Soniya Billore

Current position: Associate Professor (Docent), Department of Marketing, School of Business and Economics

1. Program Head - Master's program in Innovation through Business, Engineering, and Design. See https://lnu.se/en/programme/innovation-through-business-engineering-and-design-specialisation-business-master-programme/vaxjo-international-autumn/

2. Interim Head of Department, Department of Marketing and Tourism Studies

3. Vice Head of Department for Doctoral Education, Department of Marketing and Tourism Studies

4. Member Internationalisation Committee, Linnaeus University

5. Founder member 'LNU India group'

State assignment: Elektorer (ersattare) för Fortes elektorsförsamling till forskningsrådens elektorsförsamlingar hösten 2024 inom lärosätena i region 2, motsvarande Lärosäten syd.

Soniya is the recipient of the prestigious STINT fellowship as a teaching fellow at the W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, US, in 2019, where she taught in Fall 2019. She has been invited as a visiting faculty at various Universities in Europe, India, and Japan.

In recent years, she has also been a project leader in various projects related to research and teaching. She has managed the Linnaeus Palme Student and Teacher exchange between Sweden and India for 8 years since 2014. In 2019, she was part of the highly competitive EU-UIA grants project titled DIACCESS to work on the topic of Smart cities and Digital acceleration. In 2021, Soniya coordinated two MIRAI grant-based research projects with Japanese universities 2021. In 2022, she was a member of two E-Uniwell projects that facilitated research between European universities on topics of strategic importance for European policy-making.

In 2022, she started working on a three-year Sweden-funded FORMAS project on the topic of sustainable consumption of natural resources. In this project, she is the co-supervisor for a PhD student in the area of Sustainable resources, sustainable consumption, and the impact of substitute products in the Wood industry.

In 2025, Soniya received grants for the Interreg South Baltic Grants for the project titled 'Back2Woods’, which explores the Forest landscape as a resource for sustainable living and self-regulation with imminent positive motivation and impacts on the Forests as an entrepreneurial resource in the domain of wellbeing and lifeliving.

Ph.D.: Doctoral degree in Marketing Management, 2011, Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, Japan (Monbukagakusho Scholar, Government of Japan). Thesis: 'Understanding Corporate Branding of Retail Banks with Reference to Management Projections and Customer Perceptions in Japan and India'

Previous employment:

Faculty (Marketing) at Temple University - Japan campus, Tokyo, Japan.Tenure: July 2005 – October 2010

Research Associate at the Indian Institute of Management, Indore- a triple-accredited, highly ranked management institute in India.

Publications
Research area 1: Consumer behavior

Wedajo, D. Y., Cristescu, C., Billore, S., & Adamopoulos, S. (2025). Carbon impact of wood-based products through substitution: a review of assessment aspects and future research perspectives in life cycle assessment. Carbon Management, 16(1), 2536350.

Billore, S., Anisimova, T., & Vrontis, D. (2023). Self-regulation and goal-directed behavior: A systematic literature review, public policy recommendations, and research agenda. Journal of Business Research, 156, 113435.

Billore, S. and Anisimova, T. (2021). Panic Buying Research: A systematic literature review and future research agenda. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 00:1–28. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijcs.12669. 

Billore, S., Kobayashi, T. and Wang, O. (2021), "Consumer attitudes towards leftover food takeout interventions: a case study of the doggy bag in Japan", British Food Journal, Vol. 123 No. 9, pp. 3228-3244. 

Billore, S. and Billore, G. (2020). Consumption switch at haste: insights from Indian low-income customers for adopting Fintech services due to the pandemic. Transnational Marketing Journal, 8(2), 197–218. 

Billore, S. and Billore, G. (2020), Internationalization of SMEs and market orientation: A study of customer knowledge, networks, and cultural knowledge, European Business Review, 32 (1), 69-85. https://doi.org/10.1108/EBR-06-2018-0112. 

Rosen, C. and Billore, S. (2020). Consumption of digital education cross-cultural study of students' attitudes towards digital tools for language learning, HumaNetten, 45 

Sattari, S. and Billore, S. (2020), Bring it on Covid-19: being an older person in developing countries during a pandemic, Working with Older People, 24(4), pp. 281-291. 

Billore, S. & Rosen, C. (2017). A cross-cultural study of attitudes to digital tools among students and teachers in the European language classroom. Extended Papers of the International Symposium on Digital Humanities (DH 2016): Växjö, Sweden, November 7-8, 2016 / [ed] Koraljka Golub & Marcelo Milrad, CEUR-WS.org, 2017, Vol. 2021, p. 10-28

Billore, S., & Billore, G. (2015). Innovation in the Indian Banking Industry: An Exploration of the Evolution. Handbook of Research on Internationalization of Entrepreneurial Innovation in the Global Economy, 158. Ed. Luisa Cagica Carvalho, March 2015, pgs.547, ISBN13: 9781466682160

Billore, S., Billore, G., & Yamaji, K. (2013). The Online Corporate Branding of Banks-A Comparative Content Analysis of Indian and Japanese Banks. Journal of American Business Review, Cambridge, 1, 90-96.

Billore, S. (2012), 'Doing Business in India Inc'. Translated into Spanish as 'Hacer Negocios en India Inc.,' Comercio Global, INCAE Business Review, Volume 2, pp. 2-9, January – April 2012, INCAE Business School, Costa Rica. 

Billore, S. (2011). Female immigrant entrepreneurship: Exploring international entrepreneurship through the status of Indian women entrepreneurs in Japan.International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, 3(1), 38-55. 

