Georges Romme

Abel Georges Lodewijk Romme
Born (1960-02-29) February 29, 1960 (age 64)
Nijmegen, Netherlands
NationalityDutch
Occupation(s)Organizational theorist, academic and author
Academic background
EducationBSc., Economics
MSc., Economics
Doctoral degree
Alma materTilburg University
Maastricht University
Academic work
InstitutionsMaastricht University
Tilburg University
Eindhoven University of Technology

Georges Romme (Dutch: Sjoerd) is a Dutch organizational theorist, academic and author. He is a full professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the Eindhoven University of Technology.[1]

Romme is known for introducing design science to organization and management studies.[2][3][4] He has also pioneered the so-called thesis circle and is a thought leader on topics as professionalism and (organizational) hierarchy.[5][6] He has authored and co-authored research articles and books, including The Quest for Professionalism: The Case of Management and Entrepreneurship, for which he received the EURAM Best Book Award[7] and the Responsible Research in Management Award in 2017.[8] He is also the recipient of the 2016 Tjalling C. Koopmans Asset Award from Tilburg University[9] and the 2019 Distinguished Scholar-Practitioner Award from the Academy of Management.[10]

Education and career

Romme earned a BSc degree in Economics in 1981 and a MSc degree in 1984, both from Tilburg University. He worked as an assistant professor in Strategic Management at Maastricht University from 1989 to 1992 and obtained a doctoral degree from Maastricht University in 1992.[1]

Romme continued his academic career at Maastricht University as an associate professor in Strategy & Organization from 1992 to 2000 and a senior research fellow in the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (from 1996 to 2000). Subsequently, he was appointed as a professor of Management at Tilburg University. Since 2005, he has been a professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the Eindhoven University of Technology.[1][11]

Romme served as the Dean of the Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences (IE & IS) department of Eindhoven University of Technology from 2007 to 2014. Concurrently, he was the chairman of the Supervisory Board of Research School Beta from 2007 to 2014. He also was a member of various advisory boards, such as the Scientific Advisory Board of Aalto University’s School of Science (2011-2020).[12]

Romme also was a co-founder of the EIT InnoEnergy.[13] He serves as the Ambassador for Entrepreneurship at the Eindhoven University of Technology[14] and is also a fellow at the Center for Design Science in Entrepreneurship at the ESCP Business School, Berlin.[15]

Research

The scholarly work of Romme involves three main contributions: his work on the professionalization of the management discipline, design science methodology, and organizational hierarchy and circularity.[5]

Quest for Professionalism

Romme has authored and co-authored several publications exploring the realm and purpose of business and management scholarship. In The Quest for Professionalism: The Case of Management and Entrepreneurship, which won the 2017 EURAM Best Book Award,[7] he contended that the Quest for Professionalism is essential to mitigate the societal costs of managerial amateurism, by focusing on the development of a shared professional purpose and knowledge base, with an emphasis on the transformative role of management scholarship. Jan Spruijt wrote about this book that it "is a one-of-a-kind taking a much needed reflective approach to leadership and a critical note towards the level of professionalism that many of us are approaching the science of management and entrepreneurship with."[16]

Design science

Romme's publications on design science have focused on developing and applying a research methodology that solves the rigor-relevance gap in organization and management research, inspired by Herbert Simon's The Sciences of the Artificial. Here, Romme advocated for the adoption of the design approach as a primary research mode (alongside the social sciences and humanities as prevailing modes) in the field of management, emphasizing the role of ideal targets, design principles, and (testing) practical solutions to address the persistent gap between theory and practice.[17] With Dimo Dimov, Romme explored various ways to apply design science, distinguishing between developing a "theory of" empirical phenomena and a "theory for" generating them.[18]

In many joint publications, Romme applied design science to develop and test solutions for major problems and challenges. Examples are design principles and various best practices for creating university spin-offs;[19] a tool for mapping, analyzing and designing innovation ecosystems;[20] a tool that facilitates value crafting;[21] a practical approach to enhance citizen participation in a local democracy;[22] a software tool for partner search in open innovation settings;[23] design principles for sustainability assessment in business model innovation;[24] a method for controlling the work of civil servants;[25] and the blueprint of a deep-tech venture builder.[26]

Organizational hierarchy and circularity

Romme analyzed organizational structure and hierarchy.[27][28] In his early work in this area, he collaborated with Gerard Endenburg to codify Sociocracy as a novel organizational form based on the circular flow of power,[29][30] which later also informed the development of Holacracy.[31] In a study coauthored with Arjen van Witteloostuijn, Romme examined the role of triple loop learning in the emerging sociocratic (or circular) organization design, finding that this design facilitates single and double loop learning and acts as an infrastructure for triple loop learning, enabling well-informed choices about shared objectives and policies.[32] In more recent work, Romme categorized the hierarchy phenomenon into four types—that is, hierarchy based on formal authority, achieved status, self-organized responsibility, and ideology—each involving a distinct social mechanism, thereby offering a typology for understanding hierarchy in complex social systems.[33]

