This week we spent two focused and inspiring days at Krusenberg Herrgård, just outside Uppsala, working together on the final steps of the AROA project, funded by AFA försälring. Krusenberg, with its calm surroundings and views over Lake Mälaren, offered an ideal setting for concentrated work, reflection, and discussion.
The environment clearly did its job. Several of us kept working well into the night, some until 01.00, others until 03.00, driven not by deadlines but by an overload of ideas, discussions, and theoretical connections that we simply did not want to interrupt.
The workshop focused on the last phase of AROA: synthesising empirical findings and theory into the project’s final theoretical framework. AROA explores how AI, automation, and robotics at work influence work engagement and socio-technical work dynamics. The project takes a human-centred and socio-technical perspective, aiming to develop a framework that can help identify opportunities for work engagement in AI-supported workplaces. Our discussions revolved around aligning concepts from work engagement research, sociotechnical systems theory, and empirical insights from multiple sectors into a coherent whole.
Participants in the workshop were Maria Normark, Jessica Lindblom, Andreas Bergqvist, and Åsa Cajander.
Alongside long work sessions, there was also time for shared fika, informal conversations, and moments of pause – important ingredients when ideas are being shaped and reshaped.
The Krusenberg days marked a milestone for AROA, and we now move forward with a clear sense that the pieces of the framework are coming together.