History

A few Highlights through the years

2006: Foundation of ICE. The beginning of the Institute for Communication Economics (ICE). It was founded as an endowed chair of the Deutsche Telekom Foundation, with Prof. Kretschmer as the inaugural head of the institute. The institute focused on studying the economic principles of communication and network markets and their impact on firm competition. From the start, ISTO has positioned itself as a central hub in this field topic, with top-class research, a strong network of fellow international scholars, and comprehensive training of junior researchers.

2010: Renaming ICE into ISTO. In fall 2010, the Institute for Communication Economics was renamed to the 'Institute for Strategy, Technology and Organization' (ISTO). The motivation for this name change was that the institute's research focus has evolved from analyzing the economics of communication technologies into the broader sphere of strategic management, technology, and organization. Therefore, the new name better reflects the institute's change in research focus. ISTO now conducts research on platform markets and network industries, competitive dynamics within this context, and the intersection between firm strategy and organizational design more generally.

2014: Co-founding the Organizations Research Group (ORG). The Organizations Research Group (ORG) was launched in early 2014 under the leadership of Prof. Kretschmer, Prof. Florian Englmaier, and Prof. Ingo Weller. The research group involves researchers at different levels and master students from the Business Administration and Economics faculties at LMUMunich. ORG researchers aim to study and quantify the interaction between a firm's productivity and organizational structure. The main goal is to establish LMU, particularly ORG, as a center of excellence for organizational research in the long term. The first official ORG event was the inaugural wORGshop in 2014. Today, ORG regularly organizes an open research seminar (ORG Seminar) to facilitate the scientific interaction between professors, postdocs, and Ph.D. students of LMU Munich and national and international visiting scholars about current research questions on organizations.

2016: First Munich Summer Institute (MSI). The Munich Summer Institute (MSI) is an annual conference that brings together an international and cross-disciplinary research community to stimulate intensive and informed discussions on leading research around innovation. The first of the annual conferences took place on the historic premises of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities from 20th to 22nd, June 2016. MSI 2016 was hosted by the ISTO, the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, and the Center for Law and Economics of ETH Zurich. The participants experienced three inspiring days of vivid discussions with an entertaining social program. With the Munich Summer Institute 2016 considered a great success, the organizers agreed to make this an annual feature.

2021: 15 years of ISTO. ISTO is now in the midst of his teenage years. Since its foundation, more than 50 people have worked at ISTO, thousands of students have participated in the institute's courses, and many research projects have been conducted at ISTO. Moreover, by making significant contributions to the international research community and publishing its research in numerous top-tier journals, the institute became a prominent place for quantitative research related to platform markets, dynamic competition, and organizational design.In 2021, ISTO celebrates past success with its current team members, alumni, and friends. Therefore, a website has been created as an attempt to document the milestones of the institute. Further, ISTO had invited all its companions to an anniversary celebration at LMU in November, which unfortunately fell victim to Covid.Looking into the past is a reflection of what is yet to come. Therefore, we are looking forward to the next 15 years.