Awards and honors

  • 1996 – Wynand Wijnen Education Prize, Maastricht University[34]
  • 2014 – Honorary Medal, Eindhoven University of Technology[35]
  • 2016 – Tjalling C. Koopmans Asset Award, Tilburg University[9]
  • 2017 – Best Book Award, European Academy of Management[7]
  • 2017 – Responsible Research in Management Award, Responsible Research in Business and Management Network[8]
  • 2019 – Distinguished Scholar-Practitioner Award, Academy of Management[10]

Bibliography

Selected books

  • A Self-Organization Perspective on Strategy Formation (1992) ISBN 9090048278
  • The Quest for Professionalism: The Case of Management and Entrepreneurship (2016) ISBN 9780198857068

Selected articles

  • Romme, A. G. L. (1995). Self-organizing processes in top management teams: A boolean comparative approach. Journal of Business Research, 34(1), 11-34.
  • Romme, A. G. L. (1996). A note on the hierarchy-team debate. Strategic Management Journal, 17(5), 411-417.
  • Romme, A. G. L., & Van Witteloostuijn, A. (1999). Circular organizing and triple loop learning. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 12(5), 439-454.
  • Romme, A. G. L. (2003). Making a difference: Organization as design. Organization Science, 14(5), 558-573.
  • Romme, A. G. L., & Endenburg, G. (2006). Construction principles and design rules in the case of circular design. Organization Science, 17(2), 287-297.
  • Van Burg, E., Romme, A. G. L., Gilsing, V. A., & Reymen, I. M. (2008). Creating university spin‐offs: A science‐based design perspective. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 25(2), 114-128.
  • Van der Borgh, M., Cloodt, M., & Romme, A. G. L. (2012). Value creation by knowledge‐based ecosystems: Evidence from a field study. R&D Management, 42(2), 150-169.
  • Dimov D., Maula, M., & Romme, A. G. L. (2023). Crafting and assessing design science research for entrepreneurship (editorial). Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 47(5), 1543-1567.
  • Romme, A. G. L., & Holmström, J. (2023). From theories to tools: Calling for research on technological innovation informed by design science. Technovation, 121: 102692.

