Doktorandprojekt

Information om projekt finns endast på engelska. 

Consumer desire shaped by melancholia

Iain Denny’s PhD project is an investigation into the desires and drives that shape consumers’ participation in consumption collectives, particularly in terms of their subjective negotiations with the changing natures of such groups. The research approaches these negotiations by means of Julia Kristeva’s post-Lacanian theorizing on melancholia, seeking to offer a meaningful contribution to the literature’s understanding of consumer desire.

Data for the project have been gathered through utilizing ethnographic methods to access and actively participate in the sneakerhead consumption collective, allowing for informed and sensitive insights. Two articles based on the project have recently been published in the Journals Marketing Theory and Consumption, Markets and Culture. 

Johan Fröberg’s PhD project investigates the processes that take place in the interactions between public and private actors when organising a network. Using a case study approach, Johan follows the creation of a network formed to organise a destination. In the research, data is collected through interviews, documents and observations that captures the public-private intersection where actors with deviating goals, resources, and roles together form a networking organisation.

Previous research has shown that uncertainty tends to be high in these relationships and the roles that the actors play consequently seems to be both dynamic and, to different extents, unclear. Despite the apparent advantage of creating a network to coordinate mutual, or at least overlapping, interests, it has proven to entail a number of difficult issues of which some will be addressed in this research project. Johan’s research extends research on destination management and recent research on organised networks

Lotte Horikx’s PhD project is interdisciplinary in nature and will be done in collaboration with the Department of Informatics and Media of Uppsala University. The focus of the project will be on sustainable consumer decision-making. Specifically, looking at how consumers process and use different kinds of information, both before and during grocery shopping, and how digital systems can aid them in making more sustainable choices. The needs and beliefs of the consumer are given centre stage in this research, which will provide a better understanding of what drives consumers to make sustainable choices, consciously or unconsciously.

Oscar Swinden is a first year PhD student who will be conducting research related to the science megaproject European Spallation Source (ESS). This endeavour is funded by the Swedish Research School of Management and Information Technology (MIT). Oscar's doctoral dissertation will include theoretical perspectives from industrial marketing and digitalisation, with ESS as the overarching (empirical) theme.

As of November 2020, Oscar is in the process of completing the prerequisite SUBS-programme. He will thereafter specify his research project(s) considerably. Theoretically this entails indulging himself in perspectives including, but not limited to, B2B relationships (e.g. interaction between business, science, and politics), purchasing, as well as other contributions by the IMP group. Empirically this includes research concerning ESS, which will be complemented by investigating ESS’s data centre in Copenhagen due to its clear connection with digitalisation. Methodologically the research employs qualitative methods (e.g. interviews and documents).