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New Book Chapter: Dynamic Capabilities – Celebrating the Plurality of Understandings

I graduated from a doctoral program in strategic management. Its key tenet was to explore the theme of “dynamic capabilities and relationships”, i.e. how organizations can adapt to a changing business environment with help of their (multiple) social relationships (think of buyers, suppliers, stakeholders, etc.). I’ve written up some thoughts on the program in a previous blog post.

The community of scholars involved in the doctoral program, including the founding professors and several doctoral students, have recently published a book entitled “Dynamic Capabilities and Relationships: Discourses, Concepts, and Reflections“, published by Springer. It was a fun project to work on. We were invited to reflect on our doctoral journey and share some core insights from our dissertations projects.

My section has the title: “Four Lessons Learnt from My Doctoral Journey and Some Advice for Emerging Dynamic Capabilities Scholars”. I hope that these learnings will resonate with early doctoral students, particularly with those who share my interest in emerging technologies. Below is quick summary. In order to dive deeper, feel free to explore the whole chapter (see download links and formal references below).

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Praxisbeiträge auf dem MUUUH! Newshub

Seit 2019 schreibe ich mehr oder weniger regelmäßig Beiträge für den Newshub bei MUUUH! Next, einer Agentur und Geschäftseinheit der MUUUUH! Group, die sich auf digitale Kommunikation und innovative Technologien spezialisiert. Viele Projekte bei MUUUH! drehen sich um die Gestaltung digitaler (Kunden-) Interaktionen mit Hilfe innovativer Technologien, zum Beispiel dem Outsourcing von digitalem Dialog und Community Management, Dialogautomation (z.B. über Chatbots/Voicebots) und die Entwicklung von individueller Software (z.B. Apps).

In vielen meiner Praxisbeiträge auf dem Newshub versuche ich aktuelle, wissenschaftliche Publikationen am Schnittpunkt zwischen Strategie, Kommunikation und Technologie, in der Regel mit Fokus auf Social Media und Online Communities, verständlich für Praktiker aufzubereiten. Vielfach kommen die Themen aus Lehre und Forschung oder aber sie inspirieren diese im Nachgang. Neben den Transferbeiträgen aus der Wissenschaft gibt es allerdings auch einige Interviews mit einschlägigen Praktikern aus der Digital- und Kommunikationsbranche. Hier ist eine Übersicht:

Continue reading Praxisbeiträge auf dem MUUUH! Newshub

New Article: Online Communities as Strategic Assets

My new article, entitled “Sense, seize, reconfigure: online communities as strategic assets,” was recently published in the Journal of Business Strategy. The article was co-authored by my colleagues Matthias Wenzel, Heinz Theo-Wagner and Jochen Koch. Its purpose is to explore and illustrate how organizations may use online communities strategically to adapt to a changing business environment, specifically from a dynamic capabilities perspective. We draw on three cases to show how communities may be used to sense opportunities and threats (case 1: Notebooksbilliger AG), seize opportunities (case 2: BMW Group) and reconfigure organizational assets (case 3: Funke Mediengruppe). Continue reading New Article: Online Communities as Strategic Assets

Conference Presentation: The Strategic Impact of Online Communities

From May 18-20, 2016 the 21st conference of the International Academy of Management and Business took place in Montreal, Canada. I presented a paper entitled “Exploring the Strategic Impact of Online Communities: A Dynamic Capabilities Perspective.” In the paper we argue that online communities may help organizations to attain a competitive advantage by allowing them to sense and seize opportunities and reconfigure resources. We present three cases and describe how organizations have employed them accordingly. The paper was nominated for the Best Applied Research Award. You can find more details about the conference and my presentation below. Continue reading Conference Presentation: The Strategic Impact of Online Communities

AoM 2015: Session on Dynamic Capabilities

This year it’ll be the 5th time I’m attending the Academy of Management Conference. I have good memories of the doctoral consortia and workshops I attended in the early years of my PhD. Here are two of my blog posts from back then: Reflections on the AoM in 2011 and Reflections on the AoM in 2012. Over the years, the conference has become a standard summer event for me. This year, I teamed up with my colleague Madeleine Rauch (European University Viadrina/German Graduate School of Management and Law) to organize a symposium entitled ‘Dynamic Capabilities: Bridging Diverging Conversations’. We have brought together an interesting set of papers from researchers surrounding our research group on dynamic capabilities. We’re delighted to have Gianmario Verona (Bocconi) and Oliver Schilke (University of Arizona) as facilitators for the discussion. The symposium is sponsored by the Business Policy and Strategy Division, and the Technology and Innovation Management Division. Our session is scheduled for Monday, August 10, 2015, from 8:00-9:30am at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Room 205. If you are a strategy or innovation scholar interested in dynamic capabilities, we hope to meet you there. You can find the abstract below. Continue reading AoM 2015: Session on Dynamic Capabilities