Wouter Kolk is a Ph.D. candidate at the Systems Engineering section under supervision of dr. ir. Igor Nikolic. He has a Master degree in Accountancy and Control and an Executive Master degree in Finance and Control, both obtained at the University of Amsterdam. Wouter is also a certified controller (registercontroller) in The Netherlands. In the 15 years prior to his doctoral research project, Wouter held various operational and finance functions at companies such as Uber Technologies Inc., ACT Commodities, Randstad N.V., AkzoNobel N.V., Royal Van Zanten and KPMG.
Wouter is also a Ph.D. candidate at Nyenrode Business University under supervision of Prof. dr. Leen Paape. He studies how (business) organisations can be more adaptive and resilient by means of participatory information and control systems. Organisational adaptability and resilience are of great importance to society in realizing wicked planning transformations to a circular, renewable energy-based economy. Wouter doctoral study is grounded in social systems theory, complex systems theory, social/organisational learning, behavioral theory of the firm and management control.
Wouter’s research approach is threefold at TU Delft:
– designing a concept of participatory information and control systems,
– performing a qualitative field study to explore, test and refine the concept in practice, and
– performing agent-based simulations to expose and explore the theoretical properties of the concept and its interactive effects with (other) management control systems.