Maximilian Joachim Von Zedtwitz
Professor mso
Telephone
Office: +4538152519
Departments
Department of International Economics, Government & Business
Room: POR/24.B-3.54
Strategy
Innovation
Entrepreneurship
Technology
Internationalisation
Multinational company
Primary research areas
Global Innovation and R&D
How do firms tap into and replicate R&D and innovation in far-away countries? How do they leverage distance as an innovation advantage rather than organizational cost? Based on the world’s largest database of global R&D centers, this project tracks multinational firm investments in R&D and NPD, and offers insights into global innovation best practice.
Reverse and Frugal Innovation
How can global firms adopt low-cost innovations without undermining and cannibalizing business plans in their home markets? How can local firms in developing economies enter foreign markets while leveraging their local skills and advantages? Based on a recently completed study on reverse and frugal innovation in Europe, this project investigates how European MNCs protect themselves against “disruptive innovators.”
Corporate Incubation
Too many ideas get eliminated during the innovation process because they don’t meet strategic objectives or don’t leverage existing capabilities. Therefore, many breakthrough innovations only succeeded after the parent company got out of the way. The “corporate incubation” approach investigates how such breakthroughs can continue to happen within the original inventing company.
I study how to leverage distance in global innovation
I study how firms can successfully conduct R&D and innovation when great distances are involved. Distances (spatial, cultural, institutional, etc.) often translate into greater costs, but they can also be used advantageously. Typical applications are how MNCs set up and manage remote innovation units in far-away countries (e.g., Western MNCs in China or Chinese MNCs in the West), how MNCs incubate radical innovation through venture spin-offs, or how innovations migrate across markets, cultures and countries (e.g., reverse and frugal innovation).
Recent research projects
International organization of Chinese R&D
Based on dozens of case studies of innovative Chinese MNCs, we identify news ways to transfer technology and knowledge across the world.
Reverse innovation from Africa
Africa is likely to emerge as the next super-market and already has signs of early-stage innovators. This project tracks some of the globally successful ones as examples of reverse innovation.
Frugal innovation in Europe
Frugal innovation is associated typically with India, but low-cost defeatured innovations are also developed by European firms, targeting other European markets. How do they succeed, and how are they able to include European “lifestyle” criteria into their frugal designs?
The Business Builder
Based on nearly one hundred best practices of corporate incubation, this project proposes twelve key competences and a seven-step process of successfully incubation internal technology ventures.
Outside activities
Professor of Strategic Management in Asia, 2025–now
As of 2025, I am a full professor of strategic management and managing director at the University of St. Gallen’s Institute of Management in Asia, based in Singapore. After six years at CBS as a full-time professor, I remain associated with EGB through teaching a course on international business strategies and joint research projects.
Go to singapore.unisg.ch