Supervisor Council

Klas Håkan Alm

PhD Klas Håkan Alm is an Assistant Professor within IT and Management and researcher at the Swedish Institute for Innovative Retailing (SIIR) at the University of Borås where he’s also the programme director for the International Business and IT Program (iBIT).

Klas’ agenda as researcher as well as a practitioner, has always been to put the utmost importance in using digital transformation that adds real business value to companies as well as users. His over 20 years of experience as an international IT entrepreneur adds to the richness of his contributions. He is focused on various aspects of Digital Transformation such as mobile payment systems, Avatars (chatbots).

More recently he has expanded his interest in data-driven innovation, working in different research projects (i.e. funded by the Knowledge Foundation) focusing on conceptual frameworks within B2B customer loyalty, relationships and co-creation on digital platforms. He is often contracted as a keynote speaker / speaker around the world, recently in Brazil, Thailand and Indonesia.

He has a mixed method approach in his research work and has published both qualitative and quantitative studies in a variety of scientific journals.

More information and list of publications in the following links:

Research Profile
LinkedIn
News Article 1
News Article 2
News Article 3

Adele Berndt

PhD Adele Berndt is an Associate Professor in Business Administration at Jönköping International Business School (JIBS), where she has been since February 2012.

Prior to that, she was involved in higher education at the University of Johannesburg and Monash South Africa. She is an affiliated researcher at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), University of Pretoria in South Africa where she contributes to research activities. As a teacher, she has received a number of teaching awards for her teaching excellence. Her research interests are focused in Consumer Behaviour and Branding. She has contributed to textbooks that are used at South African universities, including as the leader editor of a strategic marketing textbooks. She has also has recently co-authored book chapters on the topics of crowdfunding and branding in higher education.

She is active in presenting research papers at international conferences (such as the Academy of Marketing Science and Global Brand Conference). There she presented papers on the brand personas as they are identified within various contexts. She has also published in leading marketing journals. The most recent publications have focused on the brand avoidance phenomenon within specifically the service context (e.g. mobile phone operators). A case study examining the impact of products changes on the destruction of customer value will appear shortly. She is currently working on research in brand-related issues (e.g. brand avoidance, brand personas) as well as investigating marketing issues associated with various types of digital behaviour (e.g. crowdfunding and the shared economy).

Research Profile

Christian Fuentes

Christian Fuentes is Professor in Business Administration, specialization Digital Retail. His research explores the digitalization of retail, marketing, and consumption.

He has examined how e-tailing companies develop and reinvent themselves in process of retail formation, how new digital technologies such as smartphones reconfigure in-store shopping practices, how ”sustainability” apps reconfigure everyday life and enable ethical consumption, and how digital devices changes the way we listen to music. He has also taken an interest in “digital failures”, the instances and processes when digitalisation fails, examining for example how and under what conditions apps fail to connect with users, leading to the unravelling of smart consumers. His work on digitalisation has often taken a socio-material approach and paid particular attention to consumer-device interactions. 

In addition, much of his previous work has examined sustainability issues. He has conducted research on sustainable retail, green marketing, sustainable consumption, and alternative markets. He has, for example, studied how marketing inscribes outdoors product with green moral, the strategies that consumers develop to green their shopping practice, and how marketing devices work to construct alternative food markets. This work has often been critical and driven by an ambition to understand the complex practices involved in green/sustainable marketing and consumption. 

Theoretically, Christian draws on theories of practice to explore how digitalised retail marketing practices and devices shape consumption in various ways. Methodologically, he employs mainly ethnographic methods – online and offline – to empirically understand the digitalizing of retail practice and consumption and its consequences. His work contributes to the fields of retail marketing, consumer culture studies, and market studies. 

For INSiDR, Christian Fuentes co-supervises PhD student Patrik Stoopendahl.

Research Profile

Karl Hammar

Karl holds a PhD from Linköping University, Sweden, and is employed within the Jönköping Artificial Intelligence Lab (JAIL) at Jönköping University, Sweden. His research focuses on applied ontology engineering and data integration in real-world scenarios, ranging from building automation and analytics, to veterinary syndromic surveillance.

Research Profile

Sara Hjelm Lidholm

Sara holds a PhD in Business Administration / Management and is employed as lecturer and Director of studies at the department for Business Administration at the University of Borås.

Her research revolves around management issues concerning mainly retail companies. Lately her research has focused on loyalty and the interactions and social exchanges between employees and customers in retail companies. She commonly uses qualitative methods for her research, such as interviews and observations.

Sara Hjelm Lidholm co-supervises PhD student Anna-Maria Petisme.

Research Profile

Firouze Pourmand Hilmersson

Firouze Pourmand Hilmersson is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Textiles, Engineering and Business (including The Swedish School of Textiles) at University of Borås.

Firouze co-supervises PhD student Anna-Maria Petisme.

Research Profile

Jesper Holgersson

PhD Jesper Holgersson is a senior lecturer and researcher at University of Skövde, Sweden.

Holgersson’s research has always been characterised by a socio-technic perspective in terms of viewing digitalisation and IT as something that first and foremost should add value to its users.

