Claudio Biscaro is a Full Professor of Leadership and Change Management at JKU Linz, Austria. He was born and raised in Italy, and obtained his Ph.D. in Business at the University of Venice in 2013. He then worked at JKU Linz and at WU Vienna.

His research focuses on the individual processes that lead to macro-level change. Primarily, he attends to language and cognition, and studies how the encounter of ideas, words, and interpretations alters the status quo and produces change. Currently, he investigates various phenomena varying from social issues to creativity and innovation.

He has been a Visiting scholar at the University of Oxford, University of Warsaw, and University of Southern California. His research has been published in several prestigious journals, among which Organization Science, Plos One, and Environmental Research Letters.

As part of his doctoral studies, funded by grants from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy, he visited the University Alberta, FU Berlin and the University of Edinburgh. Under the umbrella of digital transformation, Thomas researches novel forms of organizing, crowdsourcing, various types of openness (open strategy, open innovation, and open government) and (cultural) entrepreneurship in a digital economy. Thomas’ work appears in international journals such as Long Range Planning, Business & Society, Government Information Quarterly and Information & Organization. Furthermore, he is a frequent speaker at academic as well as practitioner-oriented conferences.

1998-1999 and 2004-2006 he was visiting professor at the Rotman School of Management of the University of Toronto. His research areas are innovation (creative processes, operational innovation management, design thinking, regional innovation ecosystems) and digital platforms and crowds (digital platforms as a new organizational form, platform-based, digital crowds, management of digital transformations).

His research results are presented at leading international conferences and are published in renowned journals in German-speaking and North American countries. He is a keynote speaker and advises top management in Europe, North America and China.

Previously, Robert was an Associate Professor at the Department of Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt. Robert holds a Ph.D in Mathematics with focus on applied statistics and a post-doctoral qualifications (Habilitation) in the field of business administration from Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt.

Robert’s research interests include Entrepreneurship and Innovation as well as multivariate and spatial statistical methods. His research has been published in journals such as Organizational Research Methods, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, Management Decision, Creativity and Innovation Management, Review of Managerial Science as well as Zeitschrift für Betriebswirtschaft.

Matthias previously worked as a professor for International Small Business Management and Innovation at Leuphana Univerity Lüneburg Germany and was a researcher at the Institute for Small Business Management and Entrepreneurship as well as head of the Research Institute for Liberal Professions at WU Vienna University of Economics and Business in Austria. Matthias holds a Ph.D. and a post-doctoral qualification (Habilitation) from WU Vienna University of Economics and Business and was a visiting professor at several universities, including Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, and University of Twente, in the Netherlands. Matthias’ research focuses on the role of innovation in new venture creation and small business management. His current interests include entrepreneurship as a driver of innovation and change in regional contexts, entrepreneurial finance and ethical issues in business research. In his research designs, Matthias combines quantitative and qualitative methods. His research has been published in journals that include Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, British Journal of Management, Journal of Banking and Finance, Technological Forecasting and Social Change as well as Regional Studies. In addition, he has published three monographs, two edited volumes, and has guest edited several special issues to international journals.

She received her master (2004) and doctoral degree (2008) of Business Administration from the WU Vienna (Austria) where she was on faculty at the Institute of Change Management and Management Development from 2004-2010. Her dissertation on knowledge management from the perspective of social systems theory was published by Gabler research series (2009) and has been awarded amongst others with the Stephan-Koren Award (WU Vienna, 2009) and the Award of Excellence (BMWF, 2009).

As a research fellow, Barbara spent research stays at Suffolk University, Boston, MA (2009); Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA (2012) and the University of Bath, UK (2014).

Since 2010 she has been working as post-doc researcher and assistant professor at the JKU where she received the venia docendi by completing her habilitation in 2016. Since then she is teaching and researching as an associate professor in the fields of leadership, organizational learning and change management.

By using qualitative research methods Barbara’s research focuses on studying organizational complexity, identity, and paradoxical phenomena, their influence on organizational development and change processes and the role of leadership in this regard. Her research aims at drawing practical implications on the development of organizations as well as of leaders and their identities.

Results of her work have appeared in various academic journals such as the Journal of Management Inquiry, International Business Review, Schmalenbach Business Review, Review of Managerial Science or The International Journal of Human Resource Management. She is an editorial board member of the “Austrian Management Review”, a yearly-published book series to support theory-practice transfer and strengthen academic-practitioner relationships for which she has served as editor-in-chief for seven years from its launch in 2010.

