The AIT Austrian Institute of Technology and ASMET (The Austrian Society for Metallurgy and Materials) welcome you to the 26th International Association for Management of Technology Conference (IAMOT 2017) in Vienna, May 14-18, 2017.

Thanks to a long and successful series IAMOT conferences have become the premier international event for management academics and practitioners worldwide. The target audience covers the whole strategy and technology community. The core theme for the conference is strategy development and MoT (Management of Technology) – future thinking, where researchers, scholars and industry participants from all over the world will explore ideas, theories, innovations, and technologies that change lives, and transform the world.

Innovation systems face new challenges in the digitalization. Organizations must innovate in order to succeed over time. An increasing portion of this innovation is enabled or driven by digital technologies. New products, services, operations, business models, industrial arrangements, work organization have all been dramatically influenced by the digital technologies. New work skills are required. On the other hand resilience through differentiation could give new changes for smallscale structure regions in the age of globalization.

The objective of IAMOT 2017 is to offer a scope for science, research, and management for discussing the specific effects of digital technologies on different forms of innovation.

IAMOT is a platform for discussing theoretical frameworks and concepts of the latest findings in MoT (Management of Technology), management / governing of innovation systems, and R&D concepts, technology transfer, theory of technology. The last years conferences brought in future thinking and foresight methodologies for MoT and innovation systems.

IAMOT2017 underlies these findings and approaches of the last years and will explore new ideas and inventions for managing the current challenges of the disruptive technologies rooting in ICT (Information Communication Technology) and digitalization with tremendous effects in science, research and industry as well as SMEs worldwide. New products, services, operations, business models, industrial arrangements, work organization have all been dramatically influenced by the digital technologies. New work skills are required.

For example the globalization and the digitalization entail sometimes heavy consequences for former flourishing regions. Production and subsequently also the R&D is moving to more promising places. The forlorn regions face big challenges such as unemployment and decay. These developments imply diminishing life quality for the people. However the core task of technology should be to support life quality.