Billore, S., Norashfah Hanim Yaakop Yahaya Al-haj and Daphne Halkias (2010), Female immigrant entrepreneurship: A developing sector in Japan's entrepreneurial economy, Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship (JDE), Vol 15, No.2, June 2010. Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University. 

Billore, S. & Kuwahara, T. (2010), Corporate Branding in Financial Services- management and customer perceptions for retail banks in India, Keio SFC Journal, 10 (1).

Research area 2: Cultural consumption and consumer practices

Billore, S., Genc, E. A., & Ozturkcan, S. (2025). Brand museums, commodification of cultural heritage, and cultural transfer: The case of IKEA museum. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 41(1), 101388.

Billore, S.(2022), ‘Digital museums, anyone? Consumer perceptions for digital cultural consumption in a developing country. In print in the International Journal of Management Practice (IJMP), Special issue ‘Digital Markets and Consumers’. 

Billore, S. (2021). Cultural Consumption and Citizen Engagement—Strategies for Built Heritage Conservation and Sustainable Development. A Case Study of Indore City, India, 13(5), 2878. Special issue- The fourth pillar: Culture in Sustainability, 

Billore, S., & Maruyama, Y. (2021). Cultural Consumption through Innovative Experiential Marketing: Insights from Japanese Resorts during the COVID-19 Pandemic. In Virus Outbreaks and Tourism Mobility. Emerald Publishing Limited.

Billore, S. and Hägerdal, H. (2019), The Indian Patola: import and consumerism in early-modern Indonesia, Journal of Historical Research in Marketing,11(3),271-294. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHRM-03-2018-0009. Special Issue: Historical Perspectives on Non-Western Markets and Consumer Cultures, 

Billore, S. (2018). Enriching Cultural Experiences from Rural Tourism: Case Studies from Japan. In Camilleri, M. A. (Ed.), Tourism Planning and Destination Marketing (pp. 141-160). Bingley: Emerald Publishing. 

Myrvold, K. & Billore, S. (2017). Introduction India: Research on Cultural Encounters and Representations at Linnaeus University. Gothenburg, Makadam Publisher.

Billore, S, & Sharma, P. (2017). Social Marketing and Change: The role of Self Help groups, their efforts, and possibilities for the empowerment of rural women in Madhya Pradesh. India: Research on Cultural Encounters and Representations at Linnaeus University. Gothenburg, Makadam Publishers

Research area 3: Higher education and pedagogical research

Billore, S.(2021). The Sandwich model workshop - an innovative integrated teaching approach for theory and practice-based knowledge in marketing. Marketing Education Review, 1-12. 

Billore, S., Sattari, S. (2015), Opportunities for double degree programs in management: an investigation of Indian and Swedish universities, 2015 Lärarlärdom - Conference on higher education at Linnaeus University

Billore,S. (2014), Management Education in Sweden, 53rd Nationwide Conference of the Japan Association for Management Systems (JAMS), 2014, at the Aichi Institute of Technology, Nagoya, Japan.

Teaching

Innovation, Consumer Behaviour, Culture, and consumption, Innovation studies and Business, International marketing

Research

2025: Inter Reg South Baltic Grants for project ‘Back2Woods’, a 2,5 million Euro multinational project with lead applicant University of Wismar, Germany. See details at https://southbaltic.eu/projects-and-success-stories/back2woods-rediscovering-south-baltic-forests-as-places-for-mental-healing-and-active-recreation/

2019- 2023 - EU funds Projekt: Digital acceleration for medium-sized sustainable cities (DIACCESS) at https://lnu.se/forskning/sok-forskning/forskningsprojekt/projekt-digital-acceleration-for-medium-size-sustainable-cities/ Funds : 4.5 million Euros

2015-2022 - SIDA funds - Linnaeus Palme teacher and student exchange project with IMED, India.

2021: E-Uniwell consortium funds for research -  Civic leadership and the entrepreneurial society - embedding innovative and cultural civic leadership. https://www.euniwell.eu/participate/call-for-joint-projects/projects-of-the-second-seed-funding-call-2021/civic-leadership-to-improve-social-well-being

2021: E-Uniwell consortium funds for research - Mental health symposium: exploring and enhancing mental health initiatives and resources

2020: Växjö kommun research grants – ‘The Glass project’.  Prof. Helena Forslund, Soniya Billore & Fredrik Lindblad, Näringslivschef, Växjö kommun. Granted funds: 445,000 SEK.

2018: Cultural encounters https://lnu.se/en/meet-linnaeus-university/current/news/2018/india--research-on-cultural-encounters-and-representations-at-linnaeus-university

2017: Lars Hiertas Minnes research funding, for study of ‘International business and SMEs from Sweden in Japan’.

2017: Samhällelig Drivkraft (Interdisciplinary research) funding, 2016-2017, for research on ‘Digital tools in learning, a comparative study between Sweden and Germany’.

2016: Samhällelig Drivkraft (Interdisciplinary research) funding, 2016-2017, for research on ‘Diabetes among children and health aids on mobile technology, a comparative study between Sweden and India’.

2015- 2017: The Swiss Programme for Erasmus+ for higher education - Swiss-European Mobility program (SEMP).

2018: Erasmus+ grants for Internationalisation and Capacity building application with the Indian Institute of Management, Kashipur, India

Commissions

2019: STINT teaching and research sabbatical grants at Arizona State University (ASU), 2019 for teaching at the W.P.Carey School of Business, ASU Tempe campus, Phoenix. Funded by the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education.