Through interdisciplinary collaborations between Animal Organization Studies, management and organization theory, and Veterinary, Social, and Health sciences, PAWWS deepens critical understandings of the well-being of humans and dogs working together in Finland. Empirically, the research team focuses on human-dog working relationships in the Lapland sled dog industry, Orton orthopaedic hospital, as well as the guide dog, and assistance dog sector.
Animal Organization Studies – an emerging field
Animal Organization Studies (AOS) is an interdisciplinary, dynamic, and critical field in Management and Organization Studies that brings relations between humans and nonhuman animals to the centre of analysis (Tallberg & Hamilton, 2022). In AOS, the contextual and shifting relationships between ‘animals’ and ‘organizing’ is crucial. These are approached as an interspecies set of material processes and embodied practices (Huopalainen, Satama & Tallberg, 2026). AOS exists along a continuum of human-animal relational research, ranging from work shaped by Human-Animal Studies to scholarship aligned more with Critical Animal Studies’s activist commitments.
HAW – human-animal work
Knowledge about interconnected multispecies wellbeing in human-animal work (HAW) remains limited. Yet hundreds of millions of humans globally work with animals daily, with the economic impact of HAW industries exceeding the GDP of many nations (Hannah & Robertson, 2017).
As humans and animals work side-by-side across many contemporary contexts, animals are not beyond or detached from human organizing. Rather, they are a constituent and inseparable part of it. HAW contexts are societally, economically, and medically significant in the world of work, and deserve full scholarly attention. At the same time, HAW relationships are always complex, contextual and affectual.
Most animals have not entered these work relations freely, and human-led organizations must better account for animal interests in their practices. In some situations, domesticated animals do voluntary work for and with humans (e.g. in homes involving care) (Coulter, 2016), yet this is often not recognized by humans as ‘work’.
Many dogs are involved in organizations and industries that rely on their work and labour for generating revenue – such as sled dog tourism in Lapland. This work raises ethical challenges for both human and animal workers, something PAWWS analyses. The project builds on research considers animals as stakeholders (Tallberg, García-Rosell & Haanpää, 2022) and highlights the need for multispecies inclusivity in business and society (Tallberg, Huopalainen & García-Rosell, 2024).
In PAWWS, we focus on the everyday practices of organizing HAW, the multifaceted ethical debates around animal interests, and how to include animal voices into discussions on work ethics, responsibility, health, and wellbeing. This includes developing multispecies research practices and examining animal interests at work in new, affirmative ways to support less anthropocentric and more positive changes across species in organizations and society.
PAWWS contributes to HAW research and the sociology of work through multispecies relationality and exploring animal interests and agency across diverse empirical contexts of human-dog work. In this way, the project strengthens how animals can more ethically be recognized as agents and subjects, also in organizational perspectives.
References
Coulter, K. (2016). Animals, work, and the promise of interspecies solidarity. Palgrave Macmillan.
Hannah, D., & Robertson, K. (2017). Human-animal work: A massive, understudied domain of human activity. Journal of Management Inquiry, 26(1), 116–118.
Huopalainen, A., Satama, S. & Tallberg, L. (2026). Aesthetic Encounters, Canines, and Care: New Multispecies Methodological Avenues in Organizational and Business Ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 203, 241–257. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-025-06035-4
Kantele, A., Paajanen, J., Turunen, S., Pakkanen, S.H. et al., (2022). Scent dogs in detection of COVID-19: triple-blinded randomised trial and operational real-life screening in airport setting. BMJ Glob Health, 7(5):e008024
Tallberg, L., García-Rosell, JC. & Haanpää, M. (2022). Human–Animal Relations in Business and Society: Advancing the Feminist Interpretation of Stakeholder Theory. Journal of Business Ethics 180, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04840-1
Tallberg, L., Huopalainen, A., & García-Rosell, J.-C. (2024). Beyond Anthropocentrism: A Call to Action for Multispecies Inclusivity. Business & Society, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00076503241271254
Turunen, S., Paavilainen, S., Vepsäläinen, J. & Hielm-Björkman, A. (2024). Scent Detection Threshold of Trained Dogs to Eucalyptus Hydrolat. Animals, 14(7):1083.. doi:10.3390/ani14071083