Peter Magnusson, professor of Business Administration
After graduating in electrical engineering at Chalmers in 1984, Peter Magnusson worked in the data and telecom sector with research and development mostly at Ericsson and Telia for about ten years. While studying an MBA programme at Uppsala University in the mid-90s, he realised the importance of understanding the interplay between technology, economy and the human being.
Driven by his interest in understanding how the user can be more involved in the development of products and services, he was admitted as an industrial doctoral student to the Stockholm School of Economics. He was awarded his Doctor’s degree in 2003, and fairly soon he was employed at the CTF, Centre for Service Research at Karlstad University, where he has since been researching and teaching.
“My research primarily concerns how to ensure creativity and innovation in organisations, for instance, how people can be stimulated to produce better ideas for new products and services. But I also research on methods that work best if you want to evaluate and decide on which ideas are worth developing. A third research area is how to make manufacturing companies increase their competitiveness by service integration.”
Development and innovation have been drivers of progress in all times. Peter Magnusson’s research centres on users and how to make them produce innovations that have a high value to them, in the hope that better products and services benefit the customers as well as the organisations, and not least create growth.
”Most of our research projects are pursued in cooperation with external stakeholders, that is, companies or public agencies. Research results are therefore directly useful to our cooperation partners. In addition, we also disseminate our results in popular science journals and seminars.
Peter Magnusson’s research draws on several subjects, for example, economics, technology, psychology and sociology.
”Naturally, I don’t have expertise in all the subjects, but I work with colleagues who are experts in different areas. In my world, research is about utilising results and influencing social development. This is what a great deal of research at CTF does. My contribution has been to show that the average user can be a valuable asset in innovation processes. Previously, we knew that the ”super users”, so called ”lead users”, pushed development. Our research has highlighted the ”ordinary user” as a resource for innovation. In the long-term perspective, I would also like to strengthen the area of industrial economy at Karlstad University.
In his spare time, Peter Magnusson engages in fast-moving activities that stimulate an otherwise stationary body. The favourite pastime is mountain biking in nature, or go water surfing at the speed of 25 knots.