Professor Sascha L. Schmidt

Professor Dr. Sascha L. Schmidt
Center for Sports and Management

Director and Chairholder

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Director of the Center for Sports and Management at WHU
Chairholder of the Chair for Sports and Management at WHU
Academic Director of the Sports Business Academy by WHU (SPOAC)
Lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sports Entrepreneurship Bootcamp
Member of the "Digital Initiative" at Harvard Business School in Boston, USA

Vita

Sascha L. Schmidt is a professor and director of the Center for Sports and Management (CSM) at WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management, as well as the academic director of "SPOAC - Sports Business Academy by WHU" . The "Future of Sport" is one of Sascha's key research areas.

He studied economic sciences at the Universities of Essen and Zurich, where he also graduated with a doctorate. At the invitation of Harvard Business School faculty he worked in Boston as a visiting scholar, after which he joined strategy consulting. After several years at McKinsey, Sascha was appointed director of the ICS research program at the University of St. Gallen, and qualified as a professor at the EBS University (habilitation). He then entered into the world of entrepreneurship, building up the activities of recruitment agency a-connect within Germany. In 2011, he returned to academia and founded the Institute for Sports, Business & Society at EBS University. Sascha joined WHU in 2014. In 2019, he was a lecturer at the first MIT Sports Entrepreneurship Bootcamp.

Personal

Name: Sascha Leonard Schmidt
Born: February 8, 1971 in Hagen
Marital Status: Married since 2003, 3 children
Home: Düsseldorf

Academic Positions

Date	University	Position
Since Jul. 2018	Harvard University, Boston	Affiliate Professor, Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard (LISH)
Since Aug. 2014	WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management, Dusseldorf	Director, Center for Sports and Management
Since Jan. 2014	WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management, Dusseldorf	Professor and Chairholder, Chair for Sports and Management
Jan. 2014 - Dec. 2014	EBS University, Oestrich-Winkel	Director, Center for Sports Marketing
Apr. 2011 - Dec. 2013	EBS University, Oestrich-Winkel	Director, Institute for Sports, Business & Society
Since July 2012	EBS University, Oestrich-Winkel	Senior Professor
Jan. 2011 - Jun. 2012	EBS University, Oestrich-Winkel	Honorary Professor
Jul. 2006 - Dec. 2010	EBS University, Oestrich-Winkel	Senior Lecturer
Oct. 2003 - Feb. 2011	EBS University, Oestrich-Winkel	Lecturer for Strategy Consulting
Since 2007	National Center for Econometric Research, Brisbane	Research Fellow
Apr. 2003 - Mar. 2005	University of St. Gallen	Co-leader of ICS-Research Program; Lecturer within Executive Education Program
2002/03	University of Oldenburg	Lecturer for Strategic Management / Consulting Research
Jan. 1999 - Jul. 1999	Harvard Business School, Boston	Visiting Scholar
1995	Harvard Business School, Boston	Research Associate
1998	University of Zurich	Lecturer for business administration
1996 - 1999	University of Zurich	Research and teaching assistant
Since 2019	em lyon business school Asia	Research Associate
Since 2019	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	Lecturer at the MIT Sports Entrepreneurship Bootcamp

Education

Date	University
2003 - 2006	EBS University, Oestrich-Winkel	Professor thesis (Habilitation) in business administration, reviewer: Prof. Dr. Jean-Paul Thommen (EBS), Prof. Dr. Hartmut Kreikebaum (EBS), Prof. Dr. Martin Welge (University of Dortmund)
1996 - 1999	University of Zurich	Doctoral studies in Business Administration (Dr. oec. publ.) summa cum laude; (reviewer: Prof. Dr. Edwin Rühli, Prof. Dr. Margit Osterloh)
1993 - 1995	University of Zurich	Graduate studies in Business Administration and Economics (Lic. oec. publ.) summa cum laude
1991 - 1993	University of Essen	Undergraduate Studies of Economics

Work experience

Date	Company	Position
Oct. 2006 - Mar. 2011	a-connect Germany LTD, Dusseldorf	Managing Director, built up German business from scratch
Mar. 2005 - Oct. 2006	a-connect Switzerland LTD, Zurich	Business Builder, developed financial services practice
Sep. 2001 - Mar. 2003	McKinsey & Company, Johannesburg, Zurich and New York	Engagement Manager (Johannesburg and Zurich), PMI Officer of South African banking merger, led strategy projects in the area of life insurance, automotive
Aug. 2000 - Aug. 2001	McKinsey & Company, Johannesburg, Zurich and New York	Senior Associate / Junior Engagement Manager (New York), Strategy projects in the area of wealth management, equity trading, clearing & settlement, prime brokerage
Oct. 1999 - Aug. 2000	McKinsey & Company, Johannesburg, Zurich and New York	Associate Management Consultant (Zurich), Strategy projects in the area of online banking, PFS business building (incl. alliance‐ and M&A strategy), private banking, corporate finance

