Björn Axelsson

Professor Björn Axelsson is since 2002 head of the D-section. His permanent chair at SSE is the Olof A Söderberg chair in Business Administration. Since 2005 he is also the first occupant of the Silf Chair in Purchasing and Supply Management at the school. This is a temporary arrangement lasting until 2009.

His research deals with business- to- business markets both from marketing and sourcing/purchasing perspectives, but it also concerns the very functioning of such markets. The studies in both marketing and purchasing frequently address organizational issues. Themes such as effectively organizing marketing activities and creating strategic change in purchasing benefit from organization theories which therefore have become a very important scientific body of support.

He started his academic career at Uppsala University. He earned his PhD there in 1981. He became a few years later responsible for the Uppsala Executive MBA and stayed in that position for more than a decade. In 1998 he was appointed a professorship in marketing at Jönköping International Business School. In 2002 he got his chair at SSE.

As head of the D-section he is overall responsible for the ongoing research there. Two programs or research- groups within the section are his primary concern though: The SPuR – group (Strategic Purchasing Research) and the Business Creation Group. Within SPuR there are two research orientations in focus: studies in the sourcing of business-to-business services and studies of strategic change within corporate purchasing. The platform for the first theme is the book Buying Business Services and for the second theme the book Developing Sourcing Capabilities serve the same role. Business creation includes a research program dealing with efficiency and effectiveness in organizing today’s marketing activities. Björn is a frequent speaker at conferences targeting practitioners.