In software development, people often talk about technical debt – the legacy embedded in our technical environment that ultimately affects users. The phenomenon that Tomas Gustavsson, Senior Lecturer in Information systems and Project Management at Karlstad Business School, has examined is called process debt, and his recent article in the Journal of Systems and Software was awarded Best Paper 2025.

What is technical debt really?

– Technical debt can arise when a system is built using a programming language that worked well at the time, but over the years has proven to have shortcomings, making changes more difficult and more expensive, explains Tomas Gustavsson. Every day you continue patching an old system, the debt grows.

Human Resource Management Day is an annual career fair for students in the Human Resource Management and Working Life program, held at the Business School at Karlstad University.

The event offers lectures, exhibitors, and booth mingling designed to inspire and create connections ahead of students’ future working lives. This year’s theme: Together we shape the future of work.

Amie Gustafsson, PhD-student in Business Administration at Karlstad Business School and researcher at the Service Research Center (CTF), has been awarded the APA Doctoral Research Award by the American Phygital Association.

The prize is international and recognizes promising doctoral students who contribute to advancing the understanding of phygital science, a field focused on how the physical and digital worlds merge, and how this convergence affects both individuals and organizations. According to the jury’s motivation, Amie Gustafsson receives the award for her rigorous research, innovative thinking, and for providing a significant scientific contribution to the field.

Crises Lenses: Extending Cross-Border Crisis Training into VR is a part of INCREDILAB and make training for floods, wildfires and other large-scale events that demand coordination between regions, organisations and stakeholders possible.
– Building that coordination before a real crisis occurs is both difficult and essential, says Ala Sarah Alaqra, docent in information systems at Karlstad Business School.

Crisis Lenses is a virtual reality (VR) training game developed within INcreased Climate Resilience Education and DIgital transformation Lab project (INCREDILAB).

– Crises Lenses is built on our joint work in the project of the board game Collaborate or Collapse, which was designed to support collaborative decision-making in cross-border crisis scenarios, says Ala Sarah Alaqra. While the board game encourages structured discussion around a table, Crisis Lenses explores how immersive digital environments can add new dimensions to learning and training.

Small spontaneous gifts with no expectations of something in return can influence both purchasing behavior and customer relationships in powerful ways. Amie Gustafsson, PhD in Business Administration at Karlstad Business School and researcher at the Service Research Center (CTF), has had her work published in the prestigious Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.

Amie Gustafsson, what might such a gift consist of, and when is it given to the consumer?

– It’s about small, unexpected gifts that are given without requiring anything in return. It might be a free accessory with a purchase, an extra product in the delivery, a gift when the customer walks into the store, or something included with their first online order. The important thing is that it’s not perceived as a reward that needs to be earned. We tested this with, for example, packages of coffee and chocolate.

Interest from international students continues to grow – and this year it’s especially noticeable. New programmes are attracting applicants, and established programmes are also seeing increases in both total applicants and first-choice applications.

The Master’s Programme in Management – Sustainable Value Creation is experiencing a significant rise in interest ahead of autumn 2026. The total number of applicants has more than doubled to 467 people since the programme was launched six months ago, making it the third most applied for international master’s programme at Karlstad University.

– The number of first-choice applicants has more than tripled to 70 people, which is absolutely fantastic, says Programme leader Sara Davoudi.