prof. dr. ir. Fleur Deken

Full Professor, School of Business and Economics, Knowledge, Information and Innovation

Full Professor, KIN Center for Digital Innovation

Personal information

Fleur Deken is Full Professor of Strategy, Technology & Innovation at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where she also holds a University Research Chair. She is the Vice-Dean of Research at the School of Business and Economics. Her research focuses on new forms of collaboration, specifically for the development of technological innovations and solutions to societal challenges, so-called mission-oriented innovation. Fleur aims to contribute to organizations’ ability to join forces and address the societal challenges of our time by developing innovative solutions. Theoretically, her interests lie in strategic change, organizational routines and capabilities, process research, and knowledge collaboration across boundaries. Fleur has an interdisciplinary background, with a PhD from the Delft University of Technology (cum laude), an MSc (cum laude) in Strategic Product Design (Delft University of Technology), a minor in Business Administration (National University of Singapore), a BSc in Psychology (University of Amsterdam), and a BSc in Industrial Design Engineering (Delft University of Technology).

Research

Strategic management of innovation
Organizational routines and capabilities
Innovation ecosystems
Qualitative process research methods
Strategies for reuse of qualitative case study data
Ethnography and field studies

Fleur currently researches innovation ecosystems, multiparty collaborations (e.g., Living Labs, fieldlabs, innovation ecosystems) as a mechanism for mission-oriented innovation, and strategic experimenting processes around digital technologies.

She is an elected member of the executive committee at the Strategizing Activities & Practices (SAP) DIG at the Academy of Management, currently acting as the DIG Chair (2025).

Fleur publishes in different disciplines, including journal in management and organization (e.g., Academy of Management Journal and Organization Science), strategy (e.g., Strategic Innovation), innovation studies (e.g., Research Policy, Journal of Product Innovation Management), and design studies (e.g., Design Studies and Journal of Engineering Design). She regularly contributes to international conferences and workshops. Next to being Program Chair at the SAP DIG at Academy of management, she organized the International Digital Innovation Workshop (2017 at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and convened a conference track at the European Group of Organization Studies meeting on Routine Dynamics (2021).

She has attracted significant research funds from the EU and the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO), including the prestigious Veni grant in the NWO Talent program, and has coordinated various research projects, including interdisciplinary NWO funded project Fieldlabs@Scale on Crossover collaboration in healthcare (2015-2020) that involves scholars from engineering design, construction management, innovation studies, and organization studies. She is currently involved in research projects on innovation ecosystems with BSH and Philips, organizing mission-driven innovation in fieldlabs Techport and NeLL (National E-Health Living Lab), and a project on new forms of interorganizational collaboration with City of Amsterdam, City of the Hague, the Waterboards of Limburg and Drents Overijsselse Delta, and ProRail in her role as affiliated researcher at the University of Twente. She recently began experimenting with an innovative approach for reusing qualitative case study data to advance the open science agenda (as part of the NWO Open Qual, with Berends, Tuertscher, and Cepa).

Teaching

Fleur was the Program Coordinator of the BSc program in International Business Administration as the School of Business and Economics, the largest undergraduate program at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2020-2024). She teaches executive and post-graduate courses on technology and innovation management. She actively spans the boundary between academic and practice through executive teaching, workshops, and through commissioned research projects.

Ancillary activities