POSITIONS: PhD in Customer Centered Business Innovation

[entrepreneurship-phd at lists.uni-due.de]

From: Henrik Berglund [henrik.berglund at chalmers.se]
Date: Thu 8 Dec 2011 10:00

The Center for Business Innovation at Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden) is recruiting a PhD student to for a project that focuses on systematic, iterative approaches to customer centered business innovation (e.g. Lean Startup and Customer Development).

The position is a fully paid employment for five years with 80% research and 20% teaching and administrative duties. Application deadline is January 7. 

Job description

Managing business model innovation means confronting a lot of uncertainty, not least concerning market and customer related issues. This implies short planning horizons and more generally places demands on management that are quite different from those confronting the management of more established operations. As a consequence of this great uncertainty, it is often assumed that management of business model innovation cannot truly be based on rational and well-grounded decisions, but instead has to rely on a mix of intuition, tradition, imitation and good luck.

However, in recent years, a number of theorists and practitioners have begun converging on a set of normative guidelines that specifically target the management of customer centered business model innovation under conditions of radical market uncertainty. (e.g. McGrath and MacMillan 1995, Blank 2005, Mullins and Komisar 2009, Furr, and Ahlstrom 2011, Ries 2011). While increasingly popular among startups and venture capitalists, very little systematic research has been carried out examining how these approaches are applied in practice.

Therefore, the general purpose of this PhD project is to study how and with what effects companies can apply more systematic approaches to business model innovation, such as the ones mentioned above. The empirical context can be either small startups or projects in more established corporations that seek to develop radical business model changes and innovations. 

At our department, we have extensive industrial networks with both startups and innovation managers in large firms. These relationships will be leveraged as part of designing specific empirical studies. We also collaborate with innovation researchers around the world and many activities in the project will be carried out in close collaboration with our international colleagues. 

You will be employed as a doctoral student and will receive a salary according to current salary agreements. A maximum of 20% of your working time will be devoted to other duties at the department such as course administration and teaching. The employment is limited to five years and we expect you to have finished your PhD thesis within this time frame.

Interviews for the position will take place in Göteborg during January/February 2012 and we want you to be able to start soon thereafter.

Qualifications

Most important is a genuine interest in startup and firm management combined with a strong theoretical interest. You should have a master degree either in a management related discipline or in some other relevant social scientific area such as psychology, sociology or economics. We also look for individuals who are capable of working independently and who are comfortable interacting with people from industry as well as academia. Strong analytical skills and the ability to communicate effectively both orally and in writing are also very important. You should be fluent in English.

For more information: http://bit.ly/sGZhtg 


Kind regards,

/Henrik
__________________________________________________________________________
Henrik Berglund
Associate Professor

Center for Business Innovation
Dept. of Technology Management and Economics
Chalmers University of Technology

   Phone     : +46 708 128 138
   Email     : henrik.berglund at chalmers.se
   Skype     : henrik.k.berglund
   Twitter   : @khberglund
   Web       : www.henrikberglund.com