Chair of Innovation and Corporate Transformation
The Chair of Innovation and Corporate Transformation is committed to rigorous, interdisciplinary and relevant research in collaboration with business leaders. Our aim is to discover and share how companies can best adapt to changing environments and capitalize on new technologies, markets, and customers.
Professor Serden Ozcan is the Founding Director of the WHU Campus for Corporate Transformation, a forum dedicated to exploring the challenges and opportunities of corporate transformation. He is also the co-host of the Leading Corporate Transformation: The WHU Podcast, powered by PwC, featuring inspiring transformational leaders from renowned European companies.
Our teaching programs include the WHU MBA, Kellogg-WHU Executive MBA and WHU Executive Education. Professor Ozcan is the Faculty Co-Director of the IESE WHU High-Performance Board Member Program.
Our work has been published in prestigious research journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Management Science, MIT Sloan Management Review, Organization Science, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Business Venturing, and Strategic Organization.
Our team
High-quality and innovative research –
Giving organizations a competitive edge
We aim to inspire business leaders with our research results, developing effective management tools and best practices which inform public policy debate.
Our research focuses on three specific areas:
Organizations have recently emerged, such as new budget airlines, microbreweries, and organic supermarkets, that use radically different business models to successfully penetrate their relevant markets. On this track we discuss:
- Why, where and how do new business models and organizational forms emerge?
- How do new business models/new organizational forms compete with established models/forms, gain acceptance, diffuse and come to dominate?
- How do the processes of emergence, rivalry, diffusion and growth differ across base-of the pyramid countries, emerging markets and mature economies?
- How do new business models/organizational forms generate socio-economic change and reconfigure the basis of competition in industries?
Growth ecosystems are integral to start-up formation, scaling, talent development and technical and social progress. In such systems, venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) play prominent roles. Our research investigates the inner workings of VC/PE firms, their operational mechanics, and their value creation.
We also investigate:
- What determines VC/PE activity in emerging markets?
- How does VC behavior differ in emerging markets?
- How much value/innovation does PE foster in emerging market economies?
- How do emerging market start-ups and firms deal with VC/PE?
- How do PE firms extract value from emerging market firms?
We look at how companies begin and evolve while remaining competitive and entrepreneurial. Some of the key questions we examine include:
- How do early choices regarding strategy, structure, and governance affect the way the company evolves, competes, and adapts?
- How can organizations remain nimble, flexible, responsive, innovative, and entrepreneurial while expanding?
- How should firms transform their identity as they grow and competition increases?
- How should mature firms identify, develop, and exploit new, innovative resource combinations and growth opportunities?
- What is the best way to acquire talent from rivals and deploy it strategically?
- How should firms design, develop, and manage corporate venture capital?
- How should companies execute corporate entrepreneurship through acquisitions in emerging markets?
- How can emerging market firms become innovation organizations?
- How should firms source and exploit emerging market innovations?
Awards and accolades
- Best Teacher award from WHU’s Full-Time MBA II Class (2018) (Prof. Ozcan)
- Best Paper Runner Up Prize, Coller Institute, Tel Aviv University, Annual Meeting in Hong Kong (2017) (Prof. Ozcan)
- The Danish Society for Education and Business Prize for Excellence in Teaching in Denmark (2012) (Prof. Ozcan)
- Best Paper Finalist, Israel Strategic Management Conference, Be'er Sheva, Israel (December 27-29, 2009) (Prof. Ozcan)
- Recognition for “outstanding” teaching and course coordination, Asian Studies Program, Copenhagen Business School (2007) (Prof. Ozcan)
- Winner of Robert J. Litschert Best Doctoral Student Paper at Business Policy Division, Academy of Management, Atlanta, USA (2006) (Prof. Ozcan)
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