Meet Stijn: PhD student interested in innovation in Sports Technology & Medical Technology
Stijn van Weegberg is originally from a small town in the Netherlands somewhat close to Utrecht called Geldermalsen. He has just started his PhD education in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Management of Intellectual Assets at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg. However, he is not new to Sweden or Gothenburg.
Stijn obtained his BSc degree in Technical Medicine from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and during his bachelor studies he did an exchange semester at Lund University.
- I then decided to do conduct my master’s studies in Sweden as well. I got my MSc degree in Entrepreneurship and Business Design (with a specialization in Technology Venture Creation) from the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg.
The title of Stijn’s master’s thesis is Entrepreneurship Addiction in First-Time Entrepreneurs: a study into the antecedents and early stages of entrepreneurship addiction, in which he investigated how entrepreneurship addiction develops in first-time entrepreneurs.
I thought it was an interesting topic to look at because of the relation to psychology and mental health, and because it is a relatively unexplored area of entrepreneurship that I think is valuable to learn more about.
In recent years, research into the ‘dark side’ of entrepreneurship has become more popular – one aspect of which is addiction to entrepreneurship. These entrepreneurs continue their efforts despite the negative consequences, such as impaired health and worsening relationships, it brings them. Research into this phenomenon has not yet focused on how entrepreneurs develop this addiction, and so in this thesis Stijn and his thesis partner tried to gain a better understanding of this development.
- Through a mixed-method approach, using quantitative survey data to identify seemingly addicted entrepreneurs and qualitative semi-structured interviews to obtain more insight, we found that socioeconomic status, burn-out, sports, and motivation possibly play a role in developing an entrepreneurship addiction. In the future, we hope that further longitudinal and comparative studies can further help understand if and how these factors play a role.
Research focus
Stijn is undertaking his doctoral education as part of Professor McKelvey’s Swedish Research Council Distinguished Professors’ Research Program on “Knowledge-intensive Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: Transforming society through knowledge, innovation and entrepreneurship”, and will also be a part of the U-GOT KIES Research centre on knowledge-intensive innovation ecosystems.
Stijn is most interested in research topics relating to stimulating innovation within Sports Technology and Medical Technology, and how the dynamics of different industries and stakeholders play a role in this.
- I chose to pursue a PhD both because of the personal development it offers and the chance to help expand the available knowledge in these specific topics, in combination with the autonomy, responsibility and flexibility it brings. I’m currently getting settled in at the unit and look forward to fully getting started with preparing for and carrying out my actual research.
