Mattias Axelson

Managing innovation partnerships and spin-off ventures 

Mattias Axelson (PhD) is a reseracher at the Centre for Innovation and Operations Management at the Stockholm School of Economics. He is also Deputy Research Director at FOI, Division for Defence Analysis.

He has worked in the areas of strategy development, scenario planning and technology management. His experience spans over a wide area of industries. Over a number of years he has worked as an adviser to the Swedish Ministry of Defence regarding defense industry transformation processes and defense materiel strategies.

His research is applied and the current research focuses on two areas; technology based spin-off ventures and innovation partnerships. 

Research on technology based spin-off ventures: It addresses the issue that incumbent companies have technology with innovation potential that never is realized. A major reason is lack of adequate processes to spin-off their technology assets as new ventures. Therefore, this research project addresses the issue of establising solutions for cost efficent business model evolution of spin-offs from incumbent companies. 

Research on innovation partnerships: It is concerned with the trend that   external partners increasingly influence companies innovation capability. This development demands new skills of management. The overarching issue addressed is what characterizes effective management of innovation partnerships.

Key words: collaboration strategy, product development, technology strategy, integration of operations, innovation, business models and spin-off.