Julie Sikin Bhanji Jynge
PhD fellow at University of Inland Norway
Julie Sikin Bhanji Jynge is an Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator for the Master in Career Guidance at the University of Inland, Norway. She holds master’s degrees in both Career Guidance and Knowledge Management, combining extensive leadership experience from managing regional career centers with academic research. Her core interest lies in the professionalization of the career guidance field through education, service innovation, and research. Founded on critical service logic, her research focuses on enhancing public service delivery, professional competence, and social justice. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach that includes qualitative methods and Q-methodology, her doctoral work explores how national policies are translated into practice. Specifically, she investigates the intersection of leadership, management, and innovation within Norwegian county-municipal career services, aiming to generate evidence-based knowledge relevant to both career guidance and the broader health and welfare sector.
Tell us about your project!
My PhD project, Ways to Welfare, explores how public career services are organized, led, and renewed. Research in career guidance has primarily focused on policy and practice, leaving a gap in our understanding of mid-level governance.
In my fieldwork, I investigate Norwegian county-municipal career services and examine how national strategies are translated into practice through leadership and innovation. My research combines a scoping review with field studies using qualitative interviews and Q-methodology. The findings will be disseminated through three scientific articles and a synopsis.
Digitalization represents the most significant innovation trend within public career guidance today. My unpublished scoping review shows that technology is introduced through several mechanisms. Remotisation through digital communication platforms enables online interactions, self-service interfaces empower individuals to manage their own career plans, and automated decision-support systems, including AI-driven tools, optimize services through automated profiling and skills analysis.
Building on these findings, I see a natural next step in my project to further explore technosocial transformations through my field studies.
“The doctorate is part of the research project 'Digitizing sexual violence,' which investigates new forms of technology-facilitated sexual harms and their consequences”
— Julie Sikin Bhanji Jynge on her PhD project “Ways to Welfare – Perspectives on Leadership, Management, and Innovation in Public Career Services”