Victor Gilsing is a Professor of Corporate Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the department of Management and Organisation of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and also the Department of Management, Faculty of Applied Economics at Antwerp University.
Professor Gilsing is a highly-cited and award-winning expert on topics such as corporate entrepreneurship & innovation, top management teams & innovation, external collaboration & the creation of breakthrough innovations, and digital transformation of established firms. His academic research has been published in ISI journals such as Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, Research Policy, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Technovation, R&D Management, and others. He has extensive experience in teaching for both PhD and Master students as well as for (senior) executives, non-executive directors, corporate and independent venture managers, on topics such as corporate entrepreneurship, innovation, innovation strategy and external collaboration. For the period of 2015 until 2022, he has received a prestigious Odysseus research grant from the Flanders Science Foundation (FWO) for a research program on the role of Top Managers, its Board of Directors and a Firm´s ability to create Innovations and Technological Breakthroughs.
Professor Gilsing will host a two-part session, especially interesting for PhD students and postdoctoral scholars working in the field of innovation and digitalization.
Part 1 is a research talk on one of his ongoing projects “Hands-on or Hands-off? TMT Structural Attributes and the Coordination of Knowledge Diversity for Innovation.” Here is the abstract of the paper: “While knowledge diversity among a firm’s inventors fosters potential for innovation, it also implies the attendant need for its coordination by their TMT. We do not, however, fully comprehend when and how a TMT may accomplish this important coordination task effectively. In response, we study how a TMT’s coordination ability influences the relationship between knowledge diversity and a firm’s capability to develop new technological innovations. Specifically, we investigate how three TMT structural attributes—administrative intensity, hierarchical structure, and functional structure— shape such a coordination ability and how this moderates the relationship between a firm’s knowledge diversity and innovation. Based on a longitudinal dataset that includes 124 pharmaceutical firms, 2,815 top managers, and 34,203 inventors, we show that the positive relation between knowledge diversity and innovation weakens with administrative intensity yet strengthens with functional structure. The findings illustrate the important and intricate role that a TMT needs to play to effectively coordinate knowledge diversity for innovation—a “hands-off” approach in the first phase of opportunity identification and a “hands-on” approach in the second phase of opportunity execution.”
Part 2 is a Paper Development Workshop. Especially, Victor Gilsing invites PhD students and emerging scholars to send him their ongoing paper project and a series of key questions they would like to discuss to move the paper forward. Please, send a note by October 12 to andreas.koenig@uni-passau.de to let me know if you are interested in participating in the session (and whether you want your paper to be discussed or to participate as active listener). Those of you who want to work on a paper and get selected, please, send the paper and your questions to v.a.gilsing@vu.nl by October 28 (please put andreas.koenig@uni-passau.de in cc). You can also attach a ppt file or any other kind of material you want Prof. Gilsing to study in preparation for your feedback.
The idea is to organize the PDW as a “masterclass” where everyone participates in the discussion of maximum four papers. As such, the discussion of your paper will be on a first come first serve basis. However, note that listening in to the PDW will certainly be worthwhile, as Professor Gilsing will attempt to address issues that will almost certainly be of value to all. You are also invited to contribute feedback and ask questions.
Please, don’t hesitate to contact us for any questions.