CERS Visitor Seminar Associate Professor Kaisa Koskela-Huotari

We are pleased to welcome Associate Professor Kaisa Koskela-Huotari from the Stockholm School of Economics, who will give a seminar titled: “The many facets of a ‘better world’: Field-informed enactment of sustainability in market-shaping efforts”.

The seminar will take place in room G226f on Wednesday, September 18, from 13:00 to 14:15. The host is Assistant Professor Mekhail Mustak.

Seminar Description

Calls for “better marketing for a better world” have energized sustainable marketing scholarship, yet prior work often overlooks the contested and pluralistic nature of both “better” and “sustainability.” In this research seminar, I will present an ongoing paper project that aims to advance sustainable marketing by examining how sustainability is enacted in multi-stakeholder market-shaping efforts. Drawing on a multi-case study of four markets and using institutional field theory as a lens, my co-authors and I conceptualize market shaping efforts as bundles of field-spanning shaping activities aligned around a shared aim in relation to emerging or established field settlements. Our findings reveal that stakeholders interpret sustainability differently depending on the exchange fields they are embedded in, and the issue sets they prioritize. We identify four distinct types of sustainability-oriented market shaping efforts—maintaining the status quo, establishing alternative settlements, providing market infrastructure, and contracting the market—and provide guidelines for market incumbents, challenges, policymakers and NGOs in pursuing improved sustainability outcomes. 

Bio:

Kaisa Koskela-Huotari is an Associate Professor in the Department of Marketing and Strategy at the Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden. Her research interests are broad, with a central focus on understanding how change occurs in social systems. A theory enthusiast, she draws on systems thinking, service-dominant logic, and institutional theory to explore topics such as value creation, innovation, design, market strategies, and sustainability. Methodologically, her expertise lies in conceptual, qualitative, and abductive approaches. Her work has been published in leading journals, including the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Service Research, Journal of Business Research, and Journal of Service Management, among others. Kaisa also serves as Associate Editor for the AMS Review and Journal of Service Management, and is a member of the editorial review boards for the Journal of Service Research and Journal of Business Research. Kaisa’s co-authored paper with Josina Vink was honored with the 2022 Journal of Service Research Best Article Award, and in 2023, she received the Mary Jo Bitner “Rising Star in Services” Award.