ASMET and AIT were pleased to welcome more than 200 participants to the 26th Conference of the International Association for Management of Technology (IAMOT2017) in Vienna, May 14–18, 2017. Thanks to a long and successful series, IAMOT conferences have become the premier international event for academics and practitioners worldwide. The core themes of the conference were strategic development, innovation management, and MoT (Management of Technology), where participants from universities, research organization, policy, and industry from all over the world have explored ideas, theories, innovations, and technologies that change lives and transform the world. IAMOT is a platform for discussing theoretical frameworks and concepts of the latest findings in MoT (Management of Technology), managing/governing of innovation, R&D concepts, technology transfer, and theory of technology.

In the new wave of digitalization, innovation systems face new challenges. Organizations have to 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, and 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 small scale structured regions in the age of globalization.

IAMOT2017 offered a scope for science, research, and management for discussing the specific effects of digital technologies on different forms of innovation. 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.

The scientific program included plenary, invited, and contributed lectures from world-leading international scientists from universities and industry.

Among all these contributions, six papers have been selected for publication in this issue because of the relevance for the BHM readers.

  1. 1.

    Innovative Business Models for the Industrial Internet of Things – Christian Arnold, Daniel Kiel, and Kai-Ingo Voigt

  2. 2.

    Business Model Innovation vs. Business Model Inertia: The Role of Disruptive Technologies - Stefan Vorbach, Harald Wipfler, and Sven Schimpf

  3. 3.

    The Future of Innovation: Hyper Innovation, Slow Innovation, and No Innovation – Karl-Heinz Leitner

  4. 4.

    We Aim To Win – How Innovation Is Managed at Voestalpine – Franz M. Androsch and Ulrike Redl

  5. 5.

    Technological M&A for Core Knowledge Change: A Feasable Strategy for Incumbent Firms to Overcome the Challenges in the Steel Industry – John Han, Klaus Marhold, and Jina Kang

  6. 6.

    Technologie-Management: “Lessons learned” aus 18 Jahren Erfahrung als CTO eines globalen Engineering-Unternehmens mit 6000 Patenten weltweit – Bruno Lindorfer

The authors who contributed to the proceedings of the conference are gratefully acknowledged. The book of proceedings can be ordered from Melanie Baumgartner, the secretary of ASMET (melanie.baumgartner@asmet.at).

Special thanks to the members of the scientific committee reviewing the papers and the chairmen of IAMOT 2017. The successful realization of the conference would not have been possible without their help.