Publications - Dr Tuukka Toivonen, University College London & Creative Friction Ltd
*Updated on April 3rd, 2019
Below you’ll find most of my publications and links to their online versions. The most important of these can be found under the ‘Creativity, entrepreneurship, future of work: Recent outputs’ heading. The majority of my recent work is linked, in one way or another, to an ESRC Transformative Grant Project I led in 2016-2018 on the creative journeys and pivotal interactions of London-based digital entrepreneurs (sadly it’ll take another year or two for the most in-depth core papers to come out in top organisation science journals, as publication cycles in this field are looooong). Please email me if you’d like electronic copies of any of my published articles. Enjoy!
Latest co-authored expert reports (available for free online)
Toivonen, Tuukka. From Innovative Workspaces to the City as an Incubator. London: UCL STEaPP & UCL Business, 2019.
Toivonen, Tuukka, and Carsten Sorensen. The Creative Process in Coworking and Collaborative Work. London: Creative Friction, 2018.
Toivonen, Tuukka, Emma Nordbäck, and Ville Takala. Sparking Social Innovation: Evidence on Teams, Ideas and Incubation from Finland (An Evaluation Study of the National ‘Ratkaisu 100’ Challenge Prize Competition by SITRA). Helsinki: SITRA, 2018.
Creativity, entrepreneurship, future of work: Recent outputs
Alharthi, Ghadah W., & Toivonen, Tuukka. 2023. Saudi Female Social Entrepreneurs. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 21. Spring 2023.
Toivonen, T., Idoko, O., Jha, H. K., & Harvey, S. 2022. Creative jolts: Exploring how entrepreneurs let go of ideas during creative revision. Academy of Management Journal, April 2022. https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amj.2020.1054.
Toivonen, Tuukka, Onya Idoko, Harsh Jha, and Sarah Harvey. “Creative jolts: Responses to Existentially Threatening Feedback along the Journeys of Early-Stage Entrepreneurs” Presented at the 2019 meeting of the Academy of Management (the world’s leading organisation and management science conferece); selected for the AOM 2019 Best Paper Proceedings.
Toivonen, Tuukka. ‘When Work Becomes a Creative Journey: On the Future of Innovation in the Age of the Personal Idea Journey’. Innovation: Organization & Management.Under review.
Takala, V., Nieminen, K., Toivonen, T., & Pulkkinen, R. (2019). Can prizes enact genuine social change? UCL IIPP Blog (UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose). 6 March 2019. Impact article.
Toivonen, Tuukka. ’A multivitamin for the future of work? Rethinking the value of coworking for digital creatives’. The RSA Future of Work Blog, 7 Nov 2018. Impact article.
Toivonen, Tuukka, and Carsten Sorensen. 2018. The Creative Process in Coworking and Collaborative Work. London: Creative Friction. Expert report.
Toivonen, Tuukka, and Carsten Sorensen. ’Why the coworking industry must take creativity seriously’. LSE Business Review, 7 June 2018. Impact article.
Gryszkiewicz, Lidia, Tuukka Toivonen, and Ioanna Lykourentzou. ‘Innovation Labs: 10 Defining Features’. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2 Nov 2016.
Toivonen, T. (2016). What is the social innovation community? Conceptualizing an emergent collaborative organization. Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, 7(1), 49–73.
Gryszkiewicz, L., Lykourentzou, I., & Toivonen, T. (2016). Innovation labs: Leveraging openness for radical innovation? Journal of Innovation Management, 4(4), 68–97.
Toivonen, Tuukka, and Nicolas Friederici. 2015. ‘Time to Define What a “hub” Really Is’. Stanford Social Innovation Review, Online article (April 2015).
Toivonen, Tuukka. 2014. ‘Success of Angry Birds Reflects Growth of Young Entrepreneurship in Finland’. Guardian Sustainable Business8 September 2014.
Toivonen, Tuukka. 2013. Japan’s Emerging Youth Policy: Getting Young Adults Back to Work. Abingdon: Routledge. Full research monograph.
Toivonen, Tuukka, Vinai Norasakkunkit, and Yukiko Uchida. 2011. ‘Unable to Conform, Unwilling to Rebel? Youth, Culture, and Motivation in Globalizing Japan’. Frontiers in Psychology 2. *Reached the status of the most frequently read paper in Frontiers in Psychology.
All grant-funded projects, books, journal articles, impact articles, book chapters and presentations (somewhat out of date)
List of grant-funded research projects
•SITRA’s Ratkaisu 100: An Evaluation Study of a Landmark Social Innovation Competition in Finland (approx. £50,000in total funding). Role: Principal Investigator. Funded through Sitra.
