KM (Katrin) Smolka, MSc

Biography

Katrin Smolka teaches for the BSc Business Administration bachelor in both the Dutch and the international programme. In particular, she is responsible for the course Strategic Business Plan where more than 1,200 students annually develop a business strategy for a real-life small or medium sized company. Next to classes in strategic management, Katrin also contributed to the minor programme Entrepreneurship & New Business Venturing and co-teaches an entrepreneurship elective at the Erasmus University College. Additionally, she supervises several master theses and internships every year.

Katrin research interests cover entrepreneurial decision-making under uncertainty, cognition and start-up behaviour as well as industry emergence more broadly. Her research output was presented at several scientific conferences in the field, for example at the Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference (BCERC), the Academy of Management Annual Meeting or the Organization Science Winter Conference. Katrin is currently researching sector- and industry-specific characteristics that are making it possible for entrepreneurs to succeed in an environment characterized by a high level of uncertainty, such as innovation-intense technology contexts. In doing so, she focuses on entrepreneurs active in a new and emerging industry, namely the industry for remotely piloted aircraft systems (also known as drones).

Besides academic research and teaching, Katrin is actively engaged in the Bachelor Programme Committee which is responsible for monitoring and improving RSM’s Bachelor programmes. The committee’s work includes overlooking the quality of the programmes, improving their functioning and advising other bodies in the School to take action if necessary. She is also annually organizing and hosting the Strategic Business Plan Awards (www.rsm.nl/SBP-awards), a business plan competition for first-year students at RSM.