Institute for Strategy, Technology and Organization

Welcome

The Institute for Strategy, Technology and Organization (ISTO) is part of the Munich School of Management at LMU Munich and headed by Tobias Kretschmer.

Research ISTO aspires to create knowledge as an integral part of the worldwide research community. We thereby concentrate on the three research fields of strategy, technology and organization and their intersections, take the phenomenon to be explained as a starting point and use approaches from both management and microeconomics for our analyses.

Teaching Teaching at ISTO aims to provide students with sound knowledge of management topics, allow them to gain experience with a broad range of methodological tools and offer them insights into cutting-edge research. Our courses concentrate mainly on strategic management, organization and economics in high-tech industries, whilst maintaining a broad overall perspective.

Methods We focus on the following research and teaching methods: Large-scale quantitative investigations (e.g. panel data of firms' activities and characteristics) Primary data collection (where insufficient quantitative data is available) Phenomenon-driven theoretical models (e.g. for explaining integration decisions depending on industry

characteristics)

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Team News

Moving on

After handing in his Ph.D. thesis on the economics of media markets, Christian Peukert joined Prof. Ulrich Kaiser and team at Zurich University as a senior research associate in January 2014.

Leon Zucchini finished his Ph.D. on dynamic competitive interactions in October 2013. He now works as market research expert at Factworks in Berlin.

Christoph Dehne finished his Ph.D. on mergers and acquisitions in October 2013. After enjoying some time with his daughter, he plans to move on to industry.

Joining soon

Christine Auer joined ISTO as Ph.D. student and research and teaching assistant in October 2013. She holds a BA(Hons) in business studies with film and media law from the University of Stirling and an LLM in intellectual property law from the University of Edinburgh. Christine’s research interest is in the legitimization of new technologies.

Virgilio Failla will join ISTO as a post-doctoral fellow in September 2014. He holds a M.Sc. in management from Bocconi University and is currently finishing his Ph.D. at Copenhagen Business School. His paper on stayer-mover tendencies among self-employed has recently been selected for the Best Paper Proceedings of the Academy of Management Annual Meeting.

New onboard

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Current Research

New interdisciplinary Research Group studies organizational Structures

Dainis Zegners for Research Collaboration at TÉlécom ParisTech

From February to April 2014, Dainis Zegners joins the research faculty at Télécom ParisTech. He develops a model on mobile handset subsidies together with Professor Marc Bourreau and colleagues. Télécom ParisTech is one of the most prestigious and selective grandes écoles in France. Dainis’ stay in Paris is supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Which incentive mechanisms increase productivity in the manufacturing sector? Which steps do production managers go through when selecting their employees? How many hierarchical levels are reasonable in a medium-sized company?

ISTO’s new Organizational Research Group aims to give insights into these and related questions. The research group also comprises of Florian Englmaier and his team from the Department of Economics at LMU Munich and is supported by the LMU Excellence Initiative.

As a first step, the research group conducted interviews with 670 production managers in the German manufacturing industry. A further 320 interviews shed light on the areas of information technology, research and development and human resource management. The results are currently being evaluated and provide the basis for further work by the research group.

The interviews will be repeated periodically to capture changes in the organizational structure of the surveyed companies. For cross-border analysis, the research group plans to combine the data with similar surveys in Italy, Denmark and the United Kingdom.

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Research

New Publications (Selection)

Claussen, J., Kretschmer, T., Stieglitz, N. 2014. Vertical Scope, Turbulence and the Benefits of Commitment and Flexibility. Management Science. Forthcoming.

Vanneste, B., Puranam, P. , Kretschmer, T. 2014. Trust Over Time in Exchange Relationships: Meta-Analysis and Theory. Strategic Management Journal. Forthcoming.

Claussen, J., Kretschmer, T., Mayrhofer, P. 2013. The Effects of Rewarding User Engagement: The Case of Facebook Apps. Information Systems Research. 24(1) 186-200.

Salter, A., Criscuolo, P., Grohsjean, T., Opsahl, T. 2013: The chosen ones. The Selection of Capabilities in Professional Service Firms. Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings. 2013.

Tobias Kretschmer appointed to the Editorial Board of SMJ

Since July 2013, Tobias Kretschmer serves as an associate editor for the Strategic Management Journal, one of the top-ranked and most influential international journals in strategy and management research.

