Erik Gustafsson
Senior Lecturer
Unit for Innovation andAbout Erik Gustafsson
I am currently working as a senior lecturer in innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as a researcher, focusing on entrepreneurship in creative industries, especially fashion. I am interested in the importance of varieties of knowledge, and the role of artistic and creative knowledge for entrepreneurship in said industries. In relation to this, I also focus on the understanding of value creation beyond the monetary perspective in creative industries.
In 2020, I was awarded the Wallander scholarship by the foundation Jan Wallanders och Tom Hedelius stiftelse samt Tore Browaldhs stiftelse. The scholarship covers three years of full-time research and was awarded for the project Fashioning a sustainable future? In this project, I aim to further explore entrepreneurship in the fashion industry, and the role of the designer and artistic knowledge for sustainable development.
I defended my PhD dissertation, called Fashioning a Knowledge Intensive Entrepreneur?, in 2019. In my dissertation, I used qualitative research methods to study fashion design graduates and the role creativity and creative knowledge plays for their future pathways, one of which is entrepreneurship. I used the theories of knowledge-intensive innovative entrepreneurship (KIE) and entrepreneurial intentions, contributing also to the research on entrepreneurship in creative industries and the role of knowledge and access to other types of resources for these processes.
I am the subject coordinator at the Unit for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and teach within the Master's programmes in Knowledge-Based Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Industrial Management.
Research areas
- Knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship
- Creative industries, especially fashion
- Entrepreneurial intentions