In the next Workshop on July 6th 2006 we will discuss the research proposal of Florian Bertram on the “Role of the Entrepreneur in the Stabilization and Flexibilization of Patterns of Resource Allocation".

The workshop on June 1st circulated around the topic of translating science to business with a special empirical focus on biotechnology. (1) Prof. Bernard Witholt of ETH emphasized the importance of incubators illustrating his argument with succes-stories and best practice from the Institute of Biotechnology at the ETH and and the Zernike Science Park Groningen in the Netherlands. (2) Marcos Garcia presented the results of his dissertation project “Translating Life Sciences to Healthcare Business” employing actor network theory to the resource based view of strategy. (3) Florian Bertram introduced his early stage research project on the routinization of strategy in biopharmaceutical ventures.

During the discussions it became obvious that actor network theory could be a feasible theory enriching management research but that it has to be applied more thoroughly and that research will benefit especially from empirical accounts and observations.