Martin Ihrig

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Adjunct Associate Professor

Academic Associates

Adjunct Professor of Management, The Wharton School

Contact

ihrig@wharton.upenn.edu

(215) 746-6363

Education

Ph.D. (Management) Technische Universität Berlin, 2010
M.B.S. (Strategy) University College Dublin, 2003

Areas of Expertise

Strategy
Entrepreneurship
Knowledge
Innovation
Work-based learning

Programs

Penn Chief Learning Officer Ed.D.

More Information

Media

Ed Week: Universities Create Ed. Entrepreneur Programs
Penn GSE News: GSE Serves Up a Delicious Course in Entrepreneurship
Wharton @ Work: Convert Knowledge into Profits

Knowledge @ Wharton: Dr. Ihrig’s Faculty Profile

Penn GSE News: Expanding Music Education Opportunities

Twitter: @martinihrig

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Biography

Professional Biography

Martin Ihrig is an adjunct associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. He is also associate dean and clinical professor at New York University and an adjunct professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. As a faculty member at Penn GSE, Dr. Ihrig teaches in the Penn Chief Learning Officer program and the Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership. Also at Penn GSE, he served as the founding academic director of the nation’s first executive master’s in Education Entrepreneurship program.

As a faculty member at the Wharton School, Dr. Ihrig teaches strategy, entrepreneurship, and innovation in the open enrollment and customized programs at the Aresty Institute of Executive Education. His research and consulting focuses on the strategic and entrepreneurial management of knowledge (SEM-K), and he is the co-founder and former research director of the SEM-K initiative at Wharton's Snider Entrepreneurial Research Center.

In his position at New York University, Dr. Ihrig runs the Division of Programs in Business at the NYU School of Professional Studies. Dr. Ihrig is also the co-founder and president of I-Space Institute, an applied research and consulting venture that helps organizations create innovation growth opportunities. In addition, he has previously served as a visiting professor at Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland. He received his Master of Business Studies from University College Dublin and his doctorate in Business Administration from Technische Universität Berlin.

Research Interests and Current Projects

Dr. Ihrig is interested in knowledge strategy, including how organizations can identify their critical knowledge assets and deploy them most effectively. Dr. Ihrig’s academic research focuses on studying entrepreneurial opportunity recognition strategies with the help of agent-based simulations. He has also investigated the evolution and mapping of knowledge in the multi-billion dollar ATLAS experiment at CERN.

At Penn GSE, Dr. Ihrig has focused on innovation and entrepreneurship in education. Being passionate about music and the arts, he most recently led a research project mapping the arts education ecosystem in Philadelphia. The findings of the study resulted in the School District of Philadelphia’s launch of the Arts & Creativity Framework.

In 2015, Dr. Ihrig’s article, “Managing Your Mission Critical Knowledge” (Harvard Business Review), co-authored with Ian MacMillan, was nominated for the HBR McKinsey Award. His work was also featured in the interview “How to Determine Which Part of What You Know Really Matters” on Knowledge@Wharton. His article, “How to Get Ecosystem Buy-In” (Harvard Business Review), also co-authored with MacMillan, highlights his work on ecosystems and innovation.

In developing strategy tools for corporate and public sector decision makers, Dr. Ihrig has worked with organizations such as BAE Systems (U.S.), the Boeing Company (U.S.), Vale (Brazil), Merck (U.S.), and the Philadelphia Orchestra (U.S.). His research projects have been funded by the Economic & Social Research Council (UK), the ATLAS Collaboration at CERN (Switzerland), Tekes (Finland), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (U.S.), and the Neubauer Family Foundation (U.S.).

Publications

Featured

Knowledge, Organization, and Management: Building on the Work of Max Boisot

Selected Publications

Ihrig, M., & MacMillan, I. (2017). How to get ecosystem buy-in. Harvard Business Review, March-April issue.

Ihrig, M., & MacMillan, I. (2015). Managing your mission-critical knowledge. Harvard Business Review, January issue.

Fiegenbaum, I., Ihrig, M., & Torkkeli, M. (2014). Investigating open innovation strategies: a simulation study. International Journal of Technology Management, 66(2/3).

Child, J., Ihrig, M., & Merali, Y. (2014). Organization as information – A space odyssey. Organization Studies, 35(6).

Child, J. & Ihrig, M. (2013). Knowledge, organization, & management – building on the work of Max Boisot. London: Oxford University Press.

Ihrig, M., & MacMillan, I. (2013). The strategic management of knowledge. In J. C. Child & M. Ihrig (Eds.), Knowledge and the study of organization and management – building on the work of Max Boisot. London: Oxford University Press.

Ihrig, M. (2013). ASimISpace2: A simulation platform for exploring strategic knowledge management processes. Transactions on Computational Collective Intelligence, Issue 10, Vol. LNCS 7776, March 2013.

Ihrig, M. (2012). Simulating entrepreneurial opportunity recognition processes: An agent-based and knowledge-driven approach. In A. Byrski, Z. Oplatková, M. Carvalho, & M. Kisiel-Dorohinicki (Eds.) Advances in intelligent modelling and zimulation, SCI 416, pp. 27–54, 2012, Heidelberg: Springer.

Ihrig, M., Boisot, M., & MacMillan, I. (2011). Forget IP. Mine strategic knowledge instead. Harvard Business Review, May 6.

Ihrig, M., Boisot, M., & MacMillan, I. (2011). Are you wasting money on useless knowledge management?, Harvard Business Review, January 20.

Ihrig, M., & zu Knyphausen-Aufseß, D. (2009). Discovering international imitative entrepreneurship: towards a new model of international opportunity recognition and realization. Zeitschrift für Betriebswirtschaft, Special Issue 1.

Ihrig, M., zu Knyphausen-Aufseß, D., & O’Gorman, C. (2006). The knowledge-based approach to entrepreneurship: linking the entrepreneurial process to the dynamic evolution of knowledge. International Journal of Knowledge Management Studies, Vol. 1, Nos. 1/2.

News & Media

Penn GSE News

Mapping next steps for expanding arts education in Philadelphia

Martin Ihrig examines arts programs in Philadelphia public schools, offering suggestions for giving students more access to the arts.

October 30, 2017

Student entrepreneurs create new pathways with new education entrepreneurship model

Martin Ihrig says that student-entrepreneurs can use their time in college to launch and grow startup businesses, while collaborating with their professors and peers.

August 5, 2016

In the Media

Some Philly schools have rich arts programs, and others have none. How do you fix it?

Martin Ihrig talks about the efforts made to improve the disparity in arts programs among Philly schools.

Philly.com | October 17, 2017

Phila. Orchestra expands programs that employ music for social impact

Martin Ihrig is working with the orchestra on an information-mapping project that will survey all the existing music education programs in the city

Philadelphia Inquirer | April 7, 2016

Managing Your Mission-Critical Knowledge

Originally appearing in 2015, this article by Martin Ihrig is a 2015 McKinsey Award Finalist.

Harvard Business Review | March 22, 2016