•Networked Creativity in London’s Hubscape: Digital Entrepreneurs in Search of Value and Systemic Change (£250,000). Role: Principal Investigator. Funded through a competitive ESRC Transformative Research Grant; 5/2016-1/2018
•Collaborative Changemaking: The Oxford Social Innovation Communities Project (£17,500). Role: Principal Investigator. Funded through starting grants from the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and the John Fell Fund; 4/2012-7/2013
•Social Entrepreneurship in Japan: How Do Young Adults Become Social Entrepreneurs? (£35,000). Role: Principal Investigator. Funded externally by the Japan Foundation; 6/2011-5/2012
•Explaining Youth Activation in 21st Century Japan (£45,000). Role: Principal Investigator. Funded through a three-year PhD scholarship from the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, Finland; 10/2006-9/2009
•Is Japanese Family Policy Turning Nordic? (£4,500). Role: Principal Investigator. Finnish Cultural Foundation Grant to support MSc dissertation research; 3/2006-8/2006
Conference papers
Toivonen, Tuukka, Onya Idoko, Harsh Jha, and Sarah Harvey. “When Unexpected Feedback Threatens Your Very Existence: ‘Creative Jolts’ along the Idea Journeys of New Entrepreneurs.”Presented at the 34th EGOS Colloquium in Tallinn, Estonia, July 5-7, 2018, 2018.
Idoko, Onya, and Tuukka Toivonen. “Unpacking the Dynamics of Creative Influence along Entrepreneurial Idea Journeys: Beyond Idea Generation and Feedback Interactions.” Presented at the 10th International Process Symposium (PROS) in Halkidiki, Greece, 20-23 June 2018.
Toivonen, Tuukka, Ville Takala, and Emma Nordback. “Can Social Innovation Competitions Produce Transformative Solutions to Grand Challenges? The Case of Sitra’s ‘Ratkaisu 100’.” Presented at the Entrepreneurship as Social Change Conference at Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland, 28-29 June 2018.
Toivonen, Tuukka, Ville Takala, and Emma Nordback. “Who Benefits from Innovation Competitions and Incubation Programmes? The Role of Team Characteristics & Orientations in a Nordic National Innovation Competition.” Presented to Sitra (the innovation contest organiser and research funder) in Helsinki, Finland on 28 March 2018.
Books and special issues
Toivonen, Tuukka (2013). Japan’s Emerging Youth Policy: Getting Young Adults Back to Work. Abingdon: Routledge.
Furuichi, Noritoshi & Toivonen, Tuukka, eds. (2015). Kokka ga Yomigaeru Toki: Motarazaru Kuni de aru Finrando ga Nandomo Saisei Dekita Riyuu (When Nations Revive: Why Finland Has Been Able to Reinvent Itself Time After Time). Tokyo: Magazine House. Available in Japanese.
Goodman, Roger, Imoto, Yuki & Toivonen, Tuukka, eds. (2012). A Sociology of Japanese Youth: From Returnees to NEETs. Abingdon: Routledge. Available in English and Japanese.
Norasakkunkit, Vinai, Uchida, Yukiko & Toivonen Tuukka, eds. (2015). ‘Cultural change: Adapting to it, coping with it, resisting it, and driving it’. Frontiers in Cultural Psychology(a peer-reviewed open access collection of 11 scientific articles). Over 127,000 views received to date
Journal articles
Lassiter, Charles, Vinai Norasakkunkit, Benjamin Shuman, and Tuukka Toivonen. “Diversity and Resistance to Change: Macro Conditions for Marginalization in Post-Industrial Societies.” Frontiers in Psychology9 (June 1, 2018). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00812.
Gryszkiewicz, Lidia, Ioanna Lykourentzou, and Tuukka Toivonen. ‘Innovation Labs: Leveraging Openness for Radical Innovation?’ Journal of Innovation Management (open access)4, no. 4 (2017): 68–97.
Toivonen, Tuukka. ‘What Is the Social Innovation Community? Conceptualizing an Emergent Collaborative Organization’. Journal of Social Entrepreneurship7, no. 1 (2016): 49–73. doi:10.1080/19420676.2014.997779.
Toivonen, Tuukka & Imoto, Yuki (2013). ‘Transcending labels and panics: the logic of Japanese youth problems’, Contemporary Japan Journal of the German Institute for Japanese Studies Tokyo, 25 (1): 61-86.
Norasakkunkit, Vinai, Uchida, Yukiko & Toivonen, Tuukka (2012). ‘Caught between culture, society, and globalization: Youth marginalization in post-industrial Japan’, Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6(5): 361-378.
