Victor Seidel is a faculty member within the Strategy, Entrepreneurship and International Business group at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.   His areas of expertise include product innovation, product design, and technology entrepreneurship.

Dr. Seidel’s research is focused on how highly novel innovations are developed in organizations.  Much of his work is field-based, drawing on research from a range of industries including consumer electronics, automotive, and medical device companies. 

Novel ideas are plentiful, but converting them to actual innovations is difficult, with many potentially good ideas abandoned.  How can managers and entrepreneurs improve the chances of having their novel concept developed into an actual innovation? Dr. Seidel’s research is focused on understanding how managers of organizations, from small start-ups to large R&D departments, can best move novel innovations from initial concept to market.   Increasingly, his work is also focused on the role of how product development teams can make use of online communities within the product innovation process.

Dr. Seidel received his Ph.D. in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford, where he was an AIM Sloan Foundation Fellow.  He has been invited as a visiting scholar at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, London Business School, and the Santa Fe Institute.  Prior to his academic career he held management and technical positions with IBM.
 
A copy of Dr. Seidel’s c.v. can be accessed here.

At Saïd Business School, he is a Lecturer (the traditional Oxford term for Assistant or Associate Professor) on MBA, Undergraduate and Executive Education programs.  Under the Oxford system faculty are associated with a department, such as Saïd Business School, while also serving as a Fellow of one of the colleges of the university; Dr. Seidel is a Fellow at Trinity College, and his web page at Trinity provides more information on undergraduate teaching (www.trinity.ox.ac.uk).

Areas of expertise include:
• Product design processes
• Product innovation
• Technology entrepreneurship
• Online communities and innovation
• Crowdsourcing
• Service innovation

Victor Seidel conducts research on product innovation, product design, and technology entrepreneurship.  Articles and recent working papers can be accessed from Dr. Seidel’s Social Science Research Network (SSRN) webpage (http://ssrn.com/author=891029) and highlights of his published research are below.

Seidel, Victor P. & Sebastian K. Fixson (Forthcoming). Adopting “design thinking” in novice multidisciplinary teams: The application and limits of design methods and reflexive practices.  Journal of Product Innovation.

Langner, Benedikt & Victor P. Seidel (2009). Collaborative concept development using supplier competitions: Insights from the automotive industry.  Journal of Engineering & Technology Management, Volume 26, Issue 1, pages 1-14.

Seidel, Victor (2007). Concept shifting and the radical product development process.  Journal of Product Innovation Management, Volume 24, Issue 6, pages 522-533.

Seidel, Victor & John P. Pinto (2005). Social science strategies for user-focused innovation and design management. Design Management Review, Volume 16, Issue 4 (Fall), pages 73-79.

Seidel, Victor (2000). Moving from design to strategy: The four roles of design-led strategy consulting. Design Management Journal, Volume 11, Issue 2 (Spring), pages 35-40.

Victor Seidel teaches on a wide range of programs, including undergraduate, MBA, doctoral, and executive education.  Most of his teaching has a focus on innovation, though he covers a wide range of related management issues.  Dr. Seidel was part of the team that designed popular courses in Strategy & Innovation for both MBA and Executive audiences.

Dr. Seidel has taught the following courses at Oxford:

Undergraduate tutorials: General Management
Undergraduate tutorials: Strategic Management
MBA: Entrepreneurship & Technology Ventures
MBA: Strategy & Innovation
Executive: Strategy & Innovation
Doctoral: Strategy & Entrepreneurship

In addition to these courses at Oxford, he has been a visiting instructor at London Business School (doctoral seminar in Organization Theory) and Harvard’s School of Engineering (Innovation in Science and Engineering). 

Industry
Dr. Seidel has worked in collaboration with firms in a number of industries, including the automotive sector, medical devices, and consumer electronics.  His research has been funded by large corporations looking to improve their innovation efforts, as well as from the International Motor Vehicle Program (IMVP) headquartered at MIT and Wharton.

Entrepreneurship
Dr. Seidel has provided his perspective on entrepreneurship to a range of audiences, through seminars held in Silicon Valley, Europe, and the UK.  Within Oxford, he serves on the advisory council of an Oxford-based venture capital firm and has supported a range of collaborations between local start-ups and the university.

Academic community
Dr. Seidel serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Product Innovation management.  He also is a regular reviewer for journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, and Research Policy.  From 2006-2008 he served on the executive committee of the Academy of Management, Technology and Innovation Management division.

Media coverage
Dr. Seidel’s work has been highlighted in Harvard Business Review, and he has provided perspective on issues related to innovation to media outlets such as the International Herald Tribune, the Financial Times, and the Times of London.