Institute of

Innovation Marketing

Our research addresses issues in the field of marketing, innovation management and entrepreneurship. Our projects are aimed at generating new insights on the successful realization of business ideas and innovations. Our analyses are based on empirical studies aimed at testing theoretical assumptions in real-life cases which provide valuable implications to management practice. We strive for the publication of our findings in peer-reviewed international journals.

A significant part of our research is in the field of Open and User Innovation research. Stimulated by the groundbreaking work of MIT Professor Eric von Hippel, there is growing evidence that users of products and services can make significant contributions to innovations and, often enough, are even stronger originators of innovation than manufacturers. This observation fits very well in the general trend to open innovation activities of firms to external contributors. Users constitute an important external source in open innovation processes.