Inspiring Teachers, Innovative Teaching

For the Excellent Teaching Award, WU students nominate the teachers who have particularly inspired them with their enthusiasm for sharing their expertise during the academic year. The focus is on how well the teachers are able to impart knowledge and motivate students to engage with business- and economics-related topics. The fact that around 3,000 students nominate their course instructors for this award every year shows how important it is.

Particularly new and creative course designs are recognized with the Innovative Teaching Award. In 2020, the focus was on courses that have made an outstanding contribution to online teaching and have implemented new ideas and didactic approaches.

The Best Theses

In cooperation with the WU Anniversary Fund of the City of Vienna, we present the Talenta Awards to the authors of the year’s three best bachelor’s and master’s theses. The theses written by our promising young researchers are highly socially relevant. They address a broad spectrum of topics, ranging from the challenges of long-term care and inequality in education to the internet presence of right-wing groups in Austria.

Award-winning master’s theses

• Natalia Alexandra Granada Guzmán (WU Master’s Program in Marketing): “Homogenization or Diversification of Music Preferences? The Effects of Streaming Services on Music Consumption Behavior.”
• Maximilian Walz (WU Master’s Program in Information Systems): “Workflow Dynamics – When Routines change over time: the ECADR Model.”
• Laura Elias (WU Master’s Program in Socioeconomics): “Add Life to Years, Not Just Years to Life! Lebensqualität der BewohnerInnen in Langzeitpflegeeinrichtungen.”
  (Quality of life for patients in long-term care)

Award-winning bachelor’s theses

• Lukas Pirnbacher (WU Bachelor’s Program in Business, Economics and Social Sciences): “Die Nachfrage nach Produktvielfalt: Empirische Evidenz zu den Effekten von Bildungs- und Einkommensungleichheit.”
  (The demand for product diversity: Empirical evidence on the effects of educational and income inequality)
• Theresa Strobl (WU Bachelor’s Program in Business, Economics and Social Sciences): “Framing der ‘Neuen Rechten’ – der Onlineauftritt der Identitären Bewegung Österreich.”
  (Framing and the ‘New Right’ – the internet presence of the Identitarian Movement Austria)
• Mark Breuß (WU Bachelor’s Program in Business, Economics and Social Sciences): “The Behavioral Economics of Doping.”

Excellence in Research

In 2020, we gave special recognition to a total of 205 research papers for their pioneering methods and results. The WU Award was presented to the authors of 11 publications that appeared in internationally renowned journals (on WU’s Star Journal List).

• Jakob Müllner and Thomas Lindner in the Academy of Management Journal: “Political Risk and Alliance Diversity: A Two-Stage Model of Partner Selection in Multipartner Alliances.”
• Martin Schreier in Management Science: “Earmarking Donations to Charity: Cross-cultural Evidence on Its Appeal to Donors Across 25 Countries.”
• Stefan Voigt in the Journal of Economectrics: “Large-Scale Portfolio Allocation Under Transaction Costs and Model Uncertainty.”
• Bernadette Kamleitner in the Journal of Marketing Research/JMR: “Designed to S(m)ell: When Scented Advertising Induces Proximity and Enhances Appeal.”
• Bernadette Kamleitner and Carina Thürridl in the Journal of Marketing: “A Cinderella Story: How Past Identity Salience Boosts Demand for Repurposed Products.”
• Gerhard Speckbacher and Aleksandra Klein in Accounting Review: “Does Using Accounting Data in Performance Evaluations Spoil Team Creativity? The Role of Leadership Behavior.”
• Igor Filatotchev in Organization Science: “The Cost of Status: When Social and Economic Interests Collide.”
• Mia Raynard in the Academy of Management Journal: “Reinventing the State-Owned Enterprise? Negotiating Change during Profound Environmental Upheaval.”
• Christian Wagner and Josef Zechner in the Journal of Finance: “Low Risk Anomalies?”
• Christoph Weiss and Biliana Yontcheva in the International Economic Review: “Information and Price Dispersion: Theory and Evidence.”
• Nils Wlömert in the International Journal of Research in Marketing: “International Heterogeneity in the Associations of New Business Models and Broadband Internet with Music Revenue and Piracy.”

The WU Best Paper Award, given in cooperation with the City of Vienna, is presented to the authors of the year’s most outstanding publications.

• Stefan Voigt: “Large-Scale Portfolio Allocation Under Transaction Costs and Model Uncertainty.”
• Markus Lampe “When Britain Turned Inward: The Impact of Interwar British Protection.”
• Eva Beaujouan: “Is the Family Size of Parents and Children Still Related? Revisiting the Cross-Generational Relationship Over the Last Century.”
• Michail Kokkoris: “True to Which Self? Lay Rationalism and Decision Satisfaction in Self-Control Conflicts.”