WHU

Professor Christian Schlereth

Chair of Digital Marketing

Short biography:

Since October 2014, Christian Schlereth has held the position of Professor for the Chair of Digital Marketing at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management. Prior to this position, he studied Information Systems at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, completed his dissertation at the Marketing Department of the Goethe University Frankfurt, and held the position of Assistant Professor on Marketing and Electronic Services from 2011 until 2014. In 2009 and 2011, he spent four and seven months respectively as a visiting fellow at CenSoC - the Centre for the Study of Choice at the University of Technology, Sydney. Since 2018, he is supporting as academic director the WHU Center for Non-Profit Management and Digital Social Impact. In 2021, he got appointed to the ambassador council of Welthungerhilfe.

His research primarily addresses questions about the use of digitization, whether its benefits can be quantitatively determined, and what implications can be derived for practice. In this context, he works on topics such as measuring preferences and willingness to pay for technical innovations using discrete choice experiments, innovative subscription models, social networks, and quantifying the long-term impact of online marketing activities. Together with WHU Center for Non-Profit Management and Digital Social Impact, he is also working on the topic of social media P2P fundraising (e.g., Facebook birthday fundraisers). As part of his research, he developed the survey platform for advanced preference measurement DISE, which has been used in studies by universities and companies across Europe. In most projects, his chair cooperates with well-known companies from the respective field.

His research has been awarded several times: with the IJRM best paper award in the special issue on Marketing and Innovation, the Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Award, the HORIZONT dissertation award and 3rd place in the best dissertation award by the German Marketing Association. He is also the winner of the honorable Schmalenbach prize. International journals featuring his research include Management Science, Management Information Systems Quarterly, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Service Research, European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Marketing Letters, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Wirtschaftsinformatik, Business & Information Systems Engineering, and Business & Information Systems Engineering.

 
Research Awards
DateAward
2023Amazon Research Award (together with Christina Reh and Beatrice Martin)
06/2016Runner-up for best presentation award at ART Forum with project on SADR–Separated Adaptive Dual Response
05/2016Top-3 Finalist for Best Paper of the Year Award in IJRM
05/2015Winner of Best Paper Award in IJRM's Special Issue on Marketing & Innovation
12/2011Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Award
09/2011Schmalenbach price
02/2011HORIZONT best dissertation award
01/2011Finalist and 3rd place winner of DMV (Deutscher Marketing Verband)’s dissertation award.
 
Teaching Awards
DateAward
09/20142nd place in teaching evaluations with Bachelor course 'Price Management' (SoSe 2014)
03/20141st place in teaching evaluations with Bachelor seminar 'Run&Gun – Marketing strategies to support Frankfurt basketball' (WiSe 2013/14)
09/20121st place in teaching evaluations with Bachelor seminar 'Business models in the Cloud' (SoSe 2012)
 
Awards for (Co-)Supervised Theses
DateAward
2022Hannah Erlebach: In Praxi Outstnading Thesis Award für ihre Masterarbeit: Ethical Desired Fundraising Communication of a Nonprofit: A Randomized Field Experiment and Survey Study on the Business Implications. (1,000€)
2020Marie Walter: 2nd place at the Goldmedia-Award for her master thesis: Elections 2019: Lessons Learned? (500€)
2019Hendrik Schülzchen: In Praxi Outstanding Thesis Award for his bachelor thesis: Digitalization to Foster Climate Protection – an Analysis of the Boundaries (1.000€)
2019Marie Walter: In Praxi Outstanding Thesis Award for her master thesis: Elections 2019: Lessons Learned? (1.000€)
2019Dr. Jörg Rottenburger: BME’s best dissertation award (Bundesverband Materialwirtschaft, Einkauf und Logistik) for his dissertation (7.000€). Here, Prof. Dr. Lutz Kaufmann was the main supervisor and Prof. Schlereth supported as co-supervisor and co-author of the main paper Bluffs, Lies, and Consequences (2018, JSCM)
2014Dr. Joséphine Süptitz: GEE-Award of the energy forum Berlin for her master thesis on the acceptance of fracking (750€). Here, Prof. Schlereth supported in the employed method and as a co-author of the ZFbF article (2017)
2013Benjamin Clapham: QuestBack-Scientific Research Award for his bachelor thesis: „Unternehmensbewertung von Facebook“(1.000 €)
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