Areas of expertise
Strategizing and innovations in Ecosystems
The Evolution of Multinational Enterprises
Global Virtual Team Organizations
Business Concept Innovations
Multi-level Learning Designs
Biography
My central curiosity in research and education revolves around the question how change unfolds in different contexts and on different levels related to international business phenomena. This includes research into the entrepreneurial firm which transforms into the multinational corporation; global virtual teams and their development trajectories; cluster organizations and their collective ecosystem dynamics; and the central questions regarding knowledge in their various forms when it is acquired by organizations or learned by individuals. These central research topics span to a deep passion for teaching and learning, which presents itself as a fascinating transformation process in which learners discover new knowledge and constitute through that the relevance of research. Being an Austrian and father of four, and having lived my adult life in Finland, Sweden and New Zealand provides me with a good variety of perspectives to draw from.
My work as supervisor of doctoral candidates in our PhD program is representing well the width, eclectic nature and enthusiasm my research and teaching encompasses.
Teaching
My teaching is based on my conviction that our students possess a very high potential and therefore teaching designs need to provide them with challenges that trigger their intellectual growth. As a consequence my teaching can be characterized as an approach that emphasizes learning designs in which students are active learners who take full responsibility for their professional and personal growth and connect new information and insights to their individual understanding and build on that their own vision of themselves to become strong contributors to the communities they choose to serve.
My teaching currently encompasses the following areas (mostly on MSc and executive levels):
- International Business Strategy & Practice
- Management of Innovation Development
- Research Practices and Methods
- The Internationalization of Firms
- Location Specific Studies
- Multinational Management