My main research interest lies in the field of strategic communication, marketing and brand communication, place branding, service studies and hospitality. In recent years my research interest has focused more on the sustainable challenges that cities have to address today.

Place branding

During the last few years, my interest in branding has focused on place branding practices of municipalities, cities and regions.  And in the end of 2018 I managed to receive funding for two research project together with collegues that focus on sustainable challenges that cities have to address today.

• Rethinking urban tourism development: Dealing with sustainability in the age of over-tourism funded by Formas from 2019 to 2023.

The project addresses the challenges caused by over-tourism and its effects on sustainability in urban destinations. This project embraces social, cultural, economic, and environmental sustainability of a destination. The project re-think the role of tourism in cities by involvement of stakeholders within and beyond the tourism industry from a multidisciplinary perspective.

• The geography of fear: the tourist destination in the shadow of conceptions of terror funded by the R&D Fund of the Swedish Tourism & Hospitality Industry (BFUF) from 2019 to 2020.

The research project concerns the fear of terror acts in conceptions of Swedish and international visitors, in news media and social media, and how these fears can be addressed. The project investigates the consequences of fear of terror acts among the tourism destination's stakeholders, and how the fears are addressed in the urban tourism destination's market communication and in the urban environment.

Brand communication

My interest in brand communication has to a large extent been connected to the service industry and how new and sometimes disputed form forms of branding practices have become prevalent in the service industry. More specifically I am interested in how front staff personnel are used as ambassadors for brands, and how the service providers themselves understand och form strategies and practices for communicating the brand values.

Value creation

Research in service management and marketing has in the past decade highlighted the concept of value creation. In service organizations value creation is described as a process in which the customer uses a company's value proposition in a meaningful way. However, research has tended to ignore the contextual meaning, and few empirical studies have shown how context is relevant.

In my doctoral dissertation “Value creating Hospitality: how values of hospitality are framed, established and negotiated in the hotel industry” (in Swedish), in service studies at the Department of Service Management and Service Studies at Lund University, I explore this problem.

The findings shows that value is created, established and negotiated when interpersonal strategies and tactics, organizational procedures such as the check-in, and service strategies, are interwoven with social and cultural values that frame services, equipment and facilities as attractive. The conclusions suggest that creation of value is a complex phenomenon, consisting of processes that are rarely highlighted in service management and marketing. In order to highlight the interwoven, procedural character of these constellations, the concept of value transition is introduced. The concept of value transition encompasses the relevant phenomenon, and thus has an ontological focus that enables analytical sharpness. The results show that the theoretical foundations of how value is to be broadened in order to highlight the multiple, disparate processes and especially highlighting how they interact in different situations.

I am currently involved in relatively few courses in bachelor and master programmes within strategic communication. The last few years I have been a course Director for the course Brand Communication on the Bachelor of Science Programme in Strategic Communication. Additionally, I regularly supervise students writing their theses on bachelor and master level.

A few years back, when I was more involved in teaching, I was responsible for a course in qualitative research methods on the Master of Science Programme in Strategic Communication. I was also responsible for a course in Project Management in Bachelor of Science Programme in Strategic Communication and Digital media.

Commissioned research and education

Over the years I have been involved in commissioned research and education in several ways.

In 2021, a colleague and I were companion researchers at Visit Sweden. The overall purpose of the commissioned research was to conducts companion research that supported Visit Sweden's work with the "staycation campaign". In 2021 Visit Sweden got the new task to market Sweden to a domestic market during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The work consisted of two main tasks. The first part was a target group analysis that consisted of a study of the reception of the campaign. Data was collected with a survey and focus groups interviews.

In 2015 I was course coordinator for a course in Strategic Communication given to communicator at Region Skåne. Together with a team of colleagues, we set up a course adapted to the need of the organisation. The course that focused on themes as strategic communication, branding of public organisations, communication planning, change communication and the use of social media in communicating with the public. So far, one report is available in Lucris.

In 2013 I evaluated the project Drink Tap water (Drick Kranvatten) at Sydvatten. Drink Tap water was a communication project aimed to positively change pupil’s awareness, attitude and behaviour towards tap water. Data was collected with interviews with pupils and teachers in high schools that participated in the project. Additionally, I analyzed a survey that had been set up by a consultancy bureau prior to the start of the project.