Chair / Junior Professorship forEntrepreneurial Strategy / Say Institute
- Junior Professor Dr. Christoph Seckler
— Samuel Beckett
At the Chair of Entrepreneurial Strategy, we believe that entrepreneurship can be a force for good in society; one idea at a time. For us, entrepreneurship goes beyond starting a startup. It means to develop novel solutions for people’s needs. This can be anything from a novel search algorithm to make the world’s information universally accessible (Google) to a novel microcredit service to fight poverty (Grameen Bank). We foster entrepreneurship through all of our activities in research, education, and consulting. If you want to join our team, or cooperate with us, please do not hesitate to contact us.
- Prof. Dr. Christoph Seckler
Jean-Baptiste Say Institute

The Jean-Baptiste Say Institute for Entrepreneurship relies on a unique European network which was developed in 2007 by the Entrepreneurship Chair of ESCP and has today more than 50 researchers and teachers. Its goal is to train entrepreneurs and leaders around the world in entrepreneurship and, to prepare tomorrow’s managers for profound changes in the world of work.
WebsiteCenter for Design Science in Entrepreneurship
At the DS:E, we believe that design science enables entrepreneurship scholars to combine cutting-edge research with real world impact. We enable entrepreneurship scholars to engage in design science research in three ways. First, we bring together design science experts from different disciplines to further develop the design science research paradigm for the entrepreneurship field. Second, we educate interested entrepreneurship scholars in doing high impact design science research . Third, we serve as a platform to match firms’ entrepreneurial practice challenges with design science scholars.
WebsiteTeaching
We offer the following courses:
MSc in
Sustainability Entrepreneurship and Innovation
- Sustainable Entrepreneurship & Innovation Project (SEIP)
Research
Research approach
Our research converges around one question: How to deal with disruptions and uncertainty? We are particularly interested in strategies related to learning, planning, and resilience. We try to advance the respective discourses through both empirical, as well as conceptual work.
Empirically, we often employ case study research designs and try to collect both qualitative and quantitative data to triangulate the phenomenon of interest. Our research has been published in the leading international academic journals, as well as in practice-oriented publications. We are excited that previous research has received multiple international awards (e.g., Academy of Management, European Academy of Management).
Research topics
Learning from Failure
A topic that has attracted considerable attention in both theory and practice is: learning from failure. While learning from failure is widely considered a crucial learning mechanism for entrepreneurs, questions on who, when, why, what and how entrepreneurs learn from failure is of much debate. We contribute to these discussions by studying the learning from failure of individual entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial teams, as well as entrepreneurial organizations. We believe that properly understanding the phenomenon will help to eventually improve how entrepreneurs learn from failure, and thus promote successful entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurial Ecosystems
A much used metaphor in media, practice, and academia is the one of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. While the metaphor seems to resonate with a lot of people, some fundamental questions need to be answered in the future. These questions include: what is actually an entrepreneurial ecosystem, how can we best study entrepreneurial ecosystems, and how can we design entrepreneurial ecosystems to be successful. We aim to contribute to these discussions by providing a realist (re-)conceptualization of what constitutes an entrepreneurial ecosystem, by empirically examining the entrepreneurial ecosystems in Europe, and by theorizing about their functioning. Based on these insights, we aim at developing ideas on how to design prosperous entrepreneurial ecosystems in Europe.
Research Awards
- 2020: Finalist for OMT´s Louis Pondy Best Dissertation Paper Award - Academy of Management, USA
- 2019: Runner-up for Best Paper Award - G-Forum, Germany
- 2018: Best Paper Award - Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany
- 2017: Scholarly Achievement Award - Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany
- 2017: Best Paper Award (Management Consulting Division) - Academy of Management, USA
- 2017: Thomson South-Western Outstanding Research-Based Paper on Management Consulting - Academy of Management, USA
- 2013: Nominated for Carolin Dexter Award - Academy of Management, USA
- 2013: Information Age Publishing Award: Outstanding Doctoral Student Paper, Academy of Management, USA
- 2012: Scholarly Achievement Award - Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany
- 2012: Best Paper Award - Second Runner-up - European Academy of Management (EURAM)
Publications
Find an overview
Academic Articles
2022
Design Science in Entrepreneurship: Conceptual Foundations and Guiding Principles
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS VENTURING DESIGN
Academic Articles
2022
Developing an Innovation Accounting System for a Professional Service Firm: A Design Science Research Project
LECTURE NOTES IN COMPUTER SCIENCE, 13229, 237–248
Academic Articles
2022
How to Make Smart Collaboration Work in Multidisciplinary Teams
LECTURE NOTES IN COMPUTER SCIENCE, 13229, 262–273
Media
2022
Is Humility The New Smart?
The Choice
Academic Articles
2021
Open About Organizational Failure: A Communication Perspective on Postmortem Impression Management
LONG RANGE PLANNING
Academic Articles
2021
Who Adopts an Error Management Orientation? Discovering the Role of Humility
ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT DISCOVERIES, 7 (4), 461-481
Media
2021
Mit diesen Strategien könnt ihr im Job besser mit Stress umgehen
Gründerszene
Media
2021
Interview: How to fail quickly and learn from your mistakes
The Choice
Media
2021
Why being humble is so important in the world of work
World Economic Forum
Media
2021
为什么谦逊在工作中如此重要
World Economic Forum