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Guests at ISTO

Andrea Prat (Columbia University) JP Eggers (NYU Stern) Danielle Li (Northwestern University) Stephen Ryan (University of Texas at Austin) Deepak Hegde (NYU Stern) Kevin Corley (Arizona State University) Linus Dahlander (ESMT Berlin)

Yan Li (University of Liverpool) Niko Matouschek (Northwestern University) Ed Lazear (Stanford University) Avi Goldfarb (University of Toronto) Jan Yngve Sand (University of Tromsö) Georg von Krogh (ETH Zürich) Sam Mac Aulay (Imperial College London)

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Conference

IIIrd ICT Conference Munich brought together renowned Scientists and Practitioners

ISTO hosts the 42nd EARIE Annual Conference in 2015

The annual conference of the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics is the most relevant meeting of its kind outside the US. From 28th to 30th of August 2015, the ISTO will welcome about 500 scholars in industrial organization and related fields in the impressive main building of LMU.

The conference brings together practitioners and researchers from all fields covering information and communication technology, including management, economics and information systems. Special emphasis lies on promoting Ph.D. students and their research.

The third conference was held from 14th to 16th of October 2013 at the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation in the idyllic setting of the Nymphenburg Palace in Munich. Almost 100 guests from 15 countries presented their work in ten contributed and four invited sessions.

Keynote speakers included Tim Bresnahan (Stanford University), Patrick Rey (IDEI Toulouse) and Hüseyin Tanriverdi (University of Texas at Austin). Five experienced academics and practitioners shared their opinions on the issue of “Cloud Computing and Security” in the expert panel, which also attracted media attention.

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Network

BTO Research Milan becomes new Partner of ISTO

ISTO supports Nokia Solutions and Network in an innovative Mobile Telco Project

ISTO supports Nokia Solutions Networks in developing business models for a new mobile telecommunications technology. The technology aims to enhance the mobile broadband experience, particularly for mobile phone customers in rural areas. The cooperation is part of a broader private-public partnership initiative that also involves the Institute for Mobile and Distributed Systems at LMU, Allianz Group and other companies. Funding is provided by the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Media, Energy and Technology.

ISTO is looking forward to a number of joint projects with BTO Research Milan, an international hub of research excellence in the fields of business technology and digital organization with offices in Milan, Rome, Turin, Luxembourg, London and New York. The main goals of this collaboration are the enhancement of research opportunities on the subjects of technology, innovation and digital development for the creation, communication and application of new knowledge and the establishment of a wide-ranging network of academic and professional experts. Planned activities, among others, are guest lectures by industry professionals in some of ISTO’s technology-oriented courses and the Munich-hosted Chief Information Officer Forum that will take place in Winter 2014.

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Teaching

Massive Open Online Course attracts 90.000 Students worldwide

MSc Students support Companies in strategic Questions

ISTO gives students the opportunity to work in a consulting-like project team and support companies in their strategic questions. This course is part of the curriculum in the M.Sc. in Business Administration. Recently, student teams supported publishing house Franz Vahlen in marketing a studying application for mobile phones, conducted a consumer survey on connected cars for the consultancy ZehnVier, analysed the innovativeness of the mobile telecommunications sector for KPMG and developed a marketing tool with marketing and sales consultants Envolved.

Tobias Kretschmer was among the four professors selected to design LMU’s first massive open online courses (MOOCs). His course “Competitive Strategy” ran for the first time in summer 2013 and attracted 95.000 students from 48 countries.

“Competitive Strategy” captures the basic concepts of game theory and trains participants to apply these in real business settings. The course is hosted on the platform Coursera and consists of six weekly modules with video lectures and interactive exercises. Regular online tests help students assess their comprehension of the course content. They can take part in various online discussion forums, ask questions, discuss open issues and work out solutions together.

Given its popularity among students, the course was chosen by Coursera to test a new and more modular teaching format. In addition, the course will be supplemented by the sequel “Advanced Competitive Strategy”. Both courses will be running between April and July 2014 on Coursera and are free of charge.

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Life at ISTO

Graduation ceremony for Christoph and Leon

Christmas celebration with fondue MBR graduation dinner for Christian

Visit to the game preserve Poing near Munich

Visit to the art exhibition “Big Data” in Munich

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Institute for Strategy, Technology and Organization Munich School of Management Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich

Schackstraße 4 80539 Munich Germany

T +49 (0)89 2180 6270 F +49 (0)89 2180 16541 M isto@bwl.lmu.de