2023-04-04, Wyss, Ananda, von Kutzschenbach, Michael, Meyer, Rolf

2023, Wyss, Ananda, von Kutzschenbach, Michael

2022, Hinz, Andreas, von Kutzschenbach, Michael, Meyer, Rolf, Michelini, Laura, Minà, Anna, Alaimo Di Loro, Pierfrancesco

Focusing on social business model innovation at the example of startup incubator programs for refugees, this research provides insights into how such programs can create social impact. With the importance of social integration in mind, the guiding question for this work is how social entrepreneurship in the form of startup incubator programs for refugees can create social impact by addressing key challenges of integration. Based on a literature review and interviews with refugees and integration experts, it appears that challenges primarily relate to language skills, professional qualifications, psychological stress and discrimination. While conventional standardized integration programs address some of these issues, gaps remain that slow down integration. This is where startup incubators can make a difference. For instance, they offer personalized coaching and mentoring to allow for individual needs and to empower participants to develop and deploy their potential. Further, they help participants build a strong personal network in the local ecosystem. Moreover, entrepreneurial skills are developed to prepare participants for self-employment as an alternative to the difficult job search. Overall, this work illustrates that social innovation of startup incubator programs for refugees can accelerate integration and create social impact.

2021, Wyss, Ananda, von Kutzschenbach, Michael

2023, von Kutzschenbach, Michael, Daub, Claus-Heinrich, Dornberger, Rolf

Digitale Technologien und Innovationen verändern unsere Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft wie nie zuvor. Unternehmensleitende und Führungskräfte sind jedoch an einem Punkt angelangt, an dem sie die Art und Weise überdenken müssen, wie Unternehmen die digitale Transformation nutzen können, um sich den Herausforderungen der Nachhaltigkeit zu stellen. Da Organisationen im Kontext der Gesellschaft agieren, beeinflussen viele Faktoren wie soziale Strukturen, politische Entscheidungen, allgemeine wirtschaftliche Trends und technologische Entwicklungen ihre Tätigkeit. Um erfolgreich zu sein, muss sich eine Organisation dieser Veränderungen bewusst sein und gleichzeitig in der Lage sein, sich mit ihnen auseinanderzusetzen. Ausgehend von dieser Sichtweise skizzieren wir einen integrierten Rahmen, der die verschiedenen Stufen der „Digitalität“ mit den notwendigen Veränderungen in der Managementpraxis verbindet, um die Untersuchung von Organisationen zu unterstützen. Weitere Forschung ist notwendig, um besser zu verstehen, wie sich die Managementpraxis verändern muss, um digitale Technologien für eine fortlaufende, lernbasierte Engagementstrategie zu nutzen. Dies erfordert, dass sich Führungskräfte ihres eigenen Denkens bewusst werden, ihre bisherigen Überzeugungen aufgeben und sich auf organisatorisches Lernen und Experimente mit den Beteiligten einlassen.

2023, Pavlova, Pavlina, Wyss, Ananda, von Kutzschenbach, Michael, Daub, Claus-Heinrich

The article proposes a hybrid approach that combines various design methods to organize and deliver successful open innovation ideation workshops to prototype new circular products and services. Three case studies are presented, including two intra-company collaboration workshops and a creativity and interdisciplinary workshop for students. A well-defined workshop setup structure and tools used are presented to enable practitioners to run similar workshops. The challenges and solutions developed during the case study workshops are summarized, and funding and realization details are provided. The paper emphasizes that the workshops are just the first step towards realizing circular economy solutions and further support and resources are needed to bring the ideas to fruition.

