The paper presents a learning environment where recording engineering students work together with studio musician students. A learning environment, in our definition, is a setting for learning experience, and therefore dependent on conditions being as realistic as possible. The purpose of the empirical study was to gather data regarding possible learning experiences among sound engineering alumni that work as professionals in the recording industry. Alumni value the campus learning environment highly and consider sociocultural skills acquired to be of high importance for their professional careers, where co-operation with producers and musicians is essential

This paper reports from a case study which investigates how Norrgavel, a Swedish furniture company, works with developing and integrating its company values in the organization. The problem of inquiry was constructed by combining the theoretical concepts "development and integration of promises within a company brand" with "experience room". The theoretical frame of reference builds upon experience production theory and relationship marketing theory. The perspective holds that positive and lasting customer experiences can be created when the company explicitly regards its organization as a backstage experience room, where promises to the customers and other stakeholders need to be developed and integrated among all participants in the room. Relationships at all levels are judged to be critical aspects for success. The empirical findings are analyzed through the theoretical perspective.Norrgavel was selected due to its explicit company values that can be interpreted as promises and its outspoken aim to create relationships to its customers. The company founder has built the company brand on the grounds of explicit company values that are divided into humanistic, ecological and existential values. These are guidelines for everything the company does and constitutes the brand.The empirical material consists of transcripts and company documents. Managers and employees, as well as franchisees were interviewed. Company documents were studied and a few meetings were attended for observation.The study focused on how Norrgavel works in developing and integrating the explicit company values. The findings show that some of the employees have been attracted to the company by the company values, since they find them rather unique. Herein is a possibility - but also a challenge - of holistic integration of brand promises in the employee as a holistic person. The material indicates that the processes under study are highly complex. It seems that the values of Norrgavel require careful and systematic processes in order to develop and integrate them as brand promises. There are organized meetings. One meeting aims at informing new participants. Another kind of meeting aims at enlightening the participants of Norrgavel. This kind - a meditation retreat - is highly interesting and seems innovative for experience management. Through meditation, the company wants each and everyone to know who he/she is and what he/she longs for. An existential value as a guideline seems to require innovative management in order to be able to fulfil the promise.

The paper reports from a multiple case study investigating three music festivals located in the Barents region, namely the Festspel i Pite lvdal (Pite, Sweden), the Festspillene i Nord-Norge (Harstad, Norway) and the Jutajaiset Folklorefestivaali (Rovaniemi, Finland). The aim of the reported study was to investigate how these festivals cooperated with actors in their surroundings. Furthermore, the purpose was to explore the study's data through the perspectives of network and stakeholder theory. The data consisted of field notes from observations of 58 festival events; 10 in-depth interviews with festival administrators and official representatives of the festivals' host municipalities; and documentation. The data was analysed using meaning condensation and structuring displays. Through the theory-related exploration of the study's data, three themes emerged: first, the festivals cooperated with multiple stakeholders, who assumed multiple roles; second, the festivals and their stakeholders would sometimes enter into a state of symbiosis; and third, the festivals were seen to engage in long-stretched, "loose" and glocal networks. The three themes appeared as interrelated and could all be understood as strategies, which the festivals employed in order to increase their sustainability. The findings could also be connected to a typology of festivals in the context of institutionalization.

This paper reports from a study based on interviews conducted with Swedish Event Marketing agencies aiming to create customer experiences. The study focuses on the concept of experience and how it is regarded, interpreted and used by these agencies. Seven agencies were selected using two criteria; they should be positioned as relationship-focused and they should be awarded within their industry. The empirical material consists of transcripts from seven personal interviews with the agencies' CEOs or other directors.The findings show that all the investigated agencies regard the experience concept to be of high strategic importance. However, although similarities existed among the informants' views, there seemed to be differences regarding the meaning of the concept. These differences concern whether experience, as a resulting phenomenon, qualifies according to the mere perception of it or according to memorable impressions.The findings also indicate that there is a missing link between the views of the concept and the management to make the actual phenomenon possible, i.e. the experience.The findings are analyzed and discussed using experience production theory and relationship marketing theory.

This article consists of two parts, starting with a discussion about generally accepted quality concepts in research, criticising them from the qualitative perspective. The article concludes by suggesting alternative concepts to be used for securing quality when pursuing qualitative research.