Press Releases

Daan van Knippenberg and Ulrich Lichtenthaler hold lectures at GISMA Business School

On Tuesday, March 30th, Professor Ulrich Lichtenthaler will hold a lecture on how interorganizational alliances can help companies to meet these challenges and succeed through new structural and organizational forms of generating innovations.

When? Tuesday, March 30th 2010 at 5:30 – 7 p.m.
Where? Lecture Hall
GISMA Rotunde
Feodor-Lynen-Straße 27
30625 Hannover

On Thursday, April 1st, Professor van Knippenberg will hold a lecture on the pros and cons of team diversity and on what organizations can do to turn heterogeneity into an asset that affords sustainable competitive advantages.

When? Thursday, April 1st 2010 at 9 – 10:30 a.m.
Where? Lecture Hall
GISMA Rotunde
Feodor-Lynen-Straße 27
30625 Hannover

Prof. Ulrich Lichtenthaler:
Ulrich Lichtenthaler is Professor of Innovation and Organization at WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management. Despite his young age, with respect to research output he is already one of the most accomplished management professors in Germany. For example, Professor Lichtenthaler has conducted influential studies on how organizations can master the challenge of ambidexterity. In other words, he examines how companies can simultaneously excel in exploitation - that is, making optimal use of the core competencies they already possess - and exploration - that is, experimenting with new ideas and solutions. While exploitation is key to being competitive in the present, exploration ensures that an organization will be able to retain or bolster its competitive position in the future. Ambidexterity is challenging because there are typically trade-offs between exploitation and exploration - and between a short-term and a longterm perspective to business.

Prof. Daan van Knippenberg:
Daan van Knippenberg is Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Erasmus University's Rotterdam School of Management. His research on teamwork and leadership has been highly influential among researchers and practitioners. He has shaped our understanding of how teams should be composed and what team leaders must do to enable positive synergies through teamwork. Particularly, Professor van Knippenberg has shown when and how teams might benefit from demographic diversity, cross-functionality and interdisciplinarity and why the broader range of skills and perspective that such diversity entails often does not engender the benefits one might expect. Moreover, he has conducted breakthrough research on what types of individuals are likely to emerge as leaders in groups and what accounts for leaders being perceived as effective. The findings of his research are invaluable for organizational and team leaders.