Bram Timmermans

A start of something good. The Economist will start a new column on business and management and the will call it Schumpeter. See here the reason to call it Schumpeter. In addition, there is also a small video interviewing the writer of the column. This is a good opportunity for the field I and my colleagues work in. The exposure in the more popular press. See also the small video below!

For doctoral students in

INNOVATION, KNOWLEDGE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

(open the official call here)

The conference is open for all PhD students working within the broad field of
economics and management of innovation and organizational change. We invite
papers aiming at enhancing our understanding of the dynamics of technological,
structural and institutional change at the level of firms, industries, regions and
nations. DRUID is the node for an open international network – new partners are
always of interest (we of course encourage DRUID Academy PhD students and
students connected to the DIMETIC PhD program to submit an abstract as well).
Do not hesitate to apply even if you have not been in contact with DRUID
previously.
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And here is the second one in the series “IKE’s Elevator Pitch”. Professor Esben Sloth Andersen shortly presents his new book with the title Schumpeter’s Evolutionary Economics. More informationon Esben can be found on the IKE website.

We started a small broadcasting unit at IKE. The plan is that we record video’s on our activities and short interviews with researcher visiting the IKE Group. These video’s are uploaded on YouTube and will be embedded on the IKE website and several others, including www.timmermans.dk. The first uploaded video is a short interview with Bengt-Åke Lundvall. He has been acting as one of the EU ambassadors on the European Year of Creativity and Innovation 2009.

In the first weeks in Lund I plan to work on two chapters for my dissertation. The first chapter is a description of the Danish Integrated Database for Labour Market Research (IDA). Despite the fact that this database has been around for almost three decades, there is no descent English description of this database.

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Finally, after many years the Department of Business Studies has a new website. Also this part of Aalborg Univesity entered the 21st century with a new website. Compared to the older version this version shows up to date agenda and it has an RSS feed so visitors can see a list of the most recent publications. Next… the research groups and study programmes!

Authors: Christian R. Østergaard,  Bram Timmermans and Kari Kristinsson.

UPDATE (April 2009): Submitted to Research Policy

UPDATE (August 2009): As from today the paper, co-authored with Christian R. Østergaard and Kari Kristinsson, is availabe as a DRUID working paper under the title: Beyond Technological Diversification: The Impact of Employee Diversity on Innovation. Feel free to download the document by clicking here.

This paper uses combines the Danish Integrated Database for Labor Market Research (IDA) and the DISKO4 technology and innovation survey to analyse the effect of a diverse composition of firms on the likelihood to innovate. A firm’s innovative competence is connected to its ability to utilize its resources. How firms leverage their knowledge resources to increase innovative compentence still remains is an area open for more research. Some literature suggests that for firms to develop innovative competence they must maintain knowledge in a diverse range of technologies when searching for complentarities or novel solutions. As a critical part of the knowledge and skills needed for innovation resides with and is used by individuals, one promising line of inquire into firms innovative competences could be to focus on the employees composition and the diversity of knowledge, skills and cognitive frameworks available. Continue Reading…

As from the 3rd of August I will be staying for a period of 6 months at CIRCLE. This research group is part of the University of Lund Sweden. At this research group I will write up my final dissertation and finish the last two articles. I hope to get my office there during the following week. I am looking forward to have a change of scenery!

Author: Bram Timmermans

UPDATE (March 2009): Awarded the Best Paper Award at the IECER 2009 in Portugal

UPDATE (June 2009): Submitted the paper to the Journal of Business Venturing

The resources an entrepreneur has at its disposal are crucial for the successful exploration and exploitation of an entrepreneurial opportunity.  Within the literature these resources are categorized in three elements, i.e. human capital, financial capital and social capital. The recognition that social capital is one of these resource implies that entrepreneurial activity is more a collective than an individual activity. Continue Reading…

Author: Bram Timmermans

Click here for the first draft of the paper which will be presented during the DRUID winter conference 2009. The presentation can be view here.

A paper I recently started on is one that looks at the effect of diversity in new start-ups and the effect this diverse composition has on their survival. Researchers in the field of entrepreneurship have recognized that entrepreneurial activity is more a collective than an individual activity. As a result, studies on entrepreneurial teams started to emerge, including those on diversity in entrepreneurial teams. However, these studies look at team diversity cross-sectionally thereby neglecting the dynamic characteristic of teams, i.e. the potential change of team composition, which leads to a possible change in diversity. Whether or not this results in an increase or decrease of diversity will depend on the personal characteristics of the members Continue Reading…