Seppo Poutanen is Senior Research Fellow and Docent of sociology (Associate Professor) at the University of Turku’s School of Economics, Finland. He is affiliated with Turku Centre for Labour Studies (TCLS). Poutanen has published in the areas of epistemology, sociology of health and illness, social theory, science and technology studies, gender studies and sociology of work & economy (e.g., in addition to several book chapters, in Social Epistemology, Critical Public Health, Journal of Critical Realism, Sociological Research Online, International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, Heliyon, Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies, Cogent Education, Journal of Access Services, Työelämän tutkimus). His main research projects in the recent years (with several colleagues) have dealt with gendered nature of innovation policies, and forms of work, professions and entrepreneurialism in the new digitalised platform economy. The results of these projects are summarised in three books:

Poutanen, S. & Kovalainen, A. (2017) Gender and Innovation in the New Economy - Women, Identity, and Creative Work. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Poutanen, S., Kovalainen, A. & Rouvinen, P. (eds.) (2020) Digital Work and the Platform Economy: Understanding Tasks, Skills and Capabilities in the New Era. New York & Abingdon: Routledge.

Poutanen, S. & Kovalainen, A. (2023) Skills, Creativity and Innovation in the Digital Platform Era: Analyzing the New Reality of Professions and Entrepreneurship. New York & Abingdon: Routledge.

Currently Poutanen is especially interested in how logics and practises of digital platformisation are taking different sectors of public government in Finland – potentially to the extent that a new form of social order can be seen to be emerging.