Awards

2018	Best Teacher Award by SPOAC Sports Business Academy by WHU
2005	European Business School Excellence Award for Research
2005	Thomson South‐Western Award for Outstanding Research Based Paper on Management Consulting, Management Consulting Division, Academy of Management
2005	Nomination for Carolyn Dexter Award for the best international paper, Academy of Management
2004	Best Paper Award, 2nd International Conference on Management Consulting, Academy of Management
2002	Intern. Federation of Scholarly Associations of Management, Best Paper Award in the field of Strategic Management
1999	Swiss National Research Foundation, fulltime scholarship for Harvard Business School

Publications

Refereed articles

MIT Sloan Management Review
Identify Critical Roles to Improve Performance

Boris Groysberg, Eric Lin, Abhijit Naik, Sascha L. Schmidt (2023)

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Technological Forecasting and Social Change
The impact of covid-19 on the european football ecosystem – a delphi-based scenario analysis

Daniel Beiderbeck, Nicolas Frevel, Heiko A. von der Gracht, Sascha L. Schmidt, Vera M. Schweitzer (2021)

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European Sport Management Quarterly
Are diversified football clubs better prepared for a crisis? First empirical evidence from the stock market

Johannes Fühner, Sascha L. Schmidt, Dominik Schreyer (2021)

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Economics Letters
Causal effects of crowd absence on performances and refereeing decisions during covid-19

Alex Bryson, Peter Dolton, J. James Reade, Dominik Schreyer, Carl Singleton (2021)

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Technological Forecasting and Social Change
Anticipated emotions and public mega project support: hosting the olympic games

Tobias Streicher, Sascha L. Schmidt, Dominik Schreyer, Benno Torgler (2020)

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Journal of Business Research
Dynamic managerial capabilities, firm resources, and related business diversification - evidence from the english premier league

Florian Holzmayer, Sascha L. Schmidt (2020)

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Applied Psychology
Optimism and positivity biases in performance appraisal ratings: empirical evidence from professional soccer

Steffen Merkel, Ho Fai Chan, Sascha L. Schmidt, Benno Torgler (2020)

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European Sports Management Quarterly
German handball tv demand: did it pay for the handball-bundesliga to move from free to pay tv?

Henk Erik Meier, Dominik Schreyer, Malte Jetzke (2019)

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Psychology & Marketing
Superstars as drivers of organizational identification: empirical findings from professional soccer

Daniel Högele, Sascha L. Schmidt, Benno Torgler (2014)

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Science Direct
The impact of COVID-19 on the European football ecosystem – A Delphi-based scenario analysis

Daniel Beiderbeck, Nicolas Frevel, Heiko A. von der Gracht, Sascha L.Schmidt, Vera M. Schweitzer (2021)

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WEAI
Eliminating supportive crowds reduces referee bias

J. James Reade, Dominik Schreyer, Carl Singleton (2021)

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Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Volume 175
Forecasting the Olympic medal distribution – A socioeconomic machine learning model

Christoph Schlembach, Sascha L. Schmidt, Dominik Schreyer, Linus Wunderlich (2022)

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Journal of Accounting Research
Less Information, More Comparison, and Better Performance: Evidence from a Field Experiment

Henry Eyring, Patrick J. Ferguson, Sebastian Koppers (2021)

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Psychology & Marketing, 31, 736‐757
Superstars as drivers of organizational identification: Empirical findings from professional soccer.

Hoegele, D. / Schmidt, S. L. / Torgler, B. (2014)

This paper examines the effect of superstars on external stakeholders’ organizational identification through the lens of sport. Drawing on social identity theory and the concept of organizational identification, as well as on role model theories and superstar economics, several hypotheses are developed regarding the influence of soccer stars on their fans’ degree of team identification. Using a proprietary data set that combines archival data on professional German soccer players and clubs with survey data on more than 1,400 soccer fans, this study finds evidence for a positive effect of superstar characteristics and role model perception. Moreover, it is found that players who qualify for the definition of a superstar are more important to fans of established teams than to fans of unsuccessful teams. The player's club tenure, however, seems to have no influence on fans’ team identification. It is further argued that the effect of soccer stars on their fans is comparable to that of executives on external stakeholders, and hence, the results are applied to the business domain. The results of this study contribute to existing research by extending the list of personnel‐related determinants of organizational identification.