Research Assitant Internship with the Handelslabbet, Blogpost #1

Hej,

As I have interned quite excessively before starting my masters, I decided quite quickly that I want to opt for a research assistant internship for my field study. Having had a quite practical and creative Bachelor's program, the way the curriculum of the Master’s program is built, was very new for me. Learning about methodology and the way research is conducted opened a new unknown world for me and I had difficulties grasping it in the beginning. Hoping to gain more practical insight by following a practiced researcher on their work, I hoped that methodology of science and conducting of research will become graspable for me.

As I have worked in retail, the research project of Jenny Balkow, dealing with sustainable and digital in-store communication caught my attention right away. I hoped that my practical experiences dealing with clients and selling goods could come at handy and was interested in how physical retail spaces can transform to stay relevant in a world where digital and mobile solutions gain speed. Talking with Jenny about the research made me excited and I looked forward to using the retail laboratory and be part of shaping future experiments.

But then Covid-19 hit Sweden, level yellow was induced and physical interaction on a professional basis, using the the physical retail laboratory became hard to execute.

After having discussed those issues with Jenny and having been presented with a wide variety of research topics and ideas she is working on, we decided to proceed on a more digital path and develop a digital retail lab instead, that can serve as a foundation for experiments on consumer behavior. Online retail has been significant for many years but the chaotic times of 2020 make it clearer than ever how important communication and interaction with clients on a digital basis is. Gaining insights into different digital communication and marketing tools is the goal of the digital retail lab which will serve as a canvas where different modules and treatments for experiments and surveys can be adapted to. Working together with the team of the Handelslabbet, Jenny invited me to a variety of zoom meetings where we discussed the idea and invited insights of website developers to find out which of our ideas can be implicated. So far, a base construction of a website, modeling an online shop, has been created which serves as a starting point for our research. As physical experiments are difficult to conduct right now, our goal is to find a common theme we are all interested in to proceed with and produce an attractive funding proposal.

Even though the change of topic wasn't planned and I have read and research digital solutions of physical stores for a few weeks, I enjoy the new, digital direction of the project. The research topic is very relevant to me and I hope that it can create valuable insights. The time researching and reading articles and books to gain a knowledge base for the project was very enriching so far, and I am excited to see where our project is going.