Experiencing the Starbucks Experience - A Cultural Analysis of the Effects of Glocalization

Sammanfattning: The Malmo Central Station Starbucks opened in 2012 as one of the first Starbucks shops in Sweden. The shop works as a transient location, skillfully designed around its train station location and historical aesthetic. It here functions as one of Starbucks’s first forays into coffee- and fika-minded Sweden, where it must balance appealing to Swedish customers who are new to the brand and international customers already acquainted with it. The shop shows the result of a global brand having undergone glocalization to suit the needs of a new culture. This thesis offers a cultural analysis of this Starbucks location based on data acquired over a three-month long research project. The research was primarily done using semi-structured interviews, participant observations, and a large collection of netnography. The data is then interpreted through such theories as a modified concept of habitus, Ray Oldenburg’s third place, experiencescapes in the experience economy, and interpretations of sensory ethnography to answer the question of what material and social factors influence the way the Malmö Central Station Starbucks is experienced and perceived, and what the shop can tell us about the role Starbucks plays in the lives of its Swedish customers.