Two times summa cum laude

Annika Dingler and Monika Hengstler have both finished successfully on December, 6th their biennial graduation at the chair for innovation management with their disputations.
Ms. Dingler wrote her dissertation entitled „A knowledge-based perspective on open innovation: The role of social integration.” Her thesis investigates the following research question to emphasize the relevance of social integration to an organization's open innovation capabilities: How can an organization facilitate social integration to enhance knowledge transfer with internal and external partners and hence improve the benefits of open innovation? Ms. Dingler‘ s thesis comprises four empirical studies that address this research question and investigate how, why and to what extent social integration influences knowledge transfer between partners collaborating for open innovation.
Ms. Hengster wrote her thesis entitled “Radical innovation by means of open innovation: Empirical studies on ecosystems, capabilities and trust.” Her dissertation investigates the research question: How do firms systematically and purposefully engage in radical innovation under the paradigm of open innovation? Based on theoretical insights and five empirical studies, this dissertation does not only depict a comprehensive picture of radical innovation under the paradigm of open innovation, it also contributes to understanding of the troika of trust, collaboration, and radical innovation, it fundamentally extends research on innovation ecosystems as a means for radical business model innovation, it links multiple disciplines and consolidates a broad range of research streams, and finally, it outlines developments in research methodology.
In the presence of the university examination board as well as the primary and secondary supervisors – Prof. Dr. Ellen Enkel and Dr. Lawrence Dooley from the University College Cork, Ireland for Ms. Dingler as well as Prof. Dr. Ellen Enkel and Prof. Dr. Oliver Gassmann from the HSG St. Gallen, Switzerland for Ms Hegstler – both examinees presented each their research study and faced up subsequent to the critical questions of the supervisors as well as the examination board. Both documented with aplomb their academic knowledge and have been rewarded for their theses with summa cum laude.