15.02.2023

Dear fellow students,

Herewith you receive the first issue of the "Wiwi-Update" of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. In the future, we want to inform you several times a year about current developments at the faculty and point out important events and dates.

In today's first issue, it is our great pleasure to introduce you to three new professors at the faculty. Prof. Dr. Nicolas Zacharias (successor to Prof. Walsh) and Prof. Dr. Simon Emde (successor to Prof. Ruhland) have already been teaching at the faculty since the beginning of the winter semester 2022/23. From the summer semester 2023, Prof. Dr. Benjamin R. Auer (successor to Prof. Kürsten) will further rejuvenate our teaching staff.

Before we introduce you to the new professors in detail, we would like to assure you that although previous courses will be partially replaced by new ones, the feasibility of all our study programs is ensured throughout by appropriate transition rules.

Dr. Nicolas Zacharias studied industrial engineering specialized in mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Darmstadt and the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign (USA). After his doctorate with a focus on innovation-oriented corporate management and a subsequent post-doctoral phase, he held a junior professorship for innovation and entrepreneurial marketing at the TU Darmstadt. Mr. Zacharias habilitated in business administration in 2017 with a cumulative thesis on the topics of innovative organizational environments, effectiveness of new product development and value creation strategies. From 2018 until his move to Jena, he held the Chair of Business Administration, in particular Marketing & Innovation at the University of Halle.

Prof. Zacharias' research focuses on the interface between marketing and technology & innovation management, including strategic marketing, innovation and entrepreneurial marketing, sales management, and sustainable marketing and innovation.

Logo PodCast

Image: Florian Rappen

The courses of Prof. Zacharias’ teaching program reflect these topics, so that in the bachelor's program the specialization module Innovation Management is offered in addition to the Principles of Marketing Management. In the master's program, the lectures Strategic Marketing, Technology Management and Marketing in the Digital Age are supplemented by various special modules such as research seminars and project studies.

Website of the chair: https://www.marketing-wiwi.uni-jena.de/ de

Learn more about Prof. Zacharias in the 10th episode of our new faculty podcast "Wiwi-Cast" (in German language).

https://www.wiwi.uni-jena.de/fakultaet/wiwi-cast de

Here you can find many more interesting episodes. Please subscribe to Wiwi-Cast at your favorite podcast hoster!

Prof. Dr. Simon Emde
Image: Anne Günther (University of Jena)

Professor Dr. Simon Emde has been head of the Chair of Information Systems, esp. Business Intelligence since October 2022. He studied and earned his doctorate at Friedrich Schiller University and has now returned to his alma mater after stints at the Université de Montréal, the Technical University of Darmstadt and Aarhus University.

His research focuses on prescriptive analytics and AI-assisted optimization. Prescriptive analytics differs from descriptive and predictive analytics in that prescriptive models provide a feasible, in some cases optimal, recommended course of action. Prescriptive analytics involves the use of technology to help organizations make better decisions by analyzing raw data. Artificial intelligence and machine learning hold the potential to automatically design and configure exact and heuristic solution methods that are relatively easy to adapt to a variety of business decision problems given sufficient training data. According to the current research ranking of the journal Wirtschaftswoche in 2022, he is one of the 25 most research-intensive business economists in the German-speaking world.

Teaching program: In addition to the basic courses in business informatics, the chair offers advanced courses in data management, business analytics and the use of machine learning methods to solve real-world problems. This includes the specialization module "Data, Information and Knowledge Management" for Bachelor students and the modules "Business Intelligence" and "Business Decision Support Techniques" for Master students.

Website of the chair: https://www.wiinf.uni-jena.de

Learn more about Prof. Emde in the episode 11 of our faculty podcast "Wiwi-Cast" (in German language):

https://www.wiwi.uni-jena.de/fakultaet/wiwi-cast

Prof. Dr. Benjamin Auer
Image: Benjamin Auer

Prof. Dr. Benjamin R. Auer graduated in business administration from the OTH Amberg-Weiden. He then moved to the University of Leipzig, where he received his doctorate in 2011 and habilitated in 2016. From 2018 to 2023, he held the Chair of Investment and Finance at BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg. He is currently a Research Affiliate of the CESifo Group in Munich and, according to the rankings of the journals Handelsblatt and Wirtschaftswoche for the years 2014 to 2022, is one of the most research-intensive business economists in the German-speaking world.

Mr. Auer will take over the Chair of Business Administration, especially Finance, at FSU Jena in the summer semester of 2023. In the coming years, his research will mainly focus on empirical problems of established portfolio optimization approaches, the protection of investors against managerial misconduct, the evaluation of sustainable investments and the quantification of price risks in energy markets. The aim is to develop new quantitative methods to support investment-related decision processes.

In teaching, Mr. Auer and his new team will focus on institutional asset management, entrepreneurial risk management and private financial planning. A balanced mix of research and practice orientation will enable students to assess the financial situation of companies and individuals in different economic and life phases in a scientifically sound manner and to optimize it professionally.

In order not to exhaust you already with the first “Wiwi-Update”, we limit ourselves to these good news.

We wish you a successful exam period and a relaxing and inspiring lecture-free time.

Greetings and all the best,
Prof. Dr. Christian Pigorsch (Dean) and
Prof. Dr. Armin Scholl (Dean of Studies)