Prof. Dr. René Algesheimer

"Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable.
Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself,
and see if we may not eff it after all."

René Algesheimer has been the Chair of Marketing and Market Research (Ordinarius) at the University of Zurich since 2009. His research interests lie in studying consumer behavior and online marketing phenomena. He has conducted extensive basic and applied research on the consequences of (virtual) communities, social networks, social media and technology on companies and customers. His research focuses on the ways social structures shape individual's behavior and in reversal how individual's behavior reproduces social structures. By consequence he conducts research on the evolutionary dynamics of and interplay between (social) preferences, social norms and consumption behavior. More recently he has worked on the effects of social networks on customer demand, risk preferences, social learning and individual's performance. Algesheimer's work is characterized by the combination of empirical models and econometric methods with experimental settings as well as the use of insights from industrial economics, behavioral economics, consumer psychology and sociology.

Have a look at the most important stations of his CV:

• 1973 Born in Bingen/Rhein, Germany
• 1995-2000 Studies in Mathematics at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz
• 1995-1999 Studies in Music (piano, saxophon) at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz
• 2000 Masters degree (Dip.-Math., “sehr gut”) in Mathematics
• 2000-2004 PhD and research assistant at the University of St. Gallen
• 2004 Doctoral thesis about „Brand Communities“ (Dr. oec., „summa cum laude“)
• 2004-2007 Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Zurich
• 2007-2009 Associate Professor of Marketing at the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce at Montpellier
• 2009- Chair of Marketing and Market Research at the University of Zurich

In the recent past René Algesheimer has received six job offers as a tenured marketing professor from national and international universities and business schools. He has published several articles on marketing-related issues in the discipline`s leading international journals, including Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Service Research, or Harvard Business Review. His articles have also appeared in top-ranked German business-adminstration journals such as Zeitschrift für betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung (ZfbF), Zeitschrift für Betriebswirtschaft (ZfB) and Journal für Betriebswirtschaft. He regulary serves as reviewer for, among others, the Journal of Marketing or the Journal of Interactive Marketing. Professor René Algesheimer has won several international awards for his research.

René Algesheimer has extensive experience in market research, teaching and presentations. Most of the time, you’ll find him sitting in front of huge number tables. The rest of the time he enjoys working on his student's courses and admires all kinds of design. He loves creativity, working with people, music, (fantasy) books and brings energy to most projects.