Sabbatical Bart Leten:

The sabbatical period will be used to delve into three new lines of research within the domains of business strategy and innovation management. A first line of research focuses on designing technology license agreements and studying digital technology markets. The central question here is which factors (technology and business characteristics) influence the design of license agreements and how the design choices affect the financial and technological performance of the licensor and licensee. Furthermore, I want to investigate which technologies are offered in digital technology markets and what the implications are for the design choices of license agreements. A second line of research examines the relationship between the composition of top management teams (in terms of internationalization - nationality and work experience - and legal convictions) and the
strategic choices (internationalisation, innovation, acquisitions) and company performance. This line of research builds on the “upper echelon” theory, which states that the background and experiences of top managers have an impact on strategic decisions of companies. A third line of research focuses on the health implications of corporate strategic choices on the mental well-being of employees. The mental health of employees is a current and socially relevant topic. The aim of this line of research is to gain more insight into the effects of strategic business decisions on the mental health of employees using unique data on employee drug use.