Koosi Turula
10 min
Playing with ideas Text Paula Haikarainen Photo Pekka Niittyvirta
Who are you? My name is Risto Rajala. I am an Assistant Professor and head the Service Engineering and Management research group in the area of Industrial Management at the School of Science. In addition, I chair our department’s Research Board. In my private life, I am an avid sports enthusiast, a collector of mechanical wrist watches and a father to two lovely kids. What do you research? The grand theme of my research is service transformation, which refers to how industrial operations are changing by adopting more and more servicebased strategies. One of the drivers of this transformation is digitalisation. My current research projects focus on the digitalisation of services in the ICT sector, the construction industry and in professional services. In addition, I am interested in studying the transformation from the perspective of institutional change in analysing the values, beliefs and schemes of reasoning related to service-based strategies in industrial management. How did you end up in this job? I’ve always wanted to do research. During my graduate studies, I had the opportunity to work at Nokia Research Centre’s software technology
laboratory and in the R&D department of Fujitsu Services. I now hold a PhD in information systems science and joined the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at the beginning of 2013. Prior to joining the faculty, I completed my postdoctoral phase, during which I visited the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark and coordinated research projects at the Aalto Service Factory in Finland. During my doctoral studies and postdoctoral research, I became fascinated with the opportunities and challenges digital services bring to industrial operations. My interest in this topic intensified during my stints as a Visiting Professor at Carleton University, Canada and Linköping University, Sweden. What makes your research group special? My research group has great connections with industrial firms, which allows us to study phenomena in real-life contexts. We mainly collect empirical data from large industrial organisations. One of our goals is to conduct highquality research papers. Also, we do our utmost to support the careers of the people who work or have worked for the research group. I therefore place a lot of effort in recruiting good team members and in ensuring their future
success. I do my best to encourage members of my research group as they take the next steps of their academic or industry careers after graduation. This has resulted in great collaboration with our alumni, both in the academic community and in business. What is most rewarding about your work? At its best, this work allows me to play with ideas. Of course, it always feels great to publish a research paper in a highly ranked journal. It shows that we made the right choices and systematic work during our research process. Presently, I have several intriguing articles in the pipeline for the leading journals of my research field. Working with a diverse body of co-authors is enjoyable, as is the ideation for new research, the discovery of novel findings and experiencing how the outcomes of a research project take shape. What drives you forward? Sufficient freedom of thought and having objectives to achieve are both important to me. I truly believe my most exciting research outcomes are yet to come. Beyond that, I consistently apply one of the Nobel Prize’s selection criteria to my own work – I strive to make observations that prove to be meaningful and significant not only to me, but to many others, too. AALTO UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE 16 \ 33