Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship
We live in an age of unprecedented technological development. Businesses and organisations, like the people working in them and the societies around them, face challenges as the pace of change increases. Creativity in the workplace has become one of the most in-demand skills – but how can it best be fostered? We know that innovation is one of the key sources of firms’ competitive advantage – but what is the surest route from a brilliant idea to bringing a new product to market? As entrepreneurial activity booms in the digital economy, how can sustainable new enterprises, from spin-offs to start-ups, be built?
These three interlinked subjects are the focus of the multidisciplinary team that makes up the Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) research theme. Its mission is to contribute, via a cross-disciplinary and holistic research agenda, to the adaptive and renewal capacity of individuals and organisations, to support education for today’s and tomorrow’s employees and businesspeople, to inform policymakers and practitioners, and not only to disseminate findings to stakeholders but also to allow them to enrich the research agenda from the outside in.
The CIE team is built around a core group of academics from across SBE’s departments and institutes. As a research group, it covers a wide range of topics, including individuals’ creative work involvement, research and development spending choices, innovation networks and alliances, innovation policy design, new business development, digital entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship and family-owned enterprises.
Societally relevant research is at the core of the CIE research theme. As recognised by supranational initiatives such as the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and the European Union’s green and digital agenda, CIE-related topics are of major societal importance. Academic research will play a key role in ensuring that the changes we are experiencing will bring benefits to businesses and organisations – and to us all.
Visit another one of our research themes:
In an age of change, maintaining the status quo is no longer an option for most businesses. But creative, innovative and entrepreneurial businesses can benefit from the opportunities created by these changes
Yannick Bammens, leader of the Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship research theme
In the spotlight
Opinion piece on artificial intelligence featured in Harvard Business Review
How can midsize companies – who often lack access to big data and AI talent – compete in an AI landscape dominated by startups and big corporations? Yannick Bammens and Paul Hünermund share their ideas in this Harvard Business Review article.
Mapping the organisational and strategic challenges of SMEs in Limburg
In collaboration with the Province of Limburg, a team of SBE researchers mapped out the organisational and strategic challenges of SMEs in Limburg. These challenges pertain to issues such as innovation, governance and succession.
I can't get no sleep
When founding and managing a new business, entrepreneurs are frequently confronted with stressors hampering their daily work. Julia Kensbocks' study 'I can't get no sleep—The differential impact of entrepreneurial stressors on work-home interference and insomnia among experienced versus novice entrepreneurs', she examines how these entrepreneurial stressors affect two important interrelated indicators of entrepreneurs' recovery and well-being.
Knowledge sharing is of critical importance in any organisation’s innovation process
Katlijn Haesebrouck investigates how human behavior and organisational structure influence knowledge sharing. In a video, she discusses her research as well as her role in the Maastricht Young Academy.
Refugee Entrepreneurship Workshop
Tuesday 16 April 2019, the Department of Organisation and Strategy, the Centre for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Maastricht University and the Zuyd Hogeschool ran a refugee entrepreneurship workshop at the School of Business and Economics. The workshop aimed to connect refugee entrepreneurs with Maastricht University students and expert mentors to collaboratively work on enhancing their business ideas and was hosted by Dr. Jarrod Ormiston.
Should CEOs of family firms favour a family or nonfamily member as a successor?
New study by Jolien Huybrechts and colleagues on family firms published in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice shows that choosing a family member heir without CEO-related human capital will result in severe performance declines. However, when there is a quality family member candidate, he or she should be given preference as their 'family attribute' grants access to and fosters family-specific social capital and knowledge.
EURAM honours for Bammens and Hünermund study
Yannick Bammens and Paul Hünermund received the Family Firm Institute Best Quantitative Paper Award at the European Academy of Management 2018 conference for 'Owners and Ecological Corporate Entrepreneurship: The Effect of Family Ownership on Eco-Innovation', a study of environmentally friendly policies in a group of family-owned German firms.
Big businesses and big ideas: has everyone else given up?
'We are living in the age of the superstar firm. Companies like Samsung, Google or BMW are prospering. Yet economic growth remains sluggish in many parts of the world.' Paul Hünermund writes in the Harvard Business Review on R&D and the productivity gap in the era of 'winner takes most'.
New land, new ideas: refugee entrepreneurs
Jarrod Ormiston of the Maastricht Centre for Entrepreneurship has won funding from the Limburg government for a project 'following the journey of 20 refugee entrepreneurs in the Netherlands who have received entrepreneurship education', and offering workshops informed by those observations.
Thinking outside the box (while tackling the to-do list)
Firms are offering more resources for employees to come up with fresh ideas, but does it pay off? What about the day-to-day work that still has to get done? Research by Alexander Brüggen and Christoph Feichter offers some answers; the key is to 'make sure people have a free mind once they switch from routine to creative tasks'.
Events
Past events
Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Symposium
WU Wien, Austria, 25 October 2019
After a successful inaugural edition in Maastricht in 2018, the 2019 edition of the CIE Symposium took place in Vienna at WU Wien on October 25th.
The CIE Symposium aims to bring together business/economics scholars from different disciplinary fields doing research on creativity, innovation and/or entrepreneurship.
This one-day event included a keynote speech by prof. Michael Williamson from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign as well as several paper presentation sessions.
Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Webinar
Online hosted by Maastricht University, 23 October 2020