Laterna

Shedding light on workplace community

lloisen näköistä hankehenkilöstöä ryhmäkuvassa

Project information

Project	Laterna – shedding light on workplace community
Duration	1.9.2025-28.2.2028
Partners	Haaga-Helia, Aalto University, Häme University of Applied Sciences along with corporate partners ABB Marine & Ports, Glaston Finland, Meltlake, Selma Finance, and Wärtsilä Energy.
Funder	Business Finland Co-Research
Budget	963 353 €, of which HAMK’s share is 210 190 €

Laterna explores how organizations can strengthen the sense of community, wellbeing, and collaboration in distributed work.

How can work communities thrive in the digital age? The Laterna project seeks research-based solutions to the challenges of building community in distributed work and develops practical solutions that combine digital efficiency with human connection. The project is coordinated by Haaga-Helia and Funded by Business Finland.

The two and a half year research project examines how digitalisation shapes work communities, ways of working and organisational culture.

The goal is to determine what the sense of community really means in remote and hybrid working life and to identify practical methods and tools that organizations can use to strengthen the sense of community in the digital era.

Explore the latest updates, meet the entire project team, and find the contact form on the project’s official website.

Laterna main page

Research questions and methods

Research question 1:
What kind of affordances and constraints does the use of digital technologies create for the functioning of workplace communities, and how can these be managed and developed?

Research question 2:
What positive and negative effects do these changes have on the core needs of organisations and workplace communities – such as productivity, coordination and sense of community?

Research question 3
What effects do these changes have on employees’ meanings of work, identities, and the fulfilment of their basic psychological needs?

The methodology used during the research combines extensive qualitative data collection through 100-120 semi-structured interviews with corporate partners, complemented by ethnography in both physical and digital work environments to understand group dynamics and interaction patterns.

Dissemination of research results and impact

The research results offer organizations concrete tools for managing digitalization, developing workplace communities, and strengthening the sense of community. We will actively share research findings during the project in academic networks of organizational research in the form of publications and conference presentations both nationally in and internationally. The goal is to promote understanding of the effects of digital transformation on the sense of community in working life and to provide evidence-based solutions for organizational development.

Throughout the first year we will share latest insights and preliminary findings in three webinars. In late 2026, we will launch a comprehensive open access online course making research findings, practical tools and guides accessible to public and private organisations.

International collaboration includes researcher exchanges at Ulysseus partner university Université Côte d’Azur in Nice and Vienna University of Economics and Business, plus collaboration with Lund University in Sweden, ensuring findings reflect diverse cultural contexts.