As an applied economist specialising in organisational theory and strategy, Walter has been dedicating his research to business models, entrepreneurship and innovation in creative and cultural organisations since 2010. His work focuses in particular on how creative and cultural organisations can organise and develop themselves in sustainable and healthy ways, while generating societal impact. He has a particular interest in collective forms of organising within creative practices, and in the conditions that enable caring forms of organising creative work.
Walter holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam, and an MBA from Western Illinois University. He obtained his PhD in Applied Economics from the University of Antwerp with a dissertation entitled Balancing the Creative Business Model: Essays on Business Models of Creative Organizations Within and Between Institutional Fields. This research examined the role of business models in balancing organisational tensions in creative organisations, with a specific focus on architecture firms..
As a researcher, he has worked with the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs, the Competence Center Creative Industries at Antwerp Management School, the Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA), the Cultural Management and Cultural Policy competence centre at the University of Antwerp, and as a postdoctoral researcher at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Walter is involved as a researcher in projects including Creating Cultures of Care, which explores how art and care can jointly contribute to incremental change and radical transitions in healthcare and wellbeing, and Culturele Kracht en het Onverwachte, which investigates risk and risk (management) in the performing arts. As an educator, he is co-initiator of the minor programme Creating Collectives. He also acts as co-supervisor of four PhD candidates, including HKU lecturing researchers Esther Willemse and Ruben de Boer.
Next to his work at HKU, Walter is responsible for the course Creative Entrepreneurship and Innovation within the Master’s programme in Cultural Management at the University of Antwerp.
Recent publications
- Loots, E., & van Andel, W. (2025). Artists as change agents in cross-sector partnerships: A typology. Poetics, 110, 101998.
- van Andel, W., Arets, D., Niederer, S., Rutten, P., Spronck, V., Mulder, M., Parry, G., & Wijnterp, L. (2025). Veerkracht, verbeelding en vernieuwing: Patronen van innovatie in 33 innovatielabs-projecten. Innovatielabs.org.
- Herman, A., & Van Andel, W. (2022). Interlocking value cycles in music organizations: Towards organizational and creative complementarity. In L. Volont, T. Lijster, & P. Gielen (Eds.), The rise of the common city: On the culture of commoning (pp. 149–162). Academic & Scientific Publishers.