Successful Innovation Team at the R&D Management Conference

The KOF Innovation Team can look back on a very successful R&D Management Conference in Trento, Italy. Their research was highlighted twice. Firstly, Mathias Beck and Johannes Dahlke received the Best Paper Award at the conference for the paper "When is AI adoption contagious? Epidemic effects and relational embeddedness in the inter-firm diffusion of artificial intelligence". They and Martin Wörter wrote this paper together with Jan Kinne, David Lenz, Robert Dehghan and Bernd Ebersberger. The research project is a cooperation between KOF, the University of Hohenheim, the University of Mannheim and the start-up ISTARI.AI.

In the project, the researchers use a variety of approaches, including AI techniques, to understand how knowledge about artificial intelligence (AI) spreads in regions. More specifically, based on web data and KOF survey data, text analytic machine learning methods and econometric models are used to better understand the role knowledge transfers play in the adoption and diffusion of AI among and between firms.

In addition to the award, another honourable mention

Another paper by KOF researchers and scientists from the Chair of Production and Operation Management at ETH Zurich, which was also nominated, received an honourable mention. The paper "Productivity effects of IT investments and the role of innovation and competition" by Mathias Beck, Dmitry Plekhanov, Martin Wörter and Torbjørn Netland examines what effect investments in information technologies can have on the productivity of firms. This is especially true in combination with innovations and against the background of different competitive pressures.