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DAVID

WAGNER

It was spring 2011. We had just started our community of practitioners that would not
DISSERTATION TOPIC lectures in Frankfurt (Oder) and were diving have been able to collaborate physically. In
Strategic Management and into the literature on Dynamic Capabilities fact, this was to become a central theme of
Online Communities: and Relationships. In order to immerse our- my own dissertation work.
An Examination in
Theory and Practice selves deeper into the scientific community,
our supervisors encouraged us to attend the One of my key takeaways was that the papers
PERIOD OF STAY world’s largest management conference, we read in class were not just dry conversa-
04/2011 – 03/2014 the Academy of Management Meeting, to tions; they were lively discussions between
CURRENT POSITION take place in summer in San Antonio, Texas. real people. During the course of the doctoral
Professor & Academic Director I vividly remember the excitement surround- program, we had the opportunity to meet
at Munich Business School ing the organization of what was to be the and see many of the people whose work we
first of many conference trips. were reading.

One of the conference speakers was Vijay Since then, I have become a frequent attendee
Govindarajan, a professor from Dartmouth’s of the Academy of Management Meetings.
Tuck School of Business. His presentation In the first year, I participated as a spectator
was about the 300 dollar house, a research only. In the following years, I started to
project that was about creating affordable become active by organizing events sur-
homes for the world’s poor, which would rounding our research theme Dynamic
cost no more than 300 dollars in total. Capabilities and Relationships. We were able
I recalled having read about this project in to get some protagonists in the scientific
The Economist a few months earlier. At the debate, such as Jeff Martin and Margaret
heart of Vijay’s idea is the concept of frugal Peteraf, to join us. I am particularly indebted
innovation, i.e. the notion of finding novel to Markus Vodosek, one of the DCR profes-
solutions for existing problems, while sors, for sharing his experience and helping
focusing on significant cost reductions me to set up the first event.
(which Vijay did), the development of core
functionalities or an optimized performance After all, I do not think my research trajectory
level. I was deeply impressed with his efforts would have been the same without the initial
of turning the idea into reality. A particularly visit to San Antonio in 2011. It was a real
noteworthy aspect was the use of social eye-opener for my perspective on science
media to generate ideas and build an online and knowledge production.
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