Tore Strandvik

Since 2018 I am Professor Emeritus of Marketing after serving 37 years at HANKEN School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland. My research focused in the beginning on service and customer relationships when these topics emerged within marketing. Currently my research covers three interrelated fields of research: mental models of managers and customers; Customer-Dominant business Logic (CDL); brand images. These themes are characterized by the challenges they pose to established assumptions in marketing, both in theories and in practice.

Customer-Dominant Logic is a management perspective developed at Hanken that explores business opportunities assuming that customers and users are the enablers and driving force of any business or purposeful activity. Acknowledging this highlights fundamental challenges that companies and organizations need to address to succeed. The diversity and dynamics of customer logics adds to the intricacies of this managerial task.

Managers’ and other actors’ mental models shape their personal understanding and interpretation of different situations. Although enmeshed in mental models on the organizational and group level, the most fundamental element is the individual person’s mental model. My research focuses on the role of individuals’ mental models in marketing and markets, and how mental models change.

A brand can be seen as the experience, perception and interpretation individuals’ have over time of a company, organization or offering. It is an enduring but also continuously emerging personal image. This perspective highlights that a company is not one designed brand as often is assumed but rather a configuration of a multitude of brand images that constantly change.    

Selected publications

Kristina Heinonen and Tore Strandvik (2015), “Customer-dominant logic: foundations and implications”, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 29, No. 6/7, pp. 472-484.  

Heinonen, K., & Strandvik, T. (2018). Reflections on customers’ primary role in markets. European Management Journal, 36(1), 1-11.

Strandvik, T, Holmlund-Rytkönen, M & Grönroos, Christian (2014), “The mental footprint of marketing in the boardroom”, Journal of Service Management, Vol. 25, No. 2,pp. 241-252.

Strandvik, T., Holmlund, M., & Lähteenmäki, I. (2018). “One of these days, things are going to change!” How do you make sense of market disruption?. Business Horizons, 61(3), 477-486.

Strandvik, T, Holmlund, M. & Lähteenmäki, I. (2022) Service strategizing – shaping service in dynamic contexts, Chapter in Handbook of Service Management, (eds.) Edvardsson B. & Tronvoll, B.., Palgrave.

Strandvik, T., Rindell, A., & Wilén, K. (2013). Ethical consumers' brand avoidance. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 22(7), 484-490.

Rindell, A. & Strandvik, T. (2021) To be or not to be corporate heritage oriented? A study of managers’ corporate heritage mindsets, European Management Journal.