Chairholder

Andreas König is Professor of Strategic Management, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship at the University of Passau, Germany.

Andreas König studies at the interface of three central topics of strategic management research: (1) strategic leadership in the context of discontinuous technological change, particularly digital transformation; (2) the impact of top executives' characteristics on organizational outcomes (Upper Echelons Theory); and (3) the use of strategic rhetoric, primarily by top executives, and its influence on how constituents evaluate organizations. His research has appeared in outlets such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Research Policy, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Journal of World Business, and MIT Sloan Management Review. He has received numerous awards, including: The Glueck Best Paper Award by the Strategic Management Division of the Academy of Management in 2011 and 2013 (runner-up in 2012); an Honorable Mention for the Best Conference Paper Prize of the Strategic Management Society and the Best Paper Award of the Cooperative Strategies Division of the Strategic Management Society, 2018; the Fellow Award of the Dr. Theo and Friedl Schöller Research Center for Business and Society in 2012; the Outstanding-Habilitation-Prize by the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in 2013; the Best Paper Award by the German Academic Association for Business Research (VHB) in 2014; a recognition as runner up for the Best Paper Award at the European Academy of Management (EURAM) in 2017; the Best Paper Award of the European Academy of Management (EURAM) Special Interest Group Strategic Management in 2017; and the Best Paper Award of the EURAM Track Behavioral Strategy in 2017, 2018, and 2019. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Academy of Management Review and the Academy of Management Journal, respectively. 2020-2021, he was Representative-at-Large at the Strategic Leadership and Governance Interest Group of the Strategic Management Society. Currently, he also serves as Guest Editor on a Special Issue on Digital Transformation of Incumbent Firms in the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal.

Since 2013, a significant part of Andreas König’s academic engagement at the University of Passau has been devoted to the orchestration of third-party-funded interdisciplinary research projects. As designated spokespersons, he and his colleague Jan Krämer led the application process for the University of Passau for a Cluster of Excellence within the framework of the Excellence Strategy of the German Federal and State Governments with the title “Cyber<>Spaces: Discourse, Co-Creation and Institutions in the Age of Digitalization” from 2015 to 2017. Although this project, which encompassed all faculties of the university, was ultimately rejected with highly benevolent feedback, it provided comprehensive structural impulses for the research strategy of the University of Passau. Building on the foundation of Cyber<>Spaces, Jan Krämer and Andreas König initiated the DFG Research Training Group 2720 “Digital Platform Ecosystems (DPE)” (https://www.dpe.uni-passau.de/en/), which was approved and inaugurated in 2022 and is funded with 5.7 million Euros. In this interdisciplinary graduate research and training group, 22 PhD students and postdocs will study digital platform ecosystems as one of the central phenomena of the digital economy. Since June 2021, Andreas König has also been working with Björn Schuller's team (University of Augsburg and Imperial College London) as part of an interdisciplinary DFG-funded project entitled “Multimodal Approach to Humor Recognition and an Analysis of the Influence of Leader Humor on Team Performance in Major European Soccer Leagues.” Andreas König collaborates particularly intensively in both research and teaching with his colleague Carolin Häussler, who holds the Chair for Organization, Technology Management and Entrepreneurship (https://www.wiwi.uni-passau.de/organisation/ ). Together, they are working for example, on an award-winning project at the intersection of managerial cognition and strategic alliance research. Another interdisciplinary project is a currently drafted proposal for a DFG-project on how the personality profiles of strategic leaders, such as chief physicians, influence the adaptation to and adoption processes of artificial intelligence in hospitals. Cooperation partners in this project are Carsten Schultz from the University of Kiel as well as Andreas König's most important long-standing cooperation partner and co-author, Lorenz Graf-Vlachy from the Technical University of Dortmund.

Andreas König is Visiting Professor at Free University Amsterdam and has been or is member of the visiting faculties at the Leipzig Graduate School of Management, the Vienna University of Economics and Business, ESMT Berlin, and IMD Lausanne. As researcher, keynote speaker, and executive coach, Andreas König has been working with partners from firms such as BASF, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Telekom, Douglas Holding, Dr. Oetker, ERGO Direkt Insurances, HOCHTIEF, Jenoptik, McKinsey, Nestlé, SAP, Siemens, SCHOTT, Schüco, Telefónica, ThyssenKrupp, and Volkswagen. He also cooperates closely with a number of start-ups and non-profit organizations. 

Both his scholarly and his educational work are significantly influenced by his uniquely diverse experiences, particularly as a professional musician, which he made prior to entering the field of business studies. After studying classical trumpet at the Rotterdam Conservatoire, Andreas König completed a degree as Master of Music at the Royal Academy of Music and King’s College, London.  As a musician, he was especially influenced by his professors Edward Carroll, John Wallace, Howard Snell, and Ray Allen. He played solo recitals in places such as St Paul's Cathedral, London, the Cathedral of Palma de Mallorca, and St Nicolas' Church in Leipzig. He recorded several CDs and performed under the batons of conductors such as Sir Colin Davies, Lord Yehudi Menuhin, and Sir Charles Mackerras. To complement his music studies, Andreas König visited lectures in protestant theology, classical philosophy and philology at the Universities of Bonn, Madrid, and Leiden.

Andreas König is married and has four children.