Karin Stzeletz Ivertsen
Copenhagen Business School
Making think happen through transformation of collaborative networks in a context of management experience

karin_s_ivertsen@yahoo.com

Karin Strzeletz Ivertsen is a PhD Fellow at Copenhagen Business School's (CBS) Department of Organization and Industrial Sociology, where she studies innovation management, strategic decision making, and collaborative networks and competition in the electrical car industry. She has taught Strategy and Project Management at undergraduate level and supervises bachelor and master students.

Ms. Ivertsen was faculty host during the CBS Case Competition 2009 and participated in the oikos PhD summer camp 2009 with a teaching business case. She has also initiated an Innovation Reading Group for PhDs, and an Intranet Share for PhDs experience exchange at CBS. She began her PhD in September 2008 after completing her MBA at TiasNimbas in the Netherlands. Ms. Ivertsen has authored Analysis of Critical Success Factors of Knowledge Management in Outsourcing. In addition, Ms. Ivertsen has nine years of international experience from the healthcare and telecommunication industry in roles of project manager, service introduction manager and product marketing assistant.

Making think happen through transformation of collaborative networks in a context of management experience

Within a frame of 'open innovation' and sociotechnical ensembles, I aim to understand how the transformation of collaborative networks is important for innovation projects. Contrary to the rational approach to project management, it may be a prerequisite that collaborative relations are formed, broken and re-formed in innovation projects. I aim to discuss and deduce consequences for managing such collaborative relations. The empirical research interest is in the transformation to clean and environmentally friendlier technology products. In this case study, I explore how the dynamic interplay of economic, management, political and technical factors/dimensions in Think, a Norwegian electrical car manufacturer, shapes the direction and property of their business enterprise. This extended abstract addresses the relation between the electrical car and the concept of sustainability and asks whether the electrical car itself is sustainable. The argument is that precaution should be taken in close association: both are subject to constant changes. The outline of this abstract is as follows: overall study and intended research contribution, theoretical frame, context, method, empirical analysis and preliminary findings.