Claus Rerup

Claus Rerup is Professor of Management at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, Germany. Before joining Frankfurt School in 2017, he was an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Ivey Business School, Western University, Canada. He has also been a visiting professor at University of St. Gallen (HSG), Switzerland, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, and Bocconi University, Italy. He obtained his PhD from the Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus University, Denmark, and completed his Post Doc Research Fellowship at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, USA.

His research sits between Organization Theory and Strategy, and his core areas of scholarly expertise include routine dynamics, sensemaking/attention, and learning. He specializes in qualitative research, drawing on archival data, interviews, and ethnographic methods – longitudinally tracing multi-level processes of stability and change to unpack phenomena such as crowd safety, rare events, technological reliability in ferry transportation, conflict and timing in new product development, and the grand challenge of policing sex work. His work incorporates the points of view of front-line employees, middle managers, and executives as well as regulators and other actors more removed from the front-line. This focus allows him to trace how distributed aspects of learning, routines, and attention/sensemaking are enacted by specific people in specific places across boundaries and time. Most of his work unfolds at the meso level of analysis, but he has also conducted studies at the individual and macro levels.

Rerup’s research has been published in leading academic journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, among others. He has current or previous editorial positions on the boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Organization Studies and Strategic Organization. His work has also been featured in various newspapers and magazines, including Forbes and IESE Insight.

His research (w/ Barry) was awarded the 2002 Best Paper Award in Organization and Management Theory at the Academy of Management Conference. A co-authored paper with Yanfei Hu won the 2015 EGOS Best Student Paper Award, and was a runner up for the 2017 Best Paper on Environmental and Social Practices Award, Organization and Management Theory Division, Academy of Management Conference. In 2012, he was recognized with the Faculty Scholar Award at Western University, which honors and celebrates outstanding scholarly achievements. In 2016, a paper published in Academy of Management Journal with Martha Feldman received enough citations to place it in the top 1% of the academic field of Economics & Business. In 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2018 he received the Award for Extraordinary Service to the Editorial Board of Organization Science. Rerup’s research has been funded by grants from the Danish and Canadian social science research foundations, and a number of private foundations and companies.

Claus Rerup has taught undergraduate, master, MBA and PhD courses in organizational behavior, leadership, team dynamics, organization theory and change management. He has also delivered workshops on these topics to executive audiences in a range of industries. His teaching has been recognized by several awards.

Prior to his academic career, he worked as a management consultant, and a board member.