Emeritus Research Sneak Peek

On Wednesday, March 6th, Professor Emeritus Tore Strandvik and Christian Grönroos took us through a journey of the past and inspired us yet again with their work on the development of Service Researcher.  

Christian kicked off the seminar by presenting all eight of his research stream themes as classified in the Legend in Marketing 2013. He highlighted two streams in particular: Service Research and Marketing Theory Research, as these streams contain two of his main projects. In addition, to the two, Christian's research draw contains seven papers in total. The seminar was filled with humor, with many jokes about the desire to become an emeritus, inspired by the evident commitment to research shown by both Tore and Christian. 

Tore's research interest can be summarized into three streams:  

1. Customer logic/Customer Dominant Logic 

2. Managers’ mental models, logic 

3. Image / Image management 

These streams were further emphasized when Tore listed his current research projects. Without revealing too much, he shared that six papers related to these topics are currently in progress. Tore concluded the seminar by sharing what's driving him: the problematization principle (challenging assumptions), the significance of perspectives and concepts, and changing perspectives and exploring new concepts. A key focus of his research has always been understanding subjective logic: How do people think? This applies to managers, customers, and researchers alike. 

Furthermore, both Tore and Christian agreed that their “dare to be different” mentality remains a significant part of their research approach and something they wish to spread within our research community.  

Read more about their current research projects here: