Chair for Innovation, Technology & Entrepreneurship | Profile
The chair is at the challenging intersection of innovation, technology and entrepreneurship in its research and teaching. The meaningful connection between the two poles, "theory" and "entrepreneurial practice" is thus an important principle of the chair. The words of the pioneer in social psychology, Kurt Lewin, put it in a nutshell: "There is nothing more practical than a good theory."
It is our goal to offer our students and professional partners multifaceted knowledge of the complex conflicting priorities between innovation, technology and entrepreneurship. In order to do so, we make use of theories, methods and current findings from scientific research. In addition to the imparting of knowledge, students are directly confronted with entrepreneurship through actual innovations and foundation projects.
Therefore, in research and teaching we work in close partnership with leading German and international research institutions, but also with small and large established, or soon to be established, ambitious companies. International cooperations and co-authorship in research exist, amongst others, with the Universität Bern, the Universitá Bocconi Milano, the Copenhagen Business School, the Harvard Business School, the Universität Innsbruck, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) or the Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien.
Issues
The intersection of innovation, technology and entrepreneurship creates a dynamic triangle. Our research and teaching concentrate on this challenging area, and the questions involved are just as numerous as they are challenging:
• What role do the users play (especially so-called "lead users") in the innovation process and why is this source of innovation, which has been underestimated for a long time, rapidly gaining importance? (research focus "open innovation/user innovation/lead user research")
• What (additional) markets presently exist with regard to current technological solutions, and can they be found systematically? How can limits regarding the industry and the disciplines be overcome in order to make use of expertise in analog areas for the development of groundbreaking innovations? How can the use of existing resources and the exploration of new areas be kept in a meaningful balance? (research focus "technological competence leveraging")
• Under which circumstances does it make sense to involve problem solvers from outside of the organization and experts in the innovation process? Which methods can be used to efficiently find external problem solvers and experts? Why and under which circumstances are these search methods successful? (research focus "search (methods)")
• How do individuals who act entrepreneurially proceed in the discovery and development of foundation ideas and why? Wherein do the special challenges and opportunities regarding technology-based entrepreneurship lie, and what is this due to? What new business models are gaining acceptance on the market, and why these? What special challenges does social entrepreneurship involve? (research focus ("social) entrepreneurship")?
• And finally: What new possibilities result from the insights gained, and what consequences do these have for a company?
The results of our predominately empirical research activities are published primarily in highly reputed international journals, and we endeavor to make the gained insights accessible to our students within the framework of teaching and to entrepreneurial practice in cooperative projects.
