Profile:
Mathias Boënne is assistant professor (tenured) at Utrecht University, School of Economics, in the Entrepreneurship Section. His research and teaching focuses on managing creativity and innovation management.
In his education, Mathias focuses on how organizations can manage their workforce to be more creative and innovative (signature course: Innovation Management) and how organizational dynamics shape certain organizations to excel or fail at managing a creative, collaborative and empowered workforce (signature course: Organizational Dynamics). Creativity is not only one of his key values, and he is a vivid practitioner of them. He drives teaching innovation at the University through teaching innovation projects on the ‘use of genAI avatars’ and ‘theatre-based teaching formats’, his involvement in education committees as well as in the innovative redesign and delivery of his own courses. Mathias was nominated as the ‘teacher talent of the year’ at Utrecht University after his first year of employment, in 2023. Outside the classroom, he is part of an Utrecht-based (improv)theater-group, an (unofficial) ordained wedding minister, and he was co-founder of Joli Café, a local, pop-up coffee bar. Mathias is a facilitator of creative work and processes and therefore regularly hosts and facilitates creative and strategic ideation events (PM for more information).
Professionel education and training:
Mathias completed his doctoral education at KU Leuven and Vlerick Business School. His PhD research on 'the design of idea contests in the front end of the innovation process' was nominated as best dissertation in technology and innovation management by the Academy of Management in 2022. Before his PhD studies, Mathias obtained an MSc degree in Business Economics at the KU Leuven, with the best dissertation prize for his thesis on 'fostering creativity in organizations through workplace design'. He regularly presents his research at acclaimed academic conferences (Academy of Management, DRUID, Innovation and Product Development Conference, Research on Entrepreneurship Conference,...) and serves as reviewer.
Prior work activities:
Mathias is a research fellow at Vlerick Business School. Before joining Utrecht University, Mathias conducted embedded research on creative development processes in a multimedia company, holding affiliations to the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and Erasmus University Rotterdam. He conducted his doctoral studies at the KULeuven and Vlerick Business School.