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 the department of Knowledge, Information and Innovation (KIN) of VU Amsterdam, where she also holds a University Research Chair. She is also the Vice-Dean of Research at the School of Business and Economics. She holds a PhD from TU Delft (2015). With an interdisciplinary background spanning engineering design, psychology, and business administration, her expertise lies in bridging different worlds to address complex societal challenges through technological innovation.

Research

Fleur’s research focuses on new forms of collaboration to tackle major societal challenges, also known as mission-oriented innovation. She investigates how organizations can join forces in multiparty collaborations, such as Living Labs and innovation ecosystems, to develop technological and digital solutions.

Industry: Healthcare, Smart Cities, Public Infrastructure, Consumer Electronics.

Sector: Public sector, Technology, Infrastructure.
Application Domain: Strategic change, digital innovation, process design.

Fleur’s work specifically looks at strategic experimenting processes and how organizational routines adapt to digital technologies. She actively collaborates with diverse stakeholders, including Philips, NeLL (National E-Health Living Lab), RWS, ProRail, and various municipalities and waterboards.

Research Interests:

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

Teaching

Fleur teaches executive and post-graduate courses on technology and innovation management. From 2020 to 2024, she served as Programme Coordinator of the BSc programme in International Business Administration as the School of Business and Economics, the largest undergraduate programme at the VU 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