Toivonen, Tuukka (2012). ‘“Don’t let your child become a NEET!”: The strategic foundations of a Japanese youth scare’, Japan Forum, 23(3): 407–429. Awarded ’Paper of the Year’ Prize
Seeleib-Kaiser, Martin & Toivonen, Tuukka (2011). ‘Between reforms and birth rates: Germany, Japan and family policy discourse’, Social Politics, 18 (3): 331-360.
Toivonen, Tuukka, Norasakkunkit, Vinai & Uchida, Yukiko (2011). ‘Unable to conform, unwilling to rebel? Youth, globalization and motivation in Japan’, Frontiers in Cultural Psychology, 2 (article 207/open access). Recognised as the most frequently accessed paper in this journal
Toivonen, Tuukka (2011). ‘Japanese youth after the triple disaster: How entrepreneurial students are overcoming barriers to volunteering and changing Japan’, Harvard Asian Quarterly, 8 (4): 53-62.
Miller, Aaron & Toivonen, Tuukka (2010). ‘To discipline or accommodate? On the rehabilitation of Japanese ‘problem youth’, The Asia-Pacific Journal, 22-6-10.
Public impact publications (short articles)
Gryszkiewicz, Lidia, Tuukka Toivonen, and Ioanna Lykourentzou. ‘Innovation Labs: 10 Defining Features’. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2 Nov 2016. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/innovation_labs_10_defining_features.
Toivonen, Tuukka (2015). ‘Showcasing a contested future: musings on Nesta’s FutureFest 2015’, UCL Institute for Global Prosperity blog, 21 April 2015.
Toivonen, Tuukka and Friederici, Nicolas (2015). 'Time to define what a “hub” really is', Stanford Social Innovation Review, 7 April 2015.
Toivonen, Tuukka (2014) ‘Success of Angry Birds reflects growth of young entrepreneurship in Finland’, Guardian Sustainable Business, 8 September 2014.
Toivonen, Tuukka & Furuichi, Noritoshi (2012). ‘”Shizuka na henkakusha” ga shakai wo kaeru: Nihon to Oubei no “wakamono mondai” no kyoutsuuten to sai’ (‘“Quiet Mavericks” the Ones to Change Society: Comparing Youth Problems in Japan and Western Countries’). The KOTOBA Magazine, Summer 2012.
Toivonen, Tuukka (2011). ‘Japanese youth after 3.11: From underdogs to change-makers?’, Wochi Kochionline magazine (Japan Foundation).
Academic presentations (to be updated)
Tuukka Toivonen, Onya Idoko, and Sarah Harvey. ‘In Search of the Creative Conversations That Matter: Person-to-Person Interactions and Business Model Development’. Presented at an AMJ Paper Development Workshop on New Ways of Seeing, Lancaster University Business School, 7 April 2017.
Tuukka Toivonen, and Onya Idoko. ‘Networked Creativity: An Organisational Inquiry into Creative Interactions among Entrepreneurs at London-Based Coworking Spaces’. Presented at ESCAPES: The Entrepreneurial Spaces and Collectives Research Group Bi-Annual Meeting, Green Templeton College, University of Oxford, 28 March 2017.
Tuukka Toivonen. ‘Coworking Spaces: A Connective Infrastructure for Very Long Lives?’ Presented at Hubs and the Future of Coworking (original NetCreate impact workshop), Impact Hub Islington, London, 27 March 2017.
Tuukka Toivonen. ‘Networked Creativity: An Organisational Inquiry into Creative Interactions among Entrepreneurs at London-Based Coworking Space’. Presented at School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), Departmental Seminar Series, 8 March 2017.
Tuukka Toivonen. ‘Networked Creativity: A Longitudinal Approach to Tracing Ideas & Interactions through the Hubscape’. Presented at the Coworking Dynamics and the City Workshop at CAMEo (Cultural and Media Economies Research Institute), Leicester University, 1 March 2017.
Tuukka Toivonen. ‘My Path to Sustainable Global Prosperity and Business Modeling’. Presented at Member Show and Tell, Work.Life London Fields, London, 28 February 2017.
Tuukka Toivonen. ‘Sustainable Global Prosperity & Business Models’. Presented at the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity/Centre for Enterprise and Economic Development Research Seminar, Middlesex University, London, 25 January 2017.
Tuukka Toivonen, and Onya Idoko. ‘Collaborative Spaces & Creativity: An Object-Centric Approach to Tracing Ideas & Interactions through the Hubscape’. Presented at Research Group for Collaborative Spaces (RGCS) Annual Conference, Paris, 16 December 2016.
A selection of invited presentations (pre-2016)
‘Hubs & labs: Sociological approaches to researching entrepreneurial spaces and collectivities’, Research Group on Collaborative Spaces (RGCS), King’s College, London University,23 October 2015.
