Christina Jayne Colclough

PhD. (FAOS)
Mobile: +46 703 109 302

Christina was employed as a researcher at FAOS – Employment Relations Research Centre, Copenhagen from 2001 to 2007. In 2008 she became the Secretary General for NFU - Nordic Financial Unions – located in Stockholm, Sweden. NFU is the representative for approximately 160.000 members employed in the banking-, finance- and insurance sector in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Denmark. In 2012 Christina defended her PhD-thesis Building Social Capital – a joint venture between management and employees in a Danish MNC. She started writing her PhD when she was working at FAOS, and it is now completed and passed. From May to October 2013 Christina was the Secretary General for NFS - The Council of Nordic Trade Unions, wich consists of the 16 national trade union confederations of the Nordic Countries and it represents nearly nine million members.

Primary research areas:
Social capital as a strategic tool for management and employees. Consequences of the globalisation on the Danish labour market, and the effects of this on the labour market parties, the development of the bargaining system on both central and de-central level, and on the staff policies in multinational companies and the transfer of these policies abroad.

In her PhD-thesis, Christina has examined the diffusion on HR-policies and practices, by conducting qualitative interviews with employees and managers in the subsidiaries of a Danish multinational company in Poland, Russia and Denmark. It is especially the Danish managers’ formal and informal practices that have shown to be of great importance, as they unintentionally export an open Danish company culture and management style that is based on trust, collaboration, co-decision-making and kindness.

The study also shows, that the informal and formal practices in combination with a work-organisation that among other things rewards and appreciates co-worker initiatives, create a foundation for a high level of social capital within the company. The thesis therefore concludes that the multinational company, albeit unintentionally is developing social capital in all of the three subsidiaries. Social capital, in turn, increases the corporation’s learning and innovation potential.

Christina’s PhD concludes by developing an analytical model that can be used in future corporate social capital research.

Read more about Christina’s PhD defense

The PhD-thesis Building Social Capital can be purchased at Academic Books. The thesis is written in English.

Selected publications in English:

  • Colclough, C.J. (2012): Building Social Capital – A joint venture between management and employees in a Danish MNC, Ph-thesis, Institute of Sociology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
  • Colclough, C.J. (2005): What Makes Capitalisms and Corporate Strategies Differ? FAOS's research paper no. 65.
  • Colclough, C.J. (2005): The sectoral social dialogue - telecommunications in Transfer vol. 11, no. 3, pp 391-396, Bruxelles Autumn 2005.
  • Colclough, C.J & Michielsens, E (2004): Do Women Fit In? - The future IT labour market, Conference paper for Gender & ICT symposium, Brussels, 2004.