Brain for Business Brain for Business

Innovation is an inherently risky business. When we push the boundaries of possibility and try to develop new products, processes or services, we are by definition moving into areas that are new and unexplored. A key consequence of this is that innovation sometimes – or even often – results in failure. But why is this? And are all innovation failures the same?
To explore this further, I am delighted to be joined by Dr Elena Freisinger who, together with Professor Ian McCarthy of Simon Fraser University, has recently published on just this topic.
About our guest…
Elena Freisinger is an Assistant Professor of Innovation Management at Ilmenau University of Technology in Thuringia, Germany.
Elena’s research focuses on the behavioral aspects of Innovation Management, and she investigates the behavior of innovation decision-makers with regard to technological and environmental change and how this affects innovation management and business models of organizations.
The article discussed is open access and can be downloaded from here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166497224000452
You can find out more about Elena and her research here:
https://www.tu-ilmenau.de/en/universitaet/fakultaeten/fakultaet-wirtschaftswissenschaften-und-medien/profil/institute-und-fachgebiete/fachgebiet-innovationsmanagement/team/elena-freisingerhttps://scholar.google.com/citations?user=N1Qp6bcAAAAJ&hl=de
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Over the last number of years, the internet has facilitated much greater connectivity and interaction between people – both on a personal and professional level. Intuitively we might expect that this would lead to an upsurge in innovation as people are exposed to new ideas and can easily collaborate with many more people. And, indeed, this would very much with the recombinant theory of innovation. Yet is that really the case?
 
To explore this further I am delighted to be joined by Professor Lingfei Wu of the University of Pittsburgh.
  
Lingfei Wu is Assistant Professor of Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh. His research leverages big data, complexity sciences, and AI to understand how science and technology can advance through collaborative teamwork, known as the Science of Team Science and Innovation.
His research has been published in prestigious academic journals like Nature and Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and featured in renowned media outlets. Lingfei Wu also advises organizations like Novo Nordisk Fonden and John Templeton Foundation on the use of data science to evaluate teamwork in science. He has received multiple awards for his research and teaching, including the NSF Career Award, Richard King Mellon Award, and Oxford Martin School Fellowship.
 
Lingfei’s personal site is accessible here: http://lingfeiwu.github.io/
The paper discussed in the interview is available here: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2206/2206.01878.pdf

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In many areas of life – both personal and professional – the need to envision potential futures and establish how to get there is crucial. Indeed, some would argue that the ability to envision potential futures is part of what defines us as human beings.  And while there are well established approaches such as scenario planning and forecasting, a recent paper in journal Futures outlines a promising new approach, informed by literature and the great literary works. To discuss this, I am delighted to be joined on the Brain for Business podcast by Professor Rebecca Braun.
 
Professor Rebecca Braun is the Executive Dean of College of Arts, Social Sciences & Celtic Studies at the University of Galway.
 
Prior to joining the University of Galway in 2021, Rebecca was Professor of Modern Languages & Creative Futures at Lancaster University in the UK, where she was also Co-Director of the Institute for Social Futures from 2017-2020. Rebecca held further lectureships and research fellowships at the Universities of Liverpool, Manchester and Oxford in the UK and at the Freie Universität Berlin.

The article discussed in the interview is available here –   https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328724000314More information on the Literary Futures approach is available here – https://thenextwavefutures.wordpress.com/2024/03/22/using-literary-futures-to-open-up-the-imagination-methods/Rebecca Braun’s University Page can be access here –   https://www.universityofgalway.ie/our-research/people/languages-literatures-and-cultures/rebeccabraun/The Futures journal can be accessed online – https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/futuresThe Next Wave Futures blog can be subscribed to online –  https://thenextwavefutures.wordpress.com/
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In recent years, Diversity along with Equity and Inclusion have emerged as key elements of organisational and people strategy. It is now essentially a “taken for granted” assumption that DEI initiatives are a good thing and that they in turn play an important role in reducing bias and inequality in the workplace. But is this really the case?
To explore this further I am delighted to be joined today by Professor Karin Hellerstedt and Professor Timur Uman, both of Jönköping International Business School in Sweden, who were co-authors with Karl Wennberg of Linkoping University of a recent paper published in Academy of Management Perspectives.
About our guests...
Karin Hellerstedt is a Senior Associate Professor at Jönköping International Business School.
Karin has conducted research on entrepreneurship in knowledge intensive industries, and on how firms and teams are formed and develop over time.
She has been involved in several research projects dealing with different aspects of entrepreneurship such as academic, rural and knowledge intensive entrepreneurship. Karin Hellerstedt has written and published several research reports and published in international peer review journals.
Her current research centers around ownership transitions and the succession of privately held businesses.
 
Timur Uman is a Professor in Accounting and Control at Jönköping International Business School.
Timur’s research deals with corporate governance and management control in stock listed corporation, hybrid and public organizations and new ventures. His work has been published in premier journals in Business Administration such as Corporate Governance: An International Review, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Journal of World Business and Long-Range Planning among others. 
Prior to joining academia Timur worked in executive positions in Latvian and German companies dealing with financial management and planning.
The paper discussed in the interview is available here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4308670

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A recent paper in the Journal of Possibility Studies argues that creativity is an essential skill for effective leadership and that creative leaders can motivate their teams more effectively and can handle novel challenges by being more flexible in going outside the typical routines. Key to this is the important role played by a leaders’ creative identity and the recognitions that leaders can deliberately enact their creative identities in their roles, based on two ways to understand their creativity: as a way of thinking or as a personality type.
Just as importantly, however, leaders need to be adaptive in their approach – both to leadership and to the cultures they encourage in the workplace.
To discuss this further I am delighted to be joined by Dr Oana Velcu-Laitinen
About our guest…
Dr Oana Velcu-Laitinen is a researcher and consultant who works in the areas of creativity, change, innovation and well-being.
Her focus is challenging the habitual thinking of leaders, researchers and other knowledge workers to bring positive change and breakthroughs to their workplaces and domains of knowledge.

Oana has a published a number of papers and books, including “How to develop your creative identity at work”, published in October 2022.
 
You can find out more about Oana and her work here:
·        https://www.linkedin.com/in/oana-velcu-laitinen-phd-6081084/
·        https://www.velcu.fi/
The article from the Journal of Possibility Studies discussed in the interview is available here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/27538699231226173

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When it comes to decision making, overconfidence is acknowledged as one of the most common managerial decision making biases. Nonetheless, much uncertainty remains about the implications of CEO overconfidence most particularly in terms of risk taking and ultimately organisational performance.
 
To explore the impact of CEO overconfidence in more detail I am delighted to be joined by Dr Barbara Burkhard and Professor Charlotta Sirén of the Institute for Responsible Innovation at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland.
Barbara Burkhard is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Responsible Innovation at the University of St.Gallen
Barbara’s research is centered on the psychology of top managers and employees. She specializes in researching how the cognition, emotions, and other individual factors influence top managers and employees’ decisions, behaviors, and, consequently, organizational outcomes.
Charlotta Sirén is an Associate Professor of Management at the Institute of Responsible Innovation at the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland
Charlotta’s research focuses on key elements of entrepreneurship including the psychological aspects of entrepreneurship, informal entrepreneurship, responsible innovation and new venture teams.
You can find out more about the work of both Barbara and Charlotta on the website of the Institute of Responsible Innovation at the University of St Gallen: https://iri.unisg.ch/
The paper discussed – Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained: A Meta-Analysis of CEO Overconfidence, Strategic Risk Taking, and Performance – is open access and is available here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01492063221110203


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