Thijs Willems Email Address

Postdoctoral Researcher

SUTD is established in collaboration with MIT to advance knowledge and nurture technically grounded leaders and innovators to serve societal needs. This will be accomplished, with a focus on Design, through an integrated multi-discplinary curriculum and multi-disciplinary research. Connect with us: Visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/sutdsingapore View live threads and 'tweet' with us at twitter.com/sutdsg Subscribe to our videos at www.youtube.com/SUTDSingapore

I have conducted ethnographic research on the Dutch railway system with a specific focus on inter-organizational collaboration during disruptions and breakdowns. I employ several different theoretical and philosophical perspectives to study how organizations of large-scale infrastructural systems deal with and manage complexity. Central to my work is the tension between the simplification of complexity on the one hand (i.e. standardization, measurement, etc.) and embracing complexity on the other hand (i.e. a practice-based perspective). I am interested in a broad range of work that studies the sociomaterial practices in technical (infrastructure) organizations and explorations of the link between management and organization studies and philosophy. Specialties: - Practices and practice theory - Inter-organizational collaboration - Ethnography and interpretive methodology - Management of complexity - Disruptions and breakdowns