Extreme entrepreneurship – what can we learn from knowledge-intensive innovative firms?

Astrid Heidemann Lassen is Associate Professor in Innovation Management at Aalborg University, Denmark, Department of Materials and Production. Astrid is also Head of Section in Production. Since 2015 she has been Visiting Professor at the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Astrid is the author/co-author of 100+ international journal and conference articles on the topics of innovation management and knowledge intensive entrepreneurship. She has also published several academic books on such topics. Her research focus is in particular on the process of developing organizational innovation capabilities based on a balanced approach to exploration and exploitation, in the context of both established companies and knowledge intensive entrepreneurial ventures.

Elmar D. Konrad is Professor for Interdisciplinary Start-up Management and Creative Entrepreneurship and the director of the Institute for Entrepreneurship at the University of Applied Sciences Mainz, Germany since September 2010. From 2007 to 2010 he was director of the Department of Cultural Business and Creative Industries at the Technical University in Dortmund, Germany. His research focus and publication activities deal with cultural and creative entrepreneurship and core competences in sectors of the creative industries.

Maureen McKelvey is Professor of Industrial Management at the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Department of Economy and Society, School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She was awarded the 1994 Schumpeter Prize, from the International Schumpeter Society. Professor McKelvey has had high level positions in expert groups and written reports, for Swedish organizations as well as for the OECD and EU. She has served in many international academic organizations such as Globelics and DRUID, and also been visiting researcher at Stanford, University of Queensland, and Zheijang University. McKelvey’s research focuses on the development and use of knowledge at the interplay between innovation management and entrepreneurship with science and engineering. She has written extensively about innovation policy, knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship, and academic engagement with industry. She has published extensively in leading journals like Research Policy, Industrial and Corporate Change, and Small Business Economics as well as books with Routledge, Oxford, Cambridge, and Edward Elgar.

Lars Hjälmered is a member of the Swedish parliament and chair of the committee on industry and trade.

Anna Nilsson-Ehle is chairperson of the boards of Lindholmen Science Park and Vinnova.