Prof. Dr. Joern Hoppmann

Research focus

• Strategic Management
• Sustainability
• Innovation

Joern Hoppmann is Full Professor and the Head of the Management Research Group at the University of Oldenburg, as well as a Research Affiliate at ETH Zurich (Switzerland). Since April 2023, he also serves as the Head of Department for the Department of Business Administration, Economics, and Law.

Prof. Hoppmann holds a PhD in Management from ETH Zurich (Switzerland), as well as a diploma (eq., to MSc) in Business Administration and Mechanical Engineering from the Braunschweig University of Technology (Germany). Prior to and during his time in Zurich, he held positions as a research fellow and associate at Harvard University (Cambridge, USA), as a visiting professor at the University of Hamburg (Germany), and as a visiting researcher at IMD Business School (Lausanne, Switzerland) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, USA). In addition, Prof. Hoppmann gathered practical experience during internships with several companies, e.g., Porsche Consulting (Stuttgart) and The Boston Consulting Group (Frankfurt).

Prof. Hoppmann's research has been published in leading journals - such as the Academy of Managment Journal, Organization Science, the Journal of Business Venturing, or Research Policy - and has received multiple awards, e.g., the Young Talent Award of the German Academic Association for Business Research (VHB), the Best Paper Award of the Division “Organizations and the Natural Environment” (ONE) of the Academy of Management, and the ETH medal for the best doctoral dissertation in the Department of Management, Technology, and Economics of ETH Zurich in 2013. For the course "Introduction to Business Administration," Prof. Hoppmann received the teaching award for the best course at the University of Oldenburg in the academic year 2017/2018. In addition, Prof. Hoppmann's research has been supported through scholarships from several institutions, including the German National Academic Foundation, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service, and the Dr.-Jürgen-Ulderup-Stiftung. Prof. Hoppmann serves on the editorial board of the journal "Organization & Environment" and is a member of the GRONEN Reading Group.

Prof. Hoppmann's research centers on questions at the intersection of strategic management, sustainability, and innovation. Specifically, in his research, he draws on both qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate three main questions:

1. How does an organization’s institutional environment (especially public policy) affect strategic decisions and organizational learning in the context of sustainability?
2. How can organizations design internal structures and corporate governance mechanisms to support strategic and organizational change toward sustainability?
3. How do cognitive variables, such as attention, framing, and identity, affect sustainability-related strategies of firms?

Empirically, Prof. Hoppmann's research focuses on the energy and mobility sectors, specifically renewable energy, electricity suppliers, energy efficiency, and electric mobility. Moreover, in recent projects, he investigates strategic change of companies in the context of the digital transformation as well as corporate strategies in the IT industry.