MCI professorship for Christiane Aufschnaiter

In recognition of her outstanding achievements in research and teaching and her exemplary contributions to the further development of the Entrepreneurial School®, the MCI recently awarded Christiane Aufschnaiter of the Department of Business Administration Online the title of professor. In the presence of family, friends and colleagues, she received the award from MCI Rector Andreas Altmann and Head of the University College Franz Pegger before giving an exciting insight into her research in her subsequent inaugural lecture.

Prof Christiane Aufschnaiter began her academic career in 2005 at the University of Innsbruck, where she graduated with a diploma in International Economics and a bachelor's degree in Russian. She then worked as a project manager in communications and consulting at the Upper Austrian Chamber of Commerce before taking on the position of Marketing Manager at karriere.at in 2014.

in 2017, she not only returned to Innsbruck, but also to the academic world and started her PhD in Management with a focus on branding at the University of Innsbruck. At the same time, she found her way to the MCI, where she first worked as a research assistant and then as a university lecturer. in 2021, she subsequently took over the project coordination of the eStudy programme. Since 2022, she has been head of the Bachelor's programme in Business Administration Online and deputy head of the department of the same name and has been academic director of the Bachelor's programme (CE) General Management since 2023.

In her research and teaching, she focuses in particular on marketing and consumer research, which she also focussed on in her inaugural lecture entitled "Exploring consumers in the digital age: insights into culturally-oriented consumer research". She presented how culturally-oriented approaches to consumer research work and why understanding consumer behaviour is an essential part of successful marketing.