Univ.-Prof. Dr. Kurt Matzler – Universität Innsbruck

Department and Team: Institute for Strategic Management, Marketing and Tourism - 'Team Strategy'.

With the faculty since: 1994-2003; 2007-2016; 2019 - present

With over 28,000 citations in Google Scholar, Kurt Matzler is one of the world's most cited strategy professors. As a partner of IMP Consulting - which grew out of a research project at the University of Innsbruck more than 20 years ago - Kurt Matzler is closely connected to practice. His latest book "Open Strategy" was Strategy Book of the Year 2021 (Strategy+Business Magazine), nominated for the Thinkers50 Strategy Award and won the Axiom Book Award 2022 (Bronze). In April 2023, his new book "The High Performance Mindset" will be published, in which he reviews his experiences as an extreme athlete and draws parallels between top-class sport and management.

What research topics are you particularly interested in at the moment?

Open Strategy, Disruption, Innovation and Growth in Family Businesses, CEO Personality

For which target group and context is this research particularly relevant?

With the research topics of Open Strategy and Disruption, I try to develop approaches for management practice that enable companies to better deal with disruptive challenges. Through open strategy processes, the collective intelligence within and outside the company should be used to develop disruptive business models and to increase the implementation quality of strategies. This research is particularly relevant for companies in industries with major disruptive changes.

With the topic of innovation and growth in family businesses, we examine the special features of family businesses in strategic management and how these affect success. We focus on the top management team, governance issues and the characteristics of the CEO. This research is relevant for all family businesses that want to create leadership structures that favour innovation and growth.

What specific projects and publications are you currently working on (max. 3)?

Technologische Diversifikation

The Birth Order Effect and risk-taking of CEOs

Das High Performance Mindset

Which of your completed projects have been particularly significant for the development of your own expertise?

The work with Clayton Christensen from Harvard University on the German edition of "Innovator's Dilemma" 2010-2011 has shaped me the most - both in terms of content and personally. This work was the basis of my later book "Digital Disruption" (2016) and has strongly influenced my latest book "Open Strategy" (2021).

Which national or international scientific network is particularly important for your work?

For many years I have had a very close and productive collaboration with Christian Stadler (Warwick University), Michael Mayer (Bath University) and Alfredo De Massis (Free University of Bolzano) as well as Stephan Friedrich von den Eichen (University of Bremen and IMP), with whom I do mainly application-oriented research.

On which topic did you do your doctorate and habilitation (incl. when and where)?

Doctorate: Customer Satisfaction and Involvement (University of Innsbruck, 1997)

Habilitation: The Customer-Based View of the Company (University of Innsbruck, 2001)

How do you combine research and teaching at the faculty? Briefly describe an example.

My own research results flow into almost all courses. In the Master's programme "Strategic Management and Innovation" I offer a course on the current book "Open Strategy" together with my co-author and colleague Julia Hautz. In this course, we work on the theoretical foundations of this approach and use the numerous case studies that were produced as part of the book. We invite numerous guest speakers from companies that have experience with Open Strategy and students apply Open Strategy methods in the context of their own project work. In my course "Strategy Implementation", I draw on my experience as an extreme athlete (Race Across America) and discuss what managers can learn from top athletes in their strategy implementation.

Why do you like working as a professor at the Faculty of Business Administration at the University of Innsbruck?

I have a great team and enjoy the professional exchange with my colleagues at the Institute, who always inspire me with new ideas. The content of our Master's programme Strategic Management and Innovation is closely aligned with our research interests - this makes research-oriented teaching great fun.

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