Gundula Lücke

Keywords

• temporality
• entrepreneurial imagination
• opportunity formation
• corporate venture units
• institutional multiplicity

Biography

Gundula Lücke is Researcher and Lecturer at Uppsala University’s Department of Business Studies with specialization in entrepreneurship and is director of the one year Master's Program in Entrepreneurship. She received her PhD in International Business from the Sonoco International Business Department at the University of South Carolina. She has been teaching on the undergraduate, master and doctoral level and supervises master theses and doctoral students as principle supervisor. Her current research includes entrepreneurial imagination, the temporality of opportunity development, and the embeddedness of corporate venture units.

Prior to moving into the field of entrepreneurship, Dr. Lücke conducted research that focused on institutional and sociocultural approaches to understanding organizational processes, including topics such as multiculturalism, institutional multiplicity, and MNC innovation. For example, she developed a culture-cognitive conceptualization of multiculturalism and drew on sociological and anthropological research to facilitate our understanding of cross-cultural phenomena. This project was funded by Tore Browaldhs Stiftelse.

Building on this research she explores the phenomena of corporate venture units, such as the innovation labs, hubs, or garages of organizations. While these units are unique places that hold the promise to be an organization’s engine for entrepreneurial activities, their power of entrepreneurial renewal and promises for rejuvenation for the corporation depends highly on how they are embedded within the organizational context and hence understood and valued by others. Topics in this area include institutional multiplicity, managing institutional multiplicity, intraorrganizational selection, and complex boundaries within the broader area of corporate venturing. This project is funded by Handelsbankens Forskningsstiftelser with Dr. Lücke as principle applicant and investigator.

More recently, Dr. Lücke’s research lies in the area of entrepreneurship, exploring processes of opportunity formation with a focus on imagination, time and temporality. Topics include entrepreneurial imagination, the temporality of opportunity formation, imagination and internationalization, imagination and effectuation. This project is funded by Lars Erik Lundbergs Stiftelse för Forskning och Utbildning and Dr. Lücke is principal applicant and investigator.

Her upcoming project explores ‘imagination in action’. Some corporations have recognized the importance of conceiving of possible futures and even “reverse engineering” such futures in order to promote corporate renewal. The project focuses on the interplay of future-oriented imagination with present actions and interactions as well as how collective imaginaries are constructed. This project is funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond and Dr. Lücke is principal applicant and investigator.

She is currently course director in the courses Developing Opportunities, New Venture Catalyst, The Art & Craft of Academic Writing, Entrepreneurship Master’s Thesis, and is teaching course segments on research methods, sustainable entrepreneurship, From Start to Pitch.