Most of his research has been qualitative to its nature and the primary goal in my research has been to explore and understand how digitalisation in IT should be designed in order to serve its users. Jesper’s main research area lies in studying the users’ perspective of how digitalisation, mostly within a public context. As such, he’s been exploring how public digital services should be designed in order to be perceived as useful and valuable by citizens. In doing so, Holgersson analysed how users’ interests and elements of innovation may be preserved in public digitalisation efforts.

Most of Holgersson’s research has been qualitative to its nature. More recently, he studied how digital exclusion of elderly Swedish citizens may be prevented and how initiatives for training and educating digitally excluded user groups should be designed in order to make a clear difference. His immediate future research will keep focusing on digital exclusion in a broader sense and upcoming research projects will be conducted in a joint collaboration effort with commercial business partners.

For INSiDR, Jesper co-supervises PhD student Johannes Sahlin, who carries out research in collaboration with Ellos Group.

Research Profile

Anders Gidenstam

Anders Gidenstam is a lecturer with a PhD in computer science at the Department of Information Technology, at the University of Borås.

Anders Gidenstam has, since 2001, worked on scientific problems in parallel computing and, more recently, machine learning. In his thesis, Anders presented three distributed and four linearizable and lock-free shared memory algorithms.

Anders’ publications can be found at Google Scholar.

On INSiDR, Anders Gidenstam co-supervises PhD student Dirar Sweidan.

Research Profile

Ulf Johansson

Ulf Johansson is a Professor at the School of Engineering at Jönköping University, as well as an Associate Professor at the Department of Information Technology of the Faculty of Librarianship, Information, Education and IT, at the University of Borås.

Ulf Johansson has, since 1999, been working on scientific problems that can be broadly described as machine learning techniques for data analysis. In his thesis, Ulf suggested two novel data mining algorithms based on Genetic Programming. Ulf has contributed with theoretical results, methods, systems, algorithms and applications within the fields of data mining, soft computing and machine learning.

Ulf’s publications can be found at Google Scholar

On INSiDR, Ulf Johansson is part of the management team and also supervises PhD student Dirar Sweidan.

Research Profile (UB)

Beatrice Alenljung

Beatrice Alenljung is a Docent and Senior Lecturer in Informatics at University of Skövde, Sweden, where she is a member of the Interaction Lab. The main thread in Beatrice’s research is the human-centred perspective in the field of information technology, in particular digital artefacts in use. Her research interests are user experience design, human-computer interaction, human-robot interaction, simulation-based training, decision support systems, and requirements engineering.

On INSiDR, Beatrice Alenljung is part of the management team and co-supervises PhD student Dirar Sweidan.

Research Profile

Niklas Lavesson

Niklas Lavesson is Professor of Computer Science at the School of Engineering, Jönköping University.

He holds an MSc in software engineering and PhD in computer science from Blekinge Institute of Technology. Lavesson was appointed Professor of Computer Science at his alma mater in 2015 and still maintains this position part-time.

During his MSc studies at Blekinge Institute of Technology, Lavesson started his teaching career as a teaching assistant in 2003, and has since held various teaching and managing roles in more than twenty courses.

Lavesson has always nurtured a strong interest in public outreach. He has appeared on Swedish television to discuss the potential consequences of widespread AI adoption in society, and discussed a variety of topics concerning AI and machine learning on Swedish radio. Lavesson is a frequent panelist and speaker at various events concerning computer science, digitalization, artificial intelligence, and machine learning at organizations, schools, and in the private and public sector.

Several reputable scientific journals hires Lavesson regularly as a reviewer, including: Data & Knowledge Engineering, Empirical Software Engineering, Information Sciences, Information & Software Technology, Knowledge & Information Systems, Machine Learning, Machine Learning Research, Neurocomputing, and Transactions on Internet Technology.

Lavesson has published more than 60 peer-reviewed journal articles, conference articles, monographs and book chapters. For a complete list, visit his Google Scholar profile.

Research Profile

Gideon Mbiydzenyuy

PhD Gideon Mbiydzenyuy is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at the Department of Information Technology, University of Borås, Sweden.

His research interests involve the application of optimisation, simulations and machine learning (ML) models in complex decision-making situations. His research focuses on how to design, develop or improve quantitative computational models to guide decision makers in complex decision-making domains. For instance, decisions related to the supply and consumption of transport services, energy services, or ICT services.

PhD Mbiydzenyuy co-supervises PhD student Johannes Sahlin, who carries out research in collaboration with Ellos Group, INSiDR.

Research Profile
Google Scholar

Tomas Müllern

Tomas work as a professor at Jönköping International Business School.

His research focuses on change, renewal and innovation. He is currently engaged in research on innovation for sustainability.

In one project he works with challenges of providing clean electricity for the ongoing electrification of the transport system (primarily aiming at electric road systems). In a second project he is working on raising the awareness among companies about social sustainability.

Tomas is part of the management team for INSiDR and he is also the main supervisor for Anna-Maria Petisme.