Michael Gusenbauer holds a Ph.D. from Johannes Kepler University Linz, a diploma from WU Vienna, and has previously held PostDoc positions at the Technical University of Munich (GER) and the University of Innsbruck.

Michael’s research has been published in the Journal of Management Studies, Nature, Family Business Review, Cognition and Emotion, Research Synthesis Methods, and Scientometrics. The practical impact of Michael’s management research is evidenced by the 2019 Best-Paper Award “Innovation Management” from EBS University (runner-up). Three of his publication on research methods rank among the most tweeted and cited works in the Research Synthesis Methods and Scientometrics journals. Two of his publications rank among the 50 most cited at Johannes Kepler University over the last ten years (according to Clarivate Essential Science Indicators). His work was featured in Science Magazine and the London School of Economics Impact Blog, among others.

Michael has collected international research experience at the Alliance Manchester Business School (UK), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA), and the University of St. Gallen (CHE). He is a reviewer for many journals in management and research methods – these include, among others, the Journal of Business Research, Journal of Small Business Management, and Nature Human Behaviour. Professionally, he has gained rich experience in management consulting and as the founder of two ventures, das Kommod Coworking, and Searchsmart.org (link: https://www.searchsmart.org/, opens an external URL in a new window), a website to help you find the best academic databases.

Schiemer is interested in studies of creativity/innovation, digitalization, organizational anthropology, and ethnography. He is currently investigating creativity in music in different contexts with a focus on temporality and materiality. He teaches theories and methods of organizational research with a focus on creativity/innovation.

He received his PhD in Economic Geography from the University of Turku in Finland, and his MA and BA in Sociology from the University of Graz in Austria. He has held research and teaching positions in Finland, Austria and the UK.

Ewald’s entrepreneurship research is pronouncedly multi-disciplinary, applying theories from psychology, sociology and geography. Combining quantitative and qualitative methods, his main research interests are: Social Legitimation of New Ventures and Venture Failure; Entrepreneurship Culture and Regional Development; Place Attachment in Sustainable Entrepreneurship; Venture Imagination and Everyday Enterprising in Adverse Contexts; Shared Emotions and Local Institutional Change; Wellbeing and Later Career Entrepreneurship.

He is an Editorial Review Board Member of Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and the International Small Business Journal. Ewald also act as peer-reviewer for academic outlets such as Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Business Venturing, Small Business Economics, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development and Regional Studies (overview of review contributions). In 2017, he has been selected as an Outstanding Reviewer for Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. Further, Ewald is on the Advisory Board of the Amway Global Entrepreneurship Report and he is acting as Reviewer of Social Entrepreneurship Teaching Cases for Oikos International.

Ewald’s research has been published in outlets such as the Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Economic Geography, Small Business Economics, Journal of Business Research, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Journal of Small Business Management, Journal of Economic Psychology, Journal of Business Venturing Insights, and Regional Studies. His work has also been featured at the Best Papers proceedings of the Academy of Management Conference, ISBE Conference and the Frontiers for Entrepreneurship at the Babson Conference for Entrepreneurship.

Richard is also Senior Research Fellow in the School of Social Policy at the University of Birmingham, UK, where he earlier held a Marie Curie Fellowship at the Housing and Communities Research Group and was a William Plowden Fellow within the Third Sector Research Centre. Previously, Richard was Senior Researcher at the Research Institute for Co-operation and Co-operatives and Assistant Professor at the Institute for Small Business Management and Entrepreneurship at WU Vienna University of Economics and Business. He conducted his PhD studies at WU Vienna and KU Leuven in Belgium.

Richard’s research interests include social innovation and social enterprises, social capital and networks,  collaborative and cooperative housing, civil society governance, as well as urban and regional development. Richard has carried out and coordinated several research and knowledge transfer projects in these fields. His research has been published in international peer-reviewed journals, such as European Planning Studies, International Small Business Journal, Journal of Rural Studies, Technological Forecasting and Social Change and Voluntas. Furthermore, Richard has published monographs, in edited volumes and he has guest edited special issues to international journals. Within the European Network for Housing Research, he is currently a coordinator of the working group on Collaborative Housing.