References

  1. ^ a b c "Sjoerd Romme". www.tue.nl.
  2. ^ Bate, Paul (March 10, 2007). "Bringing the Design Sciences to Organization Development and Change Management: Introduction to the Special Issue". The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science. 43 (1): 8–11. doi:10.1177/0021886307299885. S2CID 143669352 – via CrossRef.
  3. ^ Bartunek, Jean (May 1, 2008). "You're an organization development practitioner-scholar: Can you contribute to organizational theory?". Organization Management Journal. 5 (1): 6–16. doi:10.1057/omj.2008.3. S2CID 144300182.
  4. ^ Hodgkinson, Gerard P.; Rousseau, Denise M. (May 10, 2009). "Bridging the Rigour–Relevance Gap in Management Research: It's Already Happening!". Journal of Management Studies. 46 (3): 534–546. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.2009.00832.x – via CrossRef.
  5. ^ a b "Georges (Sjoerd) Romme". scholar.google.com.
  6. ^ "Profielen". scholar.google.nl.
  7. ^ a b c Bianchi, Marco. "Best Book Award". EURAM.
  8. ^ a b "2018 IACMR Presidential Award".
  9. ^ a b "2016 Tjalling C. Koopmans Asset Award". Eindhoven University of Technology research portal.
  10. ^ a b "2019 Career Achievement Awards". AOM_CMS.
  11. ^ "A.G.L. (Sjoerd) Romme".
  12. ^ "Scientific Advisory Board | Aalto University". www.aalto.fi. September 18, 2018.
  13. ^ Romme, A. Georges L. (August 10, 2022). "Against All Odds: How Eindhoven Emerged as a Deeptech Ecosystem". Systems. 10 (4): 119. doi:10.3390/systems10040119.
  14. ^ "TU/e's driver of entrepreneurship - tue.nl/stories". www.tue.nl.
  15. ^ "About us | ESCP Design Science Center". DS:E.
  16. ^ "Clarifying Design in Business Sciences: a Design Thinking Taxonomy – Open Innovation". September 25, 2017.
  17. ^ Romme, A. Georges L. (October 10, 2003). "Making a Difference: Organization as Design". Organization Science. 14 (5): 558–573. doi:10.1287/orsc.14.5.558.16769 – via CrossRef.
  18. ^ Romme, A. Georges L.; Dimov, Dimo (March 10, 2021). "Mixing Oil with Water: Framing and Theorizing in Management Research Informed by Design Science". Designs. 5 (1): 13. doi:10.3390/designs5010013.
  19. ^ Van Burg, Elco; Romme, A. Georges L.; Gilsing, Victor A.; Reymen, Isabelle M. M. J. (March 10, 2008). "Creating University Spin-Offs: A Science-Based Design Perspective *". Journal of Product Innovation Management. 25 (2): 114–128. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5885.2008.00291.x. S2CID 19769095 – via CrossRef.
  20. ^ Talmar, Madis; Walrave, Bob; Podoynitsyna, Ksenia S.; Holmström, Jan; Romme, A. Georges L. (August 1, 2020). "Mapping, analyzing and designing innovation ecosystems: The Ecosystem Pie Model". Long Range Planning. 53 (4): 101850. doi:10.1016/j.lrp.2018.09.002 – via ScienceDirect.
  21. ^ Holloway, Sjana S.; van Eijnatten, Frans M.; Romme, A. Georges. L.; Demerouti, Eva (May 1, 2016). "Developing actionable knowledge on value crafting: A design science approach". Journal of Business Research. 69 (5): 1639–1643. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.10.031. S2CID 153631383 – via ScienceDirect.
  22. ^ Romme, A. Georges L.; Broekgaarden, Jan; Huijzer, Carien; Reijmer, Annewiek; van der Eyden, Rob A. I. (February 17, 2018). "From Competition and Collusion to Consent-Based Collaboration: A Case Study of Local Democracy". International Journal of Public Administration. 41 (3): 246–255. doi:10.1080/01900692.2016.1263206 – via CrossRef.
  23. ^ Meulman, Freek; Reymen, Isabelle M. M. J.; Podoynitsyna, Ksenia S.; L. Romme, A. Georges (February 10, 2018). "Searching for Partners in Open Innovation Settings: How to Overcome the Constraints of Local Search". California Management Review. 60 (2): 71–97. doi:10.1177/0008125617745087. S2CID 86559937 – via CrossRef.
  24. ^ Bhatnagar, Rishi; Keskin, Duygu; Kirkels, Arjan; Romme, A. Georges L.; Huijben, J. C. C. M. (December 1, 2022). "Design principles for sustainability assessments in the business model innovation process". Journal of Cleaner Production. 377: 134313. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.134313 – via ScienceDirect.
  25. ^ Romme, A. Georges L.; van de Loo, Harry; Dankbaar, Ben (June 10, 2022). "How to Control Civil Servants: Designing and Testing a Solution Informed by Game Theory". Administrative Sciences. 12 (2): 53. doi:10.3390/admsci12020053. hdl:2066/251725.
  26. ^ Romme, A. Georges L.; Bell, John; Frericks, Guus (May 10, 2023). "Designing a deep-tech venture builder to address grand challenges and overcome the valley of death". Journal of Organization Design. doi:10.1007/s41469-023-00144-y – via Springer Link.
  27. ^ Romme, A. Georges L. (May 10, 1996). "A Note on the Hierarchy-Team Debate". Strategic Management Journal. 17 (5): 411–417. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-0266(199605)17:5<411::AID-SMJ809>3.0.CO;2-O – via CrossRef.
  28. ^ Romme, A. Georges L. (November 14, 2019). "Climbing up and down the hierarchy of accountability: implications for organization design". Journal of Organization Design. 8 (1): 20. doi:10.1186/s41469-019-0060-y.
  29. ^ Romme, A. Georges L. (September 10, 1999). "Domination, Self-Determination and Circular Organizing". Organization Studies. 20 (5): 801–832. doi:10.1177/0170840699205005. S2CID 145300452 – via CrossRef.
  30. ^ Romme, A. Georges L.; Endenburg, Gerard (April 10, 2006). "Construction Principles and Design Rules in the Case of Circular Design". Organization Science. 17 (2): 287–297. doi:10.1287/orsc.1050.0169 – via CrossRef.
  31. ^ Romme, Georges (September 10, 2015). "The Big Misconceptions Holding Holacracy Back". Harvard Business Review – via hbr.org.
  32. ^ Georges L. Romme, A.; van Witteloostuijn, Arjen (January 1, 1999). "Circular organizing and triple loop learning". Journal of Organizational Change Management. 12 (5): 439–454. doi:10.1108/09534819910289110 – via Emerald Insight.
  33. ^ Romme, A. Georges L. (March 10, 2021). "Ladders of Authority, Status, Responsibility and Ideology: Toward a Typology of Hierarchy in Social Systems". Systems. 9 (1): 20. doi:10.3390/systems9010020.
  34. ^ "Recognitions - - Maastricht University". www.maastrichtuniversity.nl.
  35. ^ "TU/e honorary medal". Eindhoven University of Technology research portal.