBS.
Jim will work on entrepreneurial leadership using a critical and philosophical approach. He is interested in exploring the intersections of critical management and organization studies with a focus on entrepreneurship and leadership, French and German philosophy, social systems theory and cybernetics.
In the past he already presented his work on “Beyond Authenticity: Exploring the Empty Image of Leadership Through the Metaphor of Water in Daoist Philosophy” at the 21st International Studying Leadership Conference (ISLC). He also co-authored and published an article titled “For Cloud Ethics: Unpacking Ignorance in Algorithmic Decision-Making” in Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization. In his private time, Jim has volunteered to teach primary school children in Japan, the Philippines and Malaysia.
