The Service Research Center (CTF)

Jasper, you are a senior lecturer in Information Systems at Karlstad Business School and the Service Research Center, CTF. What did you do before you came to Karlstad University?
- I was a senior lecturer in user-centred design at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. My focus has always been on how organisations can develop services, systems and products that suit people - that work for them.

- In addition to my academic career, I have also been a stand-up comedian and a columnist. I won the biggest comedy festival in the Netherlands shortly before my PhD defence and split my time between the stage and academia for many years. When we decided to move to Sweden, I focused completely on the academic track but managed to end up winning a big TV quiz show, similar to “På spåret”, right before the move. That sort of thing tends to give a person’s comedy career a big boost, but I was already in Värmland by then.

- With this project, we want to help lay the foundation for an ecosystem that supports collaboration between industries and sectors. The objective is to create synergies and boost the competitive edge of the companies and the appeal of rural locations, says Lotta Braunerhielm, docent in Human Geography at Karlstad University.

Lotta Braunerhielm, please tell us about the project

John-Erik Hassel recently completed his PhD in business administration at Karlstad Business School and The Service Research Center (CTF) and has done research on venture builders.

John-Erik Hassel, tell us about your research

– My research is about understanding a relatively new actor in entrepreneurial ecosystems called venture builders and how they can be understood in a larger context. Venture builders are actors who use a structured process to establish startups one after the other in collaboration with individual entrepreneurs.

Mia Larson, professor of business administration at Karlstad Business School, and Cecilia Cassinger, senior lecturer at Lund University, recently published the article “Platform Stories: The Role of Ideological Narratives in the Development of a Tourism Sharing Business Model”.

Mia Larson, tell us what your article is about

– It is about how an entrepreneur in adventure tourism creates a new digital sharing platform. In our article, we show the importance of attractive narratives in creating legitimacy, engagement and interest for the platform among its users, investors and those operating it. In this case, the narratives revolve around sharing resources, sustainability, an identity linked to adventure sports, as well as profit-making. 

How can business models extend the lifespan of trucks and make them circular? What requirements do different stakeholders have, and how are business models, service design, and product design affected? These questions are the focus of the research project Re:Value – a collaboration between industry and academia.

For future circular offerings to be accepted in the transport industry, they must meet the industry's challenges and expectations. Within the framework of Re:Value, researchers at the Service Research Center (CTF) at Karlstad University will develop new knowledge about future customers' and users' needs and requirements in the field.

Per Kristensson and Lars Witell, together with Mohamed Zaki from the Cambridge Service Alliance, are the editors of the new book "Handbook of Service Experience", which provides a comprehensive perspective on service experiences in business contexts. The book brings together current research and empirical case studies, focusing on customer experience, service design, innovation, and management in the digital era.

"We are very please to now present this book, says Per Kristensson, Professor of Psychology and Director of CTF. "As we have received many inquiries about our research on how customers, citizens, patients, and other users experience organizational offerings, we decided to join forces with the Cambridge Service Alliance at Cambridge University, with whom we have a strong relationship. It is a fantastic privilege, and a rare opportunity, to collaborate with one of the world’s top-ranked universities on such an important topic as people’s experiences of service organizations."