The chair focuses on the challenges of digitalization that companies have to face. Topics from the following areas are addressed: Retail, B2B Sales, Digital Business Models, Brand Management and New Product Development/Preference Measurement.

We

•     publish our research results in high-ranking international journals,
•     attach great importance to practice-oriented teaching that incorporates the latest research findings,
•     promote teamwork in teaching and
•     cooperate intensively with companies in research and teaching.

Prof. Dr. Michael Steiner took over the Chair of Marketing at Witten/Herdecke University in mid-2014 and has held the Chair of Marketing since 2015. Previously, he was Junior Professor of Marketing at the Marketing Center Münster of the "Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster" from 2008 to mid-2014. Prior to that, he worked at TNS Infratest (now Kantar) and received his doctorate from Friedrich Schiller University in Jena in 2007.

The main objective of teaching is to encourage the students to critically reflect on the course contents. All courses are therefore interactive, demanding and supporting – intense discussions are an integral part of the courses.

In addition to imparting knowledge, the task of the lecturer is to confront the students with the problems and challenges of research and practice and to elaborate possible solutions together with the students. Through practice-based projects the students learn about the effects of marketing measures not only on the basis of abstract examples, but also based on their own personal experience. The development of innovative strategies and their flexible implementation as well as critical thinking are prerequisites of being successful in dynamic markets.

Individualized teaching

By supporting the students individually, we do not only impart knowledge more efficiently, but also remove communication barriers and increase the interaction between teachers and students. In addition, the students receive an early feedback on their individual strengths and weaknesses. This allows us to adapt our teaching to the needs of the students and to design it according to the target group; for example, by offering courses that take different previous knowledge levels or different learning outcomes into account.

Interdisciplinary and practically relevant teaching

Teaching has to be research-based and relevant to practice as students need theoretical and methodical knowledge. At the same time we want to enable them to independently use their acquired skills for solving real problems. For this purpose, representatives of companies are involved in courses, and in the seminars the students not only deal with case studies but also with real projects.

In order to solve practically relevant and complex problems it is often necessary to combine knowledge from different fields. Practical relevance therefore also means to design course contents in such a way that the students understand the contents in connection with other related fields. As far as possible we take care that the students deal with interdisciplinary problems during the seminars. The aim is to make them think “outside the box“, and demonstrate that the course contents can be applied to solve further questions.

Promoting teamwork

We do not have relentless lone fighters in mind. Complex practical problems require an effective and efficient cooperation of heterogeneous groups. It is therefore the aim of the courses to promote teamwork and further develop key qualifications.

The students work on and present the topics in groups within the seminars. They define the problems together with partners from companies and present the result to the respective company. This way, the students can further develop their own key qualifications such as working in teams, presenting or discussing in a protected, but practice-oriented environment. Case studies in cooperation with the company partners intend to encourage critical thinking and provide the cooperating companies with new insights.

All research projects employ quantitative and empirical methods, based on findings in the fields of consumer behavior and behavioral economics. The key questions are therefore: How do customers reach a decision and how is it possible to influence their decision?