2022, von Kutzschenbach, Michael, Wyss, Ananda, Hoveskog, Maya, Tell, Joakim, Michelini, Laura, Minà, Anna, Alaimo Di Loro, Pierfrancesco

Recent trends and challenges surrounding sustainability and digitalization have forced businesses to rethink their business models. Business model innovation for sustainability (BMIfS) aims to enable companies to better meet these challenges and to operate within planetary boundaries while ensuring their long-term success. Several authors have iterated the importance of co-creation and collaboration with multiple stakeholders for BMIfS. Educational settings can provide an ideal environment to engage multiple stakeholders collaboratively. However, the educational facet in supporting SMEs in meeting the challenges of BMIfS appears insufficiently addressed. In particular, the practical implementation of co-creative learning activities to strengthen students’ and businesses’ capabilities for BMIfS is weakly researched and developed. This paper contributes by addressing the challenges of true co-creation for BMIfS between students and SMEs in educational settings. Built on insights from two illustrative educational initiatives, several underlying causes for these challenges are discussed. Based on these observations and the authors’ experiences, seven tentative principles are presented to support the design of educational co-creative BMIfS with students and SMEs. For future research, the paper suggests taking design-based and longitudinal research approaches to improve education for sustainability resulting in better students’ and businesses’ capabilities for BMIfS as well as assessing its transformational impact for SMEs.

2023, von Kutzschenbach, Michael, Wyss, Ananda, Kerr, Iain, Frasca, Jason

The Circular Economy concept has gained interest in recent times but has also received criticism for their lack of holistic and radical approaches in addressing the root of sustainability issues. Experimentation is rightly considered necessary in business model innovation for sustainability (BMIfS). However, current approaches to experimentation have limitations and biases that lead to incremental changes rather than the necessary transformative change. We contend that existing approaches to experimentation must be rooted in something other than incremental change. The focus on short-term results and existing problematic models hinders achieving greater sufficiency and regeneration. A more radical, world-making business model innovation is needed to overcome these limitations. This calls for aspirational approaches that involve an experimental, co-emergent process that embraces open-ended experimentation and co-creation with stakeholders. The concept of emergence is critical in this regard, as it requires a deliberate open-ended process to co-emerge with experiments. The concept of exaptation, borrowed from evolutionary biology, can be combined with co-emergent processes to bring about qualitative novelty and foster a more exploratory co-evolutionary approach to innovation. This radical, world-making approach to BMIfS offers a promising approach to lead to transformative change. By embracing exaptation and co-emergence, organizations can co-evolve dynamically with new possibilities and are thus better equipped to navigate the complex and ever-changing landscape of sustainability. Our research aims to develop further this co-emergent alternative for BMIfS with a context-sensitive approach based on heuristics, not rules.

2022, Zeijlemaker, Sander, Rouwette, Etiënne A. J. A., Cunico, Giovanni, Armenia, Stefano, von Kutzschenbach, Michael

Cyber-security incidents show how difficult it is to make optimal strategic decisions in such a complex environment. Given that it is hard for researchers to observe organisations’ decisionmaking processes driving cyber-security strategy, we developed a board game that mimics this real-life environment and shows the challenges of decision-making. We observed cyber-security experts participating in the game. The results showed that decision-makers who performed poorly tended to employ heuristics, leading to fallacious decision approaches (overreaction strategies in place of proactive ones), and were not always aware of their poor performances. We advocate the need for decision support tools that capture this complex dynamic nature.

2021, von Kutzschenbach, Michael, Zeijlemaker, Sander

The Beer Distribution Game Management Flight Simulator is a well-known approach to better understand the dynamics of supply chains and for teaching principles for effective management. Supply chain dynamics provides us with a lot of knowledge about the drivers for the bullwhip effect and levers to reduce this effect. In an increasingly digital world, the usage of information technology also reduces delays and improves the quality of information sharing. Both the increased dependency on information technology and introduction of new digital technological service concepts (like DAAS, PAAS, SAAS) intensify the potential of cyber risks to such chain. We believe this introduction to cyberspace evokes new game theory-like dilemmas with their own dynamic structure that may have an impact on the bullwhip effect. Our exploratory research focusses on a service chain. The basis of this paper is a modelling project where we have been able to combine honey pot data (external view / attacker view) with SD modelling techniques, including specific equations relevant to cyber-security. This combination provides us insights about the defenders’ strength and occurred incidents (internal view). Our application of honeypot data goes far beyond the regular intelligence gathering and scanning activities. This research highlighted that additional bullwhip effects, although differently observed, may occur in a service chain based on these new service concepts. We also noticed that sharing of security relevant information improves effective management in such chain. That is, early anticipation of the defender to limits the impact of cyber-attacks.