Research Profile

Maria Riveiro

PhD Maria Riveiro is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the Department of Computer Science and Informatics, School of Engineering, Jönköping University, and School of Informatics, University of Skövde, Sweden.

Maria Riveiro’s research interests are at the intersection of HCI, visual analytics and machine learning (ML). The unifying theme of her research is to investigate the integration of ML techniques and interactive visual analysis methods to support users carrying out complex data analysis tasks. Currently, Dr. Riveiro’s research work focuses on Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI).

Research Profile (JU)
Research Profile (UoS)
List of Publications

Ulf Seigerroth

PhD Ulf Seigerroth is Professor of Informatics at Jönköping University, School of Engineering.

Ulf’s research is framed by Business and IT-alignment and Digital Transformation. Within this domain, he is mainly focusing on areas such as Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Modeling, and System Development Methods and Method Engineering.

A core in his research is an emphasis on models and modeling as a useful tool for description, evaluation, requirement specification, design, and implementation of information systems (IS) and other IT artifacts to achieve Business and IT-alignment, and lately also in a digitalization context. In his research, IS and other IT artifacts are treated as both independent standalone products/services, embedded components, and bundled components in production systems and products (System-of-Systems). In a system (product/service) lifecycle, modeling and models are used for different purposes, on different abstraction levels, on different levels of details, and with different degrees of formalism.

Ulf’s research has a strong emphasis on applied research, but where the research also is informed by theories and methods (action research), technical action research (TAR), and artifact centered evaluation and development (design science research).

For INSiDR, Ulf is the main supervisor for PhD student Helena Löfström.

Research Profile

Håkan Sundell

Håkan Sundell is an associate professor of computer science at University of Borås, and also part-time at Jönköping University.

His main area of research is efficient (i.e., fast) computations using parallel and distributed and parallel computing systems, where the main contribution is to develop new algorithms or new designs and software architecture. Particularly interesting applications are within advanced data analysis for better understanding of business models and customer behaviour as well as in other scientific analysis where heavy computations are needed. Currently, Håkan is developing interactive applications that enable domain-experts to explore advanced patterns in data.

Håkan is currently the research group leader of the CSL@BS research group and has been employed at the University since 2006. He has a previous background in consulting in the ICT field and also has experience as a self-employed.

Håkan is currently active in several research projects, mainly funded by the Knowledge Foundation. He is also the main supervisor for PhD student Johannes Sahlin within the INSiDR industrial graduate school, working with Ellos Group.

Research Profile
Google Scholar

Malin Sundström

Malin Sundström is a PhD, and holds the position Associate Professor at University West. She is specialized in marketing and customer/consumer behavior focusing the context of digitalization and its effects on behavior and the retail sector. She has a long experience from collaborating with the industry, and often works close to retail companies in different research projects.an Associate Professor within Business Administration/Marketing, and an Academic Director of the Swedish Institute for Innovative Retailing (SIIR) at the University of Borås.

She has specialized in retailing research, studying the consequences of digitalisation in terms of changing consumer behaviour, attitudes, and customer loyalties. She mixes different methods in her research work and has published both qualitative and quantitative studies in a variety of scientific journals often analysing consumer data in the fast moving consumer goods market, and the fashion-retailing context.

Prominent scientific journals publishing her research are Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, and International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, where the latter journal also published an award-winning piece (Awards for Excellence – 2017, Winner Outstanding Paper) titled “The digitalization of retailing: an exploratory framework” (vol. 44, no. 7) authored by Johan Hagberg, Malin Sundström, and Niklas Egels-Zandén.

More recently she has developed her interest in data-driven innovation, working in different research projects (i.e. funded by the Knowledge Foundation), focusing on conceptual frameworks within B2B customer loyalty, relationships and co-creation on digital platforms. Another recent project is her work with international research colleagues within the field of hospitality and destination marketing, analysing on-screen tourism destinations, developing authenticity, fantasy proneness, popular culture and loyalty. Her immediate future research will keep focusing on customer loyalty and digital behaviours in the retailing context. At the moment, she is tutoring several PhD students, and is the main supervisor to Patrik Stoopendahl, PhD student within INSiDR.

Malin has a long experience in collaborating with specific retail actors, as well as interacting and working close to the retail industry representatives (i.e. Handelsrådet). She is often contracted as a keynote speaker, and she writes chronicles in sector specific magazines, takes an active part in different podcasts, and is the editor of the blog Retailing Research. Further links below:

Research Profile
LinkedIn
Google Scholar
Handelsrådet
E-handelstrender
Västsvenska Handelskammaren

Hanna Wittrock

University lecturer at the Academy of Textiles, Technology and Economics at the University of Borås.

Hanna Wittrock is a social anthropologist with a keen interest in issues of community integration in relation to practitioners and institutions, such as fashion and theatre.

Dissertated in 2011 in social anthropology with a dissertation that deals with the topic of multicultural theatre projects. In parallel with her research on theatre and integration, Wittrock has since 2007 lectured on fashion in the department of social anthropology at Lund University.

For INSiDR, Wittrock co-supervises PhD student Patrik Stoopendahl.

Research Profile (UB)