‘Researching the collective creativity of social entrepreneurs in London’s “hubscape”’, Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship (Skoll Grant Recipients’ Network), Said Business School, University of Oxford, 25 September 2015.
‘Researching the entrepreneurial economy: New questions and networks’, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (ITIS), Luxembourg, 6 May 2015.
‘The rise of the innovation lab: Reprogramming the economy around “grand challenges”’, Urban Connections Research Consultation, UCL STEaPP City Leadership Initiative, UCL, 20 March 2015.
‘Developing social innovation-focused research agendas in organisational science: Hub Organisations and other emerging themes’, Graduate School of Management, Kyoto University, Japan, 22 December 2014.
‘Social innovation, collaborative communities & distributed knowledge’, Department of Industrial Engineering & Management, Aalto University, Finland, 12 May 2014.
‘Social entrepreneurship in Japan: The construction of a new work/lifestyle for youth?’, Europe Japan Research Centre (EJRC) Seminar Series, Oxford Brookes University, 5 February 2014.
‘Digital bricolage for social innovation: How Japan's entrepreneurial community-builders work across the online/offline boundary (early findings)’, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford,27 November 2013.
‘Youth entrepreneurship in Japan and the UK: New hope for desperate societies?’ (speaker & chair), Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, London, 17 October 2013.
‘Why Japan's "agile youth" will lead social innovation in East Asia: New possibilities & outstanding challenges’, DIJ (German Institute for Japanese Studies) Social Science Study Group, Tokyo, Japan, 30 May 2012.
‘Getting youth back to work in post-industrial Japan: Symbolic activation and its perils’, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of Zurich, Switzerland, 22 September 2011.
Working papers, book chapters, dissertations and other articles
Kapturkiewicz, Agata & Toivonen, Tuukka (2018). ‘New Pathways to Economic Participation? Youth, Labour Policy and Entrepreneurship in Japan’. In Education in Japan in a Global Age: Sociological Reflections and Future Directions, edited by JSES. Tokyo: Japan Society of Educational Sociology.
Friederici, Nicolas, Toivonen, Tuukka, Graham, Mark & Ventresca, Marc (2015). ‘The Hub Organization: Fluid boundaries as enablers of collaboration between diverse independent knowledge workers.’ A working paper presented at the European Theory Development Workshop at Cardiff University, 26 June 2015 (available online).
Gryszkiewicz, Lidia and Lykourentzou, Ioanna and Toivonen, Tuukka (2015). ‘Innovation labs: Leveraging openness for radical Innovation?’. SSRN Working Paper.
Toivonen, Tuukka (2013). ‘Youth for 3.11 and the challenge of dispatching young urban volunteers to northeastern Japan’. In: Gill, Tom, Steger, Brigitte & Slater, David (eds.),Japan Copes with Calamity: Ethnographies of the Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disasters of March 2011. Bern: Peter Lang.
Furuichi, Noritoshi, Toivonen, Tuukka, Terachi, Mikito & Ogawa, Tomu (2012). ‘Japanese youth: An interactive dialogue: Towards comparative youth research,’ The Asia-Pacific Journal, 10-35-3.
Toivonen, Tuukka (2012). ‘A review of: “Lost in Transition: Youth, Work and Instability in Postindustrial Japan” by Professor Mary Brinton, Harvard University’, The Journal of Japanese Studies, 38 (2): 493-498.
Toivonen, Tuukka (2012). ‘Moral panics vs. youth problem debates: Three conceptual insights from the study of Japanese youth’. In: Krinsky, Charles (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Moral Panics. Surrey: Ashgate. Pp. 265-281.
Toivonen, Tuukka (2011). ‘Is there life after work for Japan? Political “Work–Life Balance” research begins to address the hard questions’ (review essay), Social Science Japan Journal, 14 (1): 55-61.
Seeleib-Kaiser, Martin & Toivonen, Tuukka (2011). ‘Promoting gender equality, birthrates, or human capital? Germany, Japan and family policy discourse’. In: Florian Coulmas, ed. Imploding Populations in Japan and Germany: A Comparison. Leiden: Brill. Pp. 175-201.
Toivonen, Tuukka (2009). Explaining Social Inclusion and Activation Policy for Youth in 21st Century Japan. DPhil thesis, University of Oxford.
Toivonen, Tuukka (2007). ‘Is Japanese family policy turning Nordic?’ Barnett Paper in Social Research, 2007/1. Oxford Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Oxford.
Toivonen, Tuukka (2006). A Comparative Look at Japan’s Recent Family Policy Reforms: How Real are the Nordic Shades?MSc thesis, University of Oxford.
Toivonen, Tuukka (2005). Justifying the Welfare State in the Nordic Countries and Japan: Ideas of Social Justice in Theory and Practice. BSc Thesis, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University.