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– I do research in psychology with business implications - among other things user innovation, creative organizations, service innovation and management. These are aspects that are highly interesting for the forestry industry – and needed in a mature line of business as this industry is.
Do you have any previous experience from the forestry industry?
– I have worked with several companies in this line of business, Nordic Paper, Mölnlycke and Stora to name but a few. In my research I also collaborate with fellow researchers Helen Williams and Fredrik Wikström in projects concerning packaging and sustainability in the food chain. My role is to add a psychological aspects as to why customers make decisions in the way they do.
Vipp Industrial graduate school offer their doctoral students courses in service management and service innovation. Why?
– The forestry industry is a mature line of business, where processes, productivity, efficiency and paper quality has been developed and refined over the years. An interest in these fields comes naturally for this business. With service innovation, we adopt a perspective that instead starts out from the value-creating processes that occurs for customers. The aim is to identify, analyze and see how value creating processes can be offered in an convenient way and that is what we mean by employing a service perspective.
Can you give any examples?
– For instance, this type of research has contributed to developing new business models such as Metro – the free newspaper financed by third parties, i.e. advertisers. Another example where customers are co-producers and part of the innovative process is of course Apple and their way of offering a platform for people to develop their own apps. Whenever I visit a pulp- and papermill, I see the plant and the machines as labs for inventions. Why not open up parts previously closed off for the public – bring in a class of say chemistry students and see what thoughts and ideas come up when the take a look at this environment?
So what’s in it for the Vipp doctoral students?
– We have previously been rather traditional within the academic world, where each doctoral student focuses on their particular field – often quite narrow. Our aim in Vipp Industrial graduate school is to mix doctoral students and partners with a technical, engineering, background with doctoral students and partners with a background in business administration or management. Interesting ideas will come when these technicians encounter marketing and organization and service management and innovation knowledge. And - not least -
interesting ideas will also arise when doctoral students with a society and business perspective learn more about the forestry industry? We strongly believe in cross-over research to find new innovative solutions and here ¹û¶³´«Ã½ stands out in the competition with other higher education institutions.
About VIPP
VIPP stands for Values created In fibre-based Processes and Products and is a multidisciplinary industrial graduate school in ¹û¶³´«Ã½/Sweden. It is based on a close collaboration between companies mainly involved in the forest industry, the department of Chemical Engineering, the department of Energy, Environmental and Building Technology as well as the Service Research Center (CTF) and the Paper Surface Center (PSC) at ¹û¶³´«Ã½.
Read more about VIPP on their website >