The professors Foerderer, Kude, Mithas and Heinzl received the Best Paper Award 2018 of the renowned journal Information Systems Research (ISR) for their contribution “Does Platform Owner's Entry Crowd Out Innovation? Evidence from Google Photos” published in June 2018. The article reveals that a platform owner’s entry into the market complementary to its own platform does not lead to a decline in the innovation activity of the complementors, but can under certain conditions stimulate it.
Jens Förderer and Thomas Kude studied information systems at the University of Mannheim and achieved their doctorates and habilitation under Professor Heinzl at the Chair of General management and Information Systems at the Mannheim School of Business. Today, they work as professors at the TU Munich and ESSEC Business School. Sunil Mithas (University of South Florida) visited the University of Mannheim for the first time in June 2013, after being invited by Professor Heinzl. Information Systems Research is part of the FT50 and UTD rankings as well as a rated A+ journal according to JourQual 3 of the German Academic Association for Business Research (VHB). Here is a link to the article: https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/isre.2018.0787.