Chair of
Strategic Management and Decision Making

Prof. Dr. Philip Meissner, Chair Owner, Chair of Strategic Management and Decision Making, Berlin campus, ESCP “Welcome to the Chair of Strategic Management and Decision Making. At the chair, we mainly focus on two questions that are crucial for organizations today. First, we investigate how companies can adapt to the dynamic technological environment we face today. This includes strategy techniques like scenario-based planning but also a deep investigation of how new technologies like Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, 3D Printing and Virtual Reality reshape entire industries as well as how these technologies can be managed best from a strategic point of view. Second, we study how executives can make better decisions and how decision making processes in organizations can be optimized. For this, we analyse the effect of biases and emotions in strategic decisions and the decision making techniques that can be quickly applied to make better decisions.”

-Prof. Dr. Philip Meissner

The team

Teaching
Research
Publications
Team & Contact
Partners

Teaching
We offer the following courses:

Bachelor in
Management (BSc)

Strategy and International Management

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Master in
Management

Strategy

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MSc in
Digital Business Project Management & Consulting

International Business Strategy

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MSc in
Strategy and Digital Business

Strategic Management
Problem Solving and Communication
Strategic Decision Making
TED Talk Seminar

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EMBA
Executive MBA

Scenario-based Strategic Planning

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Executive
Education

Different courses in Strategy, Decision Making and Digital Transformation

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Research

Research approach

Our research combines rigour and relevance. Thus, we aim at generating findings that contribute to theory building in the field while at the same time being relevant for a practitioner of management to learn from. Ultimately, strategy is about making large-scale decisions about the future. In a large body of studies, psychological research has shown that decision-makers are influenced by biases and emotions when making such decisions. We try to translate these findings into the specific requirements and circumstances induced by the business environment. Our interdisciplinary research that combines the domains of psychology and management is based on experiments both in the lab and in the field. We use these rigorous methods to help answer questions that are equally relevant for researchers and practitioners.

Research topics

Artificial Intelligence in Decision Making

In this research field, we investigate the influence of artificial intelligence on the decision-making behaviour of executives in organizations. We both analyse its effect on different outcome dimensions of decision-making processes as well as cross-cultural differences.

Emotions and their Effect in the Strategy Process

Emotions are a crucial factor in every decision. We study, how different emotions influence the decision-making process in companies as well as the judgment of executives. Based on these foundational insights, we also study how the negative effect of emotions can be reduced to improve the quality of decisions.

Methods for Improving Strategic Decisions

Cognitive Biases have been shown to reduce performance and decision quality. At the same time, different simple and quick techniques have been developed and tested that can debias decision processes and improve decision quality as well as overall firm performance. We contribute towards this research by developing and testing tools to improve strategic decisions.

Focus on:
Last Publications

Press

Philip Meissner, Torsten Wulf, Sophie Florian (2019): Differences in Strategic Issue Interpretation across Cultures – A Socio‐Cognitive Perspective. The framing of strategic issues as opportunities or threats has been shown to significantly affect strategic behaviour in organizations. However, whether and how this framing effect differs among executives from different national cultures remains unclear… [Read more]

Press

Philip Meissner, Torsten Wulf (2018): So reagieren Sie auf Disruption. Havard Business Management, April 2018

Philip Meissner, Torsten Wulf (2018): So reagieren Sie auf Disruption. Übersteigerter Optimismus und das Festhalten am Status quo können Unternehmen lähmen. Lernen Sie, in drei Schritten Ihre Kultur zu modernisieren, damit Veränderungen Sie nicht aus der Bahn werfen.