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Tim de Leeuw appointed as Professor of Collaboration, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Published: 18th February 2022 Last updated: 21st February 2022

Tilburg University has appointed dr. Tim de Leeuw as Professor of Collaboration, Innovation and Entrepreneurship at TIAS School for Business and Society, effective February 11, 2022.

His research shall focus on collaboration, innovation and entrepreneurship within the context of organizations. For organizations, external forms of collaboration (such as alliances, joint ventures, corporate venturing investments) have become an essential and frequent activity, contributing to overall performance of organizations in general, and to their innovation capabilities in particular.

Without interorganizational collaborations many innovations would not have been possible or successful. While innovations are crucial for organizational continuity and growth, by extension they also allow organizations to promote broader social advancement.

Recent developments, including the increasing complexity and dispersion of resources and knowledge, have underscored the increasing importance of collaborations. Consequently, organizations adopt an entrepreneurial mindset and collaborate with other organizations to gain access to the required knowledge and resources.

Collaborations at portfolio level

Although collaborations are important, they are far from easy and can bring about negative effects (e.g., create dependency, conflict, knowledge spillovers). Moreover, only about half of all collaborations achieve the intended objectives, thereby highlighting the importance to examine, analyse and manage interorganizational collaborations.

Professor de Leeuw’s research shall focus on collaborations at the portfolio level (i.e., the full ego-network of an organization; all direct collaborations of an organization), thereby further contributing to the growing body of knowledge and theory in this area by a) incorporating a dynamic perspective, b) placing emphasis on antecedences, and c) studying the process of sourcing knowledge and resources externally while subsequently internalizing these into the organization.

Education

The focus of his teaching is primarily on (inter-)organizational relations, innovation, (business) research methods, quantitative methods, academic reading and writing. As from 2018, De Leeuw has designed and developed various blended and hybrid programs, combining online and in-class pedagogical methods in courses and curricula.

Professor dr. Tim de Leeuw (1984) obtained his Master’s degree in Organization Science from Tilburg University’s School of Social and Behavioural Sciences (2010), and a PhD (2014) from Eindhoven University of Technology in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences. He subsequently worked as a senior scientific researcher on a NWO-TOP funded project at Tilburg School of Economics and Management, Tilburg University. In 2016, De Leeuw was appointed associate professor at TIAS School for Business & Society.

Throughout his academic career, De Leeuw has obtained external funding for multiple research and valorisation projects, and has received several awards, including the Flexibility and Innovation Award for teaching, Best Teacher Award, and Best Paper Awards at the International Academy of Management conferences. De Leeuw was also associate editor for a special issue of the Journal of Cleaner Production, and (co)organizer of multiple international conferences on innovation and management.

De Leeuw’s work is published in leading peer-reviewed international scientific journals, including Research Policy, the Journal of Cleaner Production, the Journal of Business Research, the Journal of Sociological Methods and Research, the Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, and Journal of Management Inquiry.

Note to editors

More information? Please contact persvoorlichters@tilburguniversity.edu, tel. +31 13 - 466 4000.