On-going projects
Healthcare teams
Nascent venture teams
Healthcare teams
An academic collaboration with a large healthcare organization in New York City. This project aims to study how digital tools impact employees' emotions and their work practices. Since December 2021, I have conducted interviews and observations to explore and observe the experience of diverse healthcare teams working with a variety of digital technologies such as algorithmic alerts, remote patient monitoring (RPM), and artificial intelligent chatbots (ChatGPT).
R&D teams
Nascent venture teams
Healthcare teams
This project is part of a longstanding collaborations between a large pharmaceutical company and the Chair of Strategic Management and Innovation, ETH, Zurich. The objective of this project is to improve the development of new drugs via identifying core mechanisms that foster team learning from strategic external collaborations. In particular, the fast-paced and competitive nature of the pharmaceutical industry requires that companies learn from and innovate with others to sustain their competitive advantage. Since 2018, I have conducted more than 100 interviews.
Nascent venture teams
Nascent venture teams
Nascent venture teams
In a collaboration project between ETH Zurich and the University of St. Gallen, the aim is to improve our knowledge of emotions, leadership and innovation processes in new venture teams. These processes are critical because they allow entrepreneurs to adapt to their highly dynamic environment and teach them how to cope with problems instead of repeating them. A team-level perspective is especially important given that teams commonly create new ventures. Since 2017, my colleagues and I have collected data from more than 103 nascent venture teams who participated in Startup Weekend events across Europe.
Key insights
Overcoming negative emotions around (AI) technologies
Overcoming negative emotions around (AI) technologies
Overcoming negative emotions around (AI) technologies
When workers and patients interact with novel health technologies, they often experience strong negative emotions such as anxiety or frustration.
Key insights:
1. In order for workers to stay receptive to the technology's input, helping each other to regulate negative emotions through socio-emotive practices is critical.
2. Beyond technical and cognitive support, diverse patient groups require emotional support throughout the entire innovation journey from idea generation to implementation.
3. Designers and implementers of novel technologies benefit from a both-and instead of an either-or mindset when designing and implementing new technologies in healthcare for diverse professional groups and patients.
Learning from failure in external collaborations
Overcoming negative emotions around (AI) technologies
Overcoming negative emotions around (AI) technologies
Collaborating and learning across boundaries can be challenging due to collaboration partners' differences in goals, routines, and understanding. Thus when collaborating across knowledge and organizational boundaries, failure is common.
Key insights:
1. Negative emotions after failure can foster learning when team members identify with internal (rather than external) team members.
2. Teams can successfully overcome failure when they attribute failure to the situation rather than the external collaborators while simultaneously sharing a collaborative mindset.
Emerging as a leader in nascent venture teams
Attracting co-founders to work with you on a venture idea
Attracting co-founders to work with you on a venture idea
Developing a venture idea is a team effort. Throughout their journey, teams often experience an emotional rollercoaster where they have to deal with negative feedback, limited resources and financial pressure. Team members who are authentic and help the team to see the silver lining are perceived as leaders by the others.
Key insights:
1. If you like to lead, be authentic and show your emotions.
2. Help others to see the glass as half full and not half empty.
Attracting co-founders to work with you on a venture idea
Attracting co-founders to work with you on a venture idea
Attracting co-founders to work with you on a venture idea
Most businesses start with a team of individuals coming together to pursue a venture idea. However, the literature lacks an in-depth understanding of how entrepreneurs motivate others to contribute to the development of their venture ideas.
Entrepreneurs who present an idea as abstract while also expressing intense emotions are the most likely to attract others to work with them and keep them committed to the venture idea in the long -run.
Key insights:
1. Be emotionally intense while presenting your idea in an abstract manner.
2. The more you and your team invest in a startup idea and frame it in a concrete manner, the more likely it is that